5 ms·

The harder they make it to join their club, the more exclusive their service becomes. And thus they can command a higher salary.

GrantMoyer 2y ago
I've thought a lot about how absurd it is that the rules we must follow are so obtuse that an entire profession exists to advise and argue if we and others are following the rules. But I've come to believe we just live in an absurd reality, and there's no possible way to communicate a set of rules to everyone, or even to get everyone to agree to one set of rules in the first place, so the legal profession is an unfortunate necessity. Of course, that doesn't preclude lawyers from sometimes being unscrupulous.
- gosub100 2y ago
  I think of case law as like a git repo of every function and subroutine anyone ever wrote. So on one hand it makes sense to need a specialized education to use it (so we don't waste time arguing the same noob points over and over). But on the other hand, you shouldn't need a law degree and bar license to sue an insurance company to pay up. Their client hit you, you're injured, now pay up or have a judge order you to. But the lawmen have carved out their own moat that puts ordinary people in a position to rely on them.
- Enginerrrd 2y ago
  Writing laws to cover complex situations is really not THAT different from writing software. Laws are programs. In that context, does it really seem so absurd that the rules are "obtuse"? Many people feel that way when reading someone else's code, but that doesn't mean all the weird conditionals are unnecessary.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    The problem is that the output of the program determines if you’re going to jail. There are laws that many people might break just because they have no clue that there’s even a law about that. Realistically, you’re probably not going to go to jail immediately but you can have a bad time if you’re caught doing some things you didn’t even know were illegal.
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > Writing laws to cover complex situations is really not THAT different from writing software. I’ve done software (a lot) and worked in a legislative office (a little), they are extremely different. > Laws are programs. Laws are not programs, or even meaningfully analogous to anything so deterministic. They are more like, if we must make a computing analogy, components of prompt templates (other portions of which will be filled by evidence and…well, a bunch of other stuff you don’t control when writing the laws) that will be used by an extremely high temperature LLM. Which you can’t actually test freely against, though you can observe past behavior – but, even then, you are stymied by the fact that the LLM itself is constantly updated with retrained, and sometimes rearchitected, versions, without useful release notes.
    - unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
      No, law is code. It's just that the programming language is mushy-- 400 definitions of the word "set" is the example my AI offers-- and the interpreters vary. In a pinch, the code writers know that nearly anything they write can be rescued by the chief interpreter, which has led to a model of legislatures intentionally writing ambiguous code and top-level courts interpreting with an emphasis on public good. But, when you go down some arcane rabbit hole that will normally be interpreted by functionaries -- bankruptcy comes to mind-- suddenly everything is prescribed with remarkable precision and it becomes obvious again, law is code.
      - dragonwriter 2y ago
        > But, when you go down some arcane rabbit hole that will normally be interpreted by functionaries -- bankruptcy comes to mind-- suddenly everything is prescribed with remarkable precision If this were really true, there would be zero appellate cases (and probably not even trial cases, as the clear and only correct resolution would be apparent to all parties without a trial which would only add expense) in these areas, and yet... That's very much not the case. If law, even in these areas, is “code”, it is so more in the sense of the Pirates Code in Pirates of the Carribean, not computer software.
        2y ago
coldtea 2y ago
There are literally 1.33 million lawyers in the US...
- SideQuark 2y ago
  And 335,000,000 people in the US. Seems reasonable. Plenty of jobs employ around that number: house maids, bookkeepers, groundskeepers, and a host of professions the average person rarely or never employs. I suspect many of them may wonder why we have twice as many programmers :)
fao_ 2y ago
"(layperson looking at the Intel opcodes listing) The harder they make it to join their club, the more exclusive their service becomes. And thus they can command a higher salary" I know this might be difficult for those of us who have specialized in computer science and have found a lot of things very easy, but sometimes, other professions are difficult and complicated too! Not everything is gatekeeping, and needing to consult an expert otherwise you'll footgun yourself, isn't a personal blow to you, as a person!
- gosub100 2y ago
  Computing has become substantially cheaper and more accessible in the past couple decades. Can the legal industry make any such claims? Is it faster and more efficient to use the judicial system than it was in the 90s, 2000s? Why is the NY bar one of the hardest in the nation? Couldn't have anything to do with all the biglaw and money to be made in the city, no?
  - goatlover 2y ago
    Is it substantially easier and cheaper to become a medical doctor? Are there lots of technical jaron to learn in medicine?
    - gosub100 2y ago
      No, thats yet another cartel.
      - fao_ 2y ago
        Go pick up "The Molecular Biology of the Cell" and come back to me after a month of reading it, and then you will have learned perhaps 10% of the knowledge required to specialize in endocrinology. Some things are just complex! Programming as a field is "complex" but compared to any actual scientific field it probably the simplest to learn, pick up and understand. There's a reason why Doctors and Lawyers are highly paid and take forever to train. Techbros have already tried to reinvent the wheel in other fields — crypto payments and metamed come to mind. Metamed learned that "actually, medicine is really absurdly difficult and you can't just instantly automate the job of a doctor with Technology" the hard way, and crypto payments are learning "why financial infrastructure and regulation exists in the first place", the hard way (through losing billions of dollars over and over again through exploits and ponzi schemes). I suspect that soon techbros like you will try to invent the legal system from scratch and learn why laws and the legal system are that way, hopefully it won't be the hard way! (Through a revolution)

