4 ms·

This is a concept I've heard a lot growing up by all sorts of people. Usually they suggest something tangential or paranoid as a result. I'd say its normal and

This is a concept I've heard a lot growing up by all sorts of people. Usually they suggest something tangential or paranoid as a result. I'd say its normal and to be expected, and this kind of whining is equivalent to someone writing an article on car crashes and titling it "No One Is Safe". Civilization and governments are emergent, more or less, and hobbled together by all manner of parts and precedents. We live in a democracy, or an approximation of one. That means we aren't ruled by an evil cabal, we aren't ruled by some landed elite. We aren't governed by some educated class (you should see some town hall meetings). We've chosen a democratic process, which means that we've chosen in aggregate to be governed by whoever shows up. That's horrifying in its own right, but its more-or-less what we asked for. And what, you were expecting a perfectly oiled, benevolent government from top to bottom with seven nines up-time and great fault tolerance? Shitty things like this are a cost of civilization. By all means we should try to fix them, but we shouldn't act appalled when we find them, and we certainly shouldn't advocate throwing out the cradle of civilization with the bathwater. (Not that this site necessarily does, but "revolution" is in the URL, and many who point out things like an imperfect justice system do, and civilization smash-and-grab tends to be the M.O. of certain political parties that point to things like this in an attempt to tear down other portions of civilization). I upvoted the article because I'd like the discussion, but I don't like the sentiment of this article, which is essentially "Civilizations and governments that evolve over hundreds of years get very complex, and you should be afraid, be very afraid." Enough with the boogeymanning. It's not a good way to open discussion or fix things.

