Hard cases make bad law is a general legal maxim. Your principles of constantly making up a bunch of new laws to solve possible problems raises the complexity.
Laws have complex interactions with the real world. They change people’s incentives and get them to do different things. You can’t reliably compute the effect of laws via unit tests.
It can be “patched” more easily
This basically means it’s easier for powerful people to change the law to their liking.
The Brexit deal mentions “modern” Netscape software. These people had years to come up with something, and in the end they invest as much time in finding a solution as a failing sixth-grader invests in homework
That seems like a bad interpretation of what happened. Writing a 1000 page document that deals with regulating everything and finding agreement is hard. The people who negotiated the deal likely focused their attention on the issues where they disagreed and thus didn’t pay attention to the one page that talked about Netscape.
I don’t want to constantly create new laws, but instead constantly shine light on things that go wrong (This may or may not happen already, depending on which news you consume. Sadly however, mostly nothing comes of it, since change is hard). From there, if patterns emerge, then new laws should be proposed (For example, one pattern could be “unemployment in sector XY increases due to automation”. For how many sectors should this have happened, before general action is warranted?)
You can’t reliably compute the effect of laws via unit tests
I don’t think there currently is an alternative that works. Politicians just claim that stuff will work, and either way, things just chug along. But for example, at the moment there are flesh and blood voters that think Trump lowered their taxes, when he did the opposite. A unit test like the one proposed above will work in that case.
I am also hoping that states in federally organized countries can copy each other. An example would be for example tax law or drug legalization in the US. Currently drugs are increasingly legalized. This could be a trivial change, just copy a state that does it well. Similarly, everybody seems to be fleeing California due to its high taxes.
In general, trying many different ideas, and letting the bad ones die, is quite an effective method of exploring a large number of options. Federalism in theory allows for this, if it weren’t so sluggish.
and thus didn’t pay attention to the one page that talked about Netscape
You may or may not suffer from a case of Gell-Mann Amnesia. The Brexit negotiations in general did not seem to me to be well-managed (or even well-intentioned). I don’t think this is the exception to the rule. I still get your point though, but my answer again is, that if the process were easier, then it would probably work better.
I don’t want to constantly create new laws, but instead constantly shine light on things that go wrong
The system you propose above is intended to fix things even when nothing went wrong (Trump didn’t pardon himself).
I don’t think there currently is an alternative that works. Politicians just claim that stuff will work, and either way, things just chug along.
Representative democracy allows accountability for the effects of laws that politicians pass. Evaluating politicians by their past actions instead of their promises for the future works much better.
But for example, at the moment there are flesh and blood voters that think Trump lowered their taxes, when he did the opposite.
The idea that voters who don’t get a good understanding of how the taxes they pay change from looking at their tax returns will get a good idea of that by them looking at unit tests on some government website sounds illusory to me.
I am also hoping that states in federally organized countries can copy each other. An example would be for example tax law or drug legalization in the US. [...] In general, trying many different ideas, and letting the bad ones die, is quite an effective method of exploring a large number of options.
The whole point of unit tests is that it’s a way not to try certain changes.
You are essentially preventing that by getting people to focus on unit tests that can be made based on the text of the law.
If you evaluate laws based on an analysis of the law instead of an analysis of the effects on the law in empirical reality you reduce the amount that people learn from empirical reality.
Currently drugs are increasingly legalized. This could be a trivial change, just copy a state that does it well.
Do you seriously think that politicians passing new laws for drug legalization don’t look at the existing laws to guide them?
The Brexit negotiations in general did not seem to me to be well-managed (or even well-intentioned).
The Brexit negotiations were dominated by power conflicts and as such the deal isn’t good in a lot of respects. Both sides defects in the prisoner dilemma.
