Via Boing Boing, “Awesome quote from 1847 decrying technology regulation“:
“Cory Doctorow:
Dan Lockton, writing on the Architecture of Control blog, quotes Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who responded to an 1847 proposal to regulate the design of bridges with this quote:
In other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvements of tomorrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices and errors of today.
Link”
It’s an interesting dialectic between meeting current needs and balancing the necessary generality in the law with future specificity. That future specificity comes from the process of the law in finding and defining the boundaries, exploring implications.