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by Natanael_L 4057 days ago
Depends entirely on the effect of the regulations. You could describe the divisive racism laws of the past in USA as regulations, wouldn't it be better to break them anyway? Do no harm, law or not.
1 comments

Still, if you break a law, you should face consequences, whether you're doing right or wrong. That's the point of civil disobedience - willing to accept the punishment for going with your conscience.

Then there's a difference between breaking the law out for moral reasons and breaking them because they're inconvenient and you could profit more by ignoring them.

About "profit by ignoring them":

- Is food profit?

- When I'm hungry -is food profit?

- When my family is hungry and I don't pay taxes in order to buy food today - is it profit?

- What if I don't pay taxes in order to send my kid to a school?

- What if I don't pay taxes in order to send my kid to a good school?

- What if I collect taxes from people who could otherwise send their kids to school?

There are a million possible definitions of profit and I bet that to each of them I can invent a scenario where it's simply unjust.

And for each of your scenarios I can invent two in which your actions are just parasitic, in which you freeload on your community. It's easier to make a profit when you don't play by the same rules as everyone else. Also, if you run a startup, you're likely not struggling to feed your kids, so the moral picture you're painting does not apply.
Maybe Ripple Labs were engaged in civil disobedience, then?

Or is it impossible for organised groups of people like Ripple and Uber to engage in civil disobedience, in your view?