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DannyPage • yesterday at 5:37 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

It seems like you believe it was wrong for Swartz to have been prosecuted. It doesn't seem like it would serve justice to prosecute other people in the same malicious way. Doing the wrong thing now just because a wrong thing happened in the past is not how a just society operates.


Replies

NegativeLatency • yesterday at 5:47 PM

The difference here is that you have an individual with no profit motive being hounded by the government, vs a corporation with a profit motive and evidence of a continued pattern being let off with a slap on the wrist. To me that is not a just society.

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throwitaway222 • yesterday at 5:58 PM

I actually think we should maximally punish people for breaking the law if the law exists. And remove or edit the law if it no longer serves the people. The way we go about this stuff is that we let people break laws until it serves some purpose. Instead we should remove or edit the laws.

Otherwise we're creating a system where it is unfair for some people.

Vaushite • yesterday at 6:21 PM

I think they're just pointing out how the wrong thing always happens to the little guy.

acuteaura • yesterday at 5:52 PM

You’d have some standing if Anthropic actually acted in the interest of the public.

TheCoelacanth • yesterday at 6:46 PM

Anthropic has ample resources to fight this law if it is unjust. They should get vigorous, to-the-letter enforcement of the law to stress-test it for people who don't have the same level of resources.

Selective application of the law in favor of the rich and powerful is a perversion of justice, even if it does sometimes result in more just outcomes in individual cases.