I agree with this, but don't forget that interpretation biases will still come into play as the law is enforced — the biases of police, lawyers and judges. So it still makes sense to read others' interpretations of what this might mean in practice.
I've seen this regarding serious legislation like this or even something as mundane as Apple's app store "guidelines".
I may be misinterpreting your wording here (my apologies if I am), but I'd assume the opposite. I'd think people who operate in a realm where text becomes action executed by a machine designed wholly around faithful, reliable execution of text fed to it would come to learn the reality-defining power of rules.
In this sense, law is similar to code, but far easier to exploit.
I would disagree. I feel like programmers see logical contradictions or loop holes in laws and think that if they make the argument in court, the court will segfault and they will go free.
In reality, courts use more inductive reasoning than computers, and aren't as easily tricked.
Have you ever litigated?
Litigation isn’t about “hacking” the court. If that’s how a lawyer is selling themselves, you’re being taken for a ride.
Cases are about resolving novel ambiguities in the law. The vast majority of disputes never make it to court. The two sides lawyer up and one of them is advised that based on the facts the precedent is in the opponent’s favor. As such, settlement is advisable. In a minority of cases, precedent is mixed or not applicable—the facts and circumstances are truly novel with respect to the law. Given the law is finite and reality is infinite, this happens more often than you’d think.
Lawyers thus argue how the law should be extended. Remember, case law is law in common law countries. Judges opinions aren’t interpretations per se, but acts of rule making.
I see way too few computer engineer criminal masterminds to accept this hypothesis at face value. ;)
Applying to be a lawyer in and of itself can be a process of figuring out the correct paperwork to fill out and asking for a special exemption on a piece of missing information or a missed deadline.
Ah, but don't forget how often the code that gets written doesn't do exactly what the writer expected! Or is exploited by another party...
"For show," to me, implies you can ignore it and charge forward, bull-in-a-china-shop-style. That doesn't work in law or computers; naive invalid input gets rejected by the first-stage parser, and a court complaint completely ignorant of the law can get tossed by the clerk before it even sees a judge's desk. Rather, hacking is understanding and exploiting the consequences of, and nuances within, the rules.
So, quite ironically, you are doing precisely what you are talking about when you take the words "hacker news" too literally.
I don't think rulebook following coders are particularly interested in debating like this on HN.
All it requires is for other humans to accept your interpretation. That depends both on the text, your position in society, and that of the other person. The text will convince a few people when the difference in power is small. When the difference in position is large, no text will support the person in the subordinate position.
Lawyers pretend that this is not the case, and that they have mastered objective interpretation of the rules. It is unclear whether they say that because they are stupid, or because they think you are stupid. As programmers, who really are trained in objective interpretation of rules, it's laughable either way.
I try to avoid the error of confusing my lack of knowledge of the grammar of a system with the system itself being stupid. Law and its application have flaws, but it's not an "anything goes" system as you seem to be describing it here.
From my social experience in high school, the board game rules nerds were more likely to become programmers than lawyers. The worst of them went on to be a pro poker player.
Cone of ignorance expands further, faster than the cone of understanding.
Unlearning is even harder than learning, which contributes the durability of ignorance.
"You'd think /hackers/ would understand that rules are for show."
Ya. I'd like someone to explain cognitive certainty. The opposite of "strong opinions, loosely held". How is everyone else so sure of what they know? The only certainty I have is knowing that I'm probably wrong.
When man found Truth, a worried demon went to the Devil who nonchalantly said; "Eh, I'll get them to institutionalize it".