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Censoring Nipples
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Unfortunately, in these cases, people make the mistake of thinking the law works like computer code. In reality, it doesn't.
People have this idea that law is just like computer code. You make one single definition and then build laws, like a mathematical edifice, around that definition. They think that if the law uses one definition in one place, it must use that definition in all places. They think the law works like a computer program or a physics equation. Change the constant and changes cascade through.
The law however is not a computer code. It is not a physics equation. The law has not, does not, and will likely never use consistent definitions throughout all contexts. Laws can be written with the same term defined multiple ways in different contexts. A tomato can be a vegetable in some legal contexts and a fruit in others. Someone can be legally male in some contexts but legally female in others.
Traditionally how this works with trans folks is, "your legal sex will be defined as whatever hurts you the most in the moment." Does a trans woman want to use a women's restroom? She will be defined as legally male and thrown out. Does she show her breasts in public as protest? Her chest will be considered legally female breasts. She will then be arrested and thrown in a male prison.
The law is not internally consistent. Don't make the mistake of thinking it is. Usually individual laws have their own definitions written into them. These definitions define what terms mean for the sake of applying that and only that law. And the definitions used can differ between different laws.
You wrote a whole lot while saying very little.
You're completely missing the point. You can have two laws:
Defines that for the purposes of import tariffs, a tomato is a fruit.
Defines that for the purposes of school lunch funding, a tomato is a vegetable.
Both of these laws can be passed, exist, be upheld and enforced at the same time. People would get confused and say, "but...but...a tomato is a tomato, it can't be both a fruit and a vegetable depending on context! That's not fair!"
Well, I'm sorry, but the law is not required to be internally consistent. No where in the US constitution or the UK's equivalent will you find language that says that all laws must use consistent definitions in all contexts.
I get it, this truth of the law offends people. People with STEM backgrounds are often particularly incensed by it, as it goes so against their way of understanding the world, scientific and mathematical axioms and such. But the law is not a computer code. The law is not a physics equation. It has all sorts of internal contradictions. Definitions are often highly contextual.
Also, quit being such a jackass. You don't need to start throwing around insults just because you disagree with a post.
This is basically why a handful of "STEM" people want smart contracts to take over the legal system.
And there's a reason smart contracts haven't taken off. Because at the end of the day, people want language in their contracts that protects them from flagrant abuse. And that is not possible with smart contracts.
For example, provisions of contracts can be thrown out in court because they're unconscionable or because they violate various doctrines of fairness or proportionality. If I offer a service, I can put a provision in my service contract that a cancellation fee applies if a client cancels early. But that fee has to be reasonable and proportional. I can't say, "if you cancel your contract early, you owe me $10 million USD." Maybe if that fee was for a hundred million dollar construction project? Maybe. But for a simple consumer service like a plumber or an electrician? No court in the world would uphold such a fee. Contracts can't have language in them that, completely out of the context of the contract, just entitles one party to vastly unreasonable and disproportionate benefit.
The law around real contracts has provisions relating to "unconscionable language" or "a reasonable person." These are things that cannot be defined mathematically. They have to be decided by an actual human being assessing the situation.
And this is also why smart contracts haven't taken off. I don't want to lose my house because some hidden provision of a smart contract flips and now my home belongs to some NFT bro. I don't want my retirement savings disappearing in a puff of logic because of some indecipherable code in a smart contract. I want the contracts governing all the important things in my life to be well-trodden, boring, well-established contracts operating in decades of contract law meant to keep people mostly safe. I don't want whatever snake oil some smart contract coder is trying to sell me. Mandatory binding arbitration is bad enough. The last thing we need is smart contracts.
Sure, someone can try and weasel out of it by saying, "don't like it, don't agree to the smart contract!" To that I say stuff it. We don't let people write language into minor contracts that lets them steal the homes out from little old ladies. We have extensive state regulation of contracts because we've learned the hard way that rigidly enforcing contracts with zero thought or consideration of fairness just ends up rewarding the most vile and wicked people in society.
Yes, it's tempting to do away with lawyers and judges and to replace them all with objective mathematical language. But there's a reason that is never going to happen. People do not want to trust their major financial decisions to some inscrutable code that provides them no legal protections.
That's an interesting point! Although I would suspect that for the "STEM people", today's legal system is even more inscrutable and indecipherable. A reasonable person would say that tits are tits, and might more easily notice
than notice which legal definition applies in that particular situation.
Why the hostility?
It seems pretty clear to me that they meant there's no "what is a woman" definition that's shared between all laws of a government.
Each law defines the terms they contain, which can contradict definitions found in other laws.
When one law changes its definition of a term, it doesn't mean other definitions of the term are also changed.