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Comment by akerl_ | Hacker News Reader

No it wouldn’t. That’s what I’m saying.

It's not what you said. You said successfully suing. Most suits don't go to a win in court, they terminate before that, and terminate in lawyers letters before paperwork hits a court.

I am continuing to assert you're just wrong. I'm not a lawyer btw.

Anyone can sue anyone at any time. I can sue you claiming that this comment you made is defamatory towards me.

I’m saying that the suit wouldn’t end with a settlement or an apology or me doing anything; it would be thrown out for not meeting the standard for defamation. Tort is relatively boring, IMO, but the standards for various suits are well defined and publicly documented.

It's honestly pretty hard to work out what you're trying to assert here. The parent commenter is trying, reasonably, to establish the distinction between "lying" and "defamation". It seems like you're saying "being sued is so expensive the distinction doesn't matter". Ok, sure? That doesn't have anything to do with what they're saying, and, in the context of the grandparent comment --- about libel laws being tightened up --- isn't responsive there either.

(A distinctive feature of modern libel law is SLAPP, which permits fee recovery for defamation suits that aren't well-founded, but that works against the I argument I think but am not sure you are trying to make.)

(Pedantic nitpicking) You mean anti-SLAPP laws.

For others' curiosity: A SLAPP is Strategic lawsuit against public participation, a strategy for plaintiffs to silence opponents by way of burdening them with an onslaught of lawsuits and hoping they are scared away by potential legal costs of mounting a defense thereby resulting in them just giving up. The potential for this strategy to have chilling effects gave rise to anti-SLAPP laws.

If anybody has made it this deep in the thread and has curiosity left to spare, I’d like to recommend https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/ , which is no longer active but whose episodes remain highly valuable in understanding first amendment law.

I think in theory he's still making these, but what you really want to do is subscribe to "Serious Trouble", Ken White's (same guy) podcast with Josh Barro.

Hah. I just mentioned that one in a separate reply to you.

I’d love a world where we continue to get Make No Law episodes, but I’d given up hope after it going dormant for a while.

He's better with Barro than when he's trying to make Legal Radiolab. :)

Curious: when are you guys listening to these podcasts? While driving? While out for a run or something? Certainly not when on the computer right - cause god knows I couldn’t do that kind of multitasking. I’d love to go through the archive of past Ken White podcasts but I don’t know how to make the time for it. Are you listening to them at 2x speed?

I have a 1 month old, so I suddenly have both a ton of time spent driving to the store to get supplies and a ton of time spent just sitting and rocking back and forth.

I don’t think this is the most efficient way to carve out time for podcasts :D

I have a 30 minute one-way commute to the office.

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