I'll admit that's possible, but you have to also admit that the current legal system (at least in the US, I don't know about elsewhere) is, shall we say, over-engineered?

The software example you give cuts both ways. Yes, making even a simple Windows application can be very complicated. But how much of that is due to Windows itself? Can your application be replicated with a combination of existing Unix tools? Depends on the application, of course, but there is certainly a lot of cruft floating around the Windows API space.

And let's also not forget that (often) one of the main purposes of commercial software is to lock you in to that particular piece of software. Same same with the legal system and lawyers.

The jury system was supposed to cut through this sort of thing. Twelve regular folks could upend or ignore every law on the books if they thought the whole case was nonsense on stilts. A lot of work has gone into avoiding jury nullification for this reason.

I'm getting "nuke the legacy system without bothering to really understand what it does" vibes here.

> The jury system was supposed to cut through this sort of thing. Twelve regular folks could upend or ignore every law on the books if they thought the whole case was nonsense on stilts. A lot of work has gone into avoiding jury nullification for this reason.

Jury nullification is not an unalloyed good. It can (and has) gotten us to "he's innocent because he murdered a black man and the jury doesn't like blacks."

Not really. Are you suggesting that it isn't pretty difficult to navigate the legal system? Saying something is wonky and needs to be fixed does not automatically mean "Anarchy Now!"

My point was that I think I do understand what the system does, and what it does is (largely) provide lots of work for people in the legal system. You see this when buying a house. You end up writing a bunch of checks to companies and people and it's not clear exactly what actual necessary service they provide, but it's not like you can NOT do it. Their service is necessary because the real estate laws make it necessary.

In other industries we know this as regulatory capture. This is just regulatory capture of the regulatory system.

>Jury nullification is not an unalloyed good.

Nothing is an unalloyed good. To bolster your example, OJ got to walk as well. This is why there is an entire industry built up around just the jury selection process.

> Not really. Are you suggesting that it isn't pretty difficult to navigate the legal system? Saying something is wonky and needs to be fixed does not automatically mean "Anarchy Now!"

No, I'm suggesting that complexity may often have good reason. Without specific reform proposals, what you're saying registers similarly to "coding in programming languages is hard, so simplify it by coding in natural language!"

> You see this when buying a house. You end up writing a bunch of checks to companies and people and it's not clear exactly what actual necessary service they provide, but it's not like you can NOT do it. Their service is necessary because the real estate laws make it necessary.

Being ignorant of the value of a service doesn't make that service unnecessary. And honestly, I bet you could "NOT do it" -- if you could pay cash for the property. IIRC, a lot of that is actually required by whoever you get your mortgage from, because they know the value of it.

I think requiring me to write a policy paper in HN comments is a bit onerous. In any event, I can't much help if my mild criticism is interpreted on your part as something deeply nefarious.

>Being ignorant of the value of a service doesn't make that service unnecessary.

The fact that a service exists does not make that service necessary. Or do you always buy the protection plan from Office Depot when you purchase a stapler? Anyway, I agree that the mortgage companies find great value in all of their various fees.

There are simultaneously arguments in this thread that the American legal system is insufficiently arcane and code-like, for what it’s worth.

Huge Elon Musk rewrite the code from scratch vibes coming from you

Is this somehow bad? The most complicated software, by far, is proprietary software made by large companies, like Google, that are taking the penalty of increased complexity on their end in exchange for (somewhat) happy customers - and guess what? Their developers are paid boatloads of money, so they're getting a decent deal.

Meanwhile, many open-source software systems have managed to keep their complexity somewhat in check (at the expense of functionality).

Software is complex when developers make it complex, and users rarely have to care anyway.

> Life is complicated, and so is the law.

That doesn't follow. Life is complicated, and so is software? No, software is complicated in some cases because of business reasons, and in other cases because of poor design.

Furthermore, there's two massive differences between the two:

First, you're not legally required to use Gmail, but you are legally required to understand and follow the tax code - everyone is, unlike the vast majority of software, where you can pick and choose. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is factually true - therefore, the law has to be understandable to the vast majority of the population (not just the average - the law has to be understandable to those who failed out of high school and have an IQ below 80).

Second, code is an implementation detail that the vast majority of people don't have to interact with, but people do have to interact with the law directly, which means that a comparison between code and law is apples-to-oranges - the correct comparison is software interface to law, and virtually everyone you meet will tell you that it's easier to use Gmail than to understand the IRS tax code when reading it directly.

The evidence just keeps piling up that the legal system is overly complex.