4 ms·

I dislike how the minute someone mentions a legal hack, the responses are "oh, are you a lawyer?" Why not consider this reply on its merits?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ChrisSD 8y ago
"Legal hacks" are rarely, if ever, as clever as their proponents think. Scepticism is natural and warranted. Judges aren't complete morons and will take a dim view of "hacks". There could be loopholes somewhere but you'd need a lawyer to spot them.
- jordigh 8y ago
  One of the most famous "legal hacks", Richard Stallman's copyleft, had to be rewritten by a lawyer. rms wrote GPLv1 by himself and you should never use it. GPLv2 is the version that was actually vetted by a lawyer. A similar thing happened with Perl's Artistic License. Its version 2 is basically also a lawyer-approved rewrite. In other words, hackers, don't try this at home. There are professionals who can do this for you.
  - nickpeterson 8y ago
    I find it somewhat sad that law is basically a guild where arcane language is used to gatekeep what should be a much more straightforward exercise.
    - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
      It's not. It's the equivalent of saying "I can do this better" and producing unreliably, buggy code. Sure you can, but a more experienced professional can point out all the corner cases you missed.
      - sbov 8y ago
        Then when it fails, you blame the programming language rather than your experience in programming.
    - heavenlyblue 8y ago
      I mean, if you pay attention to the names of the kernel API functions, you'd probably end up with the same conclusion.
    - jancsika 8y ago
      I find it somewhat sad that programming is basically a guild where arcane language is used to gatekeep what should be a much more straightforward exercise.
      - rhacker 8y ago
        Hahaha, actually at some point in the future, I suspect 25 years or so, our programming guild will likely have taken over and replace the legal guild.
        majewsky 8y ago
        This would make an interesting entry on http://longbets.org/ http://longbets.org/
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Very relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1494/ https://xkcd.com/1494/.
jordigh 8y ago
Because it is super-risky to consider these things on their own merits if you are not the kind of person who regularly interacts with judges and juries. Laws are something that are applied within a particular kind of, ah, culture. You have to be familiar with the body of work of that culture and how they will likely interpret the law. Trying to interpret laws in ignorance of that culture is likely to lead to interpretations contrary to those with the power to enforce the laws, and land you in a lot of trouble. In other words, laws aren't code or mathematics. They're not pure exercises of abstract thought to be considered in isolation. Trying to treat them that way is going to lead to trouble.
- carbocation 8y ago
  Does everyone downvote all medical speculation in the numerous health threads on this site? No. It's fine for people to speculate about medical ideas, legal ideas, etc. Especially on a forum like this where there is no pretense that people are offering genuine legal advice.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Or maybe we should express less confidence in our assertions about medicine? After all, most of the time, people are writing about things they don't know all that much about.
    - carbocation 8y ago
      To be honest, one or the other should be the case. Either wild speculation on medicine and law should be fine (this is my position). Or, people should fear medical speculation as much as they do legal speculation (I think this is the more pathetic option).
      - yowlingcat 8y ago
        Maybe neither of the extremes you pulled out of your ass is of any use, and you're being downvoted because you left a low information comment and then doubled down on it. The community here really does not approve of treating this public space like Twitter and Reddit, which I value. More to the point -- that idea of a "legal hack" could fail to hold up in court for a variety of reasons, and really the idea of a legal hack in general is really not how anyone who has any experience with the law would expect it to work, at least in the United States. And in a lot of cases, if you try to outwit it through a loophole when you know the spirit of the law, that's even worse. The more pathetic option is people wildly speculating on things they know nothing about as opposed to educating themselves, or at the very least humbly being aware of their own ignorance. Your position is one that has gotten many like you in trouble they can't get out of. It'll bite you too, if you're ever foolish enough to act on it. To anyone out there with a dim view of professional opinions: get a professional opinion when it comes to things like this. Be an adult. Do not try and DIY it. These are situations where the risk reward calculus contains very little reward on one end for remaining compliant and extreme negative consequences on the other end. Learn how to manage the professional opinion haver. The good ones will save you a world of pain with the ounces of prevention that you'll never regret investing in.
eridius 8y ago
Probably because anyone who isn't a lawyer has no hope of considering this reply "on its merits". My gut feeling is this "legal hack" wouldn't work, because if it did someone would have used it by now against some other law that provides for damages, and someone else would have figured out how to neuter the hack. Which is to say, there's probably an existing law that prevents this hack from working. But you'd need a lawyer to be able to say whether that's true or not.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ChrisSD 8y ago

