The law doesn't seem to work anymore. There are so many cases where someone can do illegal stuff in plain sight and nothing can be done about it. Not everyone has tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spare to get a lawyer. By the time you manage to save up the money, you realize that this system is absolutely crooked and that you don't trust it to obtain justice anyway even with the lawyers and even if you are legally in the right.

The law exists mostly to oppress. It's exactly the argument that gun proponents make "Only the good guys obey gun laws, so only the bad guys have guns."

All the good guys are losing following the law, all the bad guys are winning by violating the law. Frankly, at this stage, they write the laws.

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iinnPP 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I recently had to deal with a ministry in Canada, where a worker who had been there since 20 years ago failed even a basic test of competence in reading comprehension. Then multiple issues with the OPC (Office of Privacy Commissioner) failing entirely on a basic issue.

Another example exists in Ontario's tenant laws constantly being criticized as enabling bad tenant behavior, but reading the statute full of many month delays for landlords and 2 day notices for tenants paints a more realistic picture.

In fact, one such landlord lied, admitted to lying, and then had their lie influence the decision in their favor, despite it being known to be false, by their own word. The appeal mentioned discretion of the adjudicator.

Not sure how long that can go on before a collapse, but I can't imagine it's very long.

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martin-t 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Incompetence is a taboo. It shouldn't be.

I think it should be perfectly OK to make value judgements of other people, and if they are backed by evidence, make them publicly and make them have consequences for that person's position.

	▲	iinnPP 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A recent review of one of Canada's Federal Institutions showed the correct advice was given 17% of the time[0]. 83% failure rate. Not a soul has been fired unless something changed recently. I do agree however with your assessment because any (additional) accountability would improve matters. [0] https://globalnews.ca/news/11487484/cra-tax-service-calls-au...

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booleandilemma an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I can't help but look at it as the sign of an empire in decline. It's only a matter of time before more people realize what you're saying (particularly the last two paragraphs) and the system falls apart.

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cmrdporcupine 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

So here we have the good guys using the law and ... at least temporarily ... winning... so what's your point?

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cryptica 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You can see it everywhere. In this case, the fact that it took 2 years. And of course now that FFmpeg is getting more exposure in the media due to their association with AI hype, now they finally get 'fair' legal treatment... I don't call that winning. I see this over and over. Same thing all over the west.

I remember Rowan Atkinson (the UK actor) made a speech about this effect a couple of years ago and never heard about it since but definitely feeling it more and more... No exposure, no money, no legal representation. And at the same time we are being gaslit about our privilege.

	▲	martey 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> In this case, the fact that it took 2 years. And of course now that FFmpeg is getting more exposure in the media due to their association with AI hype, now they finally get 'fair' legal treatment... I don't call that winning. It took 2 years because FFmpeg waited 2 years to send a DMCA notice to Github, not because of delays in the legal system. I think you are conflating different unrelated issues here.