posted January 22, 2008 07:45 AM         

There seems to be something of a consensus here on at least the notion that Law (has become/can be) something (other than/in addition to) the beneficial tool to humankind that it is supposed to be these days.

Is that a fair statement? If it is, where is the breakdown occurring? What might alleviate or solve the problems that do occur?

Also, I and others have mentioned that Law might be in the process of becoming obsolete, more of a harm than a cure. How does that idea sit with folks? Is it a matter of fixing the Law, or weaning ourselves off of it altogether? What do you think?

Any ideas?

posted January 23, 2008 04:14 PM         

"..I didn't create the projects. I didn't create crime or deceit or poverty. I didn't create homelessness or corruption..I was born into it. You want to incarcerate me for following the example that was here before I was and will be here after I die if no one does anything to change it? And then you want to blame me for trying to survive in this mess; having given up on trying to conform to society's ever changing standards?

Maybe I'm not strong enough."

- DeWayne Ex-Gang Member

Interesting notion..especially at the end there.

Maybe it's not just up to the individual to nurture society, but for society to nurture the examples provided to its individuals.

Interesting dilemma.

How does a society hell bent on placing the blame squarely somewhere else; absolving itself of any responsibility..create an environment in which even those who AREN'T strong enough..might stand a chance of making it through this maze of inconsistent messages and complex moral and ethical choices?

I wouldn't want to be in our shoes.

posted January 24, 2008 01:48 PM         

For those of you not familiar:

It usually starts with someone quoting some ridiculously low figure that sounds absurdly high to the average person.

"55,000 people [less than .01% of the population] died last year from excessive widgeting. This is costing tax payers 200 million per year in such and such damages and lost wages and etc.etc. every year."

So then, with the horrendous figure that represents some minute fraction of the population and the BIG number that "society pays" due to whatever the complaint is..the regulations start getting passed.

"New law makes high rate widgeting illegal", say the headlines. And now everyone is suddenly restricted from what used to be a legal activity. For some..it is a habitual activity. This could be..social engineering. (Could we let society know when we require babysitting? Is that possible?)

Next thing you know..there are like 3 MILLION people being fined, having days lost from work, insurance rates hiked up...etc. And you have close to 300 MILLION people who DO NOT have the option of widgeting at high speeds should a safe or necessary opportunity arise to do so. They've become..mothered.

The amount of money brought in by the new regulation? Is almost invariably HUGE MULTIPLES of the original "cost to society" quoted when the regulation was being proposed.

That means that rather than a few individuals costing society money...now society is leeching money off of the individuals it's supposed to be serving.

Individual members of society now lose money in lost wages, fines, insurance premium increases and possible lost job opportunities. MILLIONS suffer the effects of this new law..to protect..thousands? TENS OF BILLIONS are stolen from actual people in order to save a nameless, faceless "state" HUNDREDS of MILLIONS?

In order to reduce the number of claims coming into a nameless faceless insurance corporation worth TRILLIONS?

I'm not sure if that sounds right or fair. Could we be costing ourselves MORE money AND creating more "allowance money" for our politicians to spend like mad money..simply by allowing legislation that invents crimes on the fly?

It just seems like a bit of a scam to me..whether it's meant that way or not. How many accidents DON'T happen? How many accidents that WOULDN'T have happened, have been ticketed?

Are there more tickets written today than there were accidents or incidents that "cost society money" before the law went into effect? Time to start digging for data.

posted February 02, 2008 11:32 AM         

The Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) have been of interest to me. Much of this is due to my early roots in the BBS community, but more than that..it's a microcosm of our society in many respects. Watching what happens there..can tell us a lot about social trends..and the spread of human behaviors.

What I've noted in several of these games, is that the ability to be anonymous is abused infrequently in smaller game communities..more frequently in larger communities.

We've even watched a fairly small community(hundreds of players) become a MASSIVE(4 million players worldwide) community in about 7 years (the amount of time it took for Runescape to really take off), and we've seen the devastation that large populations can wreak on both a community's focus and its attitudes.

We've watched open, free societies become paranoid, regulated societies in a matter of months, as the larger populations made community pressure less effective and policing less available. New rules and enforcement mechanisms were built into the game to deter everything from swearing to using automated playing programs called macros.

We've seen it...many...many times.

