6 ms·

I just wonder how many unfair (and in this case, quite frankly bullshit) collisions there are codified in law that we rarely encounter. I don't believe the law

I just wonder how many unfair (and in this case, quite frankly bullshit) collisions there are codified in law that we rarely encounter. I don't believe the laws are perfect, or that they even can be perfect (especially since you're often catering to different groups with conflicting interests, and oftentimes more than just two). But as our populations grow, our bureaucracies slow, and more and more problems like this will manifest. I fear it's going to become more like trying to argue your case against Google for why your YouTube video was taken down without explanation - tough shit, good luck. I have an unfounded fear that overpopulation is humanity's greatest threat, and I think we're way past capacity.

pjmorris 7y ago
> I fear it's going to become more like trying to argue your case against Google for why your YouTube video was taken down without explanation I think that's a perfect analogy. EULAs and other corporate policies are likely just as full of loopholes as government regulations and source code (they're all written by people.)
- admax88q 7y ago
  Difference is that EULAs are written by the corporation's they protect, whereas laws are written by the corporation's whom they contain loopholes for.
eru 7y ago
Are you talking about global overpopulation, or overpopulation in particular countries or cities? Globally, we have more than enough to eat. And apart from the US exporting it's legal system everywhere (see https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...), there's not too many spillover effects in terms of laws from one place to another. When looking at different locales, generally denser places are more desirable. Hence their land rents and prices are higher. After taking higher rents into account, it's a mostly a wash and down to personal preferences---but that just tells you that the prices are mostly in line with reality. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration About laws: that's one of the reasons we have human judges. As for perfection: for most purposes laws first and foremost have to be predictable in their effect. (Which this one here apparently was not in practice in this case.) One of the densest countries on earth, Singapore, has one of the most efficient legal systems, especially in that regard.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Maybe he's talking about density in relation to administrative areas? If you have a small administrative area then it's more likely that an individual's complaints will be heard. Eg a problem a person has in Iceland is more likely to be rectified than if the person were from the France.
  - eru 7y ago
    Perhaps? But that has not much to do with overpopulation as commonly understood. I'm all in favour of subsidarity, too. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity)
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      It's usually not considered when talking about overpopulation, but this has basically already happened. The US population has quadrupled in the last 100 years. The populations of most countries have significantly increased, but the size of the administration that actually creates laws and tries to solve problems for the people has not increased much.
      - eru 7y ago
        People mostly solve their own problems. The number of laws and regulations seem to have increased quite a lot. I can dig up some statistics, if necessary. But just remember the reams of pages from the Patriot Act etc. The number of civil servants (and other people employed by the government) seems to have increased a lot, too. (GDP increased a lot, and the size of government increased even faster.) The number of people in your House of Representatives was basically flat. That's true. Though they only vote on the legislation, the actual law writing is outsourced. (Similar to how you still have only one president, but the executive has grown nonetheless.) Not sure about the number of judges. Would be interesting to dig up some statistics about the number of judges per capita over time.
- ethanbond 7y ago
