The government needs to do that when the market fails to do it.

I don't think somebody should honestly call themselves an "engineer" if they can't be bothered to make their systems usable by the masses. It is an utter lack of professionalism.

I think the parent comment makes a fair point. No matter how small the issue, the government's rules are ultimately backed by the threat of deadly violence [0].

I think the rhetorical difference between "ask" and "force" is ripe for abuse in discussions regarding contentious government roles.

[0] If this seems implausible, consider this thought experiment (U.S.-based). A police officer gives you a ticket jaywalking. If you don't pay it, you're at risk of being the target of an arrest warrant. If the police find you, they will attempt to put you in cuffs. It goes downhill from there. For jaywalking.

I'm not arguing for or against things working this way, but I do think it's reality.

All social compacts are ultimately backed with force. If you and a dozen people fucked off to SeaLand and lived in an anarchic commune, your agreements with one another would _still_ ultimately be backed by force, in the same way that everything here is: Your SeaLand commune agrees on some principles for behavior - say, no pushing other people; someone in the group decides to push other people; the group intervenes, attempts to talk the person out of pushing other people; the Pusher refuses to see reason; the group either resorts to force or abandons the commune to a pushocracy. If you want to argue the government is illegitimate, then go ahead, but to just point vaguely to "socially defined rules are backed by force" isn't really _saying_ anything without that.

In that scenario, you are not being arrested for jaywalking

> In that scenario, you are not being arrested for jaywalking

I agree. But you are being arrested for the consequences of fully refusing to accept the jaywalking rule.

No, I don't think you are. You're being arrested for not paying the fine. Each was an independent choice on your part.

In the same way that architects and contractors are forced to follow building codes, yes.

I'm looking for the day when someone has a gun held to their head for not making their website accessible. More likely, you'll just be fired for not doing your job.

By that logic, I can refuse to follow this law without consequence? Sounds to me like my options are to comply, pay fines until I can’t and then comply, or go to jail (which would be done at gunpoint).

What am I missing? What’s the magic way to avoid complying with this new government edict without escalating to violence?

> What’s the magic way to avoid complying with this new government edict without escalating to violence?

Move to the mountains and farm turnips.

If you mean "how do I avoid complying with laws while still participating in polite society," you're right, that one you can't do.

Right, but the law doesn’t prohibit me from farming turnips*. It prohibits me from running a website without doing certain things. That’s what will be enforced, in escalating fashion up to and including violence.

If someone “asks” me to do something, they usually don’t mean “otherwise I will take your money and/or jail you”. But all laws have that threat, otherwise they wouldn’t mean anything. Hence why I take issue with saying the govt is “asking” us to do something - even though that thing is good and honorable, it’s still not an “ask”.

*well, I mean, there’s probably mountain turnip preservation zones or something, where it would prohibit me from farming mountain turnips.

What do you propose instead? All governance has force at its roots.

Certainly, no disagreement there. What I propose is that we avoid being cavalier about the implications of creating law.

Using the force of government is, or should be, a serious affair, and I think we water it down by using language like “they’re just asking”, etc. The force of government never “just asks” - when Trump was deporting people, no one (reputable) said they were “asked to leave”.

That sense of seriousness about government force would help us see clearly what is, and is not, worth bringing government into.

I really do love the fact that mass deportation and the digital equivalent of building codes are being treated as equivalent. Peak HN.

I don't think anyone is really unclear on law. You are expected to follow it, lest you be punished.

Have you put an accurate description on every image you've every uploaded to the web? No? You're going to jail or pay a fine since you didn't accommodate blind people. You uploaded 40k images and it will take you an entire year 8yrs a day 5days a week to tag and annotate every single on of them and not working your kids will go hungry and your pets starve. Too bad for you.

Note: I have around 160k images on the net, all marked as CC-BY. Thought I was doing something good by sharing but now I'm told if I don't make them all blind accessible then I'm a criminal.

I also have ~200 open source projects, 10 or so are fairly popular. Volunteered lots of time to make them, don't believe I should be forced under threat of fines and jail to have to put more time into them.