Yeah, OK. You win. But I continue to wonder what modifications we might make to
the courts and whether or not that would help with our modern problems. Adding
4 more Justices might alleviate some of the lost cred of the courts, but only
might, and only a little. We'd still have over-populated prisons and biased
demographics. We'd still see the courts abused by rich people to intimidate
debunkers, whistleblowers, and poor people. I'd love to focus more on potential
solutions than doomer commiseration.
On 9/30/24 13:37, Marcus Daniels wrote:
The “dialectic of expert witnesses” can only address focused topics because
individuals can only rationalize so much complexity. It’s one thing for
Feynman to explain failed O rings after that specific failure, it is another to
create an engineering plan that creates a space shuttle.
It’s a much easier to unpack and rationalize failures than it is to avoid them
in the first place.
I was using Claude to explore a code project and when it gets stuck, it made me
think of a senior IC or manager browbeating a junior employee. At some point
the junior employee just freezes up with yes-sir, no-sir, let-me-try-again-sir.
The channel and the literacy between the two parties (in this case me and
Claude) could not convey enough information to contextualize the ask. Giving
cleft notes to justices to (not) understand complex topics seems like that to
me.
*From: *Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of glen
<geprope...@gmail.com>
*Date: *Monday, September 30, 2024 at 10:16 AM
*To: *friam@redfish.com <friam@redfish.com>
*Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
Agreed. But we see similar stories with, e.g., editors of peer-review journals, PhD
committees, Peter Principle bureaucrats, etc. I can't stretch my brain enough to see that
the science/industrial complex is any less "corruptible weak links" than expert
testimony. And to some extent, with the supply chain hacks we've seen recently (including
Israel's attacks on Hezbollah as well as things like CrowdStrike, Theranos, etc.), the
multifarious bureaucracy may be weaker to attack than the dialectic of expert witnesses.
Everyone understands false dichotomy. No single person understands supply chains in their
entirety (without vague pretentions to master equations).
On 9/30/24 10:02, Marcus Daniels wrote:
People are prone to corruption and failure. That's as true for SCOTUS as it is for
middle managers at the EPA. Given this situation, we should want the best grounding for
knowledge and as many eyes on it as possible. That's not what one gets with
"Expert witnesses". What one gets with that are corruptible weak links.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of glen
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2024 6:30 AM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
Yeah, but the composition of physical laws up into the composites that make up social laws isn't
straightforward. Maybe I could stomach the assumption of transitivity from, say, "biological
laws" to "social laws", but not physical laws to social laws. The transitivity fails.
I can't tell where I actually land in the spectrum between Eric and Dave's positions. I
really like the idea that those who have their hands inside the goo, inside the machine,
close to the metal, are the ones who decide how best to interact with the machine. As
Dave once accused, it's a bit Vico-ist. On the other hand, our collective respect for
(delusional belief in?) the Truth fades faster each day. The elites are exhibiting faster
rates of churn. (E.g. Elno and SpaceX overturning tried and true, "modernist",
methods for engineering space machines. E.g. a top-notch Data Science postdoc might cost
a university ~$1M/yr, which means they all abandon the academy and go to work for Google
or somesuch. Etc.)
And with such a turbulent churn of the elite production system, it's completely
reasonable to be confused about which elites to trust - or which side of their
mouth to trust. Luckily, I hold Diogenes in high esteem, which allows me to
doubt everything ... regardless of EricC and Nick's claim that's impossible. So
it's no crisis for this almost-dead privied white man. But the kids? What will
they see on the other side of this Rawlsian Veil? I'm so thankful I have no
children.
On 9/28/24 20:40, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Violating social laws may or may not have consequences. That depends on the
enforcement mechanisms of a society. Violating physical laws is not possible.
Thus, social laws should follow physical laws, as it was before Chevron was
overturned. Not the other way around.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2024 5:09 PM
To: friam@redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] tolerance of intolerance
I resist—unsuccessfully, obviously—commenting on these issues because my
opinions/ideas are pretty much antithetical to everyone else. But two points:
There seems to be certainty regarding the criminality/venality/egomania of one
person/group coupled with an inability to recognize (or a very generous
willingness to overlook) the same things in other people/groups. The crimes
might be different in detail (insider trading instead of inflating of assets)
and the venality and egomania hidden behind polite facades; but the substance
is the same, and, in my observations/opinions, pretty much equal in degree.