  Perhaps not coincidentally, almost all of the increased land rent that comes with increased density is captured by the Singaporean state, since it is the ultimate landowner ("privately owned" land is actually leased from the state on a 99 year basis). This means that as an area becomes more desirable, more people move there, land rent goes up, and the state earns more and more capital to build/maintain infrastructure and bureaucracy that is proportional to its population. Contrast with the Bay Area (only used as an exemplar of basically all of America/the western world), which is full of extraordinarily wealthy people paying enormous rents to live under a dysfunctional government with a budgetary shortfall of $6.3B. It appears that high Singaporean rents go back into paying for a society worth living in, while high San Franciscan rents go into the pockets of a handful of landlords (who of course contributed nothing to San Francisco's explosion of productivity over the last few decades).
knolax 7y ago
If it makes you feel any better, America is the third largest country yet its governance is undoubtedly one of the more functional ones. The inverse link between the efficiency of bureaucracy and its scale might not be as clear.
BubRoss 7y ago
This has nothing to do with overpopulation, I'm not sure where you are getting that bizarre connection. If you read the article you can see that it is predatory foreclosure and tax policies that give too much room for the county treasurer to do whatever they want.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  It's not about overpopulation as much as high population. The more people to be managed, the higher the abstraction level. And the higher abstraction level, the more against-common-sense things happen that can't be sorted out.
  - nervousvarun 7y ago
    With human judges why do you say these can't be sorted out? It seems this is how the legal system sorta fundamentally works (in America). Laws are challenged in court and struck down all the time no?
    - coding123 7y ago
      Maybe, but it sucks that the guy that lost his home has gone through 3 courts already - and there is no law on his side. Remember too that courts can't strike down laws unless they violate other presumably more powerful laws. Courts would rather say that the fix is with the lawmakers. All that being said, I'm pretty sure if this was 1890 they would have just given back the guys house.
  - eru 7y ago
    Sounds like the proper reaction is to keep responsibility down at the lowest level that can handle it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity) And, if necessary, break up political units (like counties and states, or even countries) into smaller pieces?
    - lazyasciiart 7y ago
calhoun137 7y ago
I dont think the law can be modeled as a logically consistent set of rules, because there are so many laws that its always possible to apply correct deductive arguments to arrive at different "correct" conclusions which contradict each other. A much better model is to view the legal system as a tool used by the rich and powerful to exert their domination over the oppressed classes. This has historically always been what the law was for, going back all the way to ancient Rome. This is also what makes the concept of a "rule of law, not of man" such a revolutionary concept.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  You were right until the second paragraph. Law is a set of easy to apply rules that let us enforce some semblance of our moral/ethical code cheaply and therefore do it at scale. The laws of any given society mostly match its morals. Of course some powerful people and entities get laws that cater to their pet issues but that's the exception, not the norm.
  - calhoun137 7y ago
    I question how "easy to apply" the law is. It's necessary to have a set of facts before deciding "what the law says", however one of the (many) reasons it's so difficult to apply the law in practice is that establishing "the facts" for real world situations is hotly contested by lawyers for each side.
artificialLimbs 7y ago
Population is expected to level off around 9 billion. The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. We are approaching having a birth rate that doesn't necessarily replace the existing population.
- taxidump 7y ago
  >The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. I think this is due to women having to enter the work force and repay student loans vs. educated women choosing to not reproduce because of education.
  - jki275 7y ago
    That doesn’t make much sense. Educated women have choices that women in subsistence farming cultures who need to have ten kids to keep the farm going don’t have.
mr_woozy 7y ago
but it's not overpopulation what you've just describe but over-computation. Too many variables in too many combinations all of which cascade fail hard. We aren't keeping up with the feedback loop well enough of dysfunctional regulation loops.

