Chris Zell <[email protected]> wrote:
> Funny how a nation can be sustained for 200+ years with a straight forward > document such as the Constitution but cannot simplify or down size because > of complexity as an excuse. > Complexity is inherent in high technology. Something like the internet, the air traffic control system, or self-driving automobiles can only work with more laws, regulations, standards and industry agreement than existed in the whole world before 1900. These are immensely complex systems. If you want a world with a GPS in your car and Google at your command, you must live with thousands of pages of regulations. It cannot be done without them. You cannot implement 21st century technology with 18th century legal documents. > Impenetrable legal language is a product of corruption itself, designed to > maintain a legal class and confuse others. > Perhaps some laws have impenetrable legal language, but Obamacare did not. You have mischaracterized it. Perhaps you have not read it? As I said, I read large chunks of it relating to computers. I found it clear, well-written, with ordinary language. The parts I read had computer jargon, not legal language. The computer jargon was correctly used and it was necessary. Computers are essential to healthcare. I understand computers, so I had no difficulty understanding those sections. A person who does not understand computers might be mystified by that part of the law, but that is unavoidable. The Constitution was written in a way that ordinary people could mostly > understand and cherish as including sacred rights. > That's grand. Now tell me how you could have millions of self-driving automobiles making millions of life or death decisions every second, and you could explain all of this in a short document that any ordinary person could mostly understand. Good grief! Computers in 1978 were thousands of times smaller, slower and less complex then they are today. Every single system call for the Data General computers could be listed in about 20 pages, as I recall. It was a thing of beauty. I mastered the whole kit and kaboodle in a few months. But here's the thing. You COULD NOT POSSIBLY write some short document such as the Constitution describing that minicomputer in a way that any ordinary person could "mostly understand." Trust me: most people then and now did not a clue how it worked. It was black magic. The internet, self-driving cars, Google and the GPS will always be black magic to most people. These things are millions of times more complicated than the Data General minicomputer was. There is no way on earth you can explain that kind of technology to most people, and that includes most Members of Congress. So what is your plan? Are you going to ban the use of computers with 64 kilobytes or more? Because this stuff is too complicated? Or perhaps your plan is to let Google, Uber, Toyota, Ford and the others all develop self-driving cars with different standards and no testing, no communication between the vehicles, no agreements or standards about safety. Just let let chaos loose on the highways, with a million machines uncoordinated with no one having any idea how they are supposed to work in inclement weather or an accident. High technology *would never work* on that basis! Never. The healthcare system is high technology. - Jed
