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Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

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Re: Unexpected things that are people

#101

Post by soared »

pugworthy wrote: post #86

It would be interesting if the "no cure, no pay" principle from right of salvage could be applied to medical treatment. Something like this... > The "no cure, no pay" principle is a fundamental concept in medical law where a doctor (the party assisting a human in health danger) is only entitled to a reward if the healing operation is successful in saving the person or part of person (life, limb, sight, hearing, etc.)…

A very large portion of medicine is for treating symptoms, improving quality of life, making someone comfortable, etc. so you’d sometimes defin the problem needs fixing as the illness, the symptom, something else. But then part of medicine is identifying what the illness is, what causes the symptoms, etc. additionally, there is no “fix” for illnesses. Everything has a list of approaches that doctors choose from based on the context - IE strep throat may have prescription A as like 1 (the first/best choice generally), but the patient could be allergic, have used that medicine in the past unsuccessfully, etc.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#102

Post by sandworm101 »

otterley wrote: post #92

The first example about ships is inaccurate. A ship isn't treated as a person in the law; it's treated as the thing that it is. There's a specific type of jurisdiction known as "in rem" ("over the thing") that differs from the typical "in personam" ("over the person") that gives the Court the ability to dispose of property without needing jurisdiction over its owner (otherwise known as an ex parte case). These differ…

Exactly. I expected reference to all sorts of things that have been held at customs. I remember one old case titled something like "New York v. a shipment of dildos." I also remember some state law where guns were 'persons'. If cops wanted to destroy siezed guns they had to go to court, where the guns would be represented by a lawyer who would argue for sale over destruction. (Arizona iirc)

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#103

Post by gwbas1c »

Vecr wrote: post #89
pugworthy wrote: post #86

It would be interesting if the "no cure, no pay" principle from right of salvage could be applied to medical treatment. Something like this... > The "no cure, no pay" principle is a fundamental concept in medical law where a doctor (the party assisting a human in health danger) is only entitled to a reward if the healing operation is successful in saving the person or part of person (life, limb, sight, hearing, etc.)…

All you would get is even more insurance overhead and even higher nominal prices. People who pay cover people who don't, and doctors will get insurance to pay for all their failures.

I think the author's (pugworthy's) intent was to disincentivize doctors who take advantage of fee-for-service.

For example, a few years ago, I started getting Plantar Faucitis. (Basically, foot pain that happens in middle age.) My doctor sent me to a podiatrist, who basically told me to buy new shoes, use inserts, and stop walking around barefoot. That worked, BUT:

The podiatrist also pushed me to do a silicon injection (as in they offered it while they were pulling out the needle and pushing it into my foot), pressured me to come in monthly, and wanted to write a prescription for a painkiller that I didn't need and had side effects. It was clear they were trying to increase their patient load and services as a way to get more revenue.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#104

Post by otterdude »

otterley wrote: post #92

The first example about ships is inaccurate. A ship isn't treated as a person in the law; it's treated as the thing that it is. There's a specific type of jurisdiction known as "in rem" ("over the thing") that differs from the typical "in personam" ("over the person") that gives the Court the ability to dispose of property without needing jurisdiction over its owner (otherwise known as an ex parte case). These differ…

I am continually baffled by the "logic" behind laws and the justice system.

If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment?

How can money be speech, if the constitution allows congress to regulate commerce, but prohibits it from abridging speech.

It just seems like in a common law system we're forced to live with half-assed arguments that corporate lawyers dreamed up while golfing with the judges.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#105

Post by giraffe_lady »

kerkeslager wrote: post #88
giraffe_lady wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

update: I don't think this comment is correct, after kerkeslager's response to it. I'm leaving it intact underneath so the conversation still makes sense. People on here almost universally value logical consistency over beneficial outcomes. By the HN moral consensus a rule that can be applied to all situations without modification is a good rule. It does not much matter what outcomes that produces.

