Yeah, the way I see it if the system only works because there was a bunch of hyperbolic alarmism to balance out the awful impulse of industry-aligned legislators, the system wasn't actually working that well. It may be functioning, but the fact that this battle will get harder and harder to fight every time it happens (which could be eternal) means that's not really something that works well.

Right, this result doesn't mean the system works, it means that the big red EMERGENCY STOP button works, as long as everyone screams loud enough.

We'll see if the system itself works if the next time the industry makes a push for stupid legislation like this and the politicians push back because they know their constituents don't want it from the last time. How confident are you that this will happen?

Yes but the internet was not doomed as we now see. I could have been but it was not at the point in time (presents form vs conditional form).

I have no issues with warning people what can happen.

The internet escaped the impending doom because it didn't pass. It didn't pass because people acted. And People acted because of the numerous alarms about the impending doom.

Yes, that's not what I am arguing and I think it might be a distinction that is different from my mother tongue and English.

I've seen people arguing that "the internet is doomed" as if there is nothing one can do about it and the event that doomed it has already happened. I've even seen headlines of that form on HN. It is the same is if someone had written "the coral reef is doomed", then I would think that someone had dropped a nuclear bomb on it and that the event already happened.

As I said, I'm not against warning people what _can_ happen but I don't go around saying it already has happened. If it has happened then there is no action one can take (i.e., the dooms day scenario has already happened). That's what I wanted to convey in my first post really.

In any case it's very much a topic derailment in this case and I apologise for that.

Dude, people understand that "this copyright law has doomed the internet" means "if you stop this or undo it, it won't be a reason for the internet's doom". Fortunately, human interpretation is fluid enough that they understand this.

Just like if I say "damn it! I left the stove on! My house will burn down" the driver will say "oh shit! Let's go back" not "Since you have guaranteed that the house is going to burn down at this point I am not going to act. By a strict interpretation of your words, there is nothing that can be done. Let us continue onward to the cinema"

Seriously, man. Come on. This isn't a language thing.

I completely agree with you, however: My own native tongue actually has bigger strictness than English (since as a Slavic language with Germanic influence it has many grammatical features that are not a part of common English), so I can see where the GP us coming from. There indeed were newspapers that claimed that the Internet is already doomed and they can't do anything at all. Sadly in my country, fear mongering is the leading newspaper marketing strategy, so this is not uncommon, and some people have learned to take them with a huge grain of salt. The problem lies in the word "some" - I share the country with millions of people that believe them literally, and it can be clearly seen in our national voting results.

So my last reply on this and the nesting is not going further, as it is really very off topic. But your first example sentence is in past tense and implies that the law already has passed (at least that is my interpretation) and the second example sentence is in future tense, not present tense.

But it might also be a cultural difference and not language difference I don't know.

It doesn't really matter if the law is already passed. Undoing a law is harder than preventing a law, but not by all that much.