This is exactly what the police are doing.
> Are you implying that the cops in this case broke the law?
Are you implying that it's illegal to drive with the flow of traffic? That seems like an unreasonable interpretation, it would imply that everybody is constantly breaking the law! The interpretation where the speed limit is relative to other traffic makes much more sense, because the main issue is speed differences. If everybody is driving 70 that is much safer than some people driving 25 and some people driving 115, so the law sets a maximum speed difference, e.g. if the speed limit is 55 and some people are driving 40 then you could drive up to 95 but 100 is too fast. This is clearly much more in line with observed behavior.
Anybody can come up with reasoning to justify whatever. You can say that we should follow the letter of the law and let people get away with it if they can find a loophole, or that we should have judges reinterpret what the law actually says to try to get the result the legislature intended, but don't try to say we should do different ones for different people.
- My original post puts forth an interesting double standard, where when a non-cop finds a workaround to achieve their aim it's considered a 'hack' and a sign of being 'relentlessly resourceful' (a fundable, valued attribute!). When a cop uses a workaround to achieve their aim, which is to find criminals, it's considered grounds for outrage.
- Rather than engage on this point, you put forth analogies that don't address the hypocrisy, but rather use fine sounding language (relativity!) to make a completely different point that all laws should be treated in the spirit of how they were written, and not by what they actually say. And this takes some thinking on the reader's part to get there, as it's diverged significantly from the thrust of the first post, which, again, was to point out an interesting double standard.
- I try to get clarification on your now changed point
- You double down on the speed analogy, even further removed, with whataboutism and the logic that 'everyone is breaking the technical law so we need wide latitude in how laws are interpreted'. It was so far from my original observation that I don't even know why I responded. Perhaps you were trolling, IDK.
It's also interesting to me that my initial post got a couple quick upvotes and then got buried 5 min later. I don't claim foul play or anything. Just interesting. Kinda reminds me of the post against applying to YC that rocketed to the front page and then got flagged for removal. It's quite amazing how hiveminded this place is. And you know, I really have to question the value that I've gotten from this site in 15 years of reading it. I am positive that my life would be richer without it. So so long. This last part has nothing to do with you, just doing some reflecting. I'll see myself out.