[crandycodes]

Sometimes it's exactly the best way to fix it. Have something so good and popular the law has to change.

Prohibition didn't end because people missed the taste of alcohol; it was because people kept on drinking (and the illicit nature brought with it the trappings of criminality - corruption, violence, and murder).

Gay marriage bans were hard to "ignore" because it requires cooperation with the government, but anti-sodomy laws were generally ignored until it became comical they were still on the books.

And in general, these kinds of things are the way change happens. The first people at my work switched to git on their own discretion and against the "rules", but it caught on and was productive/popular enough that it's now common practice and no managers ruffle their feathers at the thought.

The phrase is something like - "It's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission". That's because it's easy to say no when asked for permission ("The rules are there for a reason! Tradition!"); if someone has to think about why what you did was wrong, they may come to the conclusion that you were right.

[therobot24]

I completely agree with your sentiment.

Though the only comparison I think fits the most with Uber is prohibition (since alcohol can be considered as a luxury, while marriage is a legal right). Don't forget though, with prohibition there was a complex underground bootlegging market funding organized crime. Also there's the whole Great Depression thing which put the whole country in need of additional revenue streams...

[crandycodes]

Oh yeah. None of this is simple black and white. My main assertion is that systems are generally trying to maintain homeostasis. In order to change the system, it's sometimes necessary is disrupt/ignore the system; especially when other means of influencing the system are denied or ineffective.