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I have tinkered with a human readable, mathematically minimal, strongly typed language for writing laws/governments/constitutions. I am highly confident it wil
by 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 agoI'd love to know more.
- breck 7y agoOkay 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 agoI have none of the above and would be interested nevertheless!
- nosuchuser2 7y agoHow do you handle the fact that much law is intentionally ambiguous?
- breck 7y agoYou want to reduce ambiguity as much as possible, but not eliminate it entirely. Still want judges!
- umanwizard 7y agoThis 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.
- breck 7y ago> not something meant to be eliminated I said exactly the opposite: "not eliminate it" > Most of the law is the tradition of judicial interpretation of those statutes. This is a very good point. You could simply have judges write decisions in a decision language as well, which is defined just as the law language is defined.
- umanwizard 7y agoOkay fine, let me rephrase. It is not something meant to be reduced.
- breck 7y agoThanks for the rephrasing. I should rephrase as well. The language I am proposing offers much stronger control over ambiguity. Take the 8th amendment: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." What is an "excessive fine" mean? In the language I am proposing it could be defined as is, or in something like: ... cellType dollarAmount number cellType fine dollarAmount cellType adjustedGrossIncome dollarAmount cellType universalExcessiveFineThreshold description As a percentage of adjustedGrossIncome constant .1 nodeType isExcessiveFine cells adjustedGrossIncome fine trueIf fine / adjustedGrossIncome > universalExcessiveFineThreshold ... So you have more control over ambiguity.
- umanwizard 7y agoBut that’s not ambiguity at all — “giving judges leeway according to parameters defined in advance by legislators” is not the same thing as “statutes being ambiguous”.
- umanwizard 7y ago> You could simply have judges write decisions in a decision language as well, which is defined just as the law language is defined. But how could you write the laws in the first place? You can't write them in a language designed to be unambiguous, because they are meant to be imprecise.