This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Fair I missed the percent of gdp.
But again you are failing to address ANY point I am making. You just claim their are solutions. To me this indicates a poorly thought out position. And just an opinion that this sounds good without having any detailed understanding of your position.
No, what's poorly thought out is taking the very first hypothetical you thought of and treating it as a knock-down argument against a system that has been implemented in dozens of countries. You didn't even read the link I first posted, and you didn't even clearly read it a second time, and in both cases doing so would have addressed one of your points (I notice that you're no longer harping on filing a lawsuit being an existential risk for a smaller company, because the larger one can waste money on their defense, but never acknowledged it was trivial to solve).
I've dealt with this sort of argument before: There are nearly limitless hypothetical situations one could raise. This is common in anti-libertarian arguments, too: Chain together enough silly assumptions and you can make anything look bad. However, no effort is every put into demonstrating they are actual problems, or that these problems outweigh the problems of the alternative, etc. For example:
"What if, in each side pays, I set up a bunch of shell companies who each file frivolous lawsuits against some company just because I don't like their mascot's appearance. Filing such a lawsuit is much cheaper than defending it, and the courts can't label my shell companies as vexatious litigants because each one is new. Therefore, each side pays is not practical because anyone can instantly bankrupt anyone they don't like at any time."
I demand that you respond in detail to this hypothetical before I consider your system plausible.
The problem is your not specifically answering the solutions with details.
Also I never dropped the idea that caps on expenses could bankrupt the smaller company. That depends a lot on the magnitude of the caps. If it’s low then it doesn’t prevent lawsuits but also doesn’t solve any issues.
For your question specifically it’s because it costs money to set up shell companies and file a lot of lawsuits. And no one wants to spend a ton of money because they don’t like a mascot.
This is just verbally jarring because your failing to come up with specific details to address.
My opinion is that “loser pays” isn’t the key reason why we have high costs. And other reforms like caps on excessive judgements, more arbitration, less checks/balances, etc would fix the issue. Your starting with some big top level policy when the solutions are much more lower level details regardless of whether you run “loser pays” or our system.
This actual reminds me a lot of Georgism which thinks a big top level LVT would solve housing. But it’s actually lower level administrative things like zoning, number of checks/balances, etc that solve the issue.
I’ve also never said one hypothetical disproved it but you also haven’t presented detailed solutions. It’s your idea so your the one who needs to present the details.
Ironically, you didn't respond to my argument with any details, you just repeated your own belief.
It's not really "my idea" as it's used in dozens of countries. If you think it's completely unusable then the burden of proof is on you.
Here's one example. This is the only time I'm going to do this, because otherwise this comment chain could just grow until we've recreated all of the law system of a developed country.
The use of shell companies is, as another commenter pointed out, already common everywhere. This does cause problems sometimes, but is not something that makes the whole system unusable. In this case of "make a shell company just to file a lawsuit" one option is to require someone filing a lawsuit to have assets or insurance. You dismissed this option above then poor people couldn't sue, but A) insurance could still be very cheap for a lawsuit that is likely to succeed; B) filing a lawsuit already has costs; and C) we already have lawyers who work on contingency, who would probably have little issue also fronting the cost of insurance for legitimate suits.
There are other options as well. A country could require a more substantial entity located in their borders to file a lawsuit, such as an actual person who owns the company or can attest to its legitimacy, and is willing to take responsibility for the costs of losing a lawsuit. As above, this entity would need to have assets or insurance. Courts already deal with location-based jurisdiction questions, companies and individuals trying to hide assets, etc; while I'm sure there are questions that would need be resolved by legislatures and/or courts, they don't prevent the system from working at all.
To summarize
“It’s used in a lot of other countries” therefore I do NOT need to give detailed reasoning for changing the entire legal system of the richest country earth has ever known.
And to repeat I can’t give you a response if you don’t give me specific detailed solutions to think about. I can’t debate something with myself.
Wow, you're obnoxious. I gave you a solution, did you just not bother to read 80% of my comment?
Did you edit? To add insurance? Yes that’s possible. Would add a substantial costs for poor people. Since well small cases would need to pay underwriters to evaluate or charge significant premiums for cases and try to hope it’s filter for selection bias. Insurance is basically the same thing as bails bondsmen which the US is already removing due to negative effects on the poor.
For insurance your basically just privatizing initially court date to see if their is probably cause. We could just reform that step in the existing system .
I didn't edit it. If I did, you could see "Edited ago". What is with these easily disproved lies? You've already shown you don't bother to read comments or links before making aggressive comments, so I'm not sure who you think you're fooling.
Anyway, yeah, all systems have costs and downsides. Right now we have one where the downside is "you can ruin anyone's life at any time by filing frivolous lawsuits and bankrupting them." To me this seems pretty clearly much worse than "poor people continue to have worse access; may need help with legal issues, like they already do (as well as for everything else); obvious solutions like contingencies already exist but might not be perfect."
The bail bondsman reference doesn't make any sense at all.
The "Edited ... ago" indication only shows if you edit a comment after few minutes have passed. If you edit within the first few minutes, nothing shows.
I'm not party to your conversation or anything, but I thought it'd be worth clarifying this for you and @sliders1234
More options
Context Copy link
Bail and insurance to file are literally the exact same product. One for criminal and one for lawsuit but both are essentially insurance for performance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link