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Good God. It was bad enough to suggest that some sorts of outrage only come from people lying about their beliefs. Now you’ve found a group who must be developmentally disabled?
I’m unreasonably annoyed by this, because it looks like you considered the whole alternative answer I’d have given. Signing the petition is an applause light. These guys aren’t expending the mental effort to flesh out a viable plan. They’re showing up to beat their chests and holler at the other team.
But no, they must “lack the imaginative capacity”? Why? What’s wrong with the first answer? You’re watching people play soccer and insisting that their arms must have been crippled.
It’s not like I disagree on the object level! No shit, the petition is stupid, and I’m sure the free-speech norms which got us to this site are better. Ha ha, point and laugh at the Limeys.
I mean, are these people incapable of thinking through the consequences of their demands? No way to tell. But what about the people pushing NY's new '3D printer' law (that actually applies to all CNC machine tools)?
(See @gattsuru's excellent rundown here for context.)
It passed the legislature and got signed into law! Is it your position that none of that was serious either? Crippling manufacturing in an entire state just as a form of chest thumping? We've all heard the line about cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, but I've never met someone who's actually done it! Presuming they're incapable of thinking through the consequences of their actions is the more charitable interpretation!
Realistically, I don't actually think the politicians* (or their staffs, at least) are incapable. I think they successfully reasoned out that their constituents will like this law and they just don't care about its other effects, which they can surely blame on billionaires/republicans as per normal. But that just kicks the problem up a stage. Why would their constituents like this law if they're capable of thinking through its effects? Which is not to say that none of them are, just that the smart money is apparently betting the ones who can will be drowned out by the ones who can't.
*There are industry voices pushing for it too, but they have different motives. For them, crippling manufacturing is the goal. They want a regulatory moat; they can't actually supply the demanded technology (because it's impossible), but with a little luck they can leverage their loyalty to convince the committee their solution works and hopefully freeze out their less enthusiastic competitors.
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To be fair, they used to rule the world and are now some kind of obscene parody of the West, suitable only to scare the rest of us into avoiding their mistakes except inasmuch as we are apparently intent on recapitulating them.
I think the problem is women, but blame men, and really democracy, for getting us here in the first place.
@Sloot, you have competition.
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