10 ms·

This is the prototypical "wow the nerd tried to solve law and lawyering". Yes, the constitution can be ammended to be less democratic. It can also be entirely i

by rtpg 6y ago

This is the prototypical "wow the nerd tried to solve law and lawyering". Yes, the constitution can be ammended to be less democratic. It can also be entirely ignored by everyone, and things can also happen in ways that go against its text, with judges looking the other way! People are not magically bound by words on a piece of paper, so if you end up being able to go through the (extremely arduous! Moreso than many countries) ammendment process successfully you probably have enough popular support to do whatever you would want in any universe, even with a stricter requirement. It's embarassing that this anecdote is given almost any weight. It's absolutely the most navel-gazing useless analysis. It does help to serve as an excellent counter-argument to "philosopher kings", though....

admissionsguy 6y ago
> Yes, the constitution can be ammended to be less democratic. It can also be entirely ignored by everyone, and things can also happen in ways that go against its text, with judges looking the other way! Or the words of the constitution can be reinterpreted to mean something entirely different than what they originally meant.
eurasiantiger 6y ago
It’s baffling that some people believe banning something by law prevents it from happening.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Well it doesn't, but there are other people "supposed" to prevent it. But yes, law people sometimes forget that it's all words on paper.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Supposed indeed. But in the US, the top tier of said people is also heavily political and partisan. Anyway, the rule of law quickly becomes irrelevant when something takes over by force. Currently Myanmar is controlled by a military coup, for example, and there was an attempted coup by civilians in the US not too long ago (while the legal and military branches of it stood by and did nothing)
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It mostly does, though. That's the magic of intersubjective beliefs. Laws may be words on paper, but as long as everyone expects that everyone else expects everyone to follow them, they're mostly followed. Same with money - it's just pieces of paper and numbers in some computers, but by virtue of shared belief, it has real power. To the extent making something illegal doesn't prevent it from happening, there are enforcement structures - but those could never actually police everyone. Their job is to catch the occasional person who wasn't convinced by the "words on paper", and by doing so, reinforce people's belief in the "shared delusion" of laws. Because when people stop believing, society disappears.
  - SiempreViernes 6y ago
    Not on its own, but by the work of very many societal systems, and on balance it is really these systems that are responsible for the societal effects, the laws merely being the guidelines. So banning something by law does have an effect, but in the discussion of the dissolution of law it's clearly the courts, the bureaucracy, and the media that carry all the important functions of defence against subversion.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      I believe the way to think about this is leverage. Courts, media, law enforcement, bureaucracy are all strictly necessary for the shared belief in law to hold, but it's the shared belief that does the lion's share of the work of keeping society coordinated. Taken together, the institutions achieve orders of magnitude greater effect than it would seem from the work they put into it. They do that by creating conditions in which a much more potent phenomenon can arise and sustain itself - that of the intersubjective belief in law. (Which is why I consider attacks at public trust as existential threats to society - why I consider many white-collar crimes to be on par with murder, why I think current ad-funded journalism is a huge net social negative, and why I think many of hot SV startups need to be disbanded. They're all trying to erode the conditions that allow the "shared delusion" of civilization to function.) Or, excuse the bad analogy, think of it as shield generators in Star Trek and other sci-fi. A starship will have this critical bit of technobabble that you could break with a wrench, but when activated, it directs energy into a field that can laugh off megaton explosions. It's the field that does the work, the generator only keeps it up.
elihu 6y ago
That the loophole involved the amendment process is just speculation. It may have been something else.
yungmodulus 6y ago
I personally think there's a more interesting point about the United States contained within the Wikipedia article. The concept of various rules, procedures, and laws dependent on celebrity, status, or wealth seems to show up everywhere. At the courthouse, witnesses would normally remain outside of the room during a citizenship examination, but because Einstein, a celebrity, was involved, and because the judge, Phillip Forman, had administered the oath of citizenship to Einstein, all three men were invited in [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole
ccortes 6y ago
> It's embarassing that this anecdote is given almost any weight. It's absolutely the most navel-gazing useless analysis. It does help to serve as an excellent counter-argument to "philosopher kings", though.... Damn dude, it's just a funny anecdote, no one is claiming it's a national security threat or anything like that. There was no analysis involved, Gödel found it while studying for something else. It's a super small wikipedia article for an amusing story, who said anything about solving law? If there is a contradiction on the Constitution I don't know why would it be a wrong thing to, at the very least, address it.
