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All laws should be expressed in code. It would quickly show how many either conflict with each other or are incoherent.


It wouldn't even work if the universe was expressed as data.

Unfortunately there will be an input layer that requires predicates or measurements that cannot avoid ambiguity.

Ignoring that, there's Godel's Incomplete Theorem to deliver the final blow. If integer arithmetic cannot be complete and consistent, a set of laws governing society has no hope. If you disagree, you'd at least have to admit that such a set of laws could not include integer arithmetic, and could certainly be no more complex than integer arithmetic. I'd posit that such a restriction renders such a project impossible.

We've chosen completeness (every action can be rendered legal or illegal) over consistency. The alternative - consistency - would make some actions legally undecidable.


And then there's other comments here that mocks people who think law as code hence you can cheat/glitch through it. They say law in the end is run by humans and there's something called "intent" that will still catch you. Tbf I lean more to law as code side myself and this intent thing sounds like arbitrary enforcement.


Arbitrary enforcement is a requirement for fair laws. It's why the quality of judges matters.


This exists, but I haven't dug deep enough to know better: https://github.com/CatalaLang/catala.




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