Judges should decide law, not facts. With one exception, I see no instances of
SCOTUS doing otherwise. The exception is the very recent assumption that judges
can determine the 'facts' of history and the feeble attempt to ground decisions
of law in those 'facts'.
Within the legal system, juries, most prominently, and special masters,
referees, and expert witnesses are charged with arguing (expert witnesses) or
determining (the others cited) facts. Chevron gave bureaucrats (not necessarily
scientists) the right of determining fact by fiat. Overturning Chevron was a
matter of law and simply restored fact finding to those, according to law,
responsible.
Even if you believed that scientific positions taken by bureaucratic entities
were arrived at via free, open, honest, and rigorous application of science, by
the best, and best informed, scientists; those bureaucrats have no standing, in
law, to assert the final truth of the matter.
davew
On Sat, Sep 28, 2024, at 4:50 PM, Santafe wrote:
Didn’t mean to drop this Glen. Busy patch.
I don’t know. Have been ruminating for a week (or whatever it is)
wondering whether I have any substance to contribute.
I understand how an argument like the one you make below might hang
together (first para and part of the second). Do I think it does,
for this case? Not really. Gorsuch looks like the kind of patrician
who could have come strainght out of the worst ranks of the Roman Senate.
More than any of the others. So he is probably unreachable for any
aim at this point. We have to wait for him to die of old age,
because his character growth ended decades ago. ACB probably has
more decency, but is captured by her particular (not the most
dramatic) cult, and that is limiting. If she were to show signs of
growth, I wouldn’t find it incomprehensible, but I don’t expect it to be much
or to be soon.
Roberts doesn’t look like the cynical or bitter power-abuser that
Thomas and Alito purposely present themselves as. And I can’t get
inside anybody’s head; the more time goes by I don’t think I even
have a good scope of what human heads can be like. I think I am
becoming mind-blind; they are not more comprehensible to me than
bears. But the evidence of his actions is that he repeatedly, and in
a very activist/interventionist manner, protects a manifest criminal
and a clear inside power-takover faction, from people who are not
acting criminally and are far more democratic — and very much not
populist — in their aims and their methods than the ones he protects.
I think that is indicting, whether one forms a personal impression or not.
I will go out on a limb and suggest that there is some projection.
The language of Robers’s statements (and things I have seen quoted
from the rulings, which I have not read through) sounds as if he
believes lower courts don’t actually go by any standard of anything,
and that’s why he wants to make the whole judicial system into a
giant funnel for all authority for anything consequential to flow
back to him. If I look at bits of lower-court rulings that I see, or
more often hear commentary by people who seem sound to me, it looks
to me like a noisy system with good and bad choices, but one in which
reasoning much better than that issued by SCOTUS is not uncommon at
all. So it seems to me like a kind of admission by Roberts that _he_
and his cabal don’t actually have any standards, but just start from
the desired outcome and make up a story, so he figures all the other
courts must be doing the same thing, and therefore he wants to accumulate final
say.
I will admit that I often find the rhetorical language that all the
justices use annoying. Not that I want things in obscure Law French.
Just that they talk as if everything has to be appealed mainly to
emotions for a Sesame Street audience. Often it seems that more
sensible reasons are available, than appeals to the emotional
movement of whatever day of the week it is. They are all smart
enough to do that, so the fact that they don’t feels to me like an
admission of their view of the audience from which they want buy-in.
Not a respectful view; unfortunately probably deserved in large part too.
On Courts versus Institutions of experts, though: Here I don’t go
with the argument you make. Neither of them has a guarantee of good
or of bad faith. I think what we have seen in every important test
throughout history says that good or bad faith is one of these highly
unstable and dynamically maintained things, which ultimately needs
some level of coordinated maintenance across the society if it is to
survive. So no matter what anyone chooses institutionally, given the
complexity and sheer bandwidth of the problems that need choices
made, you are going to heavily distribute the load. In that case, a
lot of whether you can or can’t make good choices will come down to
the simple technical thing of professional training. Lawyers aren’t
trained as empirical derivers; they are some other social thing. For
questions of social consequence, sure; a good-faith lawyer might see
something other professionals would pass over. But most of this
agency stuff is about figuring out what happens in the thing we refer
to as the actual or real world. And they are trained in a small
sub-culture of relatively recent methods that can handle parts of
that reliably in ways that nothing else we ever did before can do.
