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> We don’t conclude that laws are impossible to make perfect, we simply keep refining the laws, right? Uh, we definitely do conclude that it's impossible to ma
by Hasu 3y ago
> We don’t conclude that laws are impossible to make perfect, we simply keep refining the laws, right?
Uh, we definitely do conclude that it's impossible to make the laws perfect. And we have an entire institution with the responsibility for refining laws (the judiciary), and they disagree with each other all the time.
This is very strong evidence that it is, in fact, impossible to get people to agree on what's allowed. With a dedicated institution, you can get close enough for government work (literally) but people are still arguing over the meaning of the Constitution even after hundreds of years of refinement.
I think programmer-types think, "Well a detailed-enough specification of all the rules is just like a computer program" and sure, it is. Except that computer programs are written in unambiguous language and interpreted by machines that have perfect understanding, and we still write imperfect programs that don't do what we want all the time.
- dahart 3y agoSo you’re saying we should stop refining the laws because it’s impossible?
- Hasu 3y agoI'm not sure how you interpret "It is impossible to make laws perfect and unambiguous for all humans everywhere" as "We should just give up on refining laws because we can't get to perfection". We refine enough to have a working system, which is nowhere close to having no disagreement.
- dahart 3y agoWhat’s the point of saying something’s impossible? Why frame it that way? Should we keep trying, or no? Perfect isn’t the goal, and “impossible to make perfect” isn’t a useful summary, right? It seems like that’s what you saying, and I agree. The only reasonable question is whether it’s possible to improve, and the answer is yes it is possible to improve.
- Dylan16807 3y ago> I'm not sure how you interpret "It is impossible to make laws perfect and unambiguous for all humans everywhere" as "We should just give up on refining laws because we can't get to perfection". Because the sentence you quoted was "We don’t conclude that laws are impossible to make perfect, we simply keep refining the laws, right?" "conclude" here means a full conclusion, stop and do nothing else. By quoting that entire sentence, and saying "we definitely do conclude that", it sounds like you're arguing we shouldn't bother with refining. And nothing else in your post praised the attempt to refine. Even now that you've corrected that misreading of your post, it means you were arguing against a strawman. dahart was just saying not to give up.