2 ms·

No law can ever be written to capture every possible application of the underlying spirit. Thus your ability to escape the spirit is directly correlated with ho

No law can ever be written to capture every possible application of the underlying spirit. Thus your ability to escape the spirit is directly correlated with how many lawyers you can hire to find loopholes in the text (or just flat out lie). It’s also important to remember that societies naturally undergo shifts over time. It’s impossible to continuously update a codified set of laws when the underlying moirés of the time have shifted; you’ll just be constantly arguing over the updates to add. Any law written perfectly today becomes imperfect simply through the passage of time. That’s why the Bible and any prescriptive religious text feels so outdated on many recommendations - it’s a snapshot in time of the values of a culture but those values change. There was even a fantastic sci-fi short story on this exact point of cultural shift [1] that’s worth a read. [1] https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> No law can ever be written to capture every possible application of the underlying spirit. Thus your ability to escape the spirit is directly correlated with how many lawyers you can hire to find loopholes in the text (or just flat out lie). The assumption here is that the rules would be complicated and provide lots of opportunities for gamesmanship. Now suppose the rule is "no company shall have more than 30% market share in any market, any that does shall be broken into no fewer than twelve independent pieces." No loopholes, if you exceed 30% market share you get broken up. And if they find a loophole then you amend the law and take it out. > It’s impossible to continuously update a codified set of laws when the underlying moirés of the time have shifted; you’ll just be constantly arguing over the updates to add. That's just politics. Somehow you need a process to decide what the law should be. The output of that process is the new law. If the output sucks then get a new process. But whether people can agree on what the law should be is a separate issue than whether we should even know what the law as enacted is supposed to mean. > That’s why the Bible and any prescriptive religious text feels so outdated on many recommendations - it’s a snapshot in time of the values of a culture but those values change. That's fine, nobody is saying that you can't change the law if a case comes out in a bad way. But it should be the legislature rather than the courts to do it, and the new understanding shouldn't be applied to past behavior ex post facto.
- ickelbawd 2y ago
  Please clearly define the meaning of “you” in your simple law. Literally me? Okay, I don’t own 50% of the market—my company does. Oh you mean my company? Okay, my company doesn’t own 50% of the market—each of my companies only control 25%. Oh you mean me and my companies? Okay, well I only own one company and my wife owns the other one. Oh you mean… I think you get the point… Now move on to all the other words you used: what defines a “market”? What does “broken” mean here? What does “independent” mean here? I’m sure it’s quite clear to you—that you know it when you see it. I’m also quite sure others have different interpretations. I agree with the spirit of your comment otherwise, but simple laws rapidly become complex laws because people are complicated and language is flawed.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    That isn't a loophole, it is an interpretation. It isn't possible to have laws without an assumption that a reasonable person is interpreting them (which is 95% of the reasons why judges are involved). But we know that the interpretation phase has a lot of wiggle room (the US constitution is a regular parade of this sort of thing - the Roe v. Wade fight or the abuse of the commerce clause for example). When they go bad these things aren't loopholes as much as they are just ignoring the written law with a polite fiction and it is up to different interest groups to work out where the power lies to get what they want. Political reality vs. the theoretical rule of law ideal. But that is necessarily independent of what is written in the law itself. If a group has enough power to overrule the written law then what you write in the law won't be able to stop them.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Please clearly define the meaning of “you” in your simple law. "no company shall have more than 30% market share in any market, any that does shall be broken into no fewer than twelve independent pieces." It doesn't contain the word "you". > Okay, I don’t own 50% of the market—my company does. Then your company would be violating the law. "Company" means a set of entities that share a common ownership. > what defines a “market”? A set of products or services that serve as fungible substitutes for one another. > What does “broken” mean here? It means they no longer share common ownership. This is also what independent means. > I agree with the spirit of your comment otherwise, but simple laws rapidly become complex laws because people are complicated and language is flawed. But all of those things are just their ordinary meaning. Writing them down would make the law more explicit but it doesn't make it any more complicated. The definitions aren't each a separate set of criteria that have to be complied with separately, they're just a clarification to reduce possible ambiguity. In particular, what you're doing is resolving edge cases. But the basic law has already addressed 99% of cases, because they're not ambiguous. An independent restaurant in a major city does not have >30% market share for food because there are many, many competitors. Microsoft has >30% market share for desktop operating systems because Microsoft has ~70% market share for desktop operating systems. And we have to distinguish between two things here. One is, you see the word "company" and the dictionary says one of the meanings is a military unit, and then Microsoft claims that they aren't a company because they aren't a military unit. But if something has two meanings and one of them doesn't make sense in context, that's not the intended meaning. Using the "spirit of the law" for this kind of resolution is inherently necessary. The other is, the law isn't ambiguous, but the unambiguous result is undesirable and the only way for a judge to fix it is to disregard the text and make something up. They shouldn't do this.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> No law can ever be written to capture every possible application of the underlying spirit. Thus your ability to escape the spirit is directly correlated with how many lawyers you can hire to find loopholes in the text (or just flat out lie). The assumption here is that the rules would be complicated and provide lots of opportunities for gamesmanship. Now suppose the rule is "no company shall have more than 30% market share in any market, any that does shall be broken into no fewer than twelve independent pieces." No loopholes, if you exceed 30% market share you get broken up. And if they find a loophole then you amend the law and take it out. > It’s impossible to continuously update a codified set of laws when the underlying moirés of the time have shifted; you’ll just be constantly arguing over the updates to add. That's just politics. Somehow you need a process to decide what the law should be. The output of that process is the new law. If the output sucks then get a new process. But whether people can agree on what the law should be is a separate issue than whether we should even know what the law as enacted is supposed to mean. > That’s why the Bible and any prescriptive religious text feels so outdated on many recommendations - it’s a snapshot in time of the values of a culture but those values change. That's fine, nobody is saying that you can't change the law if a case comes out in a bad way. But it should be the legislature rather than the courts to do it, and the new understanding shouldn't be applied to past behavior ex post facto.

