82,853
edits
LegalHub: theory: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{a|devil|}}So let us state the manifest failings of [[reg tech]]: ''[[rent-seeking]]'' and ''[[iatrogenics]]''. | {{a|devil|}}So let us state the manifest failings of [[reg tech]]: ''[[rent-seeking]]'' and ''[[iatrogenics]]''. | ||
=== | ===[[Rent-seeking]]=== | ||
'''''[[Rent-seeking]]''''' in that no [[reg tech]] provider has figured out a business model for how to be suitably paid, other than by extracting [[rent]]. This they commonly do by reference to the ''value'' their product provides, which they equate to the ''total cost of labour and infrastructure it saves''. | '''''[[Rent-seeking]]''''' in that no [[reg tech]] provider has figured out a business model for how to be suitably paid, other than by extracting [[rent]]. This they commonly do by reference to the ''value'' their product provides, which they equate to the ''total cost of labour and infrastructure it saves''. | ||
Historians, and lovers of crushing irony, will note the resemblance of this notion to the [[labour theory of value]] — that the economic value of a service is equals the total amount of labour required to produce it — or in this case, that one would be required to hire to produce it ''without this new piece of kit''. Why “ironic”? Because it is odd to hear a bedrock intellectual foundation of ''Marxism'' babbling from the mouths of small-time [[rentier capitalist]]s, that’s why. | Historians, and lovers of crushing irony, will note the resemblance of this notion to the [[labour theory of value]] — that the economic value of a service is equals the total amount of labour required to produce it — or in this case, that one would be required to hire to produce it ''without this new piece of kit''. Why “ironic”? Because it is odd to hear a bedrock intellectual foundation of ''Marxism'' babbling from the mouths of small-time [[rentier capitalist]]s, that’s why. | ||
Cynics might | Cynics might wonder how these [[reg tech]] [[thought leader]]s can ''know'' how much money their technology will save, and how much time they have spent calculating the indirect costs of its implementation. | ||
Should we be so fixated on | Should we be so fixated on cutting the wage bill of a handful of school-leavers in Sarajevo, that we will pay a guy in Old Street for code he bought from some school-leavers in Bucharest, if the price is that he can intermediate our process for the hereafter, adding nothing but the cheerful chime of a clipped ticket each time his machine spits out another document, or even just while our documents collect dust on his server (this is called “hosting”)? | ||
Wasn’t the promise of the information revolution something grander than that? Wasn’t stuff meant to be ''free'', not just ''marginally cheaper'' and more complicated? | |||
===[[Iatrogenic]]=== | |||
'''''[[Iatrogenic]]'''''<ref>This is a super concept and if you haven’t come across it you owe it to yourself and {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} to read about it in his superbly bombastic {{br|Incerto}} series.</ref> in that in promising to alleviate the [[tedium]] of the [[boilerplate]], pernickitiness and low-level wrangling over [[representations and warranties]], technology throws open the window wide on a panoramic vista of unlimited low-level tinkering. Before the information revolution, the [[Anal paradox|anality]] of contracts was bounded by any lawyer’s natural capacity — deep, to be sure, but ultimately finite — to hold a superstructure of piecemeal salutary conditionality in her head. With a laptop and an adeptness with JavaScript, that limit has now been taken away. [[Contract]]s can be infinitely pedantic, variable, customisable. We can cater for any [[Pedantry|predilection]], whim, [[For the avoidance of doubt|doubt]] or [[proviso]]. We can find and propagate [[Biggs constant]]s at will. We can put one in every line, if that is our wish. We can command that a space between words must be ''italic''. When the great [[J. M. F. Biggs]] first isolated and documented a [[Biggs hoson]] in the wild — the celebrated [[bold full stop]] in a “Boats” [[repackaging]] — it was a once-in-a-generation event. | '''''[[Iatrogenic]]''''' — a cure that is worse than the disease<ref>This is a super concept and if you haven’t come across it you owe it to yourself and {{author|Nassim Nicholas Taleb}} to read about it in his superbly bombastic {{br|Incerto}} series.</ref> — in that in promising to alleviate the [[tedium]] of the [[boilerplate]], pernickitiness and low-level wrangling over [[representations and warranties]], technology throws open the window wide on a panoramic vista of unlimited low-level tinkering. Before the information revolution, the [[Anal paradox|anality]] of contracts was bounded by any lawyer’s natural capacity — deep, to be sure, but ultimately finite — to hold a superstructure of piecemeal salutary conditionality in her head. With a laptop and an adeptness with JavaScript, that limit has now been taken away. [[Contract]]s can be infinitely pedantic, variable, customisable. We can cater for any [[Pedantry|predilection]], whim, [[For the avoidance of doubt|doubt]] or [[proviso]]. We can find and propagate [[Biggs constant]]s at will. We can put one in every line, if that is our wish. We can command that a space between words must be ''italic''. When the great [[J. M. F. Biggs]] first isolated and documented a [[Biggs hoson]] in the wild — the celebrated [[bold full stop]] in a “Boats” [[repackaging]] — it was a once-in-a-generation event. | ||
This should not be a surprise. The invention of the word-processor did not ''shorten'' legal discourse. The arrival of email did not truncate the nature or volume of our communication. Andy gaveth, but it was not Bill, but our ''innate gift for verbal diarrhoea'' that took away. Note note the interests here: those providing the cure have a direct incentive — in fact, a ''need'' — to ''continue'' helping, because that is how they get paid. They design their disintermediating machines to only disintermediate so far: it must still remain sufficiently dependent on their code, their systems, their expertise, that the users are obliged to pay an annuity for it. To pay ''[[rent]]''. | This should not be a surprise. The invention of the word-processor did not ''shorten'' legal discourse. The arrival of email did not truncate the nature or volume of our communication. Andy gaveth, but it was not Bill, but our ''innate gift for verbal diarrhoea'' that took away. Note note the interests here: those providing the cure have a direct incentive — in fact, a ''need'' — to ''continue'' helping, because that is how they get paid. They design their disintermediating machines to only disintermediate so far: it must still remain sufficiently dependent on their code, their systems, their expertise, that the users are obliged to pay an annuity for it. To pay ''[[rent]]''. | ||