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Justice Stevens reads the fine print

matthewbutterick.com

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Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#211

Post by rcpt »

Justice Stevens is the best. He wrote the sole Dissent on Nordlinger v Hahn (a case where we we had a chance to end the nightmare that is Californias Prop 13) referring to long-time California property owners as "Squires" in the process https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/90-1912.ZD.html

Clarence Thomas OTOH wrote the Concurrence and even refused to sign the Opinion because the court didn't go far enough and overturn a previous ruling from Pennsylvania which would have given property owners even more tax cuts. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/19/us/supreme-court-justices...

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#212

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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…

One of my least favorite trends: offices that give you pages of contract to agree to in order to just have a meeting on premises.

I got one of these in a job interview situation and it really was pages upon pages. I was in the lobby waiting for a job interview, and the person sent to fetch me was visibly pissed off I took the time to at least skim what the heck was in this agreement.

I mean what a messed up context. Obviously I won't get the interview unless I agree, and there's zero chance of negotiating any of these points. Should I just wave past it to placate the interviewers impatience? If I take my time to go through the details will they read me as a potential problem employee that will be legalistic about ordinary matters? If I don't take my time am I signaling that I'm a lax coworker that doesn't apply due diligence? If the interview goes well should I use the same behavior when evaluating the employment agreement? When signing the initial "get past the lobby" contract did I end up agreeing to something that could have implications for me later working at this location?

The whole thing is a kafkaesque farce.

I applaud Stevens for his stunt, even if only ultimately a symbolic protest.

It feels like reform in this area requires a generation of lawyers that become the top judges that are willing to oppose the mentality of most lawyers.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#213

Post by car_analogy »

ryandrake wrote: post #203

We need to separate the concepts of "voluntarily purchasing a good or using a service" from "voluntarily agreeing to a document". Just because I voluntarily buy something doesn't mean I am necessarily voluntarily agreeing to its manufacturer's terms. It is a condition of buying the product, not something I am willfully agreeing to. Today, companies can enforce all sorts of crazy things on you just because some intern…

Worst of all, those terms tend to be the same across an industry, so if you don't agree to them, an entire class of products become unavailable to you. I bought an external disk that, on its packaging, stated that I agree to resolve any issues through arbitration. I could have returned it, but what are the chances other brands don't have the same clause?

Unless citizens join together and restrict by law what such contracts may contain, we'll be forced to accept whatever our corporate masters decide.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#214

Post by NoboruWataya »

ryandrake wrote: post #203

We need to separate the concepts of "voluntarily purchasing a good or using a service" from "voluntarily agreeing to a document". Just because I voluntarily buy something doesn't mean I am necessarily voluntarily agreeing to its manufacturer's terms. It is a condition of buying the product, not something I am willfully agreeing to. Today, companies can enforce all sorts of crazy things on you just because some intern…

I think you're conflating two issues there. You are suggesting that there isn't a true agreement because one party either didn't read the contract or only begrudgingly agreed to be bound by its terms. Allowing either of those circumstances to void a contract would fundamentally undermine the whole concept. The whole point of contract is that it is a bargain; each side does something they would rather not do in order to gain something they wouldn't have otherwise. I don't want to pay rent; it's just something I have to do because otherwise I would have no place to live.

I think the real issue here is contracts made between parties of unequal bargaining power. They are still contracts but perhaps they should be regulated more strictly. There are plenty of examples of EU consumer legislation taking this approach. Some impose obligations on the powerful party that can't be contracted out of; others imply terms into contracts; still others simply say that in certain contracts between unequal parties, unreasonable terms are unenforceable. Clearly there are many who think that this kind of regulation doesn't currently go far enough in protecting weaker parties, but I think it is the right conceptual framework.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#215

Post by WalterBright »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How about helicopters? I definitely feel less willing to get on one after working near them.

Helicopters are subject to single failures causing a fatal crash. Hence helicopters rely heavily on rigid, thorough, and very expensive maintenance.

As my dad (combat pilot) said, an airplane wants to fly. It can suffer considerable damage and still make it home. A helicopter, however, wants to crash. It's a constant struggle to keep it in the air.

I've never ridden in a chopper, but I doubt I'd feel safe in one.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#216

Post by WalterBright »

Xcelerate wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. But I like the 757 the best. I'm always happy to see a 757 when I'm getting on board.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#217

Post by digisign »

irrational wrote: post #136

> Though David Foster Wallace’s famous jour­nal­istic argu­ment against cruising had damp­ened my interest Uh, did anyone else click this link? If you did, you find find a pdf that is effectively impossible to read on a mobile device. This seems ironic in an article about being able to read the fine print.

I read most of it, was a funny piece. It is a series of scans as a pdf. Clumsy but read easily on a desktop.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#218

Post by Dylan16807 »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #214
ryandrake wrote: post #203

We need to separate the concepts of "voluntarily purchasing a good or using a service" from "voluntarily agreeing to a document". Just because I voluntarily buy something doesn't mean I am necessarily voluntarily agreeing to its manufacturer's terms. It is a condition of buying the product, not something I am willfully agreeing to. Today, companies can enforce all sorts of crazy things on you just because some intern…

I think you're conflating two issues there. You are suggesting that there isn't a true agreement because one party either didn't read the contract or only begrudgingly agreed to be bound by its terms. Allowing either of those circumstances to void a contract would fundamentally undermine the whole concept. The whole point of contract is that it is a bargain; each side does something they would rather not do in order…

> Allowing either of those circumstances to void a contract would fundamentally undermine the whole concept.

I don't think it would.

> The whole point of contract is that it is a bargain; each side does something they would rather not do in order to gain something they wouldn't have otherwise.

Right, the core of contracts is making a bargain, which isn't happening here.

> I don't want to pay rent; it's just something I have to do because otherwise I would have no place to live.

The part under discussion here isn't the payment, it's the everything else.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#219

Post by yencabulator »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #212
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…

One of my least favorite trends: offices that give you pages of contract to agree to in order to just have a meeting on premises. I got one of these in a job interview situation and it really was pages upon pages. I was in the lobby waiting for a job interview, and the person sent to fetch me was visibly pissed off I took the time to at least skim what the heck was in this agreement. I mean what a messed up context.…

This one time I watched my COO say that he isn't signing the Facebook visitor NDA without getting a lawyer's approval on it first, and if they're not cool with that they can try to reschedule our meeting to happen outside the building. It worked, never signed.

Re: Justice Stevens reads the fine print

#220

Post by graycat »

markdown wrote: post #88
pronoiac wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forget how I got the link, but here's a catalog of movies on YouTube, whether buy, rent, or free with ads: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuVPpxrm2VAgpH3Ktln4HXg

I see nothing, so they must be geoblocked.

My guess is that each such page is constructed dynamically, that is, for one specific user from a recommendation engine based on the most recent data YouTube has on that user. When I mentioned elsewhere in this thread "If click around enough at YouTube ...", that was very short for something like a guess that if a YouTube user watches a few movies and that is mostly what they do watch at YouTube, then some YouTube recommendation engine constructs for that user then a page of just movies. But that page and its URL may be valid only for a short time: So, saving the URL for later or giving it to someone else won't be useful.

Can imagine a horror movie: Joe frequently goes to the university library for applied math books but today happens to want a certain book on ancient Greek history. So, as Joe walks down an isle in the history section, the books notice that it is Joe and all change themselves to applied math! Poor Joe can't find his book on ancient Greek history!

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