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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   34092 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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The spirit of the law is clear, but you can't enforce the spirit of the law.

Isn't jury of one's peers in essence trying to enforce spirit of the law instead of enforcing the letter?

Juries are capital S Stupid in the 21st century. Place like Singapore abolished them long ago without any problems.

Is it really reasonable for 12 randos with an average IQ of 100 to be deciding on whether a certain pharmaceutical company invention made by a team of Chemistry PhDs is infringing on this patent developed by that other team of Chemistry PhDs? There is a correct answer here, and it is No.

Courts instruct juries on the meaning of the law, then the jury is supposed to apply that meaning to the facts. So, at least in theory, the jury is not supposed to be determining the meaning of the law.

More importantly, jury trials are extremely expensive, and companies want to know what's legal and what's illegal without having to spend ungodly amounts of time and money litigating in Court. Clearly written laws save a lot of money and are easier and cheaper to enforce.

Sort of. But if you're constantly tangling people up in the courts over technicalities the way this would you've already failed. If people are breaking the letter of the law and only getting by by the good graces of juries then that's just further incentives for corporations to virtue signal and get entangled in the culture war to make people side with them.

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