[cookiecaper]

It's a great reason to exercise caution when setting up rules and definitions. Whatever distinction gets established, however arbitrary, casts a tint on everything else on either side of it, for better or worse.

This is true even in things as routine daily chit-chat and conversation. Think about how often tacitly express your opinion through the way you frame a discussion and how often those environmental cues bias other parties to respond in particular ways. Then, consider how often marketers, salespeople, and other manipulators intentionally frame interactions to provoke a specific biased response.

The light touch and the small nudge are grossly undervalued.

[roywiggins]

I'll just note that laws and regulations can get struck down for vagueness. If there's no hard rule about what kind of drones are regulated how, then it becomes more burdensome- or even impossible- to know whether you're complying with the law.

[Scoundreller]

Or the law is perfectly clear, but the police and prosecutors pick and choose which cases they put forward.

Or the intensity of enforcement varies in the first place.

And chances are you’re doing something else illegal anyway.

Or can be followed until you do.

And if you don’t, there’s always the routine traffic stop.

[roywiggins]

> the police and prosecutors pick and choose which cases they put forward

someone has to decide which cases to bring, unless you fund the police and prosecutors so they can bring every plausible case, which sounds like a strictly worse universe to live in. Is this discretion abused? Yes, all the time. But bringing every case seems more like a police state than a free society.

[throwawaycanada]

"For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law." -Benavides

[pc86]

> It's a great reason to exercise caution when setting up rules and definitions.

This is (part of) the reason people spend hours debating seemingly mundane aspects of rules & regs, legislation, corporate bylaws, etc. Eventually someone will have a [dis]incentive and try to get around something.