I don't buy that. It's not logically consistent to call a corporation a human when everyone knows a corporation isn't human, and the leakiness of the abstraction is obvious. More likely, HN simply has the same distribution of intelligence (i.e., it's mostly near-average-intelligence people), and HN's members are just as susceptible to the same obvious propaganda as everyone else, especially when it might benefit you.…

OK yeah you convinced me.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#106

Post by ACCount37 »

nocoiner wrote: post #77
ACCount37 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you need humans for a corporate structure to exist. But nothing prevents meat proxies from occupying the vital positions. Find a few sufficiently loyal humans, have them bring the corporate structure up. Arrange for good wages and proper incentives, set up checks and balances so that the system can tolerate and recover from meatbag failures. Make the corporation fully reliant on the AGI for normal functioning,…

That’s basically just the benefits of limited liability, that has nothing to do with AI personhood. And you’re basically just describing the formation of a legal entity, the reference to AGI could just as easily be replaced with “talented founder” or “dual class shares” or “poison pill” or something. In any event, the law tends to be responsive about establishing doctrines for extending liability to individuals invol…

Sure, it's just a legal entity. One that just so happens to give a clever machine a foothold in the human legal system.

Frankly, I just find the idea amusing.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#107

Post by inglor_cz »

sandworm101 wrote: post #102
otterley wrote: post #92

The first example about ships is inaccurate. A ship isn't treated as a person in the law; it's treated as the thing that it is. There's a specific type of jurisdiction known as "in rem" ("over the thing") that differs from the typical "in personam" ("over the person") that gives the Court the ability to dispose of property without needing jurisdiction over its owner (otherwise known as an ex parte case). These differ…

Exactly. I expected reference to all sorts of things that have been held at customs. I remember one old case titled something like "New York v. a shipment of dildos." I also remember some state law where guns were 'persons'. If cops wanted to destroy siezed guns they had to go to court, where the guns would be represented by a lawyer who would argue for sale over destruction. (Arizona iirc)

In most of the world, "a shipment of dildos" cannot be a participant of a trial, this is a US curiosity.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#108

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

Yup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._$124,700_in_U...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Article_Consi...

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#109

Post by wmeredith »

otterdude wrote: post #104
otterley wrote: post #92

The first example about ships is inaccurate. A ship isn't treated as a person in the law; it's treated as the thing that it is. There's a specific type of jurisdiction known as "in rem" ("over the thing") that differs from the typical "in personam" ("over the person") that gives the Court the ability to dispose of property without needing jurisdiction over its owner (otherwise known as an ex parte case). These differ…

I am continually baffled by the "logic" behind laws and the justice system. If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? How can money be speech, if the constitution allows congress to regulate commerce, but prohibits it from abridging speech. It just seems like in a common law system we're forced to live with half-assed arguments that corporate lawyers dreamed up wh…

The law is very much like a programming language in that it is attempting to abstract a concept from practice, so that it is useful in many applications instead of just one. In both cases these abstractions are always flawed. In the law's case, that's why we have judges.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#110

Post by returningfory2 »

otterdude wrote: post #104
otterley wrote: post #92

The first example about ships is inaccurate. A ship isn't treated as a person in the law; it's treated as the thing that it is. There's a specific type of jurisdiction known as "in rem" ("over the thing") that differs from the typical "in personam" ("over the person") that gives the Court the ability to dispose of property without needing jurisdiction over its owner (otherwise known as an ex parte case). These differ…

I am continually baffled by the "logic" behind laws and the justice system. If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment? How can money be speech, if the constitution allows congress to regulate commerce, but prohibits it from abridging speech. It just seems like in a common law system we're forced to live with half-assed arguments that corporate lawyers dreamed up wh…

> If corporations are people, then how can they be bought or sold considering the 13th amendment?

We simply pass a law saying that the act of incorporating a company is, among other things, punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, and the 13th amendment problems go away.

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