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Justice Stevens reads the fine print

matthewbutterick.com

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Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#71

Post by zoltar »

krageon wrote: post #50
theK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume the Alexa Argument ist against the service and not against automation. Running your whole life on self hosted home automation is Stil awesome and the way to go. Just ensure that data never leaves your home premises and you have enough resiliency.

I would say trusting any kind of software with door locks(!) is a terrible idea. Yes, if you use home automation you should self host. No, if you secure your home you should not needlessly expand the attack surface.

You should probably update your threat model.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#72

Post by FpUser »

noduerme wrote: post #45
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

The answer according to my family: Get a law degree. I'm the only one who doesn't have one / hasn't passed a bar exam. If you don't want to be victim of that system, treat being a lawyer as a form of hacking. It's no different than being a victim of dark pattern software practices, which you would be if you didn't know how to code. (Ironically, part of my slot involves helping lawyers get around pitfalls in software)…

>"The answer according to my family: Get a law degree"

Form your own country and become a president.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#73

Post by Xcelerate »

paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

> Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someone who is familiar with standards of bridge inspections in most towns hesitates every time they drive over one...

...someone who writes software for a living is afraid to fly on airplanes (I joke, but only sort of)

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#74

Post by Xcelerate »

WalterBright wrote: post #37
paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

Once I learned how airplanes were actually designed and built, I felt much safer on them. Especially the 757, which I worked on.

Out of curiosity, do you feel comfortable flying on the more recent ones?

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#75

Post by hnlmorg »

panta wrote: post #64
cbozeman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stupid answer. And I don't mean it's ignorant, I mean it's stupid. The answer to a problem cannot be, "Become a subject matter expert in that field." You don't understand the problem with your small intestine? Become a gastroenterologist. No thanks. Society has to be built on trust to function. Yes, we've allowed for an enormous amount of trust to be eroded in the Western world, but that's over now. We eith…

I don't think it's a stupid answer. Maybe too extreme, but I believe it contains some elements of truth. Trust has been largely eroded by greed, corruption and incompetence, and if one counts only on trust is probably going to get the short end of the stick. As a matter of fact, when you "outsource" some activity, you need some non-zero amount of competence in the outsourced field to be able to evaluate the level of…

"Too extreme" is putting it mildly. Most people couldn't even afford to go to law school. A great many wouldn't have the spare time to study another specialty and a lot might not even be capable of competently understanding the material even if they did go to law school (we all have our strengths and weaknesses after all. For example I'd be a hopeless doctor, chef or teacher). And that's before you've factored in that you also need to keep on top of any new case studies and changes in legislation else risk your knowledge becoming irreverent.

In short, if it were that easy then more people would do it since the kind of jobs it unlocks generally pays pretty well (easily above the national average).

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#76

Post by lordnacho »

panta wrote: post #64
cbozeman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a stupid answer. And I don't mean it's ignorant, I mean it's stupid. The answer to a problem cannot be, "Become a subject matter expert in that field." You don't understand the problem with your small intestine? Become a gastroenterologist. No thanks. Society has to be built on trust to function. Yes, we've allowed for an enormous amount of trust to be eroded in the Western world, but that's over now. We eith…

I don't think it's a stupid answer. Maybe too extreme, but I believe it contains some elements of truth. Trust has been largely eroded by greed, corruption and incompetence, and if one counts only on trust is probably going to get the short end of the stick. As a matter of fact, when you "outsource" some activity, you need some non-zero amount of competence in the outsourced field to be able to evaluate the level of…

I think it's impolite to label the original answer stupid, he seems to have taken time to at least think about it, and we should keep a civil tone here.

However, I agree with the guy who called it stupid. Not in calling it stupid, but in that it's an answer that creates more questions than it answers.

You could nuance it and take the steelman version, which is that everyone should be generally educated and know a bit about everything, but we all know it's unrealistic. You can't do part of an actuarial degree so that you understand insurance. But you have to buy insurance. You can't flip through a psychology intro so that you can be prepared when you see a therapist. Or read DS&A so that you can hire a programmer. Or read about structures for when you buy a house, or learn to play the piano so you can enjoy music.

You just can't do all these things to a degree where you are covered everywhere.