- larrydag 6y ago
  Agreed. I also find it amusing that there were two other brilliant minds who heard the explanation and thought nothing of it. No one seems to mention that very much. Perhaps politics and logic don't really go hand in hand.
  - bobthechef 6y ago
    Of course they do. Logic as in reasoning isn't the same as a formal logical system. Law isn't a formal logical system. That's why computation law has been so difficult. Human beings aren't automatons.
- lultimouomo 6y ago
  Parent comment: > Damn dude, it's just a funny anecdote, no one is claiming it's a national security threat or anything like that. Sibling to parent comment: > Wow, you're seriously underestimating this issue. [followed by long analysis on how other constitutions feel they need to solve this very serious issue]
  - posterboy 6y ago
    Compromise: Funny annecdotes are serious business, the sardonic top comments lack good humor.
andrepd 6y ago
Wow, that's overly agressive. If you read the article, the story goes that upon asking him what government his native Austria had, Gödel commented "It was a republic, but the constitution was such that it finally was changed into a dictatorship." The judge commented that this could not happen in the U.S., and Gödel responded "Oh, yes, I can prove it". I don't see how you jump from this, to saying that Gödel, who was a very smart person, childishly believed that words on paper were universally enforceable to their logical consequences. I'm sure he was aware of the existence of courts...
- smitty1e 6y ago
  The point is that there is a system, with feedback loops. The point is NOT that the system is somehow immaculate and incapable of drifting into instability. Indeed, the concentration of power in the hands of the few we see about us is, arguably, the rejection of representative systems developed in the last several centuries in favor of historical authoritarian approaches. Sweet, sweet panem et circenses => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
  - bobthechef 6y ago
    > in favor of historical authoritarian approaches. I don't think history is a linear progression from authoritarianism to representative government.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      It's more often a progression from authoritarianism to representative government and back to authoritarianism. "Law is what should happen. Politics is what does happen."
      - smitty1e 6y ago
        Law is very often a reaction to what has happened: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law
btilly 6y ago
This anecdote should also be understood in the context of the fact that Gödel struggled with paranoia after his mentor was assassinated in 1936. Eventually dying many years later from starvation after refusing to eat because he thought he was being poisoned.
jonathanstrange 6y ago
Wow, you're seriously underestimating this issue. For instance, the German constitution ("Grundgesetz") has an eternity clause in it that makes it unconstitutional to remove the basic principles in Articles 1 and 20. Many other modern constitutions have such clauses.[1] By the way, Article 4, paragraph 4 in the German constitution states: " All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available." If constitutional assemblies worry about things like that, it's not as silly as you put it for Gödel to have wondered about not having such features in the US constitution at a time just after WW2. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause Edit: Not a minor nitpick. Article 1 AND 20. Fixed!
- warpspin 6y ago
  Just a minor nitpick. It is article 1 AND 20, not articles 1 to 20.
- msravi 6y ago
  OP's point is that you can write anything in the constitution - that it can never be changed, or whatever - but that's of no value whatsoever, if a large majority of people agree and decide that it's an invalid document.
  - jonathanstrange 6y ago
    That's not how constitutional law works, though. Even if someone seizes power by force, the apparent constitutionality of their reign or lack thereof has many implications in international law and for the recognition of the new government, as well as for retrospective assessments, including the validity of the laws enacted by the regime. Dictators put great efforts in making their reign at least look constitutional.
    - taurath 6y ago
      And fundamentally that is to preserve existing institutions of legalities, so that the dictator can wield the power of the state and not have the state itself dissolve.
airhead969 6y ago
Agreements are only as good as the intentions of people carrying them out. And laws are "Cider House rules" without consistent and ethical interpretation and enforcement. All it takes to bring it all crashing down is the excessive complacency or moral turpitude of one generation of officials. (It's probably a joke technicality that would never be allowed in the real world.)
stared 6y ago
I live in Poland, which (among a few other countries, especially Hungary) made a solid turn from liberal democracy to a less liberal one (Hungary proudly says it is "illiberal democracy"). Laws (including constitution and international agreements) are frequently ignored, applied selectively, or amended illegally. Governments are not magically bound by law. The cost of breaking or ignoring the law depends on the public reaction (i.e. changes in their approval rate, protests on the streets that can be managed with police and military).
bobthechef 6y ago
> It does help to serve as an excellent counter-argument to "philosopher kings", though.... What do you mean here? I don't see an opportunity for relevance.
- lupire 6y ago
  Ivory tower theorists misunderstand how abstract mathematical theory relates to the real social world.