jsnk 13y ago
You are right that we live in an approximation of democracy, but that doesn't entail that "we aren't ruled by an evil cabal, we aren't ruled by some landed elite. We aren't governed by some educated class (you should see some town hall meetings)" Democracy permits all of the above without destorying its own meaning. Also the statement that "We've chosen a democratic process" is a lie. It simply has been repeated endlessly that people believe it to be true. Tell me when was the time you decided to have democracy. People never had a choice. It was simply imposed and enforced. Lastly, democracy is not the only means of having a civilization. Whether people like to admit it or not, as much as democracy can be good, it can also be bad.
- mathattack 13y ago
  I hate to nitpick words, but... "Whether people like to admit it or not, as much as democracy can be good, it can also be bad." I disagree here. Democracy has the capacity for bad, but it has much more capacity for good. To misquote Churchill (or someone else?) "Democracy is the worst thing going, except for the alternative"
- comicjk 13y ago
  > Tell me when was the time you decided to have democracy. People never had a choice. Actually, the fact of democracy is itself up for a vote. We could ammend the Constitution so as to abolish elections, if there were a consensus to do so. We have a choice.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Because of the extreme difficulty in amending the Constitution like that, you might as well say that oppressed people in a totalitarian dictatorship could simply overthrow the dictator, and that therefore their government is also a choice. There are a lot more violent regime changes than there are amendments to the US Constitution.
betterunix 13y ago
The problem is that our legal code has ballooned, and needlessly so. We tend to react to any bad news with, "Pass a law so it will not happen!" Americans often do not bother to reflect on whether or not such a law is even compatible with a free society or with our constitution. That is not how things are supposed to work. Sex offender registration and housing restrictions are an excellent example. Megan's Law was passed in response to an exceedingly rare crime, and everything we know about child sex abuse suggests that it is a stupid law (most of the time, it is someone close to the child, not a mysterious stranger). The regulations on where sex offenders are allowed to live have resulted in colonies of homeless sex offenders (which can be a parole violation). These laws are almost all ex post facto laws, but the courts are willing to perform all the mental acrobatics necessary to justify their constitutionality. We wind up with stories about 19 year olds who had sex with 17 year olds winding up on the registry, or even guys who urinated in public. Yet that has been the pattern in American law for my entire life. Someone died because they overdosed on some new drug at a party, and suddenly the drug is illegal. Someone put a high-capacity magazine in a gun and shot dozens of people, and suddenly high-capacity magazines are illegal. Someone bullies a middle schooler on Myspace to the point of suicide, and "online bullying" becomes a crime. The second problem with these sorts of laws is that they never expire. Legislators are never forced to debate old laws, even if the laws no longer make sense. Cocaine was made illegal because members of Congress were told that black men became unstoppable monsters, more accurate with a pistol, and more prone to attack white women -- and in the century that has followed, nobody has bothered to renew that debate and see if that line of reasoning still makes sense. Virginia recently took a rare step and repealed a law that made it illegal for an unmarried heterosexual couple to live together (though plenty of other moronic laws remain on the books there). Maybe it made sense to make it illegal to dig for arrowheads, but without debating it now, how do we know that it still makes sense? We should live in a society where no reasonable person has to worry about whether or not they are breaking the law. That means we need our laws to expire periodically, so that we keep debating whether or not they make sense, and that means we need to not just pass laws every time someone happens that we do not like.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  The second problem with these sorts of laws is that they never expire. Legislators are never forced to debate old laws, even if the laws no longer make sense. Not actually true, lots of laws have sunset provisions built in. LAws are often repealed or overturned. New laws are typically passed because egregious situatiosn occur and there's not prosecutable under existing law. In the meantime, defendants rely on procedrualism as much as prosecutors do. The growth and complexity of law is a problem, but misrepresenting the situation as people like Silverglate do (without ever explaining the legal philosophy behind how it came to be this way) leaves everyone worse off because they're just as ignorant as before. The media loves this of course. That's why when government agencies ask for comment ias part of their rulemaking process (which requess for comments are published in the state or federal register, as all pro journalists know), the media hardly ever bothers to mention it ot the public until the deadline for comment sis looming, in order to create a false sense of urgency and an impression ofa government that doesn't give the people time to react to what's being done in their name. We should live in a society where no reasonable person has to worry about whether or not they are breaking the law. That means we need our laws to expire periodically, so that we keep debating whether or not they make sense, and that means we need to not just pass laws every time someone happens that we do not like. Suppose the statute on murder expired automatically every 10 years and had to be reauthorized. What makes you think it would not just be expanded every single time the review period came around? Switching out the legislative mechanism isn't going lead to a magical improvement in human psychology.
joshuahedlund 13y ago
> (Not that this site necessarily does, but "revolution" is in the URL, and many who point out things like an imperfect justice system do, and civilization smash-and-grab tends to be the M.O. of certain political parties that point to things like this in an attempt to tear down other portions of civilization) I like your counterpoints to what you see as the sentiment of this article, but I just wanted to note that the other word in the URL is "marginal" - it's wordplay with an economic term about generally small changes that deliberately contrasts with the generally harsh word "revolution" - or in other words, perhaps something closer to advocating fixing things as we find them than throwing out the cradle.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mathattack 13y ago
I like your comment of "We've chosen a democratic process, which means that we've chosen in aggregate to be governed by whoever shows up." It's profound for leadership in general, as well as democracy. I'm with you that there's no Cabal running things. The concept though is that we all have done something wrong, so someone who wants to abuse their power can go after us. The IRS going after political enemies is one example. Now the source leans libertarian, so it has to be taken in context.
rpgmaker 13y ago
>This is a concept I've heard a lot growing up by all sorts of people. Usually they suggest something tangential or paranoid as a result. I don't think it will be considered paranoid once everything starts to get recorded ALL THE TIME. And I don't think that is so far away.
baddox 13y ago
> We've chosen a democratic process, which means that we've chosen in aggregate to be governed by whoever shows up. I'm curious how you justify this claim. In what meaningful way has anyone chosen a democratic process? I certainly never chose it, and I've never been asked if I approve. I am occasionally given the "opportunity" to vote for one of a few candidates for various political offices, and there are sometimes even referenda, but I have no choice in the fact that this is how our government operates. If this were a dictatorship (as in, a single ruler has all government authority), would you also say that "we've chosen a dictatorship"? You say that the democratic process is horrifying, and I agree, but I disagree that the people being governed have any role in choosing to be governed by this style of government even if we make the contentious assumption that they actually have a voice in the specific decisions the government makes. The "democratic government" that rules us (here, I'm referring specifically to the United States, but I suspect it holds for all Western democracies) maintains its power through systematic and unapologetic violence against anyone who challenges it, just like any other type of government. Of course, that last sentence is somewhat unnecessary, because that's built into the definition of "government." I also completely disagree with your claim that flawed governments (and indeed governments at all) are a necessary cost of civilization, but that's a longer story that I may type when I have something other than an iPad. Suffice it to say that I agree that we should try to fix it, but I'm convinced that the only way to do so is from the outside. Because governments are by definition organizations which claim to be the sole legitimate purveyors of violence in a region, and claim to be self-policing, I do not believe it makes any sense to attempt to use the political process itself to change or fix them from the inside.
to3m 13y ago
(Regarding Marginal Revolution, it is a worthwhile addition to anybody's regular blog reading list, and perfectly safe. When the FBI storm your house and search your computer it will be no more incriminating than this computer hacking site that you seem to be posting comments on.) Your parting characterisation of the article is fairly accurate, but I have to stand in opposition to your disagreement with it. One should be afraid! So many laws so easily broken mean that one's liberty depends on inconsistent detection as much as it does good behaviour. I'm sure many look upon this as a way to give your friendly local police force a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to cracking skulls, but I for one see it in a more menacing light. I would prefer not to have to rely on the capriciousness of law enforcement. There's a good talk video on YouTube along these lines, about how one should never talk to the police. Here's a transcript: http://bitmote.com/index.php?post/2011/12/13/Why-You-Should-Never-Talk-to-The-Police%2C-Part-1-Transcript http://bitmote.com/index.php?post/2011/12/13/Why-You-Should-... TL;DR - nothing good will ever come of talking to the police unnecessarily, because if you do, they'll almost certainly be able to find something to get you with.

