[extropy-chat] the RBL racket

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

Russell Wallace wrote:
> On 9/11/06, *Eliezer S. Yudkowsky* <sentience at pobox.com 
> <mailto:sentience at pobox.com>> wrote:
> 
>     3)  On your private property, screaming out advertisements for your used
>     cars, at 2AM, using a 110-decibel bullhorn.
> 
> ...but no, I wouldn't be so extraordinarily cruel and evil as to put a 
> man in prison for that either. I might very well go and challenge him to 
> a fistfight if he didn't go away, and expect the law to find I was 
> adequately provoked. But prison, no.

So now you're resorting to vigilante violence and expecting society to 
socially sanction it?  Instead of having a written legal system where 
people can look up what is prohibited?

Russell, someone can disagree with you about what "crosses the line" 
without being a horrible, horrible person.  Do you understand the 
principle behind stare decisis, respecting precedents?  It's that the 
law has to be *predictable*.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence