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> It’s bad for society to codify too much behaviour in law. The issue with over-codification is one of the complexity in the laws that result - not that a larg

by munk-a 5y ago

> It’s bad for society to codify too much behaviour in law. The issue with over-codification is one of the complexity in the laws that result - not that a large number of prohibitions is actually damaging to society. If too many laws exist then enforcement becomes intractable, arbitrary and unjust - but if enforcement could be sanely and fairly dealt out then there are lots of things that we'd appreciate being laws - i.e. sniping someone's parking spot while they're pulling in: it's a dangerous action that encourages people to park faster than they're comfortable and generally makes people act like assholes... but is it worth paying someone 50k/year to prevent sniping parking spots? Nope.

josephg 5y ago
> if enforcement could be sanely and fairly dealt out then there are lots of things that we'd appreciate being laws I'm hearing a hypothesis - that if enforcement was cheap and easy, we could make a better legal system (and a better society) by regulating far more human interaction. Presumably we'd have AI systems monitoring everyone at all times, and issuing automatic fines if you snipe someone's parking spot. "Citizen #421 you have been found guilty by AI of the crimes of eating the last cookie, and failing to call your mother while overseas. Please proceed immediately to the nearest reeducation facility for behavior correction" I agree that there is often marginal (and proximate) benefit in having more laws. I'm in favor of FB being regulated somehow. But my point is that more laws - even when restricting antisocial behaviour - can still create a worse society. The reason is not just because enforcement is arbitrary. Another example of this is the controversial Canadian bill C16, which sought to make it essentially illegal to misgender someone. Critics of the bill argued that despite everyone agreeing that its extremely disrespectful to misgender someone, it still shouldn't be illegal. This is a subtle argument, but its an important one if we want our societies to stay free and healthy.
- mountainb 5y ago
  Facebook is governed by many laws and it flouts a lot of them. For example, they screw up the DMCA process continuously in a way that by statute should make them lose their safe harbor (no "Section 230 reform" needed). Just by sheer volume of mistakes related to processing DMCA notices and counternotices they should lose their safe harbor protection. Even though surely many of the mistakes are unintentional human error, it doesn't actually matter that much according to the wording of the law. They allow the hosting of a lot of egregious criminal activity, including maintaining uncountable numbers of what the law would define as notorious marketplaces for criminal activity. The trouble is lack of enforcement. You cannot fix a lack of enforcement with new laws that will just go unenforced.

by munk-a 5y ago

josephg 5y ago

> if enforcement could be sanely and fairly dealt out then there are lots of things that we'd appreciate being laws I'm hearing a hypothesis - that if enforcement was cheap and easy, we could make a better legal system (and a better society) by regulating far more human interaction. Presumably we'd have AI systems monitoring everyone at all times, and issuing automatic fines if you snipe someone's parking spot. "Citizen #421 you have been found guilty by AI of the crimes of eating the last cookie, and failing to call your mother while overseas. Please proceed immediately to the nearest reeducation facility for behavior correction" I agree that there is often marginal (and proximate) benefit in having more laws. I'm in favor of FB being regulated somehow. But my point is that more laws - even when restricting antisocial behaviour - can still create a worse society. The reason is not just because enforcement is arbitrary. Another example of this is the controversial Canadian bill C16, which sought to make it essentially illegal to misgender someone. Critics of the bill argued that despite everyone agreeing that its extremely disrespectful to misgender someone, it still shouldn't be illegal. This is a subtle argument, but its an important one if we want our societies to stay free and healthy.

mountainb 5y ago
Facebook is governed by many laws and it flouts a lot of them. For example, they screw up the DMCA process continuously in a way that by statute should make them lose their safe harbor (no "Section 230 reform" needed). Just by sheer volume of mistakes related to processing DMCA notices and counternotices they should lose their safe harbor protection. Even though surely many of the mistakes are unintentional human error, it doesn't actually matter that much according to the wording of the law. They allow the hosting of a lot of egregious criminal activity, including maintaining uncountable numbers of what the law would define as notorious marketplaces for criminal activity. The trouble is lack of enforcement. You cannot fix a lack of enforcement with new laws that will just go unenforced.