I was pulled into a tough legal case and my lawyer explained that engineers have the hardest time working with law because they expect things to be logical. It's really a squishy mess full of ambiguities that are resolved with sophistry and head games.
To some extent, but in my experience developers struggle to understand that ultimately, the law is interpreted by humans, instead of a strict rule based system. I understand this frustration, to be clear, but this distinction is obvious.
> in my experience developers struggle to understand that ultimately, the law is interpreted by humans, instead of a strict rule based system
True. But this isn’t because someone is more logical. Honestly, that was a great line by a lawyer who probably wanted to focus on the case and not bill hours for a philosophy of law discussion.
Not really. In particular, they’re both professions filled with people who have egos the size of planets. I can just as easily see a surgeon telling a lawyer that the law is logical, being designed by man, in a way the human body is not just to get them to shut the hell up with broad questions about human anatomy during a surgical consult.
(The actual parallel is they both deal with constructed languages. High-level languages are full of hacks and quirks and high-octane stupid it, just like the law.)
The funny part is that engineers and doctors typically think they’re the smartest one in the room. To prove this, they over think and over explain their deposition responses. All this does is give a skilled interlocutor more avenues to question and develop inconsistencies. At which point ego is triggered and they become super-defensive.
Ah, the always-entertaining moment when a person who is technically-correct (the best kind?) realizes that the socially-correct interpretation carries greater weight in the minds of everyone except themselves.
Been there. Learned eventually. Sometimes still forget. :)
I won through a little bit of advice suggested by a layperson. I simply got the case moved to another room. The old judge hated us and the new judge loved us. All we had to do was decline magistrate jurisdiction. My lawyer was really reluctant for reasons I believe had to do with his standing with the court and not my case. And to think that layperson could be jailed for suggesting it.
No, they wouldn't, nor is this some kind of secret trick as you seem to be implying. This is a fairly common practice sometimes called "judge shopping" similar to "forum shopping" (where you try to get your case moved to the jurisdiction most friendly to your claim). It's not illegal, though it is (in theory) discouraged. As an example, if you're not familiar, look up the Eastern District of Texas and patent litigation.
Nobody directly involved ever mentioned the idea and we didn't change jurisdictions. We had the right to reject a magistrate simply because they were a magistrate judge and not simply a judge. Nobody discouraged it or even tried to fight it. If law was so logical and like code, this move would not cause an instant 180 in the case.
You were in the courtroom once, the lawyer will be in that room many, many times. He wants what is easiest for him, with some deference to you, but really mainly for him.
All this stuff is hard to navigate if you're not used to it, or haven't been involved before.
> It often takes less time and way less mental energy than a phone call.
Really now? Preparing a physical package and dropping it off at a physical location to be picked up and delivered is faster and more efficient than speaking into a wireless device for a few minutes?
> I just drop it off and other people do the delivery for me.
That's what I said. You have to create a physical letter and drop it off. Not everyone can just walk over to their mailbox and stick an outgoing letter in there for the delivery truck to pick up; I have the privilege, but it absolutely hasn't been common everywhere I've lived.
You don't have to drop anything off in order to make a phone call, you don't even have to get up if you already have your phone.
The amount of time I spend doing things costs me opportunities to earn money. So, minimizing time spent performing a single accounting action by writing a letter, while systematically "inefficient" is actually the most efficient financial decision I can make for myself. I am uninterested beyond that.
The USPS maintains a pretty wide network of collection boxes. In a city you'd be hard pressed to not find one very close to you and most large apartment buildings have their own mail drops. There doesn't seem to be any "privileged" access issues here.
Point is.. the differences are so small.. that the decision is going to be made by subjective preference in most cases, and trying to suggest that there's an objectively correct solution is easily disproved.
I was originally addressing a comment that claimed it "often takes less time and way less mental energy than a phone call". I'm not pushing an "objectively correct solution" here, rather the opposite.
For me, as someone with ADHD, the time it takes to do something means absolutely nothing compared to the amount of mental energy it takes to even try. It's different for everyone.
Do you even realize you can send mail from your mailbox?
I can walk to my mailbox and put the little metal flag up in a couple minutes. I can't be put on hold or have the conversation drag on for 40+ minutes, as some in the complaint stated. No need to make this hard.
> Do you even realize you can send mail from your mailbox?
Yes, one of my comments posted three hours before yours described how I can indeed drop off mail at my mailbox to be picked up by the postal service. But before I do that, I have to find an envelope, paper, write or print a letter, seal it and address it and then leave my house to go drop it off at the mailbox. It's within walking distance, but notice the number of steps there are compared to picking up your phone, calling someone up and just saying "cancel my subscription" however many times they require.
And then the retention department pretends to cancel, as they want to be on target for their monthly bonus. Now you can print a copy of your phone call as evidence when you get billed again (oops, you can't). So now you get to deal with the vendor and the credit card company. Very smart time savings!
I joined a startup whose mission statement was to "do something with XML." We grabbed an embedded board, connected it to a printer port and enabled legacy systems to "print" to an XML service. It sold for lots of money and was never really integrated into anything.
When experts do chime in, they're blasted as shills. Have fun finding someone who is truly an expert yet has no connection to the industry that uses the technology.
It's tricky because you can be well informed without being biased. In the case of glyphosate, it just so happens that being well informed comes off as shilling because the genpop conjecture is void of nuance
The "user as the product" model works well for the user for a while, when business is booming. I now pay Microsoft for email simply because they have someone answering the phone over there, competent or not. I get Office as part of the deal.
