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> Do you think allowing programs to be specified in plain English is a good idea? The difference is that one is expected to consent and be beholden to somethin

> Do you think allowing programs to be specified in plain English is a good idea? The difference is that one is expected to consent and be beholden to something they could not reasonably understand without paying a large amount of money to a specialist. That I write my code in brainfuck is of no consequence to someone, unless that brainfuck is potentially going to incarcerate them.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 9y ago
> That I write my code in brainfuck is of no consequence to someone, unless that brainfuck is potentially going to incarcerate them. If you write software to control medical equipment in Brainfuck, it's potentially of consequence to a great many people. Same for autonomous driving routines. Trying to make things clearer is a good cause. Expecting that everything can be made clear enough for the average person is a fool's errand. Do we expect the circuit layouts of CPUs to be understandable by everyone? Because we are surely affected by those, in very many aspects of our lives. Do we expect the full engineering and aeronautics behind an airplane to be understood by everyone? Everyone who flies puts their lives on the line based on those principles and the engineers getting it right. Do we all expect to understand the numerous ways in which our bodies can get hurt, or interact with chemicals, or develop diseases? We trust doctors to figure out the complications there. In each case, we've trusted domain experts to sort through the very complex topic and distill the knowledge into a useful form for us. In each case, we also generally know a core amount of the topic to help us navigate the everyday portions. CPUs work by providing a very low level core set of instructions that can be followed. Airplanes work through thrust, airflow and lift. Our bodies deteriorate over time, and if we put bad stuff in, they don't do as well, and some common diseases are known (cold, flu, etc). The law is no different. There's a core set of things people are aware of. As things become more specific, or a problem happens, we call in domain experts to help. Expecting everyone to be able to read all of the legal code will never happen, nor should it happen. It's expecting too much out of the average person, and would also require the law be dumbed down in ways that were detrimental to it's interpretation.
- deleted 9y ago
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- mieseratte 9y ago
  > The law is no different. There's a core set of things people are aware of. As things become more specific, or a problem happens, we call in domain experts to help. Using Brainfuck is an extreme example but you're taking it to its logical conclusion - off a cliff. The difference is, the law affects and is applied to everyone. Contracts can and do affect the average person. However, only a domain expert has do deal in code. We do not expect or require a normal person to read a 5,000 LOC piece of software, or risk giving up rights to participate in everyday society. > Expecting everyone to be able to read all of the legal code will never happen, nor should it happen. It's expecting too much out of the average person, and would also require the law be dumbed down in ways that were detrimental to it's interpretation. I'm certain we can put together a reasonable "tl;dr" requirement for contracts targeted at the layman, e.g. """ - You may use this application (See: Section A) - You will pay X per month (See: Section B) - Late fees may apply (See: Section B, Sub-Section 2) - We may collect user data (See: Section C) - We may sell user data (See: Section D) - We reserve the right to update the terms of the service (See: Section E, Sub-Section 1) - We reserve the right to cancel service for any reason (See: Section E, Sub-Section 2) """ Make the tl;dr non-binding so long as a reasonable person, a typical legal standard, would understand the legalese to have the outcome. One need not write a "literate contact," nor abandon all of our legal history, terms of art, etc. to improve things to make them more approachable for a normal user.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    I have absolutely no problem with trying to make legal documents, contracts, TOS, etc more readable by providing additional information. I just think the idea of replacing what we have with something more like regularly spoken English would be problematic at best, because a lot of the problems we have with interpreting the law are because it's so close to an actual spoken language, and Human languages thrive on ambiguity.
throwawayjava 9y ago
> The difference is that one is expected to consent and be beholden to something they could not reasonably understand without paying a large amount of money to a specialist. I've found that this is generally less true than I imagine it to be. A lot of law is not actually so difficult to understand. Legalese is still English, and Google is great for figuring out the odd meanings of certain terms of art. Most of the exceptions I've come across (e.g., buying a house) are IMO actually intrinsically complex transactions. I could undestand, but it'd take so long. And the time taken would happen even if we only had the laws we needed and all those laws were written in plain english. In software terms, lots of essential complexity. Going back to the article, the problem with Facebook's terms and conditions is definitely not understandability -- see https://www.facebook.com/policy.php https://www.facebook.com/policy.php. The average high schooler could understand. The problem is people caring enough to 1) find, 2) read, and 3) inconviencance themselves if they don't like the policies.
- Digit-Al 9y ago
  I beg to differ. > Waving a 2-inch-thick printed version of the social network’s user agreement, Senator Lindsey Graham quoted a line from the first page, then intoned: “I’m a lawyer, and I have no idea what that means.” 1) Two inch thick I've read some pretty long books in my time but that takes the cake. Most people these days don't even have enough attention span to read a complete internet article. How do you expect them to plough through hundreds of pages of legalese? 2) “I’m a lawyer, and I have no idea what that means.” Do I even need to say any more?
  - x0x0 9y ago
    You can simultaneously believe that * FB is doing their absolute best to make sure no "user" understands what they have agreed to * writing the law in "plain english" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life. See the multi million dollar lawsuit this year about whether a missing Oxford comma changed wage rules for a class of truck drivers. Any attempt to write law in plain english introduces giant ambiguities [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.htm...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kbenson 9y ago

