4 ms·

Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law, which means if somethings not explicitly illegal then it must be legal.

by gph 9y ago

Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law, which means if somethings not explicitly illegal then it must be legal. So I don't think circumventing the law is seen the same way as it would over in the anglosphere, where we'd condemn someone for intentionally not following the 'spirit of the law' and a judge/jury might convict them anyways. Disclaimer: IANAL and perhaps a bad judge of how people around the world view the law.

throwaway613834 9y ago
> Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law Aren't these the same thing? [1] Do you mean something else (civil law)? But that's a great point; maybe the problem is my lack of living in a purely civil law country. The thing is though, it seems more like common sense to me than a legal issue. Like for example, if (say) murder with a knife and a gun had been illegal, but there was no law against using baseball bats, then suddenly everyone in a civil law system would naturally assume using baseball bats to kill would be okay? It just doesn't make sense to me that "whatever is not expressly illegal must be legal", whatever the legal system... but maybe you're saying that would actually stand up in a civil-law court, and people would actually be okay with it? It's also quite counter-intuitive to me since the US (with its common law) seems to be quite prominent in its tendency to let its people and companies stick to the letter of the law but not its intent. e.g. so many corporations find legal loopholes to take advantage of all sorts of people (from consumers to politicians) by means which are not technically expressly illegal but which almost surely are out of line with the spirits of many existing laws. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
- gph 9y ago
  Yea sorry, meant civil law. Murder is kind of hard to use as an example because there's typically really strong moral and cultural understandings that you shouldn't be doing that. But lets think of a more nuanced example. Lets say there's a lake that's being overfished. The government doesn't want to outlaw all fishing, but they want to rein in the more massive fishing operations. So they outlaw using trawler nets in the lake, but people using conventional poles or spears can keep fishing as much as they want. Now say someone comes along and figures out another method to massively overfish the lake without using nets. In civil law countries if the law is written to specifically outlaw the use of nets I think the people would look at the law as faulty instead of the person who exploits the loophole. After all, whatever method they figured out isn't actually illegal. And the way to solve the issue is to update the law, not to punish the clever loophole seeker. But in common law countries the law would more likely be written in a way that can't be as strictly interpreted. There might be wiggle room that would allow a judge/jury to basically say "Look we didn't explicitly forbid what you are doing, but it's clearly something this law was meant to prevent. Therefore you're guilty, and case law will be updated to include this verdict." At least that's how I interpret it.
  - throwaway613834 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the example. It doesn't fully seem to be consistent with my experience (I feel the US allows much more freedom than many civil law countries, which seems unintuitive give this line of reasoning) but you're probably right, I'll have to read more about this haha. Thanks!
  - gcb0 9y ago
    murder is actually the perfect example. it was legal in so many ways in the past (slavery) and a few today (death penalty, wars) the thing with all laws, and the state, is that they exist not to make the world fair, but ti maintain status quo. in the death example, if the law explicitly left baseball bats deaths out, that means that someone with influence over the state wanted it to be exempt. this is the same on china now probably. china has tons of tech and hydropower. heck they may have invented satoshi! and maybe now too many small players are disrupting their game? or it maybe be that btc is but an annoyance to them and when their economy crumbles because of the upcomingreal state buble they dont want to also have to deal with people loosing money to bogus ICOs. who knows?

by gph 9y ago

throwaway613834 9y ago

> Well that is sort of a common law view of things. But most countries practice case law Aren't these the same thing? [1] Do you mean something else (civil law)? But that's a great point; maybe the problem is my lack of living in a purely civil law country. The thing is though, it seems more like common sense to me than a legal issue. Like for example, if (say) murder with a knife and a gun had been illegal, but there was no law against using baseball bats, then suddenly everyone in a civil law system would naturally assume using baseball bats to kill would be okay? It just doesn't make sense to me that "whatever is not expressly illegal must be legal", whatever the legal system... but maybe you're saying that would actually stand up in a civil-law court, and people would actually be okay with it? It's also quite counter-intuitive to me since the US (with its common law) seems to be quite prominent in its tendency to let its people and companies stick to the letter of the law but not its intent. e.g. so many corporations find legal loopholes to take advantage of all sorts of people (from consumers to politicians) by means which are not technically expressly illegal but which almost surely are out of line with the spirits of many existing laws. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law

gph 9y ago
Yea sorry, meant civil law. Murder is kind of hard to use as an example because there's typically really strong moral and cultural understandings that you shouldn't be doing that. But lets think of a more nuanced example. Lets say there's a lake that's being overfished. The government doesn't want to outlaw all fishing, but they want to rein in the more massive fishing operations. So they outlaw using trawler nets in the lake, but people using conventional poles or spears can keep fishing as much as they want. Now say someone comes along and figures out another method to massively overfish the lake without using nets. In civil law countries if the law is written to specifically outlaw the use of nets I think the people would look at the law as faulty instead of the person who exploits the loophole. After all, whatever method they figured out isn't actually illegal. And the way to solve the issue is to update the law, not to punish the clever loophole seeker. But in common law countries the law would more likely be written in a way that can't be as strictly interpreted. There might be wiggle room that would allow a judge/jury to basically say "Look we didn't explicitly forbid what you are doing, but it's clearly something this law was meant to prevent. Therefore you're guilty, and case law will be updated to include this verdict." At least that's how I interpret it.
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the example. It doesn't fully seem to be consistent with my experience (I feel the US allows much more freedom than many civil law countries, which seems unintuitive give this line of reasoning) but you're probably right, I'll have to read more about this haha. Thanks!
- gcb0 9y ago
  murder is actually the perfect example. it was legal in so many ways in the past (slavery) and a few today (death penalty, wars) the thing with all laws, and the state, is that they exist not to make the world fair, but ti maintain status quo. in the death example, if the law explicitly left baseball bats deaths out, that means that someone with influence over the state wanted it to be exempt. this is the same on china now probably. china has tons of tech and hydropower. heck they may have invented satoshi! and maybe now too many small players are disrupting their game? or it maybe be that btc is but an annoyance to them and when their economy crumbles because of the upcomingreal state buble they dont want to also have to deal with people loosing money to bogus ICOs. who knows?