Comment by AnthonyMouse
2 years ago
"Someone else will figure that out" isn't a valid response when the question is whether or not something is any good, because to know if it's any good you need to know what it actually does. Retreating into "nothing is ever perfect" is just an excuse for doing something worse instead of something better because no one can be bothered, and is how we get so many terrible laws.
you have so profoundly misinterpreted my comment that I call into question whether you actually read it or not.
One of the best descriptions I've seen on HN is this.
Too many technical people think of the law as executable code and if you can find a gap in it, then you can get away with things on a technicality. That's not how the law works (spirit vs letter).
In truth, lots of things in the world aren't perfectly defined and the law deals with them just fine. One such example is the reasonable person standard.
> As a legal fiction,[3] the "reasonable person" is not an average person or a typical person, leading to great difficulties in applying the concept in some criminal cases, especially in regard to the partial defence of provocation.[7] The standard also holds that each person owes a duty to behave as a reasonable person would under the same or similar circumstances.[8][9] While the specific circumstances of each case will require varying kinds of conduct and degrees of care, the reasonable person standard undergoes no variation itself.[10][11] The "reasonable person" construct can be found applied in many areas of the law. The standard performs a crucial role in determining negligence in both criminal law—that is, criminal negligence—and tort law.
> The standard is also used in contract law,[12] to determine contractual intent, or (when there is a duty of care) whether there has been a breach of the standard of care. The intent of a party can be determined by examining the understanding of a reasonable person, after consideration is given to all relevant circumstances of the case including the negotiations, any practices the parties have established between themselves, usages and any subsequent conduct of the parties.[13]
> The standard does not exist independently of other circumstances within a case that could affect an individual's judgement.
Pay close attention to this piece
> or (when there is a duty of care) whether there has been a breach of the standard of care.
One could argue that because standard of care cannot ever be perfectly defined it cannot be regulated via law. One would be wrong, just as one would be wrong attempting to make that argument for why AI shouldn't be regulated.
> you have so profoundly misinterpreted my comment that I call into question whether you actually read it or not.
You are expressing a position which is both common and disingenuous.
> Too many technical people think of the law as executable code and if you can find a gap in it, then you can get away with things on a technicality. That's not how the law works (spirit vs letter).
The government passes a law that applies a different rule to cars than trucks and then someone has to decide if the Chevrolet El Camino is a car or a truck. The inevitability of these distinctions is a weak excuse for being unable to answer basic questions about what you're proposing. The law is going to classify the vehicle as one thing or the other and if someone asks you the question you should be able to answer it just as a judge would be expected to answer it.
Which is a necessary incident to evaluating what a law does. If it's a car and vehicles classified as trucks have to pay a higher registration fee because they do more damage to the road, you have a way to skirt the intent of the law. If it's a truck and vehicles classified as trucks have to meet a more lax emissions standard, or having a medium-sized vehicle classified as a truck allows a manufacturer to sell more large trucks while keeping their average fuel economy below the regulatory threshold, you have a way to skirt the intent of the law.
Obviously this matters if you're trying to evaluate whether the law will be effective -- if there is an obvious means to skirt the intent of the law, it won't be. And so saying that the judge will figure it out is a fraud, because in actual fact the judge will have to do one thing or the other and what the judge does will determine whether the law is effective for a given purpose.
You can have all the "reasonable person" standards you want, but if you cannot answer what a "reasonable person" would do in a specific scenario under the law you propose, you are presumed to be punting because you know there is no "reasonable" answer.
Toll roads charge vehicles based upon the number of axles they have.
In other words, you made my point for me. The law is much better than you at doing this, they've literally been doing it for hundreds of years. It's not the impossible task you imagine it to be.
> You can have all the "reasonable person" standards you want, but if you cannot answer what a "reasonable person" would do in a specific scenario under the law you propose, you are presumed to be punting because you know there is no "reasonable" answer.
uhhh......
To quote:
> The reasonable person standard is by no means democratic in its scope; it is, contrary to popular conception, intentionally distinct from that of the "average person," who is not necessarily guaranteed to always be reasonable.
You should read up on this idea a bit before posting further, you've made assumptions that are not true.
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