> That I write my code in brainfuck is of no consequence to someone, unless that brainfuck is potentially going to incarcerate them. If you write software to control medical equipment in Brainfuck, it's potentially of consequence to a great many people. Same for autonomous driving routines. Trying to make things clearer is a good cause. Expecting that everything can be made clear enough for the average person is a fool's errand. Do we expect the circuit layouts of CPUs to be understandable by everyone? Because we are surely affected by those, in very many aspects of our lives. Do we expect the full engineering and aeronautics behind an airplane to be understood by everyone? Everyone who flies puts their lives on the line based on those principles and the engineers getting it right. Do we all expect to understand the numerous ways in which our bodies can get hurt, or interact with chemicals, or develop diseases? We trust doctors to figure out the complications there. In each case, we've trusted domain experts to sort through the very complex topic and distill the knowledge into a useful form for us. In each case, we also generally know a core amount of the topic to help us navigate the everyday portions. CPUs work by providing a very low level core set of instructions that can be followed. Airplanes work through thrust, airflow and lift. Our bodies deteriorate over time, and if we put bad stuff in, they don't do as well, and some common diseases are known (cold, flu, etc). The law is no different. There's a core set of things people are aware of. As things become more specific, or a problem happens, we call in domain experts to help. Expecting everyone to be able to read all of the legal code will never happen, nor should it happen. It's expecting too much out of the average person, and would also require the law be dumbed down in ways that were detrimental to it's interpretation.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mieseratte 9y ago
> The law is no different. There's a core set of things people are aware of. As things become more specific, or a problem happens, we call in domain experts to help. Using Brainfuck is an extreme example but you're taking it to its logical conclusion - off a cliff. The difference is, the law affects and is applied to everyone. Contracts can and do affect the average person. However, only a domain expert has do deal in code. We do not expect or require a normal person to read a 5,000 LOC piece of software, or risk giving up rights to participate in everyday society. > Expecting everyone to be able to read all of the legal code will never happen, nor should it happen. It's expecting too much out of the average person, and would also require the law be dumbed down in ways that were detrimental to it's interpretation. I'm certain we can put together a reasonable "tl;dr" requirement for contracts targeted at the layman, e.g. """ - You may use this application (See: Section A) - You will pay X per month (See: Section B) - Late fees may apply (See: Section B, Sub-Section 2) - We may collect user data (See: Section C) - We may sell user data (See: Section D) - We reserve the right to update the terms of the service (See: Section E, Sub-Section 1) - We reserve the right to cancel service for any reason (See: Section E, Sub-Section 2) """ Make the tl;dr non-binding so long as a reasonable person, a typical legal standard, would understand the legalese to have the outcome. One need not write a "literate contact," nor abandon all of our legal history, terms of art, etc. to improve things to make them more approachable for a normal user.
- kbenson 9y ago
  I have absolutely no problem with trying to make legal documents, contracts, TOS, etc more readable by providing additional information. I just think the idea of replacing what we have with something more like regularly spoken English would be problematic at best, because a lot of the problems we have with interpreting the law are because it's so close to an actual spoken language, and Human languages thrive on ambiguity.

throwawayjava 9y ago

> The difference is that one is expected to consent and be beholden to something they could not reasonably understand without paying a large amount of money to a specialist. I've found that this is generally less true than I imagine it to be. A lot of law is not actually so difficult to understand. Legalese is still English, and Google is great for figuring out the odd meanings of certain terms of art. Most of the exceptions I've come across (e.g., buying a house) are IMO actually intrinsically complex transactions. I could undestand, but it'd take so long. And the time taken would happen even if we only had the laws we needed and all those laws were written in plain english. In software terms, lots of essential complexity. Going back to the article, the problem with Facebook's terms and conditions is definitely not understandability -- see https://www.facebook.com/policy.php https://www.facebook.com/policy.php. The average high schooler could understand. The problem is people caring enough to 1) find, 2) read, and 3) inconviencance themselves if they don't like the policies.

Digit-Al 9y ago
I beg to differ. > Waving a 2-inch-thick printed version of the social network’s user agreement, Senator Lindsey Graham quoted a line from the first page, then intoned: “I’m a lawyer, and I have no idea what that means.” 1) Two inch thick I've read some pretty long books in my time but that takes the cake. Most people these days don't even have enough attention span to read a complete internet article. How do you expect them to plough through hundreds of pages of legalese? 2) “I’m a lawyer, and I have no idea what that means.” Do I even need to say any more?
- x0x0 9y ago
  You can simultaneously believe that * FB is doing their absolute best to make sure no "user" understands what they have agreed to * writing the law in "plain english" is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in my life. See the multi million dollar lawsuit this year about whether a missing Oxford comma changed wage rules for a class of truck drivers. Any attempt to write law in plain english introduces giant ambiguities [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.htm...