In our pursuit of answers to the questions posed by thoughts on Law and Consequence, perhaps we should revisit a question originally posed in a thread about water use: Is overpopulation a problem..and are there solutions that don't involve sterilization, getting into people's sexual business..etc?

You'll find that thread here:

Overpopulation: The Uber-Problem?

Getting back to the previous train of thought. Another example occurred to me while sitting at a stop light. I noticed loads of stop light cameras. I mean all four directions all traffic lights in the city..almost over night.

Let's see if the logic is correct:
(And this sets aside for a moment the question of "it's illegal" or "it's dangerous", and simple tries to point out INTENTION on the part of our public officials when it comes to Law and Consequence...nothing more.)

So pleeease try to avoid pointing out the stupidity of running red lights. I'm with you on that one.

So the city cites X number of people die or are injured every year because of intersection infractions..people running red lights, making turns at the wrong time...etc. Now just for the heck of it..let's make X a high number..like 1000 every year in some surreal imaginary town..that I happen to live in. (I'm sure it was in the single to low double digits.)

So the councilman stands up (knowing full well that his budget problems are about to get a little easier to deal with..and that law enforcement and safety are political winners) and announces that this TRAGIC number of people are being slaughtered in our intersections every year. We need red light cameras! We need to catch these killers barreling through the intersections of our fair city!

Now it takes a second of thought to recognize something: not everyone who runs a red light, hits someone.

And although running a red light is reckless in and of itself...not everyone runs red lights in a particularly dangerous manner.

In fact, most people don't want to die. If they run a red light, it's usually because they're tired of waiting and haven't seen a car coming in the other directions for some period of time, or that they see that the "coast is clear." This is generally going to be the case..because most people choose not dying over dying. The odds of two vehicles with people behind the wheel traveling in a perpendicular direction actually colliding with each other..are pretty slim. It happens...and it's tragic when it does. But of TRILLIONS of MILES logged annually..only about 1 in 6,000 people will be involved in fatal car crashes. That's in a country of 300 million people and more than twice that number of cars. 3 Million miles of highway they say.

Mistakes are made, to be sure..but the VAST majority of people running red lights do NOT contribute to X = 1000. The councilmen know this. They know that once they get the funding for these red light cameras, they'll be fining EVERY person that runs the red light. It's the revenue that matters...the safety/law enforcement aspect..is a bonus and makes it an easy issue to win. (That's my contention anyway.)

Every law I look at..is like that. There is a ridiculous swing from the individual costing society(the bureaucracy)to society costing it's individuals..and by 10, 50 and 100 times MORE than the initial problem supposedly cost. In most cases the individual is already contributing MORE than enough to society's coffers to cover what he/she is costing society. They know this too.

But SOMEONE has to pay for all of these people who keep track of these statistical figures, and maintain these cameras, and mail the pictures and collect the ticket fees and bust the people who don't pay.

That money has to come from somewhere..the red light cameras have created their own ARMY of dependents and created their own source of revenue..and created a new group of government sympathetic citizens: the new workers.

I mean job creation is nice..but is that how we do it? Because an industry that creates nothing, is really a parasitic industry.

Only the actual creation and exchange of product creates jobs and revenue. Service industries either reduce the cost of doing business for these industries or make it more pleasant to do business. They don't create money.

Most if not all of their money comes from production industries.

Law enforcement and government industries..are basically service industries.

Creating more service industries only serves to stretch the economy thinner. (I'm not sure where all of that came from...I was just spacing out on it...and saw that.)

So the government passes laws to create more revenue to put more of the economy in the hands of the government.. Is that what that amounts to? Then the government is taking its own power..regardless of whether individual politicians are doing it intentionally or not; that is the trend. The government..is taking more money and employing more of us = increasing its power in relation to the people? If it isn't your ruler, it's your employer?

(School House Rock Moment)
That's taxation with false(or crooked at the very least) representation and it's not fair. But if the citizens complain their Kings say "We don't care!"
(End School House rock Moment)

Where is the justice in fleecing us like sheep? Instead of truly tending to our needs? Our people are dying in their own bile and division, and all we get is more expense, more pressure to buy...more conditioning to be impulsive, individual..self indulgent..politically unaware?

No help. Not real help. Not anything that doesn't generate an enormous amount of revenue that never seems to be enough.

Seems almost like our government has become a somewhat corporate machine, that figures out how to charge more while cutting benefits to the customer...slowly..over many years.

That's it for today.