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That's an interesting thought, but I would say instead that I'm in favor of culture being the "first line of defense" and not the law. In other words, I can lea

That's an interesting thought, but I would say instead that I'm in favor of culture being the "first line of defense" and not the law. In other words, I can leave my door unlocked because I am a part of a culture where that sort of thing doesn't happen. Not because there is a law written down somewhere. This has functionally been my experience in a number of spaces, including private workspaces (i.e., you don't expect your co-workers to steal your stuff), Japan, Poland, and a few other countries, and many others. If that's a definition of "common law" then sure, but it seems like a different thing to me.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago
The reason the rule of law exists at the scale it does is precisely because what you describe, has not shown to create functional long term societies that are resilient to exogenous threats. The rule of law is literally humanity’s best attempt so far to explicitly codify human desires into a common set of descriptions. This is why the UN exists and the LON before it etc…
- keiferski 3y ago
  > has not shown to create functional long term societies that are resilient to exogenous threats. I don't think I agree with this. If anything, it seems more like the reverse: societies have been less-and-less willing to enforce assimilation and a certain set of society-wide cultural behaviors, and therefore they "fall back" to the rule of law as described by you.
  - GenerocUsername 3y ago
    As a melting pot, the US takes in a lot of folks from countries that are not doing very well... so in a way, if we keep importing folks from cultures that failed without trying to integrate them to our culture, and instead celebrate their original culture, eventually our amalgam culture will fail just like theirs did. Its why we have signs that say to "sit, not stand on toilets". You dont think we would need to write it down, but if you import hundreds of thousands of toilet standers, "the norm" goes out the window.
    - kerowak 3y ago
      If American culture "fails," I'm gonna blame xenophobes like you who are incapable of adjusting to a dynamic world, not the "toilet standers."
      - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
        Your terms are acceptable.
      - throw10920 3y ago
        This comment is utterly inappropriate for HN - there's nothing xenophobic about the GP comment, you're just using that phrase incorrectly to emotionally manipulate other readers.
    - graemep 3y ago
      Bad example. I believe squat toilets are actually better for you (less strain to use) so really there is a case to be made we (those who do not use them) should follow those who do.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        This was not about squat toilets, but about people who squat on sit-down toilets, which is dangerous and dirty.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      The melting pot is a way of integrating people into our country. It has been criticized as being too homogenizing; and now I think (for the better) most people see it as a nice lumpy stew. We shouldn’t ask people to give up all their traditions or change completely to become American, it is a give and take communication process that we both benefit from. WRT toilets, I think it has been shown that squatting actually reduces the strain when using the toilet; I think those signs reflect the fact that we are integrating new toilet information. They are part of the natural back-and-forth pushing process. Hopefully we’ll converge on a toilet that is lower to the ground but doesn’t have accessibility issues.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > This is why the UN exists and the LON before it Um, you do realize that the League of Nations was a failure? And that the UN, although at least it still exists (unlike the LON, which only lasted a decade or so), has not accomplished anything meaningful in terms of enforcing actual norms of behavior?
  - tomrod 3y ago
    Are you kidding? UN has had tremendous impact in the world.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > UN has had tremendous impact in the world Perhaps, but if so, I think its impact is, at the very least, net negative, not net positive.
      - tomrod 3y ago
        Heartily disagree. Having an avenue where nations can be shamed for their crimes against humanity as well as a central org that both announces common human rights and monitors for them is immensely useful on any normative ethics yardstick, whether utilitarian, essentialist, effective altruism, and so forth.
