Thoughts at Random

The main idea: limit judicial fiat and legal bloat by enforcing sentencing through linking to a few hundred synthetic cases only.   0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 19.06.2025, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  1.1 Consider the large de facto legislative freedom that being unduly harsh or lenient in sentencing gives judges nowadays. 1.2 Further consider the severe bloat that precedent tracking enforces, the freedom it allows to cherry pick, and the degree to which it makes law unknowable. 1.3 So let’s step back and design a simpler system from scratch, in round two of my first attempt .  1.4 You create a set number of synthetic cases, likely in the low hundreds. These must be such as to account for reasonable variations of relevant real-life factors, such as type of crime/tort, degree of uncertainty, strength of evidence, extenuating c...

The main idea: combine juries and Russian Roulette to get the most bang for the buck in terms of a justice system.  0. Posts on this blog are ranked in decreasing order of likeability to myself. This entry was originally posted on 26.05.2023, and the current version may have been updated several times from its original form.  0.1 Below I’m trying to design a Pareto justice system, i.e. one that requires 20% of the effort of modern systems (in theory being simple enough to be applied by roving guerrilla bands on the territory they control), whilst delivering 80% of the (useful) outcomes. Much comes either straight from - or is at least inspired by - David Friedman’s Law's Order as well as Rod Long’s work on classical Athens. 0.2 Note a related entry here .  1 The design 1.1 You don’t have written laws, at all. Whoever can sue whomever for any reason or no reason, but they must do so before a jury.   1.2 Each party proposes which punishment should be meted to the...