Techies CAN understand "Law" (Score 1)

Perhaps someone did bring it up already, but there is an information technology that parallels the legal system, and that we can use as a "rossetta stone" for examining and applying value judgements to law. It's called an "expert system" and it is, in meta-format, a collection of rules, framed as if-then statements, which are chained together by a software process in application to a question or situation.

"Law" is a manual expert system. The two sides, prosecution and defense, each create chains of rules which they apply to the problem in question. The judge can dis-allow the application of individual rules or pieces of data. The opposing side can challenge the application of individual rules or pieces of data and if allowed can present alternate rules or data to convince the judge to dis-allow, as stated above. In a case where no existing rules are applicable, the judge can create a rulling that may lead to a new rule, if the "precedent" holds and the applicable legistlatures and higher courts agree.

Working from this model, I'll return to the original question:

• "Do the lawyers know more about the technologies we love than we understand about the laws they fuss over? Or do we techies understand the realm of law on a level higher than the lawyer's understanding of technology?"

I don't think we can answer this for "all" laywers or "all" techies. Both the effort and intelligence of each individual will have a strong influence on the level of understanding.

• "They honestly do understand a great deal more than they are given credit for. They may not be guru's- but they (generally) require the case to be made plainly enough to them that they CAN make an informed decision before they actually do make a decision. They learn about the technologies involved."

However, their purpose is not to make a decision, their purpose is to build a chain of individual laws and data that will win the case, and if possible endure challenges in later courts (appeals). Understanding what someting does or how it does it is not the same thing as creating a case that provides a useful outcome. Take the issue of the "single click shopping" patent. If I make every lawyer and the judge and the jury (if any) involved understand that this was the obvious thing to do to make e-customers comfortable and then show them that what was implimented at Amazon.com is only a competant construction of existing knowledge and art, it does not follow that the side arguing that the patent should not be allowed will be able to chain an argument, based on the available applicable laws, to make their case the winner, nor will the side arguing for Amazon.com's patent automatically be the loser if these points are proven. The facts are only one input into the "Law" system, and their value is not sufficient to determine the outcome alone.

• "Forgive me for bashing us techies (being one myself), but honestly, I believe that there is FAR more to understand within the various laws lawyers understand than in the technology we techies know."

If by this you mean that to be a "good" lawyer you need to know not only how to find the applicable laws but how to chain them together in the court room and how to present yourself while doing so to influence the Judge and Jury to either favor or sympathize with you; whereas a techie mearly needs to find the applicable facts and tools and grind away until his project works, then I may agree with you.

However, the complexity of the Law (requiring it's implimenters to have intelignece and expertice) is not an argument for the quality of the Law. Once again applying the expert system model, the more rules you have to add to the chain, the more likely that some rules will conflict with others, leading to ambiguous results. Too many conflicting rules, and the system becomes "game-able" that is, any result you want can be had, regardless of the truth, so long as you apply the rules that lead to your desired result. The dissatisfaction of techies, and citizens in general with the Law, can be translated as the suspicion that the system is being "gamed". As Lawyers add more laws (most legislators and their staffs are lawyers) and discourage lay-people from trying to understand the process of law, they encourage the view of a "gamed" system being used for the purposes of the laywers and no others.

Whether or not the Laws of any specific country are or are not being gamed is a separate discussion.