4 ms·

This is one of those concepts that seems to come out of thinking of the law as similar to software. It's not, because software is run by computers while law is

This is one of those concepts that seems to come out of thinking of the law as similar to software. It's not, because software is run by computers while law is run by humans. If you find a straightforward loophole in software, the computer running it will e.g. happily hand you information you're not supposed to have[1]. If you find that kind of loophole in the law, then the humans running it will usually just tell you to go home. They know that you know what they meant. Laws can still have loopholes, but they are generally more subtle and complicated. Fixing them often has obvious unintended consequences. They're more like speculative execution bugs[2] than buffer overruns. [1]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed [2]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerabilit...

jacquesm 7y ago
The bigger mistake is that paper and being clever will trump the power of guns.
fouronnes3 7y ago
You know you're on HN when the law is explained with an analogy to computer code and not the other way around ;)
rwmj 7y ago
Getting way off-topic but Stanford Law School had a project trying to encode law as code: https://law.stanford.edu/codex-the-stanford-center-for-legal-informatics/ https://law.stanford.edu/codex-the-stanford-center-for-legal...
buboard 7y ago
You believe that the existence of government-free land is a "loophole in the law" ?
- M2Ys4U 7y ago
  There is always a government. It might be two guys with guns, or it might be a huge bureaucracy that runs on the rule of law or anywhere in between. But it's always there.
  - buboard 7y ago
    That's just false.
    - billiam 7y ago
      Honest question: who are you people that never took civics class or never listened? I don’t want to believe this is just more trolling.
      - buboard 7y ago
        This is not a honest question, and i m not going to have a political discussion, especially not on HN. I ll just point out it is a subject with a very long history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
    - lostphilosopher 7y ago
      Disagree. As soon as one person's actions can affect another person a system arises for resolving their inevitable conflicts and facilitating cooperation if required. What do you call that system? Many would call that "government." That does seem appropriate if the definition of government is: > the political system by which a country or a community is administered and regulated. Of course, "government" as manifested in multi-million person nations is significantly evolved from it's abstract underpinnings both etymologically and philosophically. Same is true of the notions of political, community, administered, and regulated. But all that evolution (both its pros and cons) falls out logically from the foundational relationship of two beings with agency trying to figure out how and if to restrain that agency when it conflicts with the other's. EDIT: I see from a sibling you're referring to "Anarchism." That doesn't free anyone for the reality of government it just changes where the restraining lines get drawn. In practice, the lines predictably get drawn in favor of the powerful just as they do in more mainstream systems of government.
- amalcon 7y ago
  Well, yes. Maritime treaties exist to facilitate trade, so that you aren't subject to some absurd law just because that country decided your boat was in that jurisdiction. They obviously don't exist to give folks a place to commit murder without consequences. Likewise, while starting a country is plausibly a moral good, enabling that is not the purpose of maritime treaties. Countries refuse to recognize other terrestrial countries all the time, even if they have clear borders and obviously-powerful governments internally (e.g. PRC and ROC each refusing to recognize the other, most of the middle east not recognizing Israel). Putting your country on a boat doesn't somehow increase your legitimacy before the international community.
  - buboard 7y ago
    > enabling that is not the purpose of maritime treaties. Neither is preventing it. So why is it a 'loophole'. (leaving aside the issue that it would be very hard to justify the legitimacy of such a law)
    - amalcon 7y ago
      It doesn't prevent it, but it also doesn't prevent any nearby country from folding you up if they feel like it. The premise of seasteading seems to be that they are somehow prevented from doing this by maritime treaties.
      - buboard 7y ago
        No, i think the premise is that, since governemnets have claimed sovereignity over any terrain on earth, including the moon and planets, the only places where it's possible to set up ship for a new country nonviolently is the middle of the oceans. Seasteaders understand that they'd have to build their own defenses, and don't rely on nearby countries for protection.
        amalcon 7y ago
        Right, this is exactly the misapprehension. The agreement that nobody claims the middle of the ocean does not exist for the purpose of letting folks create their own countries, it exists for the purposes of allowing everyone's ships to pass through. Starting a country is unlikely to go better in the middle of the ocean than in e.g. the middle of the Mojave.
encypruon 7y ago
Wasn't one of the largest tax fraud scandals[1] just that? > An international group of bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers - reportedly with links to the City of London - appears to have fiddled the tax system, employing practices which were at best unethical, at worst illegal. > With a bit of imaginative paperwork, and by exploiting a procedure which allows more than one person or institution to simultaneously own a share, they were able to claim numerous tax refunds. The practice was outlawed in 2012. In my (incomplete) understanding this was a vulnerability in the law that has not been patched until 2012 when it had already been exploited for a while. It wasn't just tax avoidance but extracting money from treasuries, so it should be blatantly obvious that this was not the intent of the lawmaker. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40199259 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40199259
- amalcon 7y ago
  From the article: > In the first type, German banks and stockbrokers bought and sold shares for foreign investors in a way which allowed them to claim a tax refund for which they were not eligible. Many question the legality of the practice. This is more "nobody noticed they were doing it" than "it was obviously happening, and the government shrugged its shoulders." Obviously, unlike a computer, it is quite possible for humans to just not notice that you're doing an illegal thing. > In the second (a more complicated variation), investors and banks bought and sold shares just before and just after dividends were paid. With a bit of imaginative paperwork, and by exploiting a procedure which allows more than one person or institution to simultaneously own a share, they were able to claim numerous tax refunds. The practice was outlawed in 2012. This is a subtle loophole, which probably did not admit an easy patch without serious unintended consequences (the category for which I used Spectre as an example).
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    > This is more "nobody noticed they were doing it" than "it was obviously happening, and the government shrugged its shoulders." Obviously, unlike a computer, it is quite possible for humans to just not notice that you're doing an illegal thing. That sounds exactly like a zero-day bug of the sort that caused e.g. Heartbleed and Shellshock.

