4 ms·

I think legally meaningless CYA statements are actually dangerous. They can suck the air out of actual understanding of the legal situation at hand and, in the

by arrrg 4y ago

I think legally meaningless CYA statements are actually dangerous. They can suck the air out of actual understanding of the legal situation at hand and, in the worst case, lead to an warped understanding of copyright that interacts with the world with supposed magical incantations that are legally totally meaningless or even the opposite of the truth. (I’m thinking of those YouTube videos e.g. showing some snippet of a film uploaded by someone who doesn’t have the copyright with the totally bonkers “copyright Universal 2020, no infringement intended” note. I know, that‘s mostly about someone who is not a business and who usually doesn’t have anything to do with copyright being confused about the difference between attribution and copyright and thinking giving attribution gives you copyright – which is bonkers. Fair use does require attribution, but simply copying something verbatim is certainly not fair use.)

cxr 4y ago
Another thing to be cognizant of is the Gell–Mann amnesia effect and adjacent phenomena. Especially when people talk about professions like lawyers, etc. it's almost as if they conceive of it as one unified workforce of hypercompetent experts who all know The Truth and can either tell you what it is or, failing that, then at least tell you what you should do in accordance with what The Truth is. But no industry works like that. Think of how many programmers you know or know of and the range of competencies involved, including absurd practices and just outright weird opinions/positions held by a surprisingly large proportion of folks. Half these people are B- players at best and who are only there because they figured out how to make a living following rituals—which they may not necessarily understand (and some of which may actually be counterproductive but are inoffensive in the sense that they aren't so counterproductive that it will result in being let go). Or forget that for a moment and just think of how many cases have been tried in court with lawyers on both sides. Do the courts regularly arrive at decisions that recognize counsel for both sides as being right (and it's just, say, the facts that are responsible for their clients losing the cases)? Or can you regularly find lawyers putting forth legal theories that simply don't hold up under scrutiny?
- Georgelemental 4y ago
  There is a lot of credentialism and vetting involved in becoming a lawyer, which should ideally ensure a minimum floor of competence.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - cxr 4y ago
    Putting faith in expected/observed outcomes matching ideal outcomes proves to be a bad idea.
  - sbierwagen 4y ago
    lol

by arrrg 4y ago

cxr 4y ago

Another thing to be cognizant of is the Gell–Mann amnesia effect and adjacent phenomena. Especially when people talk about professions like lawyers, etc. it's almost as if they conceive of it as one unified workforce of hypercompetent experts who all know The Truth and can either tell you what it is or, failing that, then at least tell you what you should do in accordance with what The Truth is. But no industry works like that. Think of how many programmers you know or know of and the range of competencies involved, including absurd practices and just outright weird opinions/positions held by a surprisingly large proportion of folks. Half these people are B- players at best and who are only there because they figured out how to make a living following rituals—which they may not necessarily understand (and some of which may actually be counterproductive but are inoffensive in the sense that they aren't so counterproductive that it will result in being let go). Or forget that for a moment and just think of how many cases have been tried in court with lawyers on both sides. Do the courts regularly arrive at decisions that recognize counsel for both sides as being right (and it's just, say, the facts that are responsible for their clients losing the cases)? Or can you regularly find lawyers putting forth legal theories that simply don't hold up under scrutiny?

Georgelemental 4y ago
There is a lot of credentialism and vetting involved in becoming a lawyer, which should ideally ensure a minimum floor of competence.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cxr 4y ago
  Putting faith in expected/observed outcomes matching ideal outcomes proves to be a bad idea.
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  lol