by rtpg 6y ago

admissionsguy 6y ago

> Yes, the constitution can be ammended to be less democratic. It can also be entirely ignored by everyone, and things can also happen in ways that go against its text, with judges looking the other way! Or the words of the constitution can be reinterpreted to mean something entirely different than what they originally meant.

eurasiantiger 6y ago

It’s baffling that some people believe banning something by law prevents it from happening.

raverbashing 6y ago
Well it doesn't, but there are other people "supposed" to prevent it. But yes, law people sometimes forget that it's all words on paper.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Supposed indeed. But in the US, the top tier of said people is also heavily political and partisan. Anyway, the rule of law quickly becomes irrelevant when something takes over by force. Currently Myanmar is controlled by a military coup, for example, and there was an attempted coup by civilians in the US not too long ago (while the legal and military branches of it stood by and did nothing)
TeMPOraL 6y ago
It mostly does, though. That's the magic of intersubjective beliefs. Laws may be words on paper, but as long as everyone expects that everyone else expects everyone to follow them, they're mostly followed. Same with money - it's just pieces of paper and numbers in some computers, but by virtue of shared belief, it has real power. To the extent making something illegal doesn't prevent it from happening, there are enforcement structures - but those could never actually police everyone. Their job is to catch the occasional person who wasn't convinced by the "words on paper", and by doing so, reinforce people's belief in the "shared delusion" of laws. Because when people stop believing, society disappears.
- SiempreViernes 6y ago
  Not on its own, but by the work of very many societal systems, and on balance it is really these systems that are responsible for the societal effects, the laws merely being the guidelines. So banning something by law does have an effect, but in the discussion of the dissolution of law it's clearly the courts, the bureaucracy, and the media that carry all the important functions of defence against subversion.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I believe the way to think about this is leverage. Courts, media, law enforcement, bureaucracy are all strictly necessary for the shared belief in law to hold, but it's the shared belief that does the lion's share of the work of keeping society coordinated. Taken together, the institutions achieve orders of magnitude greater effect than it would seem from the work they put into it. They do that by creating conditions in which a much more potent phenomenon can arise and sustain itself - that of the intersubjective belief in law. (Which is why I consider attacks at public trust as existential threats to society - why I consider many white-collar crimes to be on par with murder, why I think current ad-funded journalism is a huge net social negative, and why I think many of hot SV startups need to be disbanded. They're all trying to erode the conditions that allow the "shared delusion" of civilization to function.) Or, excuse the bad analogy, think of it as shield generators in Star Trek and other sci-fi. A starship will have this critical bit of technobabble that you could break with a wrench, but when activated, it directs energy into a field that can laugh off megaton explosions. It's the field that does the work, the generator only keeps it up.

elihu 6y ago

That the loophole involved the amendment process is just speculation. It may have been something else.

yungmodulus 6y ago

I personally think there's a more interesting point about the United States contained within the Wikipedia article. The concept of various rules, procedures, and laws dependent on celebrity, status, or wealth seems to show up everywhere. At the courthouse, witnesses would normally remain outside of the room during a citizenship examination, but because Einstein, a celebrity, was involved, and because the judge, Phillip Forman, had administered the oath of citizenship to Einstein, all three men were invited in [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole

ccortes 6y ago

> It's embarassing that this anecdote is given almost any weight. It's absolutely the most navel-gazing useless analysis. It does help to serve as an excellent counter-argument to "philosopher kings", though.... Damn dude, it's just a funny anecdote, no one is claiming it's a national security threat or anything like that. There was no analysis involved, Gödel found it while studying for something else. It's a super small wikipedia article for an amusing story, who said anything about solving law? If there is a contradiction on the Constitution I don't know why would it be a wrong thing to, at the very least, address it.

