Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by thinkyfish 1233 days ago
"Such things are no longer jokes. They screw up entire lives." But should they screw up lives? Why should we put up with authorities that can't take a joke. This is the foundation of the culture of defiance that hacking was all about expressing.
3 comments

They shouldn't, but they do. Just because a law or policy is wrong doesn't mean it isn't a solid reality that other people cannot afford to joke about. I'm not s fan of US drug policy, but I wouldn't dare carry a bag of false drugs just to make fun of police officers who cannot tell the difference.
> But should they screw up lives? Why should we put up with authorities that can't take a joke.

They key concept here is 'trickery', and how 'tricked' someone is on a spectrum. Society trusts our authorities to give their best efforts to keep our daily actions within the realm of 'the law'.

There is a spectrum of what one considers a 'joke'. If you tell an authority a dad joke, when they ask you a serious question, that is a fine place on the spectrum to joke with authorities. If you are giving them fake IDs to _trick_ them (and thus, trick society at large, who have delegated power to the authorities by vote etc...), that is not a good thing, to trick others you are living with, at the far end of the 'joke/trickery' spectrum.

> Why should we put up with authorities that can't take a joke.

Probably because the number of instances of people with real bombs has gone up. It’s not a joke any more because the real bomb isn’t the exception.

Have they?