[quote="Beathan":2fxy4y0s]I think that this does frame the critical difference between my position and yours. We both see cultural differences, and we both see that such differences will complicate dispute resolution. However, while you want to funnel those differences through a standardized process to minimize them and their effects, I want to explore them in practice to see if they reveal any ideas or systems that would be worth trying in SL. If so, I think we should try the idea to see how it works.[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
Surely, you being an advocate of simplicity would jump on any chance to minimise the complicating effects of anything?
In any event, this does not give any reason to prefer your particular model of testing, which is by having extreme rule vagueness and having judges and parties randomly try out rules in each and every case by having to start from scratch in every one. How do you address the point that this gives [i:2fxy4y0s]none[/i:2fxy4y0s] of the potential rule-sets a fair test?
In any event, if you think that this way of doing things should be tried out, why not try it out in arbitration, and leave the serious disputes in real courts to the tried and trusted method of having detailed rules?
[quote:2fxy4y0s]Further, I think that by giving the court system flexibility to mold itself to fit the litigants, rather than force-fit the litigants to the system, we give greater respect to the litigants, making our system more attractive.[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
Explain your concept of "respect" here. Why is it disrespectful of anyone to require conformity to rules with which those people disagree? Indeed, is your propsal, which entails a rule that there should be few rules or that the rules should vary in each case, not, by the same measure, grossly disrespectful of all those who come from cultures that have one standard set of rules (i.e., everyone)? Do you not see that you argument is absurd and contradictory?
[quote:2fxy4y0s]I acknowledge that this requires that we rely a lot on the imagination, flexibility, hard-work, and good-will of our judges -- which requires that our judges be exceptional people. For that reason, I emphasize the personal and character traits that would indicate that the judge is such person over their professional resumes, which indicate merely that they know about RL law. I would rather have an anthropologist judge than a barrister judge -- and, as Ash ackowledges, we don't have an anthropologist judge at the moment.[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