• Uriel238 [all pronouns]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    I really like the modern embellishment, but yes, US law in the 21st century has really demonstrated there’s a stark difference between legal philosophy and existential philosophy (or law and morality, or crime and wrongdoing / evil).

    We’ve seen a similar situation with Windows XP, 7 and 8 in which the OS required re-activation (phoning home) if the hardware of the computer system changed too dramatically. The response of the public was to make, distribute and update Windows Loader which voided all necessity for activation ( and gave it a valid, if generated, key). So while capitalist systems might want to rent-seek by asserting the Ship of Theseus is different now, public-serving governments tend to assert that the ship is the same.

    There’s also the matter that the human body (one of many life forms) changes all its parts over time and its existential identity stays the same even as the personality it hosts changes. We completely depend on the assumption of continuity regarding both our legal and existential selves. (Which means DeepSouth is absolutely an early step towards computer-simulated human brains as a means to create legal immortality for billionaires that don’t want to rely on hereditary inheritance of their legacy.)