5 ms·

If anybody is planning anything that combines laws, versioning/revision control and public access to legal resources, please get in touch with me. I have quite

by gioele 7y ago

If anybody is planning anything that combines laws, versioning/revision control and public access to legal resources, please get in touch with me. I have quite a bit of experience in that field that I'll be happy to share thoughts and talk shop.

ibeckermayer 7y ago
Can you send me an email at my user name at gmail dot com?
bytematic 7y ago
I have been dreaming about a government system of laws that uses open source version control with a github-like ui, maybe even a constitution. If I had my own country, that's how I would do it.
- dymk 7y ago
  I think as long as we base the kernel of the Government on Rust (for a fearlessly concurrent Government), we'll be in the clear. Also protects against terrorist memory tampering. Congress could submit new laws to Blockchain to combat tampering and ensure proof-of-work. My startup is working on Artificial Intelligence to predict laws that model cities like San Francisco or New York would want to implement in the face of acute social woes, so if Government 2.0 could provide a RESTful Lobbying API, that'd let the People move fast.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Bit of an old joke, no? I think the "descent to the absurd" style here doesn't make sense because there is a concrete reason for what he's saying: lowering the barrier to suggesting changes in laws in a more structured form. You could point to the diff and talk about it. Worthwhile, I think.
    - dymk 7y ago
      Absurd? I'm just as serious about what I'm proposing, as I am about a "Github-like UI" for the foundations of our country.
      - scarejunba 7y ago
        You're just being silly now. No one's saying "merge the PR to change abortion laws". They're talking about tooling to look at proposed differences clearly. It doesn't seem absurd to me to have a diff, watch that evolve as new versions are proposed by people, and then finally watch what goes in. Obviously ground truth is still in the books, with laws debated in parliament or congress or whatever, but this acts as a shadow tracking that movement. Even if the act of passing were to end with a merge in of whatever law is debated, that's still hardly troublesome. It only increases transparency and doesn't remove any checks or balances. Bit hysterical of a reaction for a rather minor request, in my opinion.
        dymk 7y ago
        You were able to discern a lot more detail from "Github-like UI" than I was, so kudos to you! I guess I'm just bad at reading into really presumptuous details like that when they're not there. Interesting that you're calling me silly or hysterical for simply proposing a fearlessly concurrent Government built on Blockchain technology. After all, we're going for Woke Government 2.technotopia, not Broke Government 1.capitolhill.
- Hoeraun 7y ago
  Washington DC actually does use Github as the source for the city's legal code (and not just as a copy). I remember seeing this article on HN a while back: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...
- jon-wood 7y ago
  I have hunch that with the right NLP you could probably do this, at least in the UK. Every now and then I've looked at proposed alterations to acts of parliament and they've mostly been in a format like "In section 3a, paragaph 4, replace 'carrying a maximum sentence of 3 years' with 'carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years, and a sign in the town square telling everyone you're a bad person'".
neom 7y ago
Please feel free to reach out! john@stae.co - We build a apigee/mulesoft/domo kinda data management utility for cities, a lot of our recent research has been on api driven compliance as a service.
breck 7y ago
I have tinkered with a human readable, mathematically minimal, strongly typed language for writing laws/governments/constitutions. I am highly confident it will work--the code and tech are there I'm just waiting for a strong project leader with good domain knowledge to lead it. Shoot me an email if interested.
- edmundhuber 7y ago
  I'd love to know more.
  - breck 7y ago
    Okay I just posted some code: https://github.com/breck7/jefferson https://github.com/breck7/jefferson I have a toddler in my arms and have to head to work soon but will answer questions/emails as they come.
- _1tan 7y ago
  I have none of the above and would be interested nevertheless!
- nosuchuser2 7y ago
  How do you handle the fact that much law is intentionally ambiguous?
  - breck 7y ago
    You want to reduce ambiguity as much as possible, but not eliminate it entirely. Still want judges!
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      This is the typical programmer misunderstanding of law. In countries whose legal system is based on that of England (including most of the US), ambiguity is a design goal of statutes, not something meant to be eliminated. Statutes are supposed to be specified in broad strokes and then have the details hashed out by intelligent judges to work in particular circumstances that the legislators didn't envision. And "the law" is not just statutes. Statutes are one small part of the law. Most of the law is the tradition of judicial interpretation of those statutes.
jlelonm 7y ago
You should write a blog post / do a podcast / similar! I'm very interested, but I'm betting that lots of people are as well.
sillypuddy 7y ago
Constitutional Amendment by PR? :)
nsriv 7y ago
During my work as a legislative aide, I often thought about the benefit of using an almost Github-like system for editing, and making that revision history public when a bill went up for a vote. The requested edits would be issues, when incorporated they would be commits, forks and branches for and merges for committee deliberations etc. I talked to a few people in NY State about it and it went over like a lead balloon, so I'm rest curious about your experience!

