DIscuss or discard.
Much of the discussion around government is centered around a bunch of
axioms that we each accept, that guide our decisions as to what type of
government to support.
One of those axioms is so deep that it rarely evokes discussion, and
that is the role of law and language, and how they relate to justice.
Let's take a single issue, for the sake of discussion. Gun
control.
Our goals are simple. We wish to protect ourselves... both from guns
and with guns. A strong majority of people do not want a blanket ban on
guns. A strong majority of people also want to limit the spread of rocket
launchers and BFGs in general.
We start into this issue, thinking... "What laws should we craft to
give the people the type of environment they wish?" and "How should those
laws be passed?" and "Who should have the authority to pass those
laws?"
Then we start into... What the laws can and cannot do... How to
elect... who to elect... how laws are passed... waiting periods, disclosure
periods, safety mechanisms for bad law... etcetera
But, LAW is only one way to approach prohibition of antisocial
behavior. When I say anti-social, I mean in the subjective sense... If you
ask ten people in a room if Alice should be allowed to do, "X", 8 of them
may say, "NO". We ask the same question about "Bill", and only 4 people
object. This happens more than we like to consider... perhaps Alice is a
mass murderer, or a dalmation, or a psychotic person. Perhaps Bill is a
decorated police sargeant and a community activist.
Now imagine a perfect world... where the system makes sure Alice knows
she will be punished for "X", and if caught, the punishment will be fair, by
the judgment of a large majority of observers. The system also lets BIll do
"X" with a reasonable certainty that he will not be punished... and an
overwhelming majority of people support this outcome.
Laws serve our desire for Justice. They are a means to an end, and must
be viewed in that context.
But laws are often brutish. Many rights get prohibited because a small
subset of people abuse the privilage. Additionally, many people are allowed
to do things which society would punish, in the spirit of justice.
The Bible tells of a time when man lived under the Law of the Old
Testament. There were hudreds of laws that dictated who should do what, and
when... and how intensely. As the story goes, the Laws dictated whether
someone would receive salvation. Many people did some VERY dick things,
completely under the law. Child abuse, torture, rape, fratracide,
patricide... all legal.
THEN ONE DAY, God send his Son (or himself... that part's confusing) to
earth to speak a new message. My Pastor used to say that Jesus is the path
to heaven, and Jesus is love, and that all I had to do, in place of all
those wierd rules... was to accept Jesus into my heart and to abide by a
simple rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The golden
rule.
Our Pastor, Mike, would say... "We lived under the strictures of the
law, and now, we live under grace."
It is SOO many years later now. I have nearly been full circle in my
relationship with that carpenter... through Christianity, Atheism,
Agnosticism, and now a quiet, unknowing "umm... I dunno". I find real wisdom
in the pages of the Gospel, even though I don't know if God wrote it.
As a society, I wish to live under grace. When I reflect on my few
years, alive on this rock... I can say with grim certainty, that I knew just
about every time... when I was being selfish, being dishonorable... harming
others. Sometimes I did very small harm for great personal gain. I lied
about being sick so I could attend an event.
And sometimes I acted out of anger, fear or jealousy. I lashed out,
venting testosterone and smelling of whisky, and I did wrong. I did
significant harm... for horrible reasons. It is often the case that I lied
to myself at the time, purposefully misjudging risk or effect... but
after... I always knew when I was a dick.
And it is striking how consistently my peers judge the particular
actions of individuals. Though they may not be of outstanding moral
character, they know when they are being BAD.
There are hundreds of thousands of laws and codes. I do not know 1/10th
of 1% of them, and yet I walk around every day with a fair certainty that I
am not breaking any of them. And the cops don't know the law. I have friends
that were arrested for video taping the police. Thrown out of court, of
course, but they got arrested... NOT for doing harm, but because Law and
Justice have become disjointed. The cops that arrested my friends knew that
my friends weren't harming anyone, but they thought that someone wrote down
some rule, post 9/11, that made their actions illegal. The police cannot be
expected to know every law... no one can...
Does it make sense to subject ourselves to a code that we cannot
memorize, with the ability to punish us, when almost every action that we
actually wish to prohibit could be covered by, "Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you". And truly, when we find a law that does not conform
to our idea of fairness and reason... and that simple golden code... we say,
"Well, that's a stupid law".
We are usually right.
This question is important because it seems VERY likely that you could
have a just society with ONE LAW, and a system to ask society whether it
would be okay to do something... just in case there is any gray area.
Computers can give us ANYTHING we require in support. They can help us
deliberate about rules... they can help us craft better laws... they can
help us elect competent people, or they can help us in other ways. Imagine
if you could ask a group of anonymous poeple to evaluate a simple situation
to give you an opinion.
Here's the low tech version of the same concept.