jsnk 13y ago

You are right that we live in an approximation of democracy, but that doesn't entail that "we aren't ruled by an evil cabal, we aren't ruled by some landed elite. We aren't governed by some educated class (you should see some town hall meetings)" Democracy permits all of the above without destorying its own meaning. Also the statement that "We've chosen a democratic process" is a lie. It simply has been repeated endlessly that people believe it to be true. Tell me when was the time you decided to have democracy. People never had a choice. It was simply imposed and enforced. Lastly, democracy is not the only means of having a civilization. Whether people like to admit it or not, as much as democracy can be good, it can also be bad.

mathattack 13y ago
I hate to nitpick words, but... "Whether people like to admit it or not, as much as democracy can be good, it can also be bad." I disagree here. Democracy has the capacity for bad, but it has much more capacity for good. To misquote Churchill (or someone else?) "Democracy is the worst thing going, except for the alternative"
comicjk 13y ago
> Tell me when was the time you decided to have democracy. People never had a choice. Actually, the fact of democracy is itself up for a vote. We could ammend the Constitution so as to abolish elections, if there were a consensus to do so. We have a choice.
- baddox 13y ago
  Because of the extreme difficulty in amending the Constitution like that, you might as well say that oppressed people in a totalitarian dictatorship could simply overthrow the dictator, and that therefore their government is also a choice. There are a lot more violent regime changes than there are amendments to the US Constitution.

betterunix 13y ago

The problem is that our legal code has ballooned, and needlessly so. We tend to react to any bad news with, "Pass a law so it will not happen!" Americans often do not bother to reflect on whether or not such a law is even compatible with a free society or with our constitution. That is not how things are supposed to work. Sex offender registration and housing restrictions are an excellent example. Megan's Law was passed in response to an exceedingly rare crime, and everything we know about child sex abuse suggests that it is a stupid law (most of the time, it is someone close to the child, not a mysterious stranger). The regulations on where sex offenders are allowed to live have resulted in colonies of homeless sex offenders (which can be a parole violation). These laws are almost all ex post facto laws, but the courts are willing to perform all the mental acrobatics necessary to justify their constitutionality. We wind up with stories about 19 year olds who had sex with 17 year olds winding up on the registry, or even guys who urinated in public. Yet that has been the pattern in American law for my entire life. Someone died because they overdosed on some new drug at a party, and suddenly the drug is illegal. Someone put a high-capacity magazine in a gun and shot dozens of people, and suddenly high-capacity magazines are illegal. Someone bullies a middle schooler on Myspace to the point of suicide, and "online bullying" becomes a crime. The second problem with these sorts of laws is that they never expire. Legislators are never forced to debate old laws, even if the laws no longer make sense. Cocaine was made illegal because members of Congress were told that black men became unstoppable monsters, more accurate with a pistol, and more prone to attack white women -- and in the century that has followed, nobody has bothered to renew that debate and see if that line of reasoning still makes sense. Virginia recently took a rare step and repealed a law that made it illegal for an unmarried heterosexual couple to live together (though plenty of other moronic laws remain on the books there). Maybe it made sense to make it illegal to dig for arrowheads, but without debating it now, how do we know that it still makes sense? We should live in a society where no reasonable person has to worry about whether or not they are breaking the law. That means we need our laws to expire periodically, so that we keep debating whether or not they make sense, and that means we need to not just pass laws every time someone happens that we do not like.