Now the problem with certain fields is they reach into everyone's lives to a significant degree. Law is one of those, medicine is another, and finance is yet another.

So you can't even narrow it down to "do these things only", because you can't become an expert in multiple broad fields like that. The only realistic answer is to known a tiny bit about a bunch of things, and a lot about one "thing" and then rely on social institutions to make sure you get what you're due when interacting with experts in other fields.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#77

Post by grujicd »

theK wrote: post #48
grujicd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, I was shocked when at a friend's house saw that Alexa not only operated lights, but door locks and blinds. Or when another friend takes hands off the steering wheel to test lane keep assist. I don't think I can trust any software at that level.

I presume the Alexa Argument ist against the service and not against automation. Running your whole life on self hosted home automation is Stil awesome and the way to go. Just ensure that data never leaves your home premises and you have enough resiliency.

My problem was not with Alexa specifically, it was a general feeling of "if software controls both locks and blinds it can lock you not only outside but inside as well". Of course I was immediatelly told that there's a physical workaoround in case anything goes wrong.

I cited this example not as something that is objectively bad, but as something subjective, more about my gut reaction.

Funny thing is both my friend and I have electrical engineering education. I went to build software for a living, he more or less moved to sales/management. His job is to hype tech. My job is to make the saussage. There's a popular meme which I heard some time after the anecdote above:

Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart.

Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don't recognize.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#78

Post by cameronh90 »

Xcelerate wrote: post #73
paxys wrote: post #5

Related to the opening of this article – it is interesting to see how one can get completely soured on certain products or experiences because, by virtue of their profession, they see the dirty underbelly of how things in that industry actually work. Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someo…

> Someone who has read cruise contracts in detail will never want to go on one. Cooks with experience in commercial kitchens never want to eat at a restaurant again. Someone who is familiar with standards of bridge inspections in most towns hesitates every time they drive over one... ...someone who writes software for a living is afraid to fly on airplanes (I joke, but only sort of)

On the contrary, as someone with a great interest in aeroplanes and aviation safety, I would choose to travel everywhere by airliner if airports weren't such a depressing experience.

Learning more has made me extremely confident in aviation (737 MAX issue aside but even that is nothing compared to the risk of driving).

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#79

Post by jeroenhd »

noduerme wrote: post #45
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

The answer according to my family: Get a law degree. I'm the only one who doesn't have one / hasn't passed a bar exam. If you don't want to be victim of that system, treat being a lawyer as a form of hacking. It's no different than being a victim of dark pattern software practices, which you would be if you didn't know how to code. (Ironically, part of my slot involves helping lawyers get around pitfalls in software)…

If that's their response, then you should also expect them to get a computer science degree every time MS Word shows a vague popup and every time their OS hides or changes the way it works, or every time a major software update breaks existing functionality.

I'm sure it would make the lives of whoever manages their IT a lot easier if they can just expect the lawyers to go through a few more years of college. You can just blindly deploy updates, assume everybody uses the communicated backup plan and put the full blame on the lawyers if they get hacked because they use a crappy password. Sysadmin heaven!

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#80

Post by dalbasal »

pjc50 wrote: post #59
lordnacho wrote: post #43

Someone needs to do something about the legal-industrial complex. It's a complete fiction that normal people read pages and pages of contracts, EULAs, and that type of stuff. It's basically impossible to read the docs for all the services you buy, and even if you did you wouldn't know what it meant in terms of law. Yet we have lawyers talking through the technical minutiae as if they are source code. There's a huge d…

> At least here in the UK, the court system does not have enough capacity Yeah, that's a political decision; the government is so anti-public service that it's cut it to disastrous levels. In many cases the cuts to legal aid are politically targeted at situations where the government was losing too many cases.

Political/funding decisions are part of the mix, but I don't think the daylight between highly funded and underfunded amounts to fundamental difference.

Courts are extremely costly and/or low throughput. The vast majority of legal resolutions happen outside of courts, whether or not they even touch a court along the way.

It just is not designed for efficiency. Court systems are designed to embody legal ideals (and imo myths) of justice, that may be pretty far from common sense ideals.

We basically can't have a decent court system unless appealing to it is extremely rare. This is the nature of the legal system, not a consequence of details like funding.

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