        pdonis 3y ago
        > Having an avenue where nations can be shamed for their crimes against humanity Many nations have continued to commit crimes against humanity since the UN was founded, without any shaming at all. Some of them have had their leaders praised and given awards and invited to be keynote speakers at conferences at the same time that their crimes against humanity were in full swing (for example, Robert Mugabe). And two of the most egregious such nations, Russia and China, have permanent seats on the UN Security Council. It is true that the UN has shamed some nations for crimes against humanity (the Milosevic regime in Serbia, for example). But that just makes the lack of shaming in so many other cases worse, especially when the cases that are ignored are at least as egregious as the cases that are shamed.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  I think what may be missing from the discussion at this point are distinctions between law and equity and different kinds of judgement in statutory versus common law. The ideal in jurisprudence is that we _always_ have equity - the ability to interpret the law and apply it in each specific cases. The "opposite" is statutory law. Like you get a speeding ticket regardless of any mitigating situation. So you were rushing to the hospital in time for your pregnant wife to give birth before your dying father breathes his last.... Cry me a river. $200 fine! Next case. Mechanical justice is cheap and rough. Statutory law fits perfectly with our capitalist society, efficient, inflexible, uniform, quick and cheap. Judges and juries are expensive. Others mentioned the Chinese concept of Li (loi?) and the "spirit of the law", which are casualties in a technocratic society.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Statutory law fits perfectly with our capitalist society, efficient, inflexible, uniform, quick and cheap. Judges and juries are expensive. This seems a bit of a false equivalence. Capitalist societies are the ones that are based on liberalism and think individuals are important - important enough to make companies and agreements between each other. They quite often are the ones that also think individuals are deserving of justice in and of themselves, not based on what group someone has put them in.
    - nonrandomstring 3y ago
      Are you not confusing democratic societies with capitalist ones? I mean, there's some overlap, but if we're talking about clumsy equivalences... :) And to be honest I see ever less intersection between actual current "late stage" capitalism and the "rule of Law". Those I know in the legal profession complain we are in state of "lawfare", a state in which most of the common principles of justice have broken down in favour of "justice for the rich" (I realise many Americans take that to be perfectly normal) How about I use the expression "greed driven societies" instead?
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
- vkou 3y ago
  > This is why the UN exists To split hairs - the UN does not exist to be a world police (Its charter is explicitly built to ensure that it fails at that task). It exists to be a forum for countries to talk to eachother. But its a purely voluntary engagement.
- mecsred 3y ago
  I don't think your evidence supports your argument at all. Pick any consistently governed region, even one with regime changes. Compared to the UN, which is unable to affect some of the worst genocides in recorded history. As well as the League of Nations, an institution notable for accomplishing nothing. Nothing is immune to external threats but institutions that avoid them by doing nothing on critical issues are not the most inspiring examples. The rule of law is our best attempt at codifying Individual freedoms, outside and above the power of the state. Definitely a noble goal, but leads to the observations made by the parent comment.
verisimi 3y ago
You are describing anarchy. No leader, or force required. People just acting according to their consciences.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
CalChris 3y ago
But you DO have a second line of defense even in your culture because that sort of thing DOES happen even in your culture only perhaps less often. With respect to the Flipper Zero, I don't understand how culture solves this particular problem. I'm not sure I'd want to be in a culture that solved this particular problem a priori. I think I'd prefer to be in an imperfect Rule Of Law society that adapted albeit imperfectly to new problems as they appeared.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