jacquesm 7y ago

The bigger mistake is that paper and being clever will trump the power of guns.

fouronnes3 7y ago

You know you're on HN when the law is explained with an analogy to computer code and not the other way around ;)

rwmj 7y ago

Getting way off-topic but Stanford Law School had a project trying to encode law as code: https://law.stanford.edu/codex-the-stanford-center-for-legal-informatics/ https://law.stanford.edu/codex-the-stanford-center-for-legal...

buboard 7y ago

You believe that the existence of government-free land is a "loophole in the law" ?

M2Ys4U 7y ago
There is always a government. It might be two guys with guns, or it might be a huge bureaucracy that runs on the rule of law or anywhere in between. But it's always there.
- buboard 7y ago
  That's just false.
  - billiam 7y ago
    Honest question: who are you people that never took civics class or never listened? I don’t want to believe this is just more trolling.
    - buboard 7y ago
      This is not a honest question, and i m not going to have a political discussion, especially not on HN. I ll just point out it is a subject with a very long history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
  - lostphilosopher 7y ago
    Disagree. As soon as one person's actions can affect another person a system arises for resolving their inevitable conflicts and facilitating cooperation if required. What do you call that system? Many would call that "government." That does seem appropriate if the definition of government is: > the political system by which a country or a community is administered and regulated. Of course, "government" as manifested in multi-million person nations is significantly evolved from it's abstract underpinnings both etymologically and philosophically. Same is true of the notions of political, community, administered, and regulated. But all that evolution (both its pros and cons) falls out logically from the foundational relationship of two beings with agency trying to figure out how and if to restrain that agency when it conflicts with the other's. EDIT: I see from a sibling you're referring to "Anarchism." That doesn't free anyone for the reality of government it just changes where the restraining lines get drawn. In practice, the lines predictably get drawn in favor of the powerful just as they do in more mainstream systems of government.
amalcon 7y ago
Well, yes. Maritime treaties exist to facilitate trade, so that you aren't subject to some absurd law just because that country decided your boat was in that jurisdiction. They obviously don't exist to give folks a place to commit murder without consequences. Likewise, while starting a country is plausibly a moral good, enabling that is not the purpose of maritime treaties. Countries refuse to recognize other terrestrial countries all the time, even if they have clear borders and obviously-powerful governments internally (e.g. PRC and ROC each refusing to recognize the other, most of the middle east not recognizing Israel). Putting your country on a boat doesn't somehow increase your legitimacy before the international community.
- buboard 7y ago
  > enabling that is not the purpose of maritime treaties. Neither is preventing it. So why is it a 'loophole'. (leaving aside the issue that it would be very hard to justify the legitimacy of such a law)
  - amalcon 7y ago
    It doesn't prevent it, but it also doesn't prevent any nearby country from folding you up if they feel like it. The premise of seasteading seems to be that they are somehow prevented from doing this by maritime treaties.
    - buboard 7y ago
      No, i think the premise is that, since governemnets have claimed sovereignity over any terrain on earth, including the moon and planets, the only places where it's possible to set up ship for a new country nonviolently is the middle of the oceans. Seasteaders understand that they'd have to build their own defenses, and don't rely on nearby countries for protection.
      - amalcon 7y ago
        Right, this is exactly the misapprehension. The agreement that nobody claims the middle of the ocean does not exist for the purpose of letting folks create their own countries, it exists for the purposes of allowing everyone's ships to pass through. Starting a country is unlikely to go better in the middle of the ocean than in e.g. the middle of the Mojave.

encypruon 7y ago

Wasn't one of the largest tax fraud scandals[1] just that? > An international group of bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers - reportedly with links to the City of London - appears to have fiddled the tax system, employing practices which were at best unethical, at worst illegal. > With a bit of imaginative paperwork, and by exploiting a procedure which allows more than one person or institution to simultaneously own a share, they were able to claim numerous tax refunds. The practice was outlawed in 2012. In my (incomplete) understanding this was a vulnerability in the law that has not been patched until 2012 when it had already been exploited for a while. It wasn't just tax avoidance but extracting money from treasuries, so it should be blatantly obvious that this was not the intent of the lawmaker. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40199259 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40199259

amalcon 7y ago
From the article: > In the first type, German banks and stockbrokers bought and sold shares for foreign investors in a way which allowed them to claim a tax refund for which they were not eligible. Many question the legality of the practice. This is more "nobody noticed they were doing it" than "it was obviously happening, and the government shrugged its shoulders." Obviously, unlike a computer, it is quite possible for humans to just not notice that you're doing an illegal thing. > In the second (a more complicated variation), investors and banks bought and sold shares just before and just after dividends were paid. With a bit of imaginative paperwork, and by exploiting a procedure which allows more than one person or institution to simultaneously own a share, they were able to claim numerous tax refunds. The practice was outlawed in 2012. This is a subtle loophole, which probably did not admit an easy patch without serious unintended consequences (the category for which I used Spectre as an example).
- yellowapple 7y ago
  > This is more "nobody noticed they were doing it" than "it was obviously happening, and the government shrugged its shoulders." Obviously, unlike a computer, it is quite possible for humans to just not notice that you're doing an illegal thing. That sounds exactly like a zero-day bug of the sort that caused e.g. Heartbleed and Shellshock.