Indeed, and it is interesting how all those countries that have seen this up close have reasonable upper limits and courts that will try to find a balance without falling over one way or the other. Obviously you won't be able to please everybody all the time but we're - as you so eloquently put it - no longer in a speculative domain but in one where you can see the consequences play out in realtime.

It's like toddlers with guns, they may not know exactly how the guns work but they're bloody dangerous all the same.

Popper has it right, far more so than most other philosophers because he's coming at it almost from a security perspective: the system will have holes and you need to be willing to be pragmatic about that, rather than dogmatic.

My solution for HN is simple by the way, I give up, but one account at the time and I simply block them. That doesn't help the site but it does help my blood pressure. The one I use is called 'Comments owl for HN'.