The reason the rule of law exists at the scale it does is precisely because what you describe, has not shown to create functional long term societies that are resilient to exogenous threats. The rule of law is literally humanity’s best attempt so far to explicitly codify human desires into a common set of descriptions. This is why the UN exists and the LON before it etc…

keiferski 3y ago
> has not shown to create functional long term societies that are resilient to exogenous threats. I don't think I agree with this. If anything, it seems more like the reverse: societies have been less-and-less willing to enforce assimilation and a certain set of society-wide cultural behaviors, and therefore they "fall back" to the rule of law as described by you.
- GenerocUsername 3y ago
  As a melting pot, the US takes in a lot of folks from countries that are not doing very well... so in a way, if we keep importing folks from cultures that failed without trying to integrate them to our culture, and instead celebrate their original culture, eventually our amalgam culture will fail just like theirs did. Its why we have signs that say to "sit, not stand on toilets". You dont think we would need to write it down, but if you import hundreds of thousands of toilet standers, "the norm" goes out the window.
  - kerowak 3y ago
    If American culture "fails," I'm gonna blame xenophobes like you who are incapable of adjusting to a dynamic world, not the "toilet standers."
    - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
      Your terms are acceptable.
    - throw10920 3y ago
      This comment is utterly inappropriate for HN - there's nothing xenophobic about the GP comment, you're just using that phrase incorrectly to emotionally manipulate other readers.
  - graemep 3y ago
    Bad example. I believe squat toilets are actually better for you (less strain to use) so really there is a case to be made we (those who do not use them) should follow those who do.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      This was not about squat toilets, but about people who squat on sit-down toilets, which is dangerous and dirty.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    The melting pot is a way of integrating people into our country. It has been criticized as being too homogenizing; and now I think (for the better) most people see it as a nice lumpy stew. We shouldn’t ask people to give up all their traditions or change completely to become American, it is a give and take communication process that we both benefit from. WRT toilets, I think it has been shown that squatting actually reduces the strain when using the toilet; I think those signs reflect the fact that we are integrating new toilet information. They are part of the natural back-and-forth pushing process. Hopefully we’ll converge on a toilet that is lower to the ground but doesn’t have accessibility issues.
pdonis 3y ago
> This is why the UN exists and the LON before it Um, you do realize that the League of Nations was a failure? And that the UN, although at least it still exists (unlike the LON, which only lasted a decade or so), has not accomplished anything meaningful in terms of enforcing actual norms of behavior?
- tomrod 3y ago
  Are you kidding? UN has had tremendous impact in the world.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > UN has had tremendous impact in the world Perhaps, but if so, I think its impact is, at the very least, net negative, not net positive.
    - tomrod 3y ago
      Heartily disagree. Having an avenue where nations can be shamed for their crimes against humanity as well as a central org that both announces common human rights and monitors for them is immensely useful on any normative ethics yardstick, whether utilitarian, essentialist, effective altruism, and so forth.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > Having an avenue where nations can be shamed for their crimes against humanity Many nations have continued to commit crimes against humanity since the UN was founded, without any shaming at all. Some of them have had their leaders praised and given awards and invited to be keynote speakers at conferences at the same time that their crimes against humanity were in full swing (for example, Robert Mugabe). And two of the most egregious such nations, Russia and China, have permanent seats on the UN Security Council. It is true that the UN has shamed some nations for crimes against humanity (the Milosevic regime in Serbia, for example). But that just makes the lack of shaming in so many other cases worse, especially when the cases that are ignored are at least as egregious as the cases that are shamed.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
I think what may be missing from the discussion at this point are distinctions between law and equity and different kinds of judgement in statutory versus common law. The ideal in jurisprudence is that we _always_ have equity - the ability to interpret the law and apply it in each specific cases. The "opposite" is statutory law. Like you get a speeding ticket regardless of any mitigating situation. So you were rushing to the hospital in time for your pregnant wife to give birth before your dying father breathes his last.... Cry me a river. $200 fine! Next case. Mechanical justice is cheap and rough. Statutory law fits perfectly with our capitalist society, efficient, inflexible, uniform, quick and cheap. Judges and juries are expensive. Others mentioned the Chinese concept of Li (loi?) and the "spirit of the law", which are casualties in a technocratic society.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Statutory law fits perfectly with our capitalist society, efficient, inflexible, uniform, quick and cheap. Judges and juries are expensive. This seems a bit of a false equivalence. Capitalist societies are the ones that are based on liberalism and think individuals are important - important enough to make companies and agreements between each other. They quite often are the ones that also think individuals are deserving of justice in and of themselves, not based on what group someone has put them in.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    Are you not confusing democratic societies with capitalist ones? I mean, there's some overlap, but if we're talking about clumsy equivalences... :) And to be honest I see ever less intersection between actual current "late stage" capitalism and the "rule of Law". Those I know in the legal profession complain we are in state of "lawfare", a state in which most of the common principles of justice have broken down in favour of "justice for the rich" (I realise many Americans take that to be perfectly normal) How about I use the expression "greed driven societies" instead?
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
vkou 3y ago
> This is why the UN exists To split hairs - the UN does not exist to be a world police (Its charter is explicitly built to ensure that it fails at that task). It exists to be a forum for countries to talk to eachother. But its a purely voluntary engagement.
mecsred 3y ago
I don't think your evidence supports your argument at all. Pick any consistently governed region, even one with regime changes. Compared to the UN, which is unable to affect some of the worst genocides in recorded history. As well as the League of Nations, an institution notable for accomplishing nothing. Nothing is immune to external threats but institutions that avoid them by doing nothing on critical issues are not the most inspiring examples. The rule of law is our best attempt at codifying Individual freedoms, outside and above the power of the state. Definitely a noble goal, but leads to the observations made by the parent comment.

verisimi 3y ago

You are describing anarchy. No leader, or force required. People just acting according to their consciences.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

CalChris 3y ago

But you DO have a second line of defense even in your culture because that sort of thing DOES happen even in your culture only perhaps less often. With respect to the Flipper Zero, I don't understand how culture solves this particular problem. I'm not sure I'd want to be in a culture that solved this particular problem a priori. I think I'd prefer to be in an imperfect Rule Of Law society that adapted albeit imperfectly to new problems as they appeared.