3 ms·

That sounds a lot like a rationalization desperately grasping at "surely it's not as insane as it sounds, what it _must_ mean is ... " I would want to read and

by bigiain 3mo ago

That sounds a lot like a rationalization desperately grasping at "surely it's not as insane as it sounds, what it _must_ mean is ... " I would want to read and perhaps get legal advice before relying on that interpretation - and before finding I signed over rights to my landlord to make candid porn of me and all his other tenants.

computerdork 3mo ago
Am pretty sure he's right. I rent out my house, and it is very illegal for the landlord to record video inside the house (or even of the driveway). You are infringing the privacy of your tenants and is a huge no-no. Yeah, if you accidentally recorded families walking through their homes unclothed, this could land a landlord in jail.
- wtallis 3mo ago
  The contract terms could very well have actually had a meaning that included filming inside the apartment. The existence of other laws overriding the contract isn't actually the same thing as the contract not having that invasive meaning.
  - monkpit 3mo ago
    You can’t make a contract that breaks the law, it doesn’t work that way. It’s unenforceable and doesn’t hold up in court. Otherwise, you could just make contracts anytime you wanted to break the law for any reason.
somenameforme 3mo ago
Contracts don't and can't override laws.
- rurban 3mo ago
  In normal states not. But there you have the very popular political system called fascism, where contracts override laws.
  - somenameforme 3mo ago
    That doesn't even make any sense. Fascism is generally about top-down enforced control, whereas contracts are heavily decentralized. The world where you'd have contracts override laws would be some sort of extreme anarcho-libertarian society, which is rather the opposite of fascism.
    - rurban 3mo ago
      That's what you heard in school, defending the US style of fascism as "democratic". Fascism was a scheme to keep the old aristocrats turning industrialists to keep control of the state, whilst still keeping it under the democratic name. This was devised in the US in the 30ies and then in the old states also. Heavily supported by the US industrialists. Without them the fascism movement had no chance. The US scheme of fascism came up with cooperate contracts overriding state laws, also pleasing the Chicago crowd, with decentralized control. At the will of the cooperations, who know better than the government of course. That's why Rockefeller could gun down strikers without any repercussions. That's why the Railroad Commission could call state military to gun down independent oil cooperations which undercut prizes of the industrialists. That's not liberalism, that's pure fascism/cooperatism/aristocratism.
      - rightbyte 3mo ago
        "Corporatism" not "cooperatism" though, right? Nothing wrong with cooperatism I think.
        rurban 3mo ago
        Oops, sure
      - sehansen 3mo ago
        That's pretty far from the usual views of fascism. Generally fascism can be seen as a form of right wing collectivism organizing all of society into one big hierarchy, with industrialist somewhat below the top and subservient to political leadership. In a fascist society political decrees override both laws and contracts. This means that fascism is inherently centralized and that what companies receive state support depends on who are political favourites at the moment. E.g. a fascist state might support the independent oil companies if it felt the established industrialists were getting too influential, i.e. classical divide and conquer. By the way, I'm not claiming the things you describe didn't take place for the reasons you claimed. I just don't think it's accurate to describe it as based on fascism.
- lambertsimnel 3mo ago
  But if laws can override contracts (which presumably they can), then contracts can appear to establish permissions/restrictions that are illegal. At least one contract I've signed includes something about the rest being enforceable if any part of it isn't enforceable. Perhaps that helps to contain actual mistakes, but I assume employers use it to persuade employees that they're bound by illegal non-compete clauses, for example.
  - vintermann 3mo ago
    > At least one contract I've signed includes something about the rest being enforceable if any part of it isn't enforceable. Which is funny, because if it worked like that - that any unenforceable demand in it made the whole thing invalid - then presumably the clause asserting the opposite would also be invalid.
  - RetroTechie 3mo ago
    No it means that if parts of a contract are found to be unlawful or unenforceable, the rest of the contract still holds. Edit: in other words, you're not legally bound to unlawful parts of a contract.
    - lambertsimnel 3mo ago
      This is my understanding, too. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my earlier comment. However, I also believe that unenforceable parts of a contract have no effect, except in the minds of the parties to that contract. My suspicion is that contracts are sometimes drafted with this in mind.
hvb2 3mo ago
> before finding I signed over rights to my landlord to make candid porn of me and all his other tenants. If the law says you cannot do XYZ, your landlord can state otherwise in whatever verbiage but that's all void. This is why good consumer protection laws exist, in a well functioning society there things you sign are to protect the landlord from bad renters (don't pay, cause a nuisance etc). The law in general should protect you as the tenant from a bad landlord.