I can completely understand bureaucrat from the UK to say to an EU bureaucrat: “I think the way the EU regulated IT security in 2008 was fine, let’s just copy it over to our deal.” Then the EU bureaucrat says “Fine, lets move on to one of the issue where we disagree”
Trade deals are not normal laws and the process that leads to them shouldn’t be seen as normal laws. The process by which they are made is very different.
You may or may not suffer from a case of Gell-Mann Amnesia.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is about forming your opinions by reading the news. For me that’s not where the foundation of my thinking about how law gets made comes from. My foundation rather comes from informal conversations which people who are involved in the process.
What kind of case do you have for not suffering from Gell-Mann Amnesia?
Hard cases make bad law is a general legal maxim. Your principles of constantly making up a bunch of new laws to solve possible problems raises the complexity.
Laws have complex interactions with the real world. They change people’s incentives and get them to do different things. You can’t reliably compute the effect of laws via unit tests.
This basically means it’s easier for powerful people to change the law to their liking.
That seems like a bad interpretation of what happened. Writing a 1000 page document that deals with regulating everything and finding agreement is hard. The people who negotiated the deal likely focused their attention on the issues where they disagreed and thus didn’t pay attention to the one page that talked about Netscape.
I agree.
I don’t want to constantly create new laws, but instead constantly shine light on things that go wrong (This may or may not happen already, depending on which news you consume. Sadly however, mostly nothing comes of it, since change is hard). From there, if patterns emerge, then new laws should be proposed (For example, one pattern could be “unemployment in sector XY increases due to automation”. For how many sectors should this have happened, before general action is warranted?)
I don’t think there currently is an alternative that works. Politicians just claim that stuff will work, and either way, things just chug along. But for example, at the moment there are flesh and blood voters that think Trump lowered their taxes, when he did the opposite. A unit test like the one proposed above will work in that case.
I am also hoping that states in federally organized countries can copy each other. An example would be for example tax law or drug legalization in the US. Currently drugs are increasingly legalized. This could be a trivial change, just copy a state that does it well. Similarly, everybody seems to be fleeing California due to its high taxes.
In general, trying many different ideas, and letting the bad ones die, is quite an effective method of exploring a large number of options. Federalism in theory allows for this, if it weren’t so sluggish.
You may or may not suffer from a case of Gell-Mann Amnesia. The Brexit negotiations in general did not seem to me to be well-managed (or even well-intentioned). I don’t think this is the exception to the rule. I still get your point though, but my answer again is, that if the process were easier, then it would probably work better.
The system you propose above is intended to fix things even when nothing went wrong (Trump didn’t pardon himself).
Representative democracy allows accountability for the effects of laws that politicians pass. Evaluating politicians by their past actions instead of their promises for the future works much better.
The idea that voters who don’t get a good understanding of how the taxes they pay change from looking at their tax returns will get a good idea of that by them looking at unit tests on some government website sounds illusory to me.
The whole point of unit tests is that it’s a way not to try certain changes.
You are essentially preventing that by getting people to focus on unit tests that can be made based on the text of the law.
If you evaluate laws based on an analysis of the law instead of an analysis of the effects on the law in empirical reality you reduce the amount that people learn from empirical reality.
Do you seriously think that politicians passing new laws for drug legalization don’t look at the existing laws to guide them?
The Brexit negotiations were dominated by power conflicts and as such the deal isn’t good in a lot of respects. Both sides defects in the prisoner dilemma.
I can completely understand bureaucrat from the UK to say to an EU bureaucrat: “I think the way the EU regulated IT security in 2008 was fine, let’s just copy it over to our deal.” Then the EU bureaucrat says “Fine, lets move on to one of the issue where we disagree”
Trade deals are not normal laws and the process that leads to them shouldn’t be seen as normal laws. The process by which they are made is very different.
Gell-Mann Amnesia is about forming your opinions by reading the news. For me that’s not where the foundation of my thinking about how law gets made comes from. My foundation rather comes from informal conversations which people who are involved in the process.
What kind of case do you have for not suffering from Gell-Mann Amnesia?