When those are the structures of the problems, those professionals
should be used, as they are the best tools we have to solve those problems.
Making the whole society into a monoculture of law, which then
degrades to a monoculture of politics, is not the right choice, and I
think eventually not a stable choice.
I see things (or bits of things, because I don’t spend lots of time
on
this) like the presidential debates, and it makes me think of what
wags what. There is a sensibility of trashiness that has grown up
through the generations of reality TV. There are those of us
(probably many) who find this so tedious and grating that we will do
a lot not to be trapped in a room with it. But it has metamorphosed
so that levels of public exchange that can be consequential and
should be treated that way, have been completely gobbled up by the
reality TV aesthetic. It seems important that a society can do that to itself.
I think not good that it can and has.
Eric
On Sep 24, 2024, at 11:16 PM, glen <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote:
Unfortunately, I'm still thinking about this. [sigh] But in my long covid
induced fugue on the interminable flight across the atlantic, I landed on the
idea that while, yes, the Roberts court is aggregating power back to themselves
(particularly - not the judicial system as a institution), perhaps there's an
-urgic demon at work. The power aggregation to the particular humans on the SC
is a merely symptom of the work of that demon. And the demon is, in general,
moving to protect us from populism. Bear with me a bit.
Regardless of what we think if, say, Cannon or Thomas, it seems ACB and Gorsuch are in the
tradition of rationalists we might want the study of the Law to produce. (Kavanaugh is different, I
think. And I'm leaving out the liberal Justices because I keep my enemies closer than my allies.)
In considering the Chevron overturning, on the surface, it seems stupid ... a rejection of
expertise. But combining Chevron with "Schedule F", I would trust the dialectic pursued
by Good Faith members of the judiciary more than I would trust some rando appointed to
"govern" in one of those executive agencies. This is especially true in a scientific
environment where so many publications come out each day/week/year (many of which are on preprint
servers but cited as if peer-reviewed), no collection of Good Faith scientists can keep track of
them, much less curate them for non-experts. Barring abdication of truth-curation to LLMs (i.e.
transnational corporations like Google, MicroSoft, Apple, etc.), the judiciary may be a decent
buttress.
And the somewhat hierarchical composition of the judiciary (from schools/tests to
experience dealing with batshit rhetoric) provides a kind of institutional inertia that
the blast of "scientific" research doesn't provide. The judiciary might be the
last bastion of the Deep State, capable of resisting demagogues like Trump.
What say ye? Is my optimism showing? 8^D
On 7/17/24 17:17, Santafe wrote:
Back to the Roberts court, the things I have seen written that seem most cogent
to me argue that their one consistent tack is to aggregate power to their
specific selves. There are these nonsense rulings, which are vague or
inconsistent, and honest lower courts often cannot figure out whether or how to
comply with them. (There was just one of these, I think the Domestic Abuser
with a Gun case, along exactly this line, a month or two ago. Rahimi?) And
once it is a mess of appeals in the lower courts, it can get back to SC, who
can then make up whatever outcome they want for that case. It gets very close
to trolling for Roberts to write condescendingly that the lower courts were
“confused” by the SC’s ruling; in fact they had it dead to rights, and Roberts
surely isn’t so dumb he doesn’t know that. So to act as if they have made the
mistake is to put out loud what the game is. It’s like Gaetz’s text about
“Cannon for Supreme Court” or whatever it was. Trolls gonna troll. @The
cruelty is the point. It’s about the assertion of domination, once you think
you have enough of a lock that your advantage is to get out of the “hiding”
phase and go into the “demoralizing” phase.
So I don’t know that there really is new “law” power in the Monarchical
Executive. There may or may not be, but the SC would like to make itself
indispensible in operating that machinery.
--
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ꙮ Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙ ꙮ
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