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This is a feature, not a bug for the classes which benefit from the ever expanding legal corpus. Coincidentally, politicians and lobbyists are often lawyers the

This is a feature, not a bug for the classes which benefit from the ever expanding legal corpus. Coincidentally, politicians and lobbyists are often lawyers themselves.

torstenvl 4y ago
That's the opposite of true. And I think you know that. It's absolutely insane that HN of all places is arguing against the concept of locality-of-reference. Given the Option A (letting DoJ prosecutors only have to carry around Title 18) versus Option B (letting lay people looking up a topic by subject matter see what crimes and penalties pertain to that subject matter in the title for that subject matter), which one is friendlier to lawyers? Which one is friendlier to lay people? Yeah, a DoJ official in 1982 probably found it inconvenient that 17 U.S.C. § 506 and 18 U.S.C. § 2319 aren't in the same deadtree volume for them to lug around. But if I'm a lay person, I'm glad that the criminal penalties for copyright infringement aren't invisible from within the chapter on copyright infringement in the title on copyright. If I were to perform a code review for a junior engineer, and they had structured their source files so that all the constructors and destructors for all of their classes were in one independent file, rather than co-located with the classes to which they pertain, they would not pass code review. The argument that it's difficult to even know how many constructors and destructors they have, and therefore memory management is too complex, would be distinctly unpersuasive. It baffles and frustrates me that HN seems to come to the exact opposite conclusion with regard to the law.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  The difference is that a lay person has to follow all of the laws. The only reason this system works is because of privacy. Without it the system is just broken. But even with privacy it makes the system about luck.
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    > a lay person has to follow all of the laws That is obviously untrue. Why do you feel the need to make obviously false claims to support your position? You need to obey the UCMJ? You need to obey campaign finance laws? You need to obey the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act? You need to obey state law as incorporated by the Assimilative Crimes Act in jurisdictions you've never been to? You need to obey HIPAA? The Privacy Act? The Freedom of Information Act? A huge number of laws simply do not apply to you if you aren't engaged in a particular activity. E.g., you are not a covered entity for HIPAA unless you work for a medical provider or insurer. And a huge proportion of those criminal penalties only apply to government employees, not to average civilians at all.
    - Aerroon 4y ago
      You need to be aware of that before making decisions in life though. You also need to be aware of them to know how others around you can legally act. Also, there's the problem that you don't know what is written in the laws that you don't know. Maybe it does pertain to you, but without knowing the law you can't know that.

This is a feature, not a bug for the classes which benefit from the ever expanding legal corpus. Coincidentally, politicians and lobbyists are often lawyers themselves.

torstenvl 4y ago

That's the opposite of true. And I think you know that. It's absolutely insane that HN of all places is arguing against the concept of locality-of-reference. Given the Option A (letting DoJ prosecutors only have to carry around Title 18) versus Option B (letting lay people looking up a topic by subject matter see what crimes and penalties pertain to that subject matter in the title for that subject matter), which one is friendlier to lawyers? Which one is friendlier to lay people? Yeah, a DoJ official in 1982 probably found it inconvenient that 17 U.S.C. § 506 and 18 U.S.C. § 2319 aren't in the same deadtree volume for them to lug around. But if I'm a lay person, I'm glad that the criminal penalties for copyright infringement aren't invisible from within the chapter on copyright infringement in the title on copyright. If I were to perform a code review for a junior engineer, and they had structured their source files so that all the constructors and destructors for all of their classes were in one independent file, rather than co-located with the classes to which they pertain, they would not pass code review. The argument that it's difficult to even know how many constructors and destructors they have, and therefore memory management is too complex, would be distinctly unpersuasive. It baffles and frustrates me that HN seems to come to the exact opposite conclusion with regard to the law.

Aerroon 4y ago
The difference is that a lay person has to follow all of the laws. The only reason this system works is because of privacy. Without it the system is just broken. But even with privacy it makes the system about luck.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  > a lay person has to follow all of the laws That is obviously untrue. Why do you feel the need to make obviously false claims to support your position? You need to obey the UCMJ? You need to obey campaign finance laws? You need to obey the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act? You need to obey state law as incorporated by the Assimilative Crimes Act in jurisdictions you've never been to? You need to obey HIPAA? The Privacy Act? The Freedom of Information Act? A huge number of laws simply do not apply to you if you aren't engaged in a particular activity. E.g., you are not a covered entity for HIPAA unless you work for a medical provider or insurer. And a huge proportion of those criminal penalties only apply to government employees, not to average civilians at all.
  - Aerroon 4y ago
    You need to be aware of that before making decisions in life though. You also need to be aware of them to know how others around you can legally act. Also, there's the problem that you don't know what is written in the laws that you don't know. Maybe it does pertain to you, but without knowing the law you can't know that.