While I do think information about the law should be made more accessible through actual government systems instead of having to ask ChatGPT (especially in countries where precedent is a vital part of it), I still agree with the statement that you don’t have to know about it to break it (as I hope everyone does).
I would never trust an LLM with information about law. If you’re an expert in anything, try asking chatgpt about a few things related to that expertise, and watch in horror at just how confidently incorrect it is.
Trusting it re: law is a recipe for disaster
I would add that making ignorance of the law a valid excuse would be a logistical farce. Mens rea is a real thing that’s examined during a criminal trial. The defendant’s state of mind can absolutely factor into their sentence or even whether they’re convicted at all; “ignorance of the law is not an excuse”, ignorantia juris non excusat, even has some exceptions under US law. But you could not possibly for every crime burden the prosecution with proving that the defendant 1) committed the act 2) intended to commit the act, and now 3) knew the act they were committing was a crime. Mens rea, while necessary in a fair system, is hard enough; condition (3) would make it functionally impossible to convict anyone who didn’t a) explicitly refer to what they were doing as a crime, b) receive a formal education in the relevant area of law, and c) commit a crime literally everyone is expected to know like murder or armed robbery.
well said
Yup! And honestly, most illegal things you might do accidentally are not spur of the moment situations, and frankly even in an imperfect system you’re unlikely to get the book thrown at you right away. There are abuses, of course, and stamping them out is an absolutely laudable goal, but if you want to set up a business, or think you’ve discovered a novel financial instrument, or (hypothetically of course) wanted to train an LLM algorithm on the totality of an absolutely vast corpus of information without the rights-holders’ consent, then if you can’t be arsed to get legal clarity in advance I have less sympathy for you and you’ve earned your consequences.
And also that is a very important part of the story: most people who end up in court would gladly plead ignorance if it worked but I’m willing to guess only about .1% who would do so were the actually ones who really didn’t know better 5 to 10% had doubts and the rest was actually fully conscious that what they were doing was illegal.
The difference between the Justice System and the Legal System
One tries to provide social equality … the other is a rich man’s game
“Tries to”
They try harder the more money you use … just like the other system.
No excuse. You lazy fucks.
/S
Even better, the Supreme Court rules a long time ago that police CAN be ignorant of the law. So fuck you if you don’t know the law, unless you are a cop enforcing it
Not only can they be ignorant of it, but their ignorance can be used as justification for a stop that can find things that are actually illegal.
Justice protects but does not bind.
Tyranny binds but does not protect.
Also perhaps pursuant to your interests, Three Felonies A Day: How The Federal Government Targets Innocent People
My urinalysis say seven felonies
Cops:
Cops are literally selected for a lack of intellect. Being too smart can disqualify you from police service under some police chiefs/sheriffs.
That is an urban myth. There was one case in one police force and a judge ruled it was OK to select against applicants who scored too well on an internal test.
It’s been 25 years, time to put this one to rest.
How dare you go against the hive mind. Pledge your allegiance to ACAB.
I mean plenty of people know cops. If this were disproven it would have happened by someone more authoritative than you
Oddly enough, we select what a cop does based on capability. If you need UC and co-int for for fed-level stuff, Lem and Eddie are gonna get killed.
Low-performers typically wash out to metro :-p
If recent world events have taught me anything, it’s that ignorance is the best and unbeatable defense.
Only if you’re rich and white
or being on the epstein list apparently
I remember reading that there’s at least one place in the US where the book of laws is copyrighted and not available anywhere. You have to buy it. I want to say in Georgia somewhere.
That’s how it works for international standards, like for devices and machines. Wanna build something? Follow the standard! Want to know the standard? You’ve got to pay!
I mean, if you want to have access to all of the court opinions interpreting a law (which is arguably more important because some decisions completely change what laws actually do) you’re going to be paying Thompson Reuters or somebody else like that a monthly subscription fee for the privilege pretty much everywhere in the US. Being able to know in a really detailed and specific way what is and isn’t legal is absolutely paywalled in this country.
