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This is harsher than it should be, but its been bugging me for a long time. The assumption that geeks are good at everything and that we'll one day take over an

This is harsher than it should be, but its been bugging me for a long time. The assumption that geeks are good at everything and that we'll one day take over and everything will be perfect is too often taken as a given. Geeks can't do law. Its pathetic when we try, but because this kind of thing falls into the general category of "politics" its tolerated. 80% of what I've read about SOPA has been wrong (not that I'm defending it). I'm not even going to go into the commentary regarding how the Megaupload takedown was illegal. Or how 90% of the commentary on here reddit, and slashdot just follow the childish "I want to download anything and if you get in my way, you're the problem" attitude that is not only tolerated but promoted as reasonable. Also, geeks can't do fiction, comedy, or movies. We're too obsessed with quoting aging one-liners and believe tired old memes are hilarious. Geeks take down Hollywood? Please. I'm not even going to go into geek politics (Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, anti-progressive, anti-federalism). Or this whole armchair revolutionary crap like "Twitter and facebook are responsible for the Arab spring, not people risking their lives in the streets." We're good with computer crap. Lets stop pretending otherwise. Good self-learning and analytical skills don't mean "instant expert." Funny how the "Learn x in 10 years" rule applies to everyone but us.

qdog 15y ago
I wasn't aware I had to subscribe to any particular political viewpoint to be a geek (I am totally down with Fedaralism, anti Rand,Paul, and progressive). This article on law might be bad, but it's likely most articles on law are bad. I'm pretty sure that John Yoo's law opinions were pretty damn wrong, for starters. But yeah, if it doesn't say "I am a lawyer and this is why I think this" and go into some caselaw, I'll probably take it with a pail of salt. Also, I know there are plenty of geek lawyers, but few(if any) of them spend their days filling up reddit/hn with silly stuff.
SilasX 15y ago
In fairness, law can't do law either. One of the most basic expectations of the legal system is that a citizen should be able to know, with confidence, whether they're breaking the law based on a reasonable search of available resources on the matter, without having to contact a specialist (lawyer). Yet lawyers advise you that pretty much everyone is breaking some law.
- roel_v 15y ago
  You're doing the exact thing I and drzaiusapelord are complaining about. No, what you're describing is not 'one of the most basic expectations of the legal system'. How would it be possible to capture social rules that have evolved over centuries and are supposed to cover an almost infinite set of circumstances and boundary conditions, and on which huge economics interests and grave personal consequences depend, in a couple of paragraphs of legislation? How would the case law fit into that? How could that work in a society where understanding the cooking instruction on a bake-it-yourself cake set are too difficult for a sizable part of society to understand? Law is not an algorithm that you can apply to a set of perfectly quantified variables. Nerds like to think it is, or at least that it should be, but that's just not how society (and by extension, law) works. (I've been a nerd my whole life, professional programmer for 15 years and I did a law degree next to my job. I spend thousands of hours over the last 9 years studying law, and I still don't know shit, or at least not enough to write opinion pieces on it without supervision of someone more experienced. At least I've gotten to a point now where I recognize that I don't, and where I recognize bullshit when I see it).
  - SilasX 15y ago
    Really? Every society has always had every non-specialist in violation of some law despite their efforts to learn what was illegal? And this is an unavoidable aspect of reality?
    - roel_v 15y ago
      Ah, the false dichotomy, another pinnacle of nerd legal reasoning :) (not using nerd as an insult, just as a general description of a too strictly logical frame of mind) The point is not that everybody is always in some form of violation, the point is in uncertainty. There are always cases where to facts don't clearly map to the rules as they are written down, or where the facts are unclear or open for interpretation. In those cases, even specialists can't say if something is 'illegal', for a broad definition of the word 'illegal'. Despite the huge amount of legislation and case law we have nowadays, still not everything is covered; in the past, there was much more uncertainty than there is today, because much less was codified. And to answer your question, yes, uncertainty at the margins is an unavoidable aspect of reality. This is also what bugs me about the commentary on the Megaupload case: people claiming that Dropbox might be next, because they too allow for sending data and don't have a way to search what's available. The fact of the matter is that it's about intent - the Megaupload people encouraged copyright infringement while hiding behind a thin layer of compliance veneer, whereas Dropbox doesn't, their main use truely is 'personal document storage'. Everybody who visited the Dropbox and Megaupload websites a few weeks ago could see so. Now the nerd reaction to the legal aspect is 'oh but there is no law that indicates the exact boundary between the two, so the Megaupload bust is illegal'. Back on planet reality however, softer interpretations of 'intent' and 'reasonable' etc. decide what crosses the line and what doesn't. Could Megaupload know in advance exactly how far they could go? No. Is that proof that our legal system doesn't work? No. If anything, it shows that people can get away with much, and that only egregious abuses wrt copyright infringement are prosecuted.

