Aquarionics

Today's Quote

Ahh well, seems like I'm back now.

From Dave Taylor's (ex-ID, ex-Transmeta, ported Quake to Linux, founded (with American McGee (also ex-ID, and also creator of AM's Alice, one of my favourite FPS's ever)) & worked for C₆, then left it in December) Blog^[1]:

[T]here will be no laws in Davetopia unless they can be programmed in a standardlized legal programming language and implemented literally into code.

This way, lawyers will be replaced by a sophisticated web interface available to everyone, for nothing. So it's basically gauranteed that every member has free access to the actual code governing his life. Instead of having to pay $300/hr to interpret a tiny piece of it.

Anything that doesn't suit the programming language basically becomes a kind of useless case law, completely unenforcable, nothing more than a code of ethics that some people choose to follow. Most likely, several different codes of ethics will emerge. The system will be corrupted by coders that start incorporating the citizen's membership within a particular code of ethics into the coded law, which will break the legal system by letting the inputs become subjective, leading to complete failure: lawyers. But that's OK, because by then, as soon as we spot the first lawyer and realize we've hit a losing condition, we'll know how to start over and make society even better.

On the down side, programmers will now be the most powerful, corruptable politicians in society. But on the bright side, programmers will now be the most powerful, corruptable politicians in society.

XMLaw, anyone?

[1] One day, I will follow though on my idea to create the worlds greatest Games site, so I have somewhere to store all this useless information I have without burdening future generations with it. However, before that I should really finish Epistula. And Nomical. And Project Alice and Toffia and Ceavern and Albertross and Forever and Afphrid[2b|!2b] and... and... and... gamabase will have to wait.