Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

What is the good you hope to accomplish by this? The reason we have the idea of intent encoded in the law is not because intentional acts are more harmful, but because inflicting severe penalties on people for things they can't even have known they were doing wrong or didn't mean to do is both contrary to the idea of justice and ineffective as a deterrent. The idea of throwing out the principle of mens rea just because the results of something were bad is both anti-utilitarian and contrary to the idea of justice. (Especially since the bar for "bad enough" is apparently low enough to include "not fastidiously keeping manually generated email archives". Jaywalkers beware!)



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: