Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#91

Post by whatawaste8383 » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 2:45 AM UTC

beambot wrote: post #33

3pt14159 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In D&D there is a certain type of spell called Power Word Kill which works slightly differently based on the version of D&D you're playing with, but the effect is that it essentially kills a single individual with a single word. I'm not saying phosphorus should be legal or illegal, but at some point "it's just a packet I sent on the internet" or "it's just a PDF I sent to someone overseas" or "it's just an element" m…

Deciding what is fundamentally good or drawing the line (eg the glassware) is the muddy part. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- next thing you know, science chemistry kits are illegal & large swaths of population no longer believe in a spherical earth, evolution, and climate science.

No it isn’t. We’re told it’s fuzzy to let politicians off the hook.

Your rights end where mine start.

Let’s be real here: a mathematical majority is unable to afford flying anyway. This freedom people ramble on is really economic dominance of the majority for minority benefit.

Stop living in an emotional clean room. The literal world doesn’t have to give a shit about your bubble.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#92

Post by salawat » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 3:03 AM UTC

chickenpotpie wrote: post #47

sneak wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A certain degree of limiting the power of individual actors is wise. Unless you’re the individual and you aren’t malicious, you just want some glassware. I think your approach that people should be kept in a sandbox until they can prove to the state that they are “fundamentally good” is a terrifying one.

There has to be some line where we say that an item is too dangerous for any random individual to own. Glassware should be unregulated, but if someone wants a nuclear bomb, I want to know who they are and what they plan on doing with it.

Noted. For consistency sake however, I find having meaningful input or influence on the legislative process dangerous. Therefore I want to know who you are and what you intend to do with your vote or political aspirations. No lying now; that's illegal, and we'll arrest you if you do.

It can very easily cut both ways, and lead to very fundamental rights which we hold dear being infringed upon. The more indirect the level of control, generally the greater the potential for abuse or de facto banning.

The best regulation is the one we don't have to make, because we can manage to work it out between one another. This has the bonus of not sending a message to our descendants that we do not care for their eventual civil liberties, and what they do given they will be in a far better position to utilize them then than we are today.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#93

Post by MaulingMonkey » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #86

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buildings are pretty flammable on their own - people die in house and building fires without any gasoline being involved whatsoever. An animation studio filled with paper, without a fire supression system, and possibly without fire escapes is no exception. When holding out the kyoto animation studio tragedy - are you sure you're not arguing for better fire codes and gasoline regulation, rather than the deregulation o…

By all means write better fire codes, but unless you wrap yourself in a mile of asbestos blankets I don't think anything you do will render you immune to burning gasoline. There is nothing you or any government can do to stop a nutjob from killing you with gasoline. Yet here you are, unscathed. Nobody has thrown gasoline at you yet, and probably nobody ever will. Why? It's not because of any gasoline regulations, nor…

I've actually lived in a neighborhood that was being randomly targeted by a nutjob arsonist, with multiple fires, and some burned down buildings. Fortunately, IIRC, no deaths, but perhaps one injured firefighter. In attempting to find an article about the bloke to refresh my memory as to if the arsonist used accelerants like gasoline - I believe he did at least once, but perhaps inconsistently - I didn't find google particularly helpful, as there have been apparently more recent arsonists in that same neighborhood cluttering up my search results. Arson is perhaps not quite as rare as you think, although I'm still pretty relaxed about it. Turns out most arsonists don't think to get an entire trolley or cart full of gasoline, and in smaller quantities it isn't quite as dangerous.

I'm more worried - although still rather relaxed - about accidents. I've caught a gas leak. I've walked up to a restraunt I frequent only to find the building condemed due to a nearby gas leak resulting in an explosion overnight, rendering the structure unsound. I've had insulation in heating ducts catch fire. I've had drunk neighbors in a shared apartment complex set their kitchens on fire as they've gone to sleep. I've helped stomp out grass fires caused by someone's discarded cigarette butts. I'm sure there's more I've simply forgotten. Again, no deaths, despite plenty of property damage and destruction.

> So how about phosphorus crime? Is that common? No, and I see no rational reason to believe it would be more common than gasoline attacks if phosphorous were as unregulated as gasoline.

I hear a lot more about war crimes involving white phosphorus than I do about war crimes involving gasoline, despite current regulations. Even if you're correct that civilian crime involving phosphorus wouldn't become as common as civilian crime involving gasoline, that wouldn't make any uptick a good thing, or even neutral.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#94

Post by ethbro » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #51

beambot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding what is fundamentally good or drawing the line (eg the glassware) is the muddy part. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- next thing you know, science chemistry kits are illegal & large swaths of population no longer believe in a spherical earth, evolution, and climate science.

