Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Probably the reasons for attempting to undermine it are more political than practical or ethical.


sort by: page size:

I like the idea, but I'm unwilling to trust it. Why were those restrictions put there in the first place?

Because it's counterproductive, pointless, and against the guidelines.

The point is that it allows something it is not designed for. I don't think anyone is against it because it hurt their political party, the cat is out of the bag on that front anyway.

Why? Seems fairly rigorous, with vested interests clearly declared.

And that's another reason to be against it.

It’s not a system that holds up to an adversary. It’s at most a semi-voluntary restriction.

Maybe the decision is purely political? As you explain, it's not logical at all.

Not to mention that such requirements don't actually do what their proponents hope.

It is presumptuous, and sets a possibly dangerous precedent.

Perhaps it could be argued that it puts the term and conditions out of reach.

I understand the appeal certainly, but unfortunately in practice it is real case of sausage making. Where at best the reason for clause X,Y, or Z was 'so it would get passed even though it is utterly irrelevant' at best or at worst 'cynically exploiting a moral panic or corruption'.

The reasoning being, 'if we let the external systems deal with it, they would not judge rightly by our standards.' If they believed it would judge rightly, they would have no reason to institute their own.

However IMO this is a case of "A is much more complex and dangerous than B, so there is no reason to have B driven by more secretive and restrictive standards than those applied to A"

They aren't being impartial here. They want the rules unevenly enforced to push their political agenda; not very HN-like.

Sounds well intentioned yet clearly broken, whoever wrote it could surely see the likely effect is exclusion, so why did they push it through? I don't think incompetence can explain this one.

What's the reasoning behind not allowing it?

Seems unethical but the line between between insider and outsider seems too fuzzy and arbitrary to really enforce such a law consistently, IMHO.

The guiding principle however appears to be "Once untrustworthy, always forbidden". That is an issue.

> It's exclusionary and for zero good technical reason

There might be a good social reason, though.

next

Legal | privacy