"Legal hacks" are rarely, if ever, as clever as their proponents think. Scepticism is natural and warranted. Judges aren't complete morons and will take a dim view of "hacks". There could be loopholes somewhere but you'd need a lawyer to spot them.

jordigh 8y ago
One of the most famous "legal hacks", Richard Stallman's copyleft, had to be rewritten by a lawyer. rms wrote GPLv1 by himself and you should never use it. GPLv2 is the version that was actually vetted by a lawyer. A similar thing happened with Perl's Artistic License. Its version 2 is basically also a lawyer-approved rewrite. In other words, hackers, don't try this at home. There are professionals who can do this for you.
- nickpeterson 8y ago
  I find it somewhat sad that law is basically a guild where arcane language is used to gatekeep what should be a much more straightforward exercise.
  - Karrot_Kream 8y ago
    It's not. It's the equivalent of saying "I can do this better" and producing unreliably, buggy code. Sure you can, but a more experienced professional can point out all the corner cases you missed.
    - sbov 8y ago
      Then when it fails, you blame the programming language rather than your experience in programming.
  - heavenlyblue 8y ago
    I mean, if you pay attention to the names of the kernel API functions, you'd probably end up with the same conclusion.
  - jancsika 8y ago
    I find it somewhat sad that programming is basically a guild where arcane language is used to gatekeep what should be a much more straightforward exercise.
    - rhacker 8y ago
      Hahaha, actually at some point in the future, I suspect 25 years or so, our programming guild will likely have taken over and replace the legal guild.
      - majewsky 8y ago
        This would make an interesting entry on http://longbets.org/ http://longbets.org/
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Very relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1494/ https://xkcd.com/1494/.

jordigh 8y ago

Because it is super-risky to consider these things on their own merits if you are not the kind of person who regularly interacts with judges and juries. Laws are something that are applied within a particular kind of, ah, culture. You have to be familiar with the body of work of that culture and how they will likely interpret the law. Trying to interpret laws in ignorance of that culture is likely to lead to interpretations contrary to those with the power to enforce the laws, and land you in a lot of trouble. In other words, laws aren't code or mathematics. They're not pure exercises of abstract thought to be considered in isolation. Trying to treat them that way is going to lead to trouble.

carbocation 8y ago
Does everyone downvote all medical speculation in the numerous health threads on this site? No. It's fine for people to speculate about medical ideas, legal ideas, etc. Especially on a forum like this where there is no pretense that people are offering genuine legal advice.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Or maybe we should express less confidence in our assertions about medicine? After all, most of the time, people are writing about things they don't know all that much about.
  - carbocation 8y ago
    To be honest, one or the other should be the case. Either wild speculation on medicine and law should be fine (this is my position). Or, people should fear medical speculation as much as they do legal speculation (I think this is the more pathetic option).
    - yowlingcat 8y ago
      Maybe neither of the extremes you pulled out of your ass is of any use, and you're being downvoted because you left a low information comment and then doubled down on it. The community here really does not approve of treating this public space like Twitter and Reddit, which I value. More to the point -- that idea of a "legal hack" could fail to hold up in court for a variety of reasons, and really the idea of a legal hack in general is really not how anyone who has any experience with the law would expect it to work, at least in the United States. And in a lot of cases, if you try to outwit it through a loophole when you know the spirit of the law, that's even worse. The more pathetic option is people wildly speculating on things they know nothing about as opposed to educating themselves, or at the very least humbly being aware of their own ignorance. Your position is one that has gotten many like you in trouble they can't get out of. It'll bite you too, if you're ever foolish enough to act on it. To anyone out there with a dim view of professional opinions: get a professional opinion when it comes to things like this. Be an adult. Do not try and DIY it. These are situations where the risk reward calculus contains very little reward on one end for remaining compliant and extreme negative consequences on the other end. Learn how to manage the professional opinion haver. The good ones will save you a world of pain with the ounces of prevention that you'll never regret investing in.

eridius 8y ago

Probably because anyone who isn't a lawyer has no hope of considering this reply "on its merits". My gut feeling is this "legal hack" wouldn't work, because if it did someone would have used it by now against some other law that provides for damages, and someone else would have figured out how to neuter the hack. Which is to say, there's probably an existing law that prevents this hack from working. But you'd need a lawyer to be able to say whether that's true or not.