Chemistry sets were emasculated right around 1970. I know because I got one of the good ones immediately prior. Had lots of fun making stink bombs, burning various chemicals just to see what would happen, dissolving things in acid, generating hydrogen gas, etc. The ones after 1970 were like "hey, watch salt dissolve in water."

Looking back on it, the chemistry set I got in the 90s could have easily been outdone by rooting around under the kitchen sink with a copy of the AC.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#95

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 4:23 AM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #68

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free states write laws that criminalize harmful actions. Police states write laws that criminalize possessing things that could be used harmfully. Would you agree that nukes run afoul of that reasoning?

Would you agree that using nukes as an example is arguing in bad faith because they are prohibitively expensive to acquire, even if they were deregulated? It's not like weapons grade uranium is just sitting around. You literally have to make it, which is "state actor" level of hard work.

> Would you agree that using nukes as an example is arguing in bad faith

Nope. I chose nukes because they were an obvious example of something that we didn't want just anyone to have within arms' reach. I didn't expect it to be subjected to the kind of criticism you're raising.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#96

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 4:34 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #94

WalterBright wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chemistry sets were emasculated right around 1970. I know because I got one of the good ones immediately prior. Had lots of fun making stink bombs, burning various chemicals just to see what would happen, dissolving things in acid, generating hydrogen gas, etc. The ones after 1970 were like "hey, watch salt dissolve in water."

Looking back on it, the chemistry set I got in the 90s could have easily been outdone by rooting around under the kitchen sink with a copy of the AC.

[deleted]

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#97

Post by tonyarkles » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #51

beambot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding what is fundamentally good or drawing the line (eg the glassware) is the muddy part. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- next thing you know, science chemistry kits are illegal & large swaths of population no longer believe in a spherical earth, evolution, and climate science.

Chemistry sets were emasculated right around 1970. I know because I got one of the good ones immediately prior. Had lots of fun making stink bombs, burning various chemicals just to see what would happen, dissolving things in acid, generating hydrogen gas, etc. The ones after 1970 were like "hey, watch salt dissolve in water."

I was lucky enough that mine (late 80s) at least had some acid and magnesium. And although “just burn the magnesium” wasn’t part of the instruction booklet, my dad knew enough to make it cool. We also filled balloons with hydrogen and lit them with a match. Otherwise though, grew lots of copper sulfate crystals...

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#98

Post by LargoLasskhyfv » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #51

beambot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deciding what is fundamentally good or drawing the line (eg the glassware) is the muddy part. The road to hell is paved with good intentions -- next thing you know, science chemistry kits are illegal & large swaths of population no longer believe in a spherical earth, evolution, and climate science.

Chemistry sets were emasculated right around 1970. I know because I got one of the good ones immediately prior. Had lots of fun making stink bombs, burning various chemicals just to see what would happen, dissolving things in acid, generating hydrogen gas, etc. The ones after 1970 were like "hey, watch salt dissolve in water."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Book_of_Chemistry_E...

https://archive.org/details/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments...

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#99

Post by madhadron » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #79

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This rationale ad absurdum would suggest you should be able to keep a nuclear bomb without proving anything to the state - an equally terrifying prospect. I doubt you're advocating for unrestricted access to nuclear bombs any more than 3pt14159 is advocating for restricting access to table salt (and I haven't seen 3pt14159 suggest glassware should be restricted either.) The question, then, is where to draw the line.…

> This rationale ad absurdum would suggest you should be able to keep a nuclear bomb without proving anything to the state - an equally terrifying prospect. This is precisely what other states do. Remember for a moment that nations are fictions, and jurisdictions are fairy tales. How is johnny down the road with a nuclear weapon any different than some other person unknown to you in military of the next country over…

Our entire world system right now is predicated upon territorial sovereignty, and that the sovereign state has a monopoly on legitimate use of force. Thus a sovereign state is in a different category than an individual.

> should we be trying to kick people out of the nuclear club?

Oppenheimer and Einstein spent a lot of their later lives trying to keep people out of it, so I think you'll get a lot of answers of 'yes' to that.

Re: Man's 'experiments' with explosives were lawful, court rules

#100

Post by masonic » Thu, Mar 12, 2020, 7:25 AM UTC

qtplatypus wrote: post #83

anfilt wrote: post #5

I hate how chemistry can land people in legal hot water due to overzealous government policies. While this example is not in the UK. It's illegal to own certain glassware without a permit in Texas for instance. The glassware is considered a drug precursor, like freaking glassware. Oh also federally the DEA treats Phosphorus as a type 1 precursor to meth. That's a freaking element! An element is illegal/regulated like…

Uranium-238 is just an element as well. However that is very highly regulated and I think is a very good thing for it be.

U-238 is natural and non-fissile.