aelephant comments on Biohacking in New York, Cybernetics and first Cyborg Hate Crime: theverge.com - Less Wrong

3 Post author: MatthewBaker 08 August 2012 06:00PM

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Comment author: aelephant 10 August 2012 12:41:26AM 1 point [-]

You can hurt yourself any number of ways that are completely legal.

The argument "X should be illegal because it can be dangerous" doesn't work for me.

If you don't want to get into the political discussion my statement is drawing us into, I totally understand.

Comment author: Nisan 11 August 2012 07:15:05AM 2 points [-]

I'm confused because Wix responded to a question of the form "Why is X illegal" with an answer of the form "X is illegal because Y", and you seemed to respond as if they had said "X should be illegal because Y".

I'm not sure if it was a good idea to point this out.

Comment author: aelephant 11 August 2012 07:26:24AM 1 point [-]

You're right. He didn't make the argument "X should be illegal because Y" but the fact that "X is illegal because Y" raises the question, at least to me, should it be so? Is it rational?

Comment author: Nisan 11 August 2012 07:54:50AM 1 point [-]

Fair enough. On-topic, I feel the most relevant fact is how many people would get hurt if anesthesia were legal.

Comment author: aelephant 11 August 2012 10:43:24AM 1 point [-]

If that's the downside of Anesthesia being legal, you need to also weigh the benefits on the scale. I imagine it would probably be much cheaper & easier to get, therefore it would be more widely used and many more people could avoid pain if they wanted to.

Comment author: Nisan 12 August 2012 09:13:56AM 1 point [-]

Good point; I agree that the expected benefit is an equally relevant fact.

Comment author: Maelin 13 August 2012 02:23:34AM 0 points [-]

I really genuinely love that this is a community where exchanges like this can occur, and everyone can get back to the discussion immediately with no hard feelings. Upvoted both for a well-handled misunderstanding.

Comment author: [deleted] 10 August 2012 09:52:33AM 0 points [-]

I don't have have a strong opinion about it, but I guess often times there are regulation on things that "can be used for X (which is desirable) , but can easily result in Y (which is dangerous) with out proper training/preparation." take, driving for example. Another more cynical explanation is that the law protects the interest of the medical practitioners e.i. earmark procedures such as stitching, for their benefit.