Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Law Is Law-Shaped

lawvm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 73 posts

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#61

Post by dgreisen »

arjie wrote: post #57

Ha, I really enjoy this description of the law. Very neat. Tickled my mind. It struck me a while ago that almost no present law systems have a regularization or refactoring process. It is an entirely grown object that adds epicycles and it reminds me of the way our household personal agent would record memory until we gave it a self-reflection activity. It seems like a large number of states enacted sunset legislatio…

Regularization and refactoring is actually an integral part of most legal systems. Most jurisdictions in the US go through periodic (1-5 decade) "recodifications" of their law, where the code is reorganized to clean up all the path dependencies of the organically grown law. Restatements do something similar for common law (although they are arguably becoming less influential). Non-US jurisdictions often accomplish this by periodically repealing and replacing laws in their entirety.

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#62

Post by implements »

lkm0 wrote: post #43
keiferski wrote: post #3

In an entirely different qualitative sense, this post reminded me of the short story by Kafka, Before the Law. I won’t paste the whole thing here, but it’s a really short read: https://homepage.univie.ac.at/st.mueller/kafka_english.html An article on the story: https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/hd11/BeforeTheLaw.html

Kafka (who apparently had a great sense of humor) seems to really enjoy writing people who die from too much second guessing. In the trial, K. keep failing by attempting to outplay the system at every step, because he thinks that he can stay above it all (don't we all). It's what you might call an awfully credible idiot plot.

I wondered whether K’s original crime was being “the sort of person who would express excessive pride before the law” - a Minority Report style “Contempt of Court”.

Or was it originally just mistaken identity?

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#63

Post by mrsvanwinkle »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #31
quietbritishjim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the interesting read. But, I have to say, I didn't understand it at all.

It's part of a novel, so it has a larger context. The parable is not intended for you, the reader, but for the protagonist of the novel Josef K., who is spending time in a futile effort. I'd say it's basically about futility of seeking unattainable answers, and frustration. But it's probably not meant to be 100% understood, as Josef K. is a confused character full of doubts (like Kafka's characters tend to be), the p…

Love your username if only because it reminded me of that grad algo class and Prof, some hilariously awkward dude who invented some quantum alkhwarizmi, started ... "There was this guy ... Named Al Khwarizmi. Al..Khwarizmi Alkhwarizmi Hehe. Get it?" he also once started the class with a lecture for a different class and everyone was confused till the TA intervened. convinced it was all precalculated comedy of errors.

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#66

Post by dvh »

bonoboTP wrote: post #54
dvh wrote: post #4

> Parliament cannot restate the entire legal corpus each session. IMHO the biggest mistake. It should be like that. Because right now for mere mortal it's impossible to find out if some law or paragraph is still in effect.

Really? In which country? In Hungary we have several such services. Before the Internet was so widespread you could even buy it on a CD. Here is an example: https://jogkodex.hu/jsz/kftv_2013_87_torveny_5995373?r=25 You can check the state of this law at any point in time and even highlight the differences. I assumed it is so in every civil law country and the law is only unknowable in common law countries where basic…

This is exactly what I'm talking about, there have to be commercial companies selling "which law is still valid" as a service. It shouldn't be like that. You should grab "current law book" and everything should be in it.

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#67

Post by dvh »

WJW wrote: post #26
dvh wrote: post #4

> Parliament cannot restate the entire legal corpus each session. IMHO the biggest mistake. It should be like that. Because right now for mere mortal it's impossible to find out if some law or paragraph is still in effect.

Do you re-read the source code for your keyboard drivers each time you boot up the PC? If not, how can you as a mere mortal be expected to understand if some keys still work the same as yesterday?

No, but when I'm in project folder and I'm not sure if done source file is still used somewhere, I type "banana" in it and hit compile. If it passes it's not used. I would have to break law to test this in law, that's ridiculous.

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#68

Post by bonoboTP »

dvh wrote: post #66
bonoboTP wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? In which country? In Hungary we have several such services. Before the Internet was so widespread you could even buy it on a CD. Here is an example: https://jogkodex.hu/jsz/kftv_2013_87_torveny_5995373?r=25 You can check the state of this law at any point in time and even highlight the differences. I assumed it is so in every civil law country and the law is only unknowable in common law countries where basic…

This is exactly what I'm talking about, there have to be commercial companies selling "which law is still valid" as a service. It shouldn't be like that. You should grab "current law book" and everything should be in it.

There is also a public, state-funded version in Hungary. For example here is the constitution: https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/2011-4301-02-00

Which countries don't have it? Is it a civil law country?

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#69

Post by arjie »

dgreisen wrote: post #61
arjie wrote: post #57

Ha, I really enjoy this description of the law. Very neat. Tickled my mind. It struck me a while ago that almost no present law systems have a regularization or refactoring process. It is an entirely grown object that adds epicycles and it reminds me of the way our household personal agent would record memory until we gave it a self-reflection activity. It seems like a large number of states enacted sunset legislatio…

Regularization and refactoring is actually an integral part of most legal systems. Most jurisdictions in the US go through periodic (1-5 decade) "recodifications" of their law, where the code is reorganized to clean up all the path dependencies of the organically grown law. Restatements do something similar for common law (although they are arguably becoming less influential). Non-US jurisdictions often accomplish th…

Huh, TIL. I suppose California's proposition system does sort of interfere with this process since a standardization of rules isn't realistically possible when it touches this stuff.

Re: Why Law Is Law-Shaped

#70

Post by WJW »

dvh wrote: post #67
WJW wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you re-read the source code for your keyboard drivers each time you boot up the PC? If not, how can you as a mere mortal be expected to understand if some keys still work the same as yesterday?

No, but when I'm in project folder and I'm not sure if done source file is still used somewhere, I type "banana" in it and hit compile. If it passes it's not used. I would have to break law to test this in law, that's ridiculous.

Does your country not have a set of books or a website where the law is published? Mine has a complete set of current laws published online, if it's on there then it's current law, if it isn't then it isn't. I don't see why finding out what the current laws are is such a problem.
Post reply on HN