anigbrowl 13y ago
The second problem with these sorts of laws is that they never expire. Legislators are never forced to debate old laws, even if the laws no longer make sense. Not actually true, lots of laws have sunset provisions built in. LAws are often repealed or overturned. New laws are typically passed because egregious situatiosn occur and there's not prosecutable under existing law. In the meantime, defendants rely on procedrualism as much as prosecutors do. The growth and complexity of law is a problem, but misrepresenting the situation as people like Silverglate do (without ever explaining the legal philosophy behind how it came to be this way) leaves everyone worse off because they're just as ignorant as before. The media loves this of course. That's why when government agencies ask for comment ias part of their rulemaking process (which requess for comments are published in the state or federal register, as all pro journalists know), the media hardly ever bothers to mention it ot the public until the deadline for comment sis looming, in order to create a false sense of urgency and an impression ofa government that doesn't give the people time to react to what's being done in their name. We should live in a society where no reasonable person has to worry about whether or not they are breaking the law. That means we need our laws to expire periodically, so that we keep debating whether or not they make sense, and that means we need to not just pass laws every time someone happens that we do not like. Suppose the statute on murder expired automatically every 10 years and had to be reauthorized. What makes you think it would not just be expanded every single time the review period came around? Switching out the legislative mechanism isn't going lead to a magical improvement in human psychology.

joshuahedlund 13y ago

> (Not that this site necessarily does, but "revolution" is in the URL, and many who point out things like an imperfect justice system do, and civilization smash-and-grab tends to be the M.O. of certain political parties that point to things like this in an attempt to tear down other portions of civilization) I like your counterpoints to what you see as the sentiment of this article, but I just wanted to note that the other word in the URL is "marginal" - it's wordplay with an economic term about generally small changes that deliberately contrasts with the generally harsh word "revolution" - or in other words, perhaps something closer to advocating fixing things as we find them than throwing out the cradle.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

mathattack 13y ago

I like your comment of "We've chosen a democratic process, which means that we've chosen in aggregate to be governed by whoever shows up." It's profound for leadership in general, as well as democracy. I'm with you that there's no Cabal running things. The concept though is that we all have done something wrong, so someone who wants to abuse their power can go after us. The IRS going after political enemies is one example. Now the source leans libertarian, so it has to be taken in context.

rpgmaker 13y ago

>This is a concept I've heard a lot growing up by all sorts of people. Usually they suggest something tangential or paranoid as a result. I don't think it will be considered paranoid once everything starts to get recorded ALL THE TIME. And I don't think that is so far away.

baddox 13y ago

> We've chosen a democratic process, which means that we've chosen in aggregate to be governed by whoever shows up. I'm curious how you justify this claim. In what meaningful way has anyone chosen a democratic process? I certainly never chose it, and I've never been asked if I approve. I am occasionally given the "opportunity" to vote for one of a few candidates for various political offices, and there are sometimes even referenda, but I have no choice in the fact that this is how our government operates. If this were a dictatorship (as in, a single ruler has all government authority), would you also say that "we've chosen a dictatorship"? You say that the democratic process is horrifying, and I agree, but I disagree that the people being governed have any role in choosing to be governed by this style of government even if we make the contentious assumption that they actually have a voice in the specific decisions the government makes. The "democratic government" that rules us (here, I'm referring specifically to the United States, but I suspect it holds for all Western democracies) maintains its power through systematic and unapologetic violence against anyone who challenges it, just like any other type of government. Of course, that last sentence is somewhat unnecessary, because that's built into the definition of "government." I also completely disagree with your claim that flawed governments (and indeed governments at all) are a necessary cost of civilization, but that's a longer story that I may type when I have something other than an iPad. Suffice it to say that I agree that we should try to fix it, but I'm convinced that the only way to do so is from the outside. Because governments are by definition organizations which claim to be the sole legitimate purveyors of violence in a region, and claim to be self-policing, I do not believe it makes any sense to attempt to use the political process itself to change or fix them from the inside.

to3m 13y ago

(Regarding Marginal Revolution, it is a worthwhile addition to anybody's regular blog reading list, and perfectly safe. When the FBI storm your house and search your computer it will be no more incriminating than this computer hacking site that you seem to be posting comments on.) Your parting characterisation of the article is fairly accurate, but I have to stand in opposition to your disagreement with it. One should be afraid! So many laws so easily broken mean that one's liberty depends on inconsistent detection as much as it does good behaviour. I'm sure many look upon this as a way to give your friendly local police force a certain amount of flexibility when it comes to cracking skulls, but I for one see it in a more menacing light. I would prefer not to have to rely on the capriciousness of law enforcement. There's a good talk video on YouTube along these lines, about how one should never talk to the police. Here's a transcript: http://bitmote.com/index.php?post/2011/12/13/Why-You-Should-Never-Talk-to-The-Police%2C-Part-1-Transcript http://bitmote.com/index.php?post/2011/12/13/Why-You-Should-... TL;DR - nothing good will ever come of talking to the police unnecessarily, because if you do, they'll almost certainly be able to find something to get you with.