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The law has always been complicated. I'm pretty sure the only people who would be able to "simplify the law" would be lawyers, and I can't really imagine they

The law has always been complicated. I'm pretty sure the only people who would be able to "simplify the law" would be lawyers, and I can't really imagine they would think it would be in their best interests to do that.

ericd 12y ago
Also, it's a reflection of reality and human values, both of which which happen to be very complex, nuanced, and have plenty of edge cases for any rule we might try to dream up.
- gtirloni 12y ago
  I think it's a reflection of an uneducated society that cannot apply common sense or the Golden Rule. Everything has to be specified in extreme detail.
  - arethuza 12y ago
    The satirical version of the Golden Rule that "Whoever has the gold, makes the rules." seems appropriate in this context!
  - masklinn 12y ago
    > it's a reflection of an uneducated society that cannot apply common sense The problem of common sense is that everybody has his own, you can't build rules on sand and that's what "common sense" is. For one person it's common sense to snip bits of genital organs from infants, for the next it's common sense to pray 5 times a day, for yet an other one it's common sense to flog your children to bleeding, outright own other human beings or threaten those who don't agree with you with maiming or death. You will find people telling you it's common sense to have live grenades on your coffee tables, plant anti-personnel mines in your garden, answer a door-knock by shooting through the door or walk around with enough weaponry to take over a small country. Relying on "common sense" is relying on hyperlocal groupthink, it's not even workable in tribal societies, it's barely workable within a small family.
  - tzs 12y ago
    Common sense is sufficient for most things. The problem with law is that what gets to court are the weird edge cases that aren't covered by common sense. Often by the time something reaches the court, there is no possible outcome that provides justice for all, and the court instead has to determine which of the parties to screw the least.
  - SixSigma 12y ago
    Some things have no unequivocal decision metric. e.g. "We know it's not always fair but that's the way we have decided it goes, so everyone knows where they stand". I think this is demonstrated by Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost" [1] > Because in the real world there are costs of bargaining and information gathering, legal rules are justified to the extent of their ability to allocate rights to the most efficient right-bearer. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost
- xtian 12y ago
  It's the codification that begets the complexity.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> The law has always been complicated. I'm pretty sure the only people who would be able to "simplify the law" would be lawyers, and I can't really imagine they would think it would be in their best interests to do that. Lawyers are often behind movements to simplify the law. The problem is that efforts to simplify the law often lead to (what some substantial group feels are) substantially negative impacts given the complexity of the reality the law is meant to deal with. Simplifying often sounds better in the abstract than in concrete terms.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Law written by lawyers (e.g. Model Codes, Restatements, Procedural Rules) are usually far shorter and more clear than law written by legislatures. The political process introduces a lot of special cases and legislatures are hesitant to leave discretion to the judiciary. Both for obvious reasons.

ericd 12y ago

Also, it's a reflection of reality and human values, both of which which happen to be very complex, nuanced, and have plenty of edge cases for any rule we might try to dream up.

gtirloni 12y ago
I think it's a reflection of an uneducated society that cannot apply common sense or the Golden Rule. Everything has to be specified in extreme detail.
- arethuza 12y ago
  The satirical version of the Golden Rule that "Whoever has the gold, makes the rules." seems appropriate in this context!
- masklinn 12y ago
  > it's a reflection of an uneducated society that cannot apply common sense The problem of common sense is that everybody has his own, you can't build rules on sand and that's what "common sense" is. For one person it's common sense to snip bits of genital organs from infants, for the next it's common sense to pray 5 times a day, for yet an other one it's common sense to flog your children to bleeding, outright own other human beings or threaten those who don't agree with you with maiming or death. You will find people telling you it's common sense to have live grenades on your coffee tables, plant anti-personnel mines in your garden, answer a door-knock by shooting through the door or walk around with enough weaponry to take over a small country. Relying on "common sense" is relying on hyperlocal groupthink, it's not even workable in tribal societies, it's barely workable within a small family.
- tzs 12y ago
  Common sense is sufficient for most things. The problem with law is that what gets to court are the weird edge cases that aren't covered by common sense. Often by the time something reaches the court, there is no possible outcome that provides justice for all, and the court instead has to determine which of the parties to screw the least.
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Some things have no unequivocal decision metric. e.g. "We know it's not always fair but that's the way we have decided it goes, so everyone knows where they stand". I think this is demonstrated by Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost" [1] > Because in the real world there are costs of bargaining and information gathering, legal rules are justified to the extent of their ability to allocate rights to the most efficient right-bearer. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Social_Cost
xtian 12y ago
It's the codification that begets the complexity.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> The law has always been complicated. I'm pretty sure the only people who would be able to "simplify the law" would be lawyers, and I can't really imagine they would think it would be in their best interests to do that. Lawyers are often behind movements to simplify the law. The problem is that efforts to simplify the law often lead to (what some substantial group feels are) substantially negative impacts given the complexity of the reality the law is meant to deal with. Simplifying often sounds better in the abstract than in concrete terms.

rayiner 12y ago
Law written by lawyers (e.g. Model Codes, Restatements, Procedural Rules) are usually far shorter and more clear than law written by legislatures. The political process introduces a lot of special cases and legislatures are hesitant to leave discretion to the judiciary. Both for obvious reasons.