> Because to beat up someone and order them to unlock their phone is faster, does not require trained staff, can be done anywhere and is fun for the cops.

The implicit assumption is that the states always go for the faster solution. I'd argue that intercepting an SMS/call is easier/faster for nation-states, than arrest and torture; most carriers worldwide have interception capabilities mandated by law: using the secret police to subvert those capabilities is not rocket science - especially when coordinating with hacking-as-a-service companies like "Team Jorge".

What really grinds my gears, when someone confidently state their thought experiment/"derivation from (idealized) first principles" as a rebuttal to empirical evidence. Incidentally, the wording is sometimes absolute, which cloaks the speculative (and wrong) nature of such comments ("No, not really hacked." Implying hacking doesn't happen, and yet it does).

I've seen such 'truthy' but wrong comments voted to the top on HN, because the up-voters share the same blindspot and think "Yeah, that sounds right"