> Now, I prefer #1, but willing to settle for #2. You seem to reject both?
I completely embrace 2, as you do. I just don't think that live tracking of legislation is the way to do it, and I think that it has dangerous pitfalls.
> If you think lawyers understand the law, well, you're a bit naive.
I think they understand the principles on which the law is grounded. Basically, either law school is useful or it isn't. By most accounts, law school is 3 years of intense study, at the end of which you're qualified to...use LexisNexis. Either those 3 years are a waste, or they learn something that takes roughly that long to learn.
Of course some laymen can achieve that knowledge, and some in less than 3 years, much like people can learn to be good programmers without setting foot in a classroom. But that's an exception, and we can't predicate the functioning of society on exceptions.
> That's like saying a baby is useless because it can't hold on to a job. Well, yeah. If you kill the baby, it never will.
That's a fair point. And part of the beauty of the baby is that you don't know what it will grow up to do. But every parent has a dream for their child; my argument is that the dream expressed is misguided.
> This is very quaint, and honestly, I'm a big fan of the principles on which this nation was founded ... but this is merely one of those principles.
I know, it is quaint. But I don't really see a good alternative, because I don't trust our ability (yes, mine included) to figure out who to trust based on crafted messages, or selected video clips.
As I said, your point about the baby is well taken. This can definitely be a building block—but why don't we think about a building block to what?
As a thought, how about running analyses on laws vs. desired outcomes vs. predicated outcomes. Analyses run using open-source code—and hopefully eventually with predictive power. I think something like that might be very useful, and would definitely rely on this repository; especially if someone has the resources and time to artificially create it going back several decades.
I completely embrace 2, as you do. I just don't think that live tracking of legislation is the way to do it, and I think that it has dangerous pitfalls.
> If you think lawyers understand the law, well, you're a bit naive.
I think they understand the principles on which the law is grounded. Basically, either law school is useful or it isn't. By most accounts, law school is 3 years of intense study, at the end of which you're qualified to...use LexisNexis. Either those 3 years are a waste, or they learn something that takes roughly that long to learn.
Of course some laymen can achieve that knowledge, and some in less than 3 years, much like people can learn to be good programmers without setting foot in a classroom. But that's an exception, and we can't predicate the functioning of society on exceptions.
> That's like saying a baby is useless because it can't hold on to a job. Well, yeah. If you kill the baby, it never will.
That's a fair point. And part of the beauty of the baby is that you don't know what it will grow up to do. But every parent has a dream for their child; my argument is that the dream expressed is misguided.
> This is very quaint, and honestly, I'm a big fan of the principles on which this nation was founded ... but this is merely one of those principles.
I know, it is quaint. But I don't really see a good alternative, because I don't trust our ability (yes, mine included) to figure out who to trust based on crafted messages, or selected video clips.
As I said, your point about the baby is well taken. This can definitely be a building block—but why don't we think about a building block to what?
As a thought, how about running analyses on laws vs. desired outcomes vs. predicated outcomes. Analyses run using open-source code—and hopefully eventually with predictive power. I think something like that might be very useful, and would definitely rely on this repository; especially if someone has the resources and time to artificially create it going back several decades.