qdog 15y ago

I wasn't aware I had to subscribe to any particular political viewpoint to be a geek (I am totally down with Fedaralism, anti Rand,Paul, and progressive). This article on law might be bad, but it's likely most articles on law are bad. I'm pretty sure that John Yoo's law opinions were pretty damn wrong, for starters. But yeah, if it doesn't say "I am a lawyer and this is why I think this" and go into some caselaw, I'll probably take it with a pail of salt. Also, I know there are plenty of geek lawyers, but few(if any) of them spend their days filling up reddit/hn with silly stuff.

SilasX 15y ago

In fairness, law can't do law either. One of the most basic expectations of the legal system is that a citizen should be able to know, with confidence, whether they're breaking the law based on a reasonable search of available resources on the matter, without having to contact a specialist (lawyer). Yet lawyers advise you that pretty much everyone is breaking some law.

roel_v 15y ago
You're doing the exact thing I and drzaiusapelord are complaining about. No, what you're describing is not 'one of the most basic expectations of the legal system'. How would it be possible to capture social rules that have evolved over centuries and are supposed to cover an almost infinite set of circumstances and boundary conditions, and on which huge economics interests and grave personal consequences depend, in a couple of paragraphs of legislation? How would the case law fit into that? How could that work in a society where understanding the cooking instruction on a bake-it-yourself cake set are too difficult for a sizable part of society to understand? Law is not an algorithm that you can apply to a set of perfectly quantified variables. Nerds like to think it is, or at least that it should be, but that's just not how society (and by extension, law) works. (I've been a nerd my whole life, professional programmer for 15 years and I did a law degree next to my job. I spend thousands of hours over the last 9 years studying law, and I still don't know shit, or at least not enough to write opinion pieces on it without supervision of someone more experienced. At least I've gotten to a point now where I recognize that I don't, and where I recognize bullshit when I see it).
- SilasX 15y ago
  Really? Every society has always had every non-specialist in violation of some law despite their efforts to learn what was illegal? And this is an unavoidable aspect of reality?
  - roel_v 15y ago
    Ah, the false dichotomy, another pinnacle of nerd legal reasoning :) (not using nerd as an insult, just as a general description of a too strictly logical frame of mind) The point is not that everybody is always in some form of violation, the point is in uncertainty. There are always cases where to facts don't clearly map to the rules as they are written down, or where the facts are unclear or open for interpretation. In those cases, even specialists can't say if something is 'illegal', for a broad definition of the word 'illegal'. Despite the huge amount of legislation and case law we have nowadays, still not everything is covered; in the past, there was much more uncertainty than there is today, because much less was codified. And to answer your question, yes, uncertainty at the margins is an unavoidable aspect of reality. This is also what bugs me about the commentary on the Megaupload case: people claiming that Dropbox might be next, because they too allow for sending data and don't have a way to search what's available. The fact of the matter is that it's about intent - the Megaupload people encouraged copyright infringement while hiding behind a thin layer of compliance veneer, whereas Dropbox doesn't, their main use truely is 'personal document storage'. Everybody who visited the Dropbox and Megaupload websites a few weeks ago could see so. Now the nerd reaction to the legal aspect is 'oh but there is no law that indicates the exact boundary between the two, so the Megaupload bust is illegal'. Back on planet reality however, softer interpretations of 'intent' and 'reasonable' etc. decide what crosses the line and what doesn't. Could Megaupload know in advance exactly how far they could go? No. Is that proof that our legal system doesn't work? No. If anything, it shows that people can get away with much, and that only egregious abuses wrt copyright infringement are prosecuted.