pjmorris 7y ago

> I fear it's going to become more like trying to argue your case against Google for why your YouTube video was taken down without explanation I think that's a perfect analogy. EULAs and other corporate policies are likely just as full of loopholes as government regulations and source code (they're all written by people.)

admax88q 7y ago
Difference is that EULAs are written by the corporation's they protect, whereas laws are written by the corporation's whom they contain loopholes for.

eru 7y ago

Are you talking about global overpopulation, or overpopulation in particular countries or cities? Globally, we have more than enough to eat. And apart from the US exporting it's legal system everywhere (see https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...), there's not too many spillover effects in terms of laws from one place to another. When looking at different locales, generally denser places are more desirable. Hence their land rents and prices are higher. After taking higher rents into account, it's a mostly a wash and down to personal preferences---but that just tells you that the prices are mostly in line with reality. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration About laws: that's one of the reasons we have human judges. As for perfection: for most purposes laws first and foremost have to be predictable in their effect. (Which this one here apparently was not in practice in this case.) One of the densest countries on earth, Singapore, has one of the most efficient legal systems, especially in that regard.

Mirioron 7y ago
Maybe he's talking about density in relation to administrative areas? If you have a small administrative area then it's more likely that an individual's complaints will be heard. Eg a problem a person has in Iceland is more likely to be rectified than if the person were from the France.
- eru 7y ago
  Perhaps? But that has not much to do with overpopulation as commonly understood. I'm all in favour of subsidarity, too. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity)
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    It's usually not considered when talking about overpopulation, but this has basically already happened. The US population has quadrupled in the last 100 years. The populations of most countries have significantly increased, but the size of the administration that actually creates laws and tries to solve problems for the people has not increased much.
    - eru 7y ago
      People mostly solve their own problems. The number of laws and regulations seem to have increased quite a lot. I can dig up some statistics, if necessary. But just remember the reams of pages from the Patriot Act etc. The number of civil servants (and other people employed by the government) seems to have increased a lot, too. (GDP increased a lot, and the size of government increased even faster.) The number of people in your House of Representatives was basically flat. That's true. Though they only vote on the legislation, the actual law writing is outsourced. (Similar to how you still have only one president, but the executive has grown nonetheless.) Not sure about the number of judges. Would be interesting to dig up some statistics about the number of judges per capita over time.
ethanbond 7y ago
Perhaps not coincidentally, almost all of the increased land rent that comes with increased density is captured by the Singaporean state, since it is the ultimate landowner ("privately owned" land is actually leased from the state on a 99 year basis). This means that as an area becomes more desirable, more people move there, land rent goes up, and the state earns more and more capital to build/maintain infrastructure and bureaucracy that is proportional to its population. Contrast with the Bay Area (only used as an exemplar of basically all of America/the western world), which is full of extraordinarily wealthy people paying enormous rents to live under a dysfunctional government with a budgetary shortfall of $6.3B. It appears that high Singaporean rents go back into paying for a society worth living in, while high San Franciscan rents go into the pockets of a handful of landlords (who of course contributed nothing to San Francisco's explosion of productivity over the last few decades).

knolax 7y ago

If it makes you feel any better, America is the third largest country yet its governance is undoubtedly one of the more functional ones. The inverse link between the efficiency of bureaucracy and its scale might not be as clear.

BubRoss 7y ago

This has nothing to do with overpopulation, I'm not sure where you are getting that bizarre connection. If you read the article you can see that it is predatory foreclosure and tax policies that give too much room for the county treasurer to do whatever they want.

im3w1l 7y ago
It's not about overpopulation as much as high population. The more people to be managed, the higher the abstraction level. And the higher abstraction level, the more against-common-sense things happen that can't be sorted out.
- nervousvarun 7y ago
  With human judges why do you say these can't be sorted out? It seems this is how the legal system sorta fundamentally works (in America). Laws are challenged in court and struck down all the time no?
  - coding123 7y ago
    Maybe, but it sucks that the guy that lost his home has gone through 3 courts already - and there is no law on his side. Remember too that courts can't strike down laws unless they violate other presumably more powerful laws. Courts would rather say that the fix is with the lawmakers. All that being said, I'm pretty sure if this was 1890 they would have just given back the guys house.
- eru 7y ago
  Sounds like the proper reaction is to keep responsibility down at the lowest level that can handle it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity) And, if necessary, break up political units (like counties and states, or even countries) into smaller pieces?
  - lazyasciiart 7y ago

calhoun137 7y ago

I dont think the law can be modeled as a logically consistent set of rules, because there are so many laws that its always possible to apply correct deductive arguments to arrive at different "correct" conclusions which contradict each other. A much better model is to view the legal system as a tool used by the rich and powerful to exert their domination over the oppressed classes. This has historically always been what the law was for, going back all the way to ancient Rome. This is also what makes the concept of a "rule of law, not of man" such a revolutionary concept.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
You were right until the second paragraph. Law is a set of easy to apply rules that let us enforce some semblance of our moral/ethical code cheaply and therefore do it at scale. The laws of any given society mostly match its morals. Of course some powerful people and entities get laws that cater to their pet issues but that's the exception, not the norm.
- calhoun137 7y ago
  I question how "easy to apply" the law is. It's necessary to have a set of facts before deciding "what the law says", however one of the (many) reasons it's so difficult to apply the law in practice is that establishing "the facts" for real world situations is hotly contested by lawyers for each side.

artificialLimbs 7y ago

Population is expected to level off around 9 billion. The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. We are approaching having a birth rate that doesn't necessarily replace the existing population.

taxidump 7y ago
>The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. I think this is due to women having to enter the work force and repay student loans vs. educated women choosing to not reproduce because of education.
- jki275 7y ago
  That doesn’t make much sense. Educated women have choices that women in subsistence farming cultures who need to have ten kids to keep the farm going don’t have.

mr_woozy 7y ago

but it's not overpopulation what you've just describe but over-computation. Too many variables in too many combinations all of which cascade fail hard. We aren't keeping up with the feedback loop well enough of dysfunctional regulation loops.