3 ms·

I think it's a perfectly apposite quote. No, the proliferation of laws is not there as the result of an evil conspiracy to make everyone guilty of something.

by Eliezer 15y ago

I think it's a perfectly apposite quote. No, the proliferation of laws is not there as the result of an evil conspiracy to make everyone guilty of something. But sometimes you can clearly illustrate harmful side effects in fiction by postulating evil conspiracies that do things for the sake of the harmful side effects. Nobody knows the law anymore. Everyone is guilty of something. If the police want to arrest you, they can find some charge or another. Who has power in a world like that? Why, the person who decides whether or not to prosecute you for a law that thousands or millions of other people are breaking.

pushingbits 15y ago
>>But sometimes you can clearly illustrate harmful side effects in fiction by postulating evil conspiracies that do things for the sake of the harmful side effects. I'd say that by postulating an evil conspiracy that does things for the sake of harmful side effects, you are obscuring the mechanism that produces the harmful side effects in the real world. People have a tendency anyway to see agents that execute plans instead of faceless systems that happen to produce certain effects. Of course, evil conspiracies might still make for good fiction, but stories like that usually don't do as well at offering insights as they could, because a large portion of readers will be misled into thinking there really is a conspiracy.
coolgeek 15y ago
Nobody knows the law anymore. Everyone is guilty of something. This argument is reductio ad absurdum. The corpus of law bearing significant consequences for violators [1][2] is sufficiently small as to be almost intuitively understood by any reasonably educated person. As a general rule, you're not going to be confronted by the full weight and force of the state for violating the jaywalking statute. Were you to be targeted for arrest for such a minor violation, it would be transparent to knowledgeable observers that you were specifically targeted and surveilled until a reason was found to arrest you. [1] By significant, I mean incarceration and/or crippling financial penalties. And note that the cost of defending oneself is categorically not a penalty. [2] This, of course, only applies to societies ruled by law, as opposed to those ruled by individual persons or groups
- SageRaven 15y ago
  I'm too tired to find the reference, but some woman recently got sentenced to serve 90 days (thereabouts) incarceration for planting a garden in her front lawn in contradiction to local ordinances. Of course this is a prime example of civil disobedience, as she intentionally flaunted this absurd law, challenged it as best she could in court, then paid the price of losing. The point is, you can be tossed into the clink for just about anything if you are brazen enough to openly challenge the law and don't prevail. Judges don't care much for the proles challenging the state.
  - joegester 15y ago
    She wasn't sentenced. The charges were dropped either because the city didn't want the negative publicity or because the case would not have held up. http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/15/charges-dropped-against-woman-for-front-yard-vegetable-garden/ http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/15/charges-dropped-against...

by Eliezer 15y ago

pushingbits 15y ago

>>But sometimes you can clearly illustrate harmful side effects in fiction by postulating evil conspiracies that do things for the sake of the harmful side effects. I'd say that by postulating an evil conspiracy that does things for the sake of harmful side effects, you are obscuring the mechanism that produces the harmful side effects in the real world. People have a tendency anyway to see agents that execute plans instead of faceless systems that happen to produce certain effects. Of course, evil conspiracies might still make for good fiction, but stories like that usually don't do as well at offering insights as they could, because a large portion of readers will be misled into thinking there really is a conspiracy.

coolgeek 15y ago

Nobody knows the law anymore. Everyone is guilty of something. This argument is reductio ad absurdum. The corpus of law bearing significant consequences for violators [1][2] is sufficiently small as to be almost intuitively understood by any reasonably educated person. As a general rule, you're not going to be confronted by the full weight and force of the state for violating the jaywalking statute. Were you to be targeted for arrest for such a minor violation, it would be transparent to knowledgeable observers that you were specifically targeted and surveilled until a reason was found to arrest you. [1] By significant, I mean incarceration and/or crippling financial penalties. And note that the cost of defending oneself is categorically not a penalty. [2] This, of course, only applies to societies ruled by law, as opposed to those ruled by individual persons or groups

SageRaven 15y ago
I'm too tired to find the reference, but some woman recently got sentenced to serve 90 days (thereabouts) incarceration for planting a garden in her front lawn in contradiction to local ordinances. Of course this is a prime example of civil disobedience, as she intentionally flaunted this absurd law, challenged it as best she could in court, then paid the price of losing. The point is, you can be tossed into the clink for just about anything if you are brazen enough to openly challenge the law and don't prevail. Judges don't care much for the proles challenging the state.
- joegester 15y ago
  She wasn't sentenced. The charges were dropped either because the city didn't want the negative publicity or because the case would not have held up. http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/15/charges-dropped-against-woman-for-front-yard-vegetable-garden/ http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/15/charges-dropped-against...