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Comment by celeritascelery | Hacker News Reader

If wasting time is a crime, we should also make long checkout lines and traffic jams illegal while we’re at it.

But imagine if someone built purpose-built software for causing traffic jams, and a large community of regular users make traffic jams 5 times more common than they used to be. I don't say this out of any personal animus, I don't drive very often myself, but I think it would be reasonable to start talking about criminal penalties. At some point you have to be able to defend the commons, no?

>But imagine if someone built purpose-built software for causing traffic jams, and a large community of regular users make traffic jams 5 times more common than they used to be.

What's the difference between that and someone who simply drives bad/slow? Do they get a pass because it doesn't have "purpose-built software"? Or is it because they're not acting as a group? If cheaters are not acting in a coordinated way, do they get a free pass as well?

The difference is intent, and this is a core consideration of our justice system.

So people using excessive amounts of coupons and/or change at checkouts should be sanctioned as well?

Can you not tell the difference between someone intending to save money (or pay their bill) and intending to slow others down?

You could make the argument that cheaters are trying to "have fun"/"win" as well, albeit in a way that negatively affects others.

I haven't seen excessive coupon use banned, but I actually have seen a store make that person wait until the rest of the shoppers cleared the line. Very satisfying.

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