by gioele 7y ago

ibeckermayer 7y ago

Can you send me an email at my user name at gmail dot com?

bytematic 7y ago

I have been dreaming about a government system of laws that uses open source version control with a github-like ui, maybe even a constitution. If I had my own country, that's how I would do it.

dymk 7y ago
I think as long as we base the kernel of the Government on Rust (for a fearlessly concurrent Government), we'll be in the clear. Also protects against terrorist memory tampering. Congress could submit new laws to Blockchain to combat tampering and ensure proof-of-work. My startup is working on Artificial Intelligence to predict laws that model cities like San Francisco or New York would want to implement in the face of acute social woes, so if Government 2.0 could provide a RESTful Lobbying API, that'd let the People move fast.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Bit of an old joke, no? I think the "descent to the absurd" style here doesn't make sense because there is a concrete reason for what he's saying: lowering the barrier to suggesting changes in laws in a more structured form. You could point to the diff and talk about it. Worthwhile, I think.
  - dymk 7y ago
    Absurd? I'm just as serious about what I'm proposing, as I am about a "Github-like UI" for the foundations of our country.
    - scarejunba 7y ago
      You're just being silly now. No one's saying "merge the PR to change abortion laws". They're talking about tooling to look at proposed differences clearly. It doesn't seem absurd to me to have a diff, watch that evolve as new versions are proposed by people, and then finally watch what goes in. Obviously ground truth is still in the books, with laws debated in parliament or congress or whatever, but this acts as a shadow tracking that movement. Even if the act of passing were to end with a merge in of whatever law is debated, that's still hardly troublesome. It only increases transparency and doesn't remove any checks or balances. Bit hysterical of a reaction for a rather minor request, in my opinion.
      - dymk 7y ago
        You were able to discern a lot more detail from "Github-like UI" than I was, so kudos to you! I guess I'm just bad at reading into really presumptuous details like that when they're not there. Interesting that you're calling me silly or hysterical for simply proposing a fearlessly concurrent Government built on Blockchain technology. After all, we're going for Woke Government 2.technotopia, not Broke Government 1.capitolhill.
Hoeraun 7y ago
Washington DC actually does use Github as the source for the city's legal code (and not just as a copy). I remember seeing this article on HN a while back: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-the-law-with-a-github-pull-request/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/how-i-changed-th...
jon-wood 7y ago
I have hunch that with the right NLP you could probably do this, at least in the UK. Every now and then I've looked at proposed alterations to acts of parliament and they've mostly been in a format like "In section 3a, paragaph 4, replace 'carrying a maximum sentence of 3 years' with 'carrying a maximum sentence of 5 years, and a sign in the town square telling everyone you're a bad person'".

neom 7y ago

Please feel free to reach out! john@stae.co - We build a apigee/mulesoft/domo kinda data management utility for cities, a lot of our recent research has been on api driven compliance as a service.

breck 7y ago

I have tinkered with a human readable, mathematically minimal, strongly typed language for writing laws/governments/constitutions. I am highly confident it will work--the code and tech are there I'm just waiting for a strong project leader with good domain knowledge to lead it. Shoot me an email if interested.

edmundhuber 7y ago
I'd love to know more.
- breck 7y ago
  Okay I just posted some code: https://github.com/breck7/jefferson https://github.com/breck7/jefferson I have a toddler in my arms and have to head to work soon but will answer questions/emails as they come.
_1tan 7y ago
I have none of the above and would be interested nevertheless!
nosuchuser2 7y ago
How do you handle the fact that much law is intentionally ambiguous?
- breck 7y ago
  You want to reduce ambiguity as much as possible, but not eliminate it entirely. Still want judges!
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    This is the typical programmer misunderstanding of law. In countries whose legal system is based on that of England (including most of the US), ambiguity is a design goal of statutes, not something meant to be eliminated. Statutes are supposed to be specified in broad strokes and then have the details hashed out by intelligent judges to work in particular circumstances that the legislators didn't envision. And "the law" is not just statutes. Statutes are one small part of the law. Most of the law is the tradition of judicial interpretation of those statutes.

jlelonm 7y ago

You should write a blog post / do a podcast / similar! I'm very interested, but I'm betting that lots of people are as well.

sillypuddy 7y ago

Constitutional Amendment by PR? :)

nsriv 7y ago

During my work as a legislative aide, I often thought about the benefit of using an almost Github-like system for editing, and making that revision history public when a bill went up for a vote. The requested edits would be issues, when incorporated they would be commits, forks and branches for and merges for committee deliberations etc. I talked to a few people in NY State about it and it went over like a lead balloon, so I'm rest curious about your experience!