South Carolina actually appears to be the most restrictive, but it’s just as likely in Georgia as well.
On top of this, there are norms that are in a way part of the law (as in: if you ignore them, you are liable), and they are commercial, so you have to pay through the nose for them.
Cops when you cite law: “What are you? A lawyer? Fuck off”
If you press them, they usually don’t know the letter of the law either.
The only state that EVER expected their police to have a comprehinsive understanding of the law was california and it’s been ages since they dropped that requirement. Police are enforcers for the Ruling Class, not “Law Enforcement”
Just to be pedantic.
This is mostly case law which is largely civil.
The “ignorance of the law is no excuse” bullshit is largely applied to criminal.
That being said, 1312.
Scan that shit and give it to an AI. Then let AI listen in to the trial. If the people of the jury doesn’t agree then that law is bullshit and piled on the bullshit law list. Anyone then running for senator is forced to read all bullshit laws and summarize them. If elected, you cannot participate on anything else until you have fixed at least 10 bullshit laws of your own, then and only then your term starts and it ends as counted from the moment you start working on your first bullshit law. If you haven’t completed 10 such laws by the end of your term you will be held liable for competing the 10 law requirement by paying your full yearly salary for the amount of time required to have someone else do it, or in full if you don’t want to fix any laws or you will be put in jail until you complete your 10 laws.
This will work as a deterrent for dumb ass senators and it will reduce the number of bullshit laws significantly and quickly. Additionally, having AI in the trial, people will realize that filling in the blank is literally what AI does. It doesn’t think. It just reads thru the bullshit and gives you bullshit back.
God damn, I never really thought about that. I don’t even know where in the hell to get the books do average libraries carry them? And once you get into actually reading the statutes, theyre hard as hell to understand.
They don’t really go into that much detail about law in school. And asking your parents about it for the most part is pretty useless.
Law libraries. You can find one near you, there are self-help type books for individuals as well as, usually, thick stacks of case law like you’re seeing in this photo. Although most of those stacks are now digital. I work in a university, and my office happens to be in the law library, which is also our county law library, so is open to the public. People do spend days and weeks researching and compiling paperwork. Some people also jerk off in the stairwells, because, public library. It’s boring and interesting at the same time.
I did not know such things even existed.
And I also appreciate knowing to avoid these stairwells.
We don’t even know how many laws there are
Number of laws isn’t a helpful way of thinking about them anyways
Where I live you can get the complete RCW for the state at the local public library (or online) but at the federal level it’s insanely more complicated and changing all the time. Gotta make sure there’s plenty of loopholes for rich people to exploit.
here in austria they’re publicly available on the internet. ris.bka.gv.at i think is the website (RIS stands for “rechts-informations-system” - law information system)
a lot of the laws are actually written in a language that is somewhat easy to understand (you still have to read it carefully and a couple of times but it is comprehensible - you just gotta take the time to actually try to understand what it says)
The internet is going to be your best resources as most laws are available on their respective websites. From your town/state ordinances to your federal laws. Most will be online.
which is a bizarre way to operate when ignorance of the law is no excuse, but learning about the law is vague and timey-wimey
I mean, it’s literally why law school is a thing, and why it’s notoriously difficult and a ton of work
Hey, that’s not true. It’s an excuse for cops. It’s only ordinary people who It’s not an excuse for
Yeah, if cops break the law when arresting you, they get a few oopsies. You do not
They get more than a few oopsies. The cop who murdered George Floyd only got prosecuted because the whole country exploded in outrage.
so only when the nation gets is biggest protest in history still a cop face the possibility of consequences?
yhea, that doesn’t count
Good thing smartphones exists, everyone nowadays has a pocket video recorder to document crimes.
@[email protected] I was just talking about this with a friend; there are so many that it seems inevitable to get caught up – if pursued.