I want to put mock machine guns on my car. I'm a Mad Max fan, and I
want to drive around in a post apocolyptic Camaro... with model machine guns
on the hood, and things that look like missile launchers... Mostly all gun
metal gray. I think most people would think it was awesome... BUT... I might
make some people wet themselves. In the hypothetical world, I live in a
society without laws, and if people strongly oppose something you are doing,
they can make you stop. It is generally accepted that you can go to the town
square and pull twelve names out of a hat. Once you have those ten
random names, they are summoned individually to speak with you. The
discussion takes place in a Catholic confession booth, so niether party can
see each other. Then I tell them what I want to do, and they say, "Yes" or
"No". A third party records only their answer, and noone sees any each
other.
After the votes are tallied, they are handled like this. If ten people
(out of 12) said, "NO", I am FORBIDDEN to carry out the activity. If I
make the car, and someone has a problem with it, they will see this judgment
when they complain, and I am almost certain to be punished for it. If ten
people said, "Yes", I am similarly protected. If I make the car, and someone
complains, the next Jury to handle the complaint will see that I asked
permission, and got it. The complainant can still make his case against me
in a blind jury, but the power of 10 is not limited to punishing me. I can
make a case that this complaint is driven by spite and malice, and an
unreasonable intolerance. If ten blind jurors agree, they can make the
compainer wash my car for a month, force him to donate $200 to a charity (of
his choice), or make him wear a chicken suit (or anything else they find
appropriate). But, it could be that I was a DICK. Perhaps I added machine
gun sound effects, and he's my neighbor... and I really enjoy seeing him
jump when I pull the faux trigger.
You see, by now, why this system is unreasonably impracticle on pencil
and paper. The process with an Andriod or IPhone is much simpler. We could
make jury duty as simple as answering your phone when it rings. We can say,
you have to participate fifteen minutes a year. When you're available, you
hit the available button. It rings, and a guy says, "I want to do a Mad Max
theme car". You ask questions. His concept pictures can be scrolled through.
And then you say... "Um... Sure. That sounds okay". This can be as anonymous
as we want it. If we want only random third parties to be able to verify
identies, we can do that, too.
Really, we can have any system, with unlimited complexity of
communication, with any requirements.
Law is a means to justice, but certainly not the only means.
Why would I attack law? Einstein said, a system should be as simple as
possible, but no simpler.
A system with a code of conduct rather than a set of established law is
simpler. When we break a law, we should reflect on the fact that there are a
hundred thousand other laws that we are willfully following, although we
nothing of them. Those are the good laws... the ones that don't need written
down. For the laws that we break that harm in subtle ways... good laws, for
which there is good reason... we seldom know of those, either. We don't
leave the oven on at night... but should there be a law? If someone
constantly leaves the oven on at night, endangering others in a dormatory...
should the non-existence of such a law prevent the community from
petitioning for social redress? No.
A system where we do not have to legislate is superior, if it is
possible. It rids us of the necessity to have a legislative branch,
entirely. We can refocus the branch, and the jobs of our elected officials
(if we choose to retain them) to phisophical, peaceful, practical and
productive purposes. We could just give them each a budget and tell them to
go wild... no rules. "Here's ten million dollars. Go do something with it...
that's why we elected you!!". Maybe elect ten scientists a year... a few
philosophers... and about 15 tv script writers... perhaps some dancers...
Or, since they're optional... we could just elect farm animals, and eat them
at the end of the year. Vegetarians could elect Garbonzo Beanz.
The only laws we learn about in history are the really, really crappy
ones. Some of them are REALLY crappy. You don't learn about the good laws,
because it was what people would have done anyways. Villages didn't used to
have laws... they just let you complain if someone harmed you... and the
council or the people would hear your claim and decide if any action was
necessary.
Impossible in places larger than a village... until the IPhone. Mature,
tested algorithms can give us as much anonymity or repudiability as we
desire. The widespread adoption of smart phones and computers means this is
already possible.
Harm no one...
If you are unsure, check with the community... in less than a
minute.
If someone wrongs you, ask for help. Try to be tolerant, but the
community will help you if you have an issue.
Justice... there's an app for that.
This critique of Law is not mine... it's a compilation. It's from Nich.
Ethics mostly, plus On Liberty, Human Action, and Democracy, the God
that Failed. There's a touch of Chomsky... that's the bitter part.
The idea of a justice app is too simple to take any credit for. I stole
the anonymous third party repudiation idea from OpenId.org and a bunch of
dudes at Microsoft. Code of conduct is stolen from the Quakers, a Jewish
commune, the Sudbury school and Socrates. There's probably a way to work in
tuples and run-off voting systems... I'll keep thinking on that.
Nothing is to be preferred before justice -
Socrates