larrydag 6y ago
Agreed. I also find it amusing that there were two other brilliant minds who heard the explanation and thought nothing of it. No one seems to mention that very much. Perhaps politics and logic don't really go hand in hand.
- bobthechef 6y ago
  Of course they do. Logic as in reasoning isn't the same as a formal logical system. Law isn't a formal logical system. That's why computation law has been so difficult. Human beings aren't automatons.
lultimouomo 6y ago
Parent comment: > Damn dude, it's just a funny anecdote, no one is claiming it's a national security threat or anything like that. Sibling to parent comment: > Wow, you're seriously underestimating this issue. [followed by long analysis on how other constitutions feel they need to solve this very serious issue]
- posterboy 6y ago
  Compromise: Funny annecdotes are serious business, the sardonic top comments lack good humor.

andrepd 6y ago

Wow, that's overly agressive. If you read the article, the story goes that upon asking him what government his native Austria had, Gödel commented "It was a republic, but the constitution was such that it finally was changed into a dictatorship." The judge commented that this could not happen in the U.S., and Gödel responded "Oh, yes, I can prove it". I don't see how you jump from this, to saying that Gödel, who was a very smart person, childishly believed that words on paper were universally enforceable to their logical consequences. I'm sure he was aware of the existence of courts...

smitty1e 6y ago
The point is that there is a system, with feedback loops. The point is NOT that the system is somehow immaculate and incapable of drifting into instability. Indeed, the concentration of power in the hands of the few we see about us is, arguably, the rejection of representative systems developed in the last several centuries in favor of historical authoritarian approaches. Sweet, sweet panem et circenses => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
- bobthechef 6y ago
  > in favor of historical authoritarian approaches. I don't think history is a linear progression from authoritarianism to representative government.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    It's more often a progression from authoritarianism to representative government and back to authoritarianism. "Law is what should happen. Politics is what does happen."
    - smitty1e 6y ago
      Law is very often a reaction to what has happened: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law

btilly 6y ago

This anecdote should also be understood in the context of the fact that Gödel struggled with paranoia after his mentor was assassinated in 1936. Eventually dying many years later from starvation after refusing to eat because he thought he was being poisoned.

jonathanstrange 6y ago

Wow, you're seriously underestimating this issue. For instance, the German constitution ("Grundgesetz") has an eternity clause in it that makes it unconstitutional to remove the basic principles in Articles 1 and 20. Many other modern constitutions have such clauses.[1] By the way, Article 4, paragraph 4 in the German constitution states: " All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available." If constitutional assemblies worry about things like that, it's not as silly as you put it for Gödel to have wondered about not having such features in the US constitution at a time just after WW2. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause Edit: Not a minor nitpick. Article 1 AND 20. Fixed!

warpspin 6y ago
Just a minor nitpick. It is article 1 AND 20, not articles 1 to 20.
msravi 6y ago
OP's point is that you can write anything in the constitution - that it can never be changed, or whatever - but that's of no value whatsoever, if a large majority of people agree and decide that it's an invalid document.
- jonathanstrange 6y ago
  That's not how constitutional law works, though. Even if someone seizes power by force, the apparent constitutionality of their reign or lack thereof has many implications in international law and for the recognition of the new government, as well as for retrospective assessments, including the validity of the laws enacted by the regime. Dictators put great efforts in making their reign at least look constitutional.
  - taurath 6y ago
    And fundamentally that is to preserve existing institutions of legalities, so that the dictator can wield the power of the state and not have the state itself dissolve.

airhead969 6y ago

Agreements are only as good as the intentions of people carrying them out. And laws are "Cider House rules" without consistent and ethical interpretation and enforcement. All it takes to bring it all crashing down is the excessive complacency or moral turpitude of one generation of officials. (It's probably a joke technicality that would never be allowed in the real world.)

stared 6y ago

I live in Poland, which (among a few other countries, especially Hungary) made a solid turn from liberal democracy to a less liberal one (Hungary proudly says it is "illiberal democracy"). Laws (including constitution and international agreements) are frequently ignored, applied selectively, or amended illegally. Governments are not magically bound by law. The cost of breaking or ignoring the law depends on the public reaction (i.e. changes in their approval rate, protests on the streets that can be managed with police and military).

bobthechef 6y ago

> It does help to serve as an excellent counter-argument to "philosopher kings", though.... What do you mean here? I don't see an opportunity for relevance.

lupire 6y ago
Ivory tower theorists misunderstand how abstract mathematical theory relates to the real social world.