[p-e-w]

> Police state=bad. Industrial scale drug addiction in kids=also bad. Some compromise must be made.

False. The whole point of fundamental rights is that they aren’t compromised on based on outcomes.

“Torture is bad, but not being able to get information out of criminals is also bad. Some compromise must be made.” That’s just not how it works, is it?

[thisislife2]

Perhaps it may surprise you to know that's exactly how it works in some democratic countries - e.g. India and Japan - as the system does provide some leeway to the police on how they extract information from suspects. (India leans towards physical torture, while Japan to psychological torture). Moreover, Americans are often surprised to know that not answering police questions can in fact harm your defence in court in many countries, and police misconduct also does not necessarily exclude any evidence collected.

[lokar]

But where exactly is the line for torture? Is pre-trial or pre-charge detention torture? Solitary detention? Any forced labor at all?

[ajkjk]

> The whole point of fundamental rights is that they aren’t compromised on based on outcomes.

This is false, we generally take away fundamental rights when there's justification for doing so. e.g. the first paragraph of https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47986 (and every other paragraph also; I'm sure there are UK equivalents). We enshrine fundamental rights in order to elevate them above baser considerations, but it's not like a paperclip-maximizer thing where we optimize 100% for protecting them over all other considerations. Nor should it be (for the obvious paperclip-maximizer failure modes).

Anyway, the debate here is not over "police state good" and I'm frankly disappointed in all the commenters who interpret anyone disagreeing with them as claiming that. I for example loathe the idea of a police state and I'm quite sure the people I'm replying to would find I agree with them on most issues related to that. But it is not black and white, despite everyone's attempts at portraying it as such. I would love to hear people's practical, viable, politically-tenable plans for doing something about industrial-scale addiction to social media which do not involve impinging on these freedoms at all.