Words are actions. That's why for most crimes, the abetment of the crime is a judicable offense.
I don't know which banana republic you live in, but here in the USA the Department of Justice has this to say:
2474. Elements Of Aiding And Abetting
The elements necessary to convict under aiding and abetting theory are
1. That the accused had specific intent to facilitate the commission of a crime by another;
2. That the accused had the requisite intent of the underlying substantive offense;
3. That the accused assisted or participated in the commission of the underlying substantive offense; and
4. That someone committed the underlying offense.
Source
A reasonable understanding of the subject would give you to understand the main thrust is about knowledge of the illegality of the actions committed and the intent. Mens rea is central here, and words are just a possible manifestation of same.
Now imagine an evil co-worker
Sounds like classic PEBKAC to me.
You know, we have people doing stupid hateful shit to each other all the time because of what they read in some "holy" book. Do we blame the book? Some stupid people do, yes, but the responsibility properly belongs to the person doing stupid hateful shit.
History has taught us that suppression of ideas is both bad and fruitless, but now it seems we have two generations that grew up in the wake of 9/11 that are completely on board with censorship because of Karl Popper memes or other dumbass reasons.
The idea that words generated by a computer program can cause "harm" is a hallmark of the decay of Western culture.
You:
Are you claiming that words cannot cause harm or only that words cannot cause harm when they are generated by a computer?
Wow, man, it's a mystery! I don't know, and it doesn't matter. How do you feel about it? That's the important thing, not what a person actually says.
I can't tell you how many hours of my life I have wasted looking for standard contract language that I know is found in some precedent document.
You used to be able to bill for that. Lots of law offices are getting squeezed by larger clients to trim that fat. The whole profession is getting squeezed by other firms' efficiency initiatives, and cutting their own throats in the process. IANAL, so trot out the old reliable Shakespeare quotes.
As to "kicking the hell out of members of the bar." Keep in mind that 1) like all professions, some lawyers are terrible, 2) even the best lawyer will lose (and should lose) a case if the law/facts are against them. That said, I've come across a lot of very smart but non-legal educated folks who believe themselves to be much better at understanding law than they actually are. It tends to be a particular problem with engineers precisely because they do tend to be smart and able to figure things out on their own.
No true Scotsman, eh? But yeah, that's what they all say a week or two before caving. I'm undefeated--something like 10-0--though: were all of those lawyers bad? They sure had nice offices and talked a big game!
This is a good time to punt work.
