unlocking car boots, setting off windscreen wipers, locking brakes, and cutting the engine.

If a hacker can do all that, why can't the car itself open the windows slightly if the temperature inside gets high and there is no rain outside? All the hardware is already there — the sensors know both the inside temperature and whether anything is hitting the windshield (so wipers can turn automatically in rain).

Would've made returning to your car in the sunny lot more comfortable and even saved some lives.

So, to reform common law, instead of replacing it with civil law, you're making prosecutions capitalistic?

Gibberish.

Great... don't ever want to live in your imaginary world...

Please, do stay in your own.

Except we would be worse off

No. The change I propose would discourage big (guys or companies) from going after small (guys or companies) frivolously — when they don't care whether they win or lose, they just want the small to fold for fear of legal costs regardless of outcome. With my system, if you are sure of being right, you don't need to fear ruin upon winning.

because now on top of everything else the little guy has to pay the legal bills of the big company that screwed him over.

What "screwed over"? The judge/jury just ruled, that the "big company" was right. The loser ought to pay — whether he is large or little. The court has ruled and found him in the wrong. Pay up.

The legal fees should be capped

Maybe.

Small guy stretches his budget and pays $10,000 in legal fees. Big company's legal budget is $10 million.

If the target of the lawsuit (your hypothetical company) was forced to spend $10 million to defend itself, then, yes, $10 million it will be. Unless, maybe, the judge will tell them, they didn't need to feed 10 lawyers black caviar. But it is entirely possible that the parties' legal costs will be in different orders of magnitude — that may still be perfectly legitimate.

Now, granted, you may not be automatically entitled to all of your legal costs upon winning. But you certainly ought to be entitled to something. Something substantial. Like, say, $10K for each felony allegation, that did not hold — and $5K for each such alleged misdemeanor.

You might. And my system will help further discourage you from making a nuisance of yourself.

what do you do when one of those entities with large legal budgets initiates frivolous proceedings and wins precisely because they have said budget and the other guy doesn't?

They can already do that, so we would not be any worse off. My proposal would not seriously help those with large legal budgets — but it will help those with small ones.

It's no secret that prosecutors usually throw every charge they can at an alleged criminal

They wouldn't be doing it, if they — the prosecuting agency(ies) — faced non-trivial monetary loss for every charge, that did not hold up in court...

To keep it harder for entities — both private and governmental — with large legal budgets to initiate frivolous proceedings, the loser must pay winner. There is no such thing currently and even winning a suit can leave one with thousands of dollars in debt. It must become automatic and not require a separate lawsuit by the winner to recoup his legal costs.

people from Mexico are always going to try and flock from there to the US to work

Yes, and I don't blame them...

keeping them all out is an effort doomed to failure

Not at all. It is perfectly possible to a) block (most of) them from entering on the border; b) discourage all of them from entering by swiftly deporting those, who get through.

Catching them is easy — they don't exactly hide. We have done such deportations before — and they worked.

because Intel workers lose something like $35,000 worth of tools every year.

That sounds a lot cheaper than even a single one full-time engineer busy developing and maintaining this cool product. There must be some other motive...

Open source? You bet!

Yeah, because all of Intel's other software has been open source.

What's not to love about the company — and its careful PR campaign preparing the market for the demise of AMD? What a lovable corporation — I think, I have a thrill up my leg again.

I agree that for the time being, large-scale centralized communism is doomed to failure

Whether it will some day be "successful" or not, I would not accept an idea, that Collective ought to trump the Individual.

Because that's the inevitable endpoint of capitalism, even without regulatory capture: wealth catalyzes the accumulation of wealth.

Gibberish and nonsense. Bill Gates was from a lower end middle-class family. Soros was a poor immigrant. Joe Biden's grandfather was an uber-rich magnate, but Joe owes more than he owns.

institutionalized theft - in the wild you own only what you can keep

Are you saying, that whatever does not occur in the wild is automatically "theft"? I think, we are done here...

wealth redistribution happens as a matter of course as the strong and sneaky reappropriate it from the transiently wealthy.

That the weak can have rights was — for centuries — considered a major advancement of humanity. I guess, your school of thought would — given a chance — do away with such advancements, the way others would — given a chance — abolish flush toilets and air-conditioning. To not give your kind such a chance is worth a lot — including some public hangings.

no, I don't imagine theocrats have the slightest interest in a viable democracy

But Communists do, right? Hillarious...

can illegals still get food stamps with no proof of residency?

Yes — in many cases they can. For example, a child born in the US is automatically a citizen, unlike some European countries. Not only does that entitle his parents to stay here, if they happen to be poor, they'll be helped by the taxpayers.

illegal immigrants will work for less than legal immigrants as they are more desperate

The United States does not have a labor shortage. Bringing in cheap foreign labor means, the less desperate poor Americans will have fewer jobs — requiring more taxes to support them. So the immigration tends to increase "safety net" expenditures, even when the immigrants themselves aren't the immediate recipients.

parties like the republicans that represent the richest

Not true. Though exceptions abound, Republicans tend to represent the middle-class to upper middle class bourgeois. Democrats represent the uber-reach and the proletariat.

Please, explain the success of the Whigs in the 19th century — according to your theory, it simply could not have happened.

Nay, according to your theory, even the 2nd party should not exist...

Uh, have you read the 12th Amendment?

The Amendment applies to elections of the Executive — President and Vice President. We were talking — it seemed to me — about legislatures — where in the US two parties dominate, but in other countries there is a wonderful tapestry of multi-partyism.

So, if 3 candidates are in the running, one gets 10%, one gets 45% and the other gets 45%, no one wins.

I don't believe, this ever happened. Somebody would usually get at list slightly more votes than the other. Ross Perot — the most recent remotely-viable 3rd-party candidate lost not because Congress didn't like him, but simply because he came a distant 3rd.

I have not voted for a party, ever, in my life

I meant legally. Though many people (not you, Ok) vote on straight party-tickets, legally they all vote for people, not parties. Yes, it may be, that all a voter knows about a particular candidate is his (likely) party-affiliation, but the vote — in the US — is still for the candidate, not his party.

In many other countries it is the opposite — people might know, who the party is likely to appoint upon winning, but they vote for the parties, not individuals. The parties then allocate seats (in the legislature) according to their own whims and preferences.

Just because there is no codified system, doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

Just because there is no X, doesn't mean X does not exist. Marvelous.

The system exists, because of conditions set up by our election system.

The Y exists, because of Y.

Darling, depending on your age, there may still be hope for you. But I'm not going to cast any more pearls before you — I've done my duty to society.