ickelbawd 2y ago
Please clearly define the meaning of “you” in your simple law. Literally me? Okay, I don’t own 50% of the market—my company does. Oh you mean my company? Okay, my company doesn’t own 50% of the market—each of my companies only control 25%. Oh you mean me and my companies? Okay, well I only own one company and my wife owns the other one. Oh you mean… I think you get the point… Now move on to all the other words you used: what defines a “market”? What does “broken” mean here? What does “independent” mean here? I’m sure it’s quite clear to you—that you know it when you see it. I’m also quite sure others have different interpretations. I agree with the spirit of your comment otherwise, but simple laws rapidly become complex laws because people are complicated and language is flawed.
- roenxi 2y ago
  That isn't a loophole, it is an interpretation. It isn't possible to have laws without an assumption that a reasonable person is interpreting them (which is 95% of the reasons why judges are involved). But we know that the interpretation phase has a lot of wiggle room (the US constitution is a regular parade of this sort of thing - the Roe v. Wade fight or the abuse of the commerce clause for example). When they go bad these things aren't loopholes as much as they are just ignoring the written law with a polite fiction and it is up to different interest groups to work out where the power lies to get what they want. Political reality vs. the theoretical rule of law ideal. But that is necessarily independent of what is written in the law itself. If a group has enough power to overrule the written law then what you write in the law won't be able to stop them.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Please clearly define the meaning of “you” in your simple law. "no company shall have more than 30% market share in any market, any that does shall be broken into no fewer than twelve independent pieces." It doesn't contain the word "you". > Okay, I don’t own 50% of the market—my company does. Then your company would be violating the law. "Company" means a set of entities that share a common ownership. > what defines a “market”? A set of products or services that serve as fungible substitutes for one another. > What does “broken” mean here? It means they no longer share common ownership. This is also what independent means. > I agree with the spirit of your comment otherwise, but simple laws rapidly become complex laws because people are complicated and language is flawed. But all of those things are just their ordinary meaning. Writing them down would make the law more explicit but it doesn't make it any more complicated. The definitions aren't each a separate set of criteria that have to be complied with separately, they're just a clarification to reduce possible ambiguity. In particular, what you're doing is resolving edge cases. But the basic law has already addressed 99% of cases, because they're not ambiguous. An independent restaurant in a major city does not have >30% market share for food because there are many, many competitors. Microsoft has >30% market share for desktop operating systems because Microsoft has ~70% market share for desktop operating systems. And we have to distinguish between two things here. One is, you see the word "company" and the dictionary says one of the meanings is a military unit, and then Microsoft claims that they aren't a company because they aren't a military unit. But if something has two meanings and one of them doesn't make sense in context, that's not the intended meaning. Using the "spirit of the law" for this kind of resolution is inherently necessary. The other is, the law isn't ambiguous, but the unambiguous result is undesirable and the only way for a judge to fix it is to disregard the text and make something up. They shouldn't do this.