GrantMoyer 2y ago

I've thought a lot about how absurd it is that the rules we must follow are so obtuse that an entire profession exists to advise and argue if we and others are following the rules. But I've come to believe we just live in an absurd reality, and there's no possible way to communicate a set of rules to everyone, or even to get everyone to agree to one set of rules in the first place, so the legal profession is an unfortunate necessity. Of course, that doesn't preclude lawyers from sometimes being unscrupulous.

gosub100 2y ago
I think of case law as like a git repo of every function and subroutine anyone ever wrote. So on one hand it makes sense to need a specialized education to use it (so we don't waste time arguing the same noob points over and over). But on the other hand, you shouldn't need a law degree and bar license to sue an insurance company to pay up. Their client hit you, you're injured, now pay up or have a judge order you to. But the lawmen have carved out their own moat that puts ordinary people in a position to rely on them.
Enginerrrd 2y ago
Writing laws to cover complex situations is really not THAT different from writing software. Laws are programs. In that context, does it really seem so absurd that the rules are "obtuse"? Many people feel that way when reading someone else's code, but that doesn't mean all the weird conditionals are unnecessary.
- echoangle 2y ago
  The problem is that the output of the program determines if you’re going to jail. There are laws that many people might break just because they have no clue that there’s even a law about that. Realistically, you’re probably not going to go to jail immediately but you can have a bad time if you’re caught doing some things you didn’t even know were illegal.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Writing laws to cover complex situations is really not THAT different from writing software. I’ve done software (a lot) and worked in a legislative office (a little), they are extremely different. > Laws are programs. Laws are not programs, or even meaningfully analogous to anything so deterministic. They are more like, if we must make a computing analogy, components of prompt templates (other portions of which will be filled by evidence and…well, a bunch of other stuff you don’t control when writing the laws) that will be used by an extremely high temperature LLM. Which you can’t actually test freely against, though you can observe past behavior – but, even then, you are stymied by the fact that the LLM itself is constantly updated with retrained, and sometimes rearchitected, versions, without useful release notes.
  - unyttigfjelltol 2y ago
    No, law is code. It's just that the programming language is mushy-- 400 definitions of the word "set" is the example my AI offers-- and the interpreters vary. In a pinch, the code writers know that nearly anything they write can be rescued by the chief interpreter, which has led to a model of legislatures intentionally writing ambiguous code and top-level courts interpreting with an emphasis on public good. But, when you go down some arcane rabbit hole that will normally be interpreted by functionaries -- bankruptcy comes to mind-- suddenly everything is prescribed with remarkable precision and it becomes obvious again, law is code.
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > But, when you go down some arcane rabbit hole that will normally be interpreted by functionaries -- bankruptcy comes to mind-- suddenly everything is prescribed with remarkable precision If this were really true, there would be zero appellate cases (and probably not even trial cases, as the clear and only correct resolution would be apparent to all parties without a trial which would only add expense) in these areas, and yet... That's very much not the case. If law, even in these areas, is “code”, it is so more in the sense of the Pirates Code in Pirates of the Carribean, not computer software.
      - 2y ago

coldtea 2y ago

There are literally 1.33 million lawyers in the US...

SideQuark 2y ago
And 335,000,000 people in the US. Seems reasonable. Plenty of jobs employ around that number: house maids, bookkeepers, groundskeepers, and a host of professions the average person rarely or never employs. I suspect many of them may wonder why we have twice as many programmers :)

fao_ 2y ago

"(layperson looking at the Intel opcodes listing) The harder they make it to join their club, the more exclusive their service becomes. And thus they can command a higher salary" I know this might be difficult for those of us who have specialized in computer science and have found a lot of things very easy, but sometimes, other professions are difficult and complicated too! Not everything is gatekeeping, and needing to consult an expert otherwise you'll footgun yourself, isn't a personal blow to you, as a person!

gosub100 2y ago
Computing has become substantially cheaper and more accessible in the past couple decades. Can the legal industry make any such claims? Is it faster and more efficient to use the judicial system than it was in the 90s, 2000s? Why is the NY bar one of the hardest in the nation? Couldn't have anything to do with all the biglaw and money to be made in the city, no?
- goatlover 2y ago
  Is it substantially easier and cheaper to become a medical doctor? Are there lots of technical jaron to learn in medicine?
  - gosub100 2y ago
    No, thats yet another cartel.
    - fao_ 2y ago
      Go pick up "The Molecular Biology of the Cell" and come back to me after a month of reading it, and then you will have learned perhaps 10% of the knowledge required to specialize in endocrinology. Some things are just complex! Programming as a field is "complex" but compared to any actual scientific field it probably the simplest to learn, pick up and understand. There's a reason why Doctors and Lawyers are highly paid and take forever to train. Techbros have already tried to reinvent the wheel in other fields — crypto payments and metamed come to mind. Metamed learned that "actually, medicine is really absurdly difficult and you can't just instantly automate the job of a doctor with Technology" the hard way, and crypto payments are learning "why financial infrastructure and regulation exists in the first place", the hard way (through losing billions of dollars over and over again through exploits and ponzi schemes). I suspect that soon techbros like you will try to invent the legal system from scratch and learn why laws and the legal system are that way, hopefully it won't be the hard way! (Through a revolution)