Costanza comments on Rational Repentance - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Mass_Driver 14 January 2011 09:37AM

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Comment author: Costanza 15 January 2011 03:47:15AM 3 points [-]

I am seriously interested in more information about this approach. I think that right now, there are two modern systems of law: Roman-derived law and English-derived, or "common" law. Sharia law might count as a close runner-up. I think Halacha is well-developed, but not widely-enforced, so I would not count it as a major modern legal system. With that said, and admitting I don't know much about civil law or the religious laws, my impression is that all the above are similarly complicated, and have been for centuries. I am in doubt that human behavior and its ambiguities could be simplified by being encoded in Python. I think it's a really, really hard problem, at least as long as humans remain as unpredictable as they do.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 15 January 2011 03:06:26PM 5 points [-]

Off-topic: Why does everyone on lesswrong say Python when they need to mention a programming language?

Comment author: TheOtherDave 15 January 2011 04:33:13PM 9 points [-]

Rule 46b:: I will not turn my programming language into a snake. It never helps.

Comment author: shokwave 15 January 2011 04:29:39PM *  2 points [-]

It has a very high ease of learning to usefulness ratio?

edit: It seems to come highly recommended as a first programming language (certainly it was such to me).

Comment author: scav 18 January 2011 03:52:35PM 1 point [-]

Do you mean a high usefulness to difficulty of learning ratio?

Atari BASIC had a nearly infinite ease of learning to usefulness ratio. :)

Comment author: shokwave 18 January 2011 04:54:48PM 1 point [-]

Right.

Comment author: Normal_Anomaly 15 January 2011 07:21:56PM 1 point [-]

Python is my first (and currently only) programming language. It's easy to read, easy to learn, and useful.

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 15 January 2011 06:39:06PM 1 point [-]

Python code is also reasonably easy to read. It's sometimes called executable pseudocode.

Comment author: timtyler 15 January 2011 03:45:21PM 1 point [-]

I did a Google duel - and it appears that "Java" beats "Python" for mentions around here.

Comment author: [deleted] 16 January 2011 06:16:16AM *  0 points [-]

I don't get it either I'm more of a C guy.

Comment author: bogus 16 January 2011 02:34:38PM 2 points [-]

I am seriously interested in more information about this approach. I think that right now, there are two modern systems of law: Roman-derived law and English-derived, or "common" law. Sharia law might count as a close runner-up. I think Halacha is well-developed, but not widely-enforced, so I would not count it as a major modern legal system.

David Friedman has taught a course in "Legal Systems Very Different From Ours" in both 2008 and 2010. See these course pages: [1] [2]