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Article mentions this “violates the spirit of the law”. If anything, this is exactly the spirit of the law, as written. Do legislators run simulations on possi

Article mentions this “violates the spirit of the law”. If anything, this is exactly the spirit of the law, as written. Do legislators run simulations on possible downstream effects of laws or…? My impression is that occurrences like this one are not uncommon.

zo1 4y ago
How can they? There is no way to know what a certain knob will do N-levels down the line. They're essentially "playing" against the collective brain and will power of millions of smart and motivated individuals, and all the money behind the huge corporations that play in that space, so how can they. It's impossible and a losing battle.
- ironSkillet 4y ago
  Look at incentives you have created in the impacted industries, and think about what the new optimal strategy is from a cost/profit perspective. That is what behavior will converge to, and is a central concern for any good policy maker.
danaris 4y ago
> spirit of the law > as written. I'm not sure you understand what the "spirit of a law" means. It has very little to do with the written wording. In tabletop RPG circles, there's a very clear distinction between "rules as written" and "rules as intended" (because basically zero tabletop RPGs of nontrivial size can avoid having some rules that fail to properly convey their intent in their plain wording). It's clear that, by this law "as intended"—ie, the spirit of the law—foods that didn't already contain sesame would be carefully separated from chances of sesame contamination. You are, however, absolutely correct that "as written", it strongly encourages the behavior being seen.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I’m not sure that follows. “This law makes ‘no sesame’ products a lot more expensive. We are <shocked pikachu.png> that producers stopped making as many ‘no sesame’ products in response to reduced consumer demand for those now more expensive products.” The spirit of the law could be deduced as “if your product claims to contain no sesame, this law ensures that is true, even in trace amounts”. That spirit is being upheld.
  - drdec 4y ago
    No, the intent of the law was to make it easier for people (and parents of people) with sesame allergies to find and select foods to eat. By incentivizing manufacturers to add sesame to everything, the unintended consequence is to make their lives much harder.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      That's your belief. An equally valid alternate belief is that it was a food safety law, intended to ensure that no products were sold which contained trace amounts of sesame without being disclosed on the label. This is why we rely on the contents of laws rather than our beliefs/feelings about what the contents should have been. No one can be compelled against their will to manufacture a product containing no sesame, even if they were probably doing so before this law was passed.
      - randallsquared 4y ago
        > This is why we rely on the contents of laws rather than our beliefs/feelings about what the contents should have been. This is called "the letter of the law", and in practice courts do not rely on it.
        sokoloff 4y ago
        In this specific case, do you believe that any of these companies have violated the law in any fashion which is actionable? (whether you call it spirit, text, belief, letter, feelings, or ouija) They appear to be complying with the law in a quite straightforward manner.
  - randallsquared 4y ago
    Do you believe that advocates of the law would have ceased to advocate for it in the counterfactual case that there was no effect on expense? If you don't believe that, then you cannot believe that the spirit of the law was to make "no sesame" products more expensive.

zo1 4y ago

How can they? There is no way to know what a certain knob will do N-levels down the line. They're essentially "playing" against the collective brain and will power of millions of smart and motivated individuals, and all the money behind the huge corporations that play in that space, so how can they. It's impossible and a losing battle.

ironSkillet 4y ago
Look at incentives you have created in the impacted industries, and think about what the new optimal strategy is from a cost/profit perspective. That is what behavior will converge to, and is a central concern for any good policy maker.

danaris 4y ago

> spirit of the law > as written. I'm not sure you understand what the "spirit of a law" means. It has very little to do with the written wording. In tabletop RPG circles, there's a very clear distinction between "rules as written" and "rules as intended" (because basically zero tabletop RPGs of nontrivial size can avoid having some rules that fail to properly convey their intent in their plain wording). It's clear that, by this law "as intended"—ie, the spirit of the law—foods that didn't already contain sesame would be carefully separated from chances of sesame contamination. You are, however, absolutely correct that "as written", it strongly encourages the behavior being seen.

sokoloff 4y ago
I’m not sure that follows. “This law makes ‘no sesame’ products a lot more expensive. We are <shocked pikachu.png> that producers stopped making as many ‘no sesame’ products in response to reduced consumer demand for those now more expensive products.” The spirit of the law could be deduced as “if your product claims to contain no sesame, this law ensures that is true, even in trace amounts”. That spirit is being upheld.
- drdec 4y ago
  No, the intent of the law was to make it easier for people (and parents of people) with sesame allergies to find and select foods to eat. By incentivizing manufacturers to add sesame to everything, the unintended consequence is to make their lives much harder.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    That's your belief. An equally valid alternate belief is that it was a food safety law, intended to ensure that no products were sold which contained trace amounts of sesame without being disclosed on the label. This is why we rely on the contents of laws rather than our beliefs/feelings about what the contents should have been. No one can be compelled against their will to manufacture a product containing no sesame, even if they were probably doing so before this law was passed.
    - randallsquared 4y ago
      > This is why we rely on the contents of laws rather than our beliefs/feelings about what the contents should have been. This is called "the letter of the law", and in practice courts do not rely on it.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        In this specific case, do you believe that any of these companies have violated the law in any fashion which is actionable? (whether you call it spirit, text, belief, letter, feelings, or ouija) They appear to be complying with the law in a quite straightforward manner.
- randallsquared 4y ago
  Do you believe that advocates of the law would have ceased to advocate for it in the counterfactual case that there was no effect on expense? If you don't believe that, then you cannot believe that the spirit of the law was to make "no sesame" products more expensive.