The Machine of a Dream

It is impossible to write a rule system of the size of the German laws and avoid logical inconsistencies. Indeed there are few programmers who can write a thousand or even a hundred rules without building in a couple of logical inconsistencies. This is not due to the inability of the programmers. Indeed few people are as well trained in logical thinking as programmers are. The trouble is the human brain which is not at all suited for logical thinking. The philosophers who have been claiming the contrary for millennia were very mistaken. The human brain can emulate logic but it is not good at it.

So how can programmers actually write rule systems that are orders of magnitude more complex than common law systems? The programmers have electronical help. The programs that are used to translate the human readable computer code into computer readable code check the code for simple inconsistencies. The programmers themselves write more programs with the sole purpose of checking the code of their bigger project for more complex logical inconsistencies.

All this is pretty straightforward on computers that know nothing but logic and are pretty good in it. Laws are run on a completely different machine though: on a society. The building blocks of society are humans. Humans carry around brains which are considered the most complex systems in the known universe. Since society is a system build of such brains, society is in some sense actually more complex than a single brain.

It will very likely be impossible to simulate the effect of laws on society for a long long time - if it will ever become possible at all. But it might be possible to formalize juridical rules in a way that they can be run in a computer which checks them for logical inconsistencies, loopholes and some simple undesired side effects. If this is possible, this would improve the law making process a lot. Thus this should definitely be attempted.

The process of building complex software is divided into several levels. The customer determines what the software should do. Top level executives and designers lay down basic principles on how the software should achieve its tasks. And technicians and engineers write the actual code. Most of the rules written by the engineers are completely independent from the requirements made by the customers. And many rules are still independent from the guidelines laid down by the executives. There are infinite ways of achieving the same effect in a computer. This is where the beauty comes in: the best way to solve a problem is usually the most elegant and logically beautiful.

The law making process is partly similar. In theory the public decides for a broad direction, government politicians make more detailed requirements and state secretaries and ministerial clerks write the actual rules which are finally approved or disapproved by the parliament. In law making though, it does not seem to be considered that the actual implementation is independent from the functionality. A state could and should have civil servants whose task it is to refactor (change) laws without changing what the laws actually do. Thus law could be optimized/beautified/simplified without parliament having to discuss every change. If the civil servants occupied with this task happen to find ways of simplifying the law a lot while changing the functionality a bit, they could ask parliament to approve such a change. If this strategy was to be followed, it would help if laws were not formulated concretely but in a more abstract way. For example a law concerning child allowance would not state a family receives 200 EUR child allowance. It would rather say any family receives about n % cash of average income from the state. It is then left to the ministerial clerks if they write the law as child allowance, as a tax refund or whatever. They could then put all state subventions for citizens into one pot and optimize the laws and the forms that citizens have to fill out.

If the laws are logically inconsistent, as I claim, then why does the system - the society - not break down? Because society is not a logical system. Society is very adaptive and self organizing. But few or no governments seem to make use of this. Most democracies try to regulate too much. This is probably due to the fact that for every existing law there are lobbyists whose clients profit from it. On the other hand nobody applaudes if a single rule is abandoned. So the laws tend to grow all the time. Politicians also seem to perceive themselves as law makers rather than social engineers whose task it is to optimize existing laws. Stalinist-Communist governments tried to control virtually everything. They seemed to be mortally afraid of things sorting themselves out. Part of the reason for their collapse is probably the impossibility to control the most complex system in the known universe. Neo-liberalists claim that economy will completely organize itself better than any government could. They are probably right, but I would not want to live in the resulting society because of the known problems. Marxist-Communists like neo-liberalists are almost anarchists claiming that once the according culture is established things will self organize into heaven on earth.

So the problem is that the existing concepts of society either want to control too much or too little. The classical social democracies in particular try to leave the market's ``natural'' laws intact to harvest its power but try to control it all the same. They try to put breaks, accelerators and steering devices into the market without changing its principles. I will propose to change the principles by applying drastic laws, but leaving the resulting system mostly to its own powers of self organization.

I will propose relatively few and simple but drastic rules. The idea is to establish a simple framework for society without wanting to control everything. The hope is that in the proposed framework the system will develop/self organize into the desired direction of high economic efficiency combined with social justice.

I will give an example of this principle that is more limited in scope: In Germany the traffic laws are not enforced. Basically you can exceed speed limits (which are generous) by 20 km/h without fearing any sanctions. Exceed it up to 40 km/h and expect to pay fines up to 40 EUR, exceed it up to 50 km/h pay up to 150 EUR. Only if you exceed the speed limit by more than 50 km/h you will really regret it, cause you will loose your license (do not try this at home, commonly applied tolerances for speeds of 100 km/h i.e. 10% and out of settlements rules were assumed). Speed limit signs are everywhere. You will find two per junction, one for each direction.

Now the problem with this is not the low fines or the lax tolerances. Higher fines and closer tolerances would certainly help, but they do not really fit into Germany's law culture. The trouble is the enforcement. There are too few controls of the limits.

Imagine you drive a car and you have a pot of tomato soup in the trunk, some major plant on the back seat, an indisposed acquaintance on the passengers seat or an undamped trailer at your back. Most drivers will have driven in some such situation. I can ensure you one drives miraculously well under such circumstances. Wide safety margins are maintained and a very fine grained resolution of adapted driving is achieved, much more fine grained than is enforced by one speed limit per junction. One does not go through turns too fast, one does not accelerate too fast, one does not break too suddenly. As far as safety is considered ideal driving is achieved.

I do not however propose to put a pot of tomato soup in every trunk. But I do think an important lesson can be learned from this. A lot of traffic signs could be economized while at the same improving traffic safety if one principle were changed: instead of controlling velocity, the law should control acceleration. This is regardless of the direction of acceleration: it does not matter if one goes into a turn, breaks or accelerates, physically all this is acceleration.

I propose to put a gyroscope and a transmitter into every car. This would cost below a 100 EUR per car. If the acceleration limit is exceeded too many times in too short a period of time, the transmitter will send out a signal that allows the police to track and finally the society to sanction the delinquent.

The system was changed in two ways: By the use of modern technology it is ensured that you will definitely be caught if you break the law and by changing the parameters which are controlled by the laws, the problem is simplified and the system improved. This is a good example of what I will try to propose for other more important aspects of society.