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It's argumentative because poorly constructed appeals to emotion usually have the opposite effect on me.

Anyways, by the comment about civil disobedience, I meant that, if you willfully break a law you feel to be unjust, what comes with that is a reasonable expectation of the punishment for breaking that law to be meted out.

I see it kind of like a button that says "By clicking okay, you will be punched in the face". The people that click okay don't have any reason to complain, they were warned.

Replace "punched in the face" with any possibly negative thing. If you are told that X will happen if you do Y, and you do Y, and X happens, don't complain.



Unfortunately many people don't react on reason without an emotional component. "X really happened" can help there.

That fits the Facebook situation rather well: "Oh, they want you to give a real name snicker Seymour Butz will do". There used to be an expectation that such rules aren't really enforced.

Now they are, and it's notable that Facebook picks a method (reporting on your friends) with a certain tradition.

As a side note: That approach and "don't complain" go well together: said tradition didn't favor free speech, either.


You'd make a great henchman in a totalitarian regime.


You'd make a great persecutor in a totally liberal regime.

Honestly, I don't think that. But could you try to focus on the argument and not the person? Your ad hominem attack has contributed nothing - just like my first sentence contributed nothing either!


It came out as an ad hominem but what I said does attack the argument. Karunamon puts the rule of law above all other considerations, and that's a bad position to hold. People better their lives every day by breaking laws, and when laws at senseless and when your action is not hurting anyone, then breaking the law should be considered as a real option.

Let's take illegal immigration. Yes, there is legal immigration, but it's limited by draconian max quotas and a preference for the educated. But the US is still a great opportunity to find decent jobs and help support one's family. I feel for illegal immigrants in our country and if I had any way of supporting them (beyond just voting for pro-illegal and amnestey measures) I would! And I want to make the law and government as toothless as possible against.

Millions of people break drug laws. For some, it is damage themselves and the people around them, and encouraging them to be more dependent on the state and to resort to thieving.

But illegal drugs help a lot of people. There are possibly some various benefits for cannabis, and at the least it acts as a pain reliever. MDMA helps treat PTSD and potential has use in couples therapy. Mescaline, LSD, mushrooms and ketamine provide satisfaction to spiritual soul-searchers. Adderal and other amphetamines boost some forms of productivity.

Our founding fathers disliked taxes and were essentially smugglers and tax evaders. They had moral arguments against the law placed on them-- Karunamon would have them following the law anyway.

Karunamon has no empathy for the human reality of law breaking. If our political process does not find it convenient to de-criminalize actions that help humanity, how can we respect that law?

And so, I stand by my statement that Karunamon would make a great henchman. I can imagine him now, shouting at the criminals: "UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES AND MORALITY ARE OF NO CONCERN, THE LAW IS THE LAW."

This comic sums up how I feel about the law: http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=469

I am using many appeals to emotion, but I've still demonstrated that: following the law blindly is not a good strategy for the improvement of humanity.


"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Oscar Wilde


>Karunamon puts the rule of law above all other considerations

What the everloving hell is that supposed to mean? Don't fucking join the service if the rules bother you - that too is an option.

It seems a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too though, It takes some level of arrogance to say "Screw it all, I'm going to do it this way, ToS be damned", then get caught breaking those rules and suspended or somesuch, and then complain that the suspension happened.

Do not join $service if the rules of $service are offputting to you. That applies to every service ever made on the internet or real life. It applies to Facebook, G+, App, Twitter, a church, a discount club, or quite literally any other service.

Furthermore, if you join $service, and your account has action taken against it for breaking the rules you agreed to and said you would follow, you shouldn't complain. You did lie about the whole "I will follow the rules" thing.

Rule of law is a different matter than the terms of service for a web app. Breaking laws in real life has a great deal more negative consequences that getting your Facebook account deleted. One of these things is relatively minor, one is not.


Above: An example of a weak appeal to emotion


> You'd make a great henchman in a totalitarian regime.

I'm not sure whether this counts as a Godwin




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