by bigiain 3mo ago

computerdork 3mo ago

Am pretty sure he's right. I rent out my house, and it is very illegal for the landlord to record video inside the house (or even of the driveway). You are infringing the privacy of your tenants and is a huge no-no. Yeah, if you accidentally recorded families walking through their homes unclothed, this could land a landlord in jail.

wtallis 3mo ago
The contract terms could very well have actually had a meaning that included filming inside the apartment. The existence of other laws overriding the contract isn't actually the same thing as the contract not having that invasive meaning.
- monkpit 3mo ago
  You can’t make a contract that breaks the law, it doesn’t work that way. It’s unenforceable and doesn’t hold up in court. Otherwise, you could just make contracts anytime you wanted to break the law for any reason.

somenameforme 3mo ago

Contracts don't and can't override laws.

rurban 3mo ago
In normal states not. But there you have the very popular political system called fascism, where contracts override laws.
- somenameforme 3mo ago
  That doesn't even make any sense. Fascism is generally about top-down enforced control, whereas contracts are heavily decentralized. The world where you'd have contracts override laws would be some sort of extreme anarcho-libertarian society, which is rather the opposite of fascism.
  - rurban 3mo ago
    That's what you heard in school, defending the US style of fascism as "democratic". Fascism was a scheme to keep the old aristocrats turning industrialists to keep control of the state, whilst still keeping it under the democratic name. This was devised in the US in the 30ies and then in the old states also. Heavily supported by the US industrialists. Without them the fascism movement had no chance. The US scheme of fascism came up with cooperate contracts overriding state laws, also pleasing the Chicago crowd, with decentralized control. At the will of the cooperations, who know better than the government of course. That's why Rockefeller could gun down strikers without any repercussions. That's why the Railroad Commission could call state military to gun down independent oil cooperations which undercut prizes of the industrialists. That's not liberalism, that's pure fascism/cooperatism/aristocratism.
    - rightbyte 3mo ago
      "Corporatism" not "cooperatism" though, right? Nothing wrong with cooperatism I think.
      - rurban 3mo ago
        Oops, sure
    - sehansen 3mo ago
      That's pretty far from the usual views of fascism. Generally fascism can be seen as a form of right wing collectivism organizing all of society into one big hierarchy, with industrialist somewhat below the top and subservient to political leadership. In a fascist society political decrees override both laws and contracts. This means that fascism is inherently centralized and that what companies receive state support depends on who are political favourites at the moment. E.g. a fascist state might support the independent oil companies if it felt the established industrialists were getting too influential, i.e. classical divide and conquer. By the way, I'm not claiming the things you describe didn't take place for the reasons you claimed. I just don't think it's accurate to describe it as based on fascism.
lambertsimnel 3mo ago
But if laws can override contracts (which presumably they can), then contracts can appear to establish permissions/restrictions that are illegal. At least one contract I've signed includes something about the rest being enforceable if any part of it isn't enforceable. Perhaps that helps to contain actual mistakes, but I assume employers use it to persuade employees that they're bound by illegal non-compete clauses, for example.
- vintermann 3mo ago
  > At least one contract I've signed includes something about the rest being enforceable if any part of it isn't enforceable. Which is funny, because if it worked like that - that any unenforceable demand in it made the whole thing invalid - then presumably the clause asserting the opposite would also be invalid.
- RetroTechie 3mo ago
  No it means that if parts of a contract are found to be unlawful or unenforceable, the rest of the contract still holds. Edit: in other words, you're not legally bound to unlawful parts of a contract.
  - lambertsimnel 3mo ago
    This is my understanding, too. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my earlier comment. However, I also believe that unenforceable parts of a contract have no effect, except in the minds of the parties to that contract. My suspicion is that contracts are sometimes drafted with this in mind.

hvb2 3mo ago

> before finding I signed over rights to my landlord to make candid porn of me and all his other tenants. If the law says you cannot do XYZ, your landlord can state otherwise in whatever verbiage but that's all void. This is why good consumer protection laws exist, in a well functioning society there things you sign are to protect the landlord from bad renters (don't pay, cause a nuisance etc). The law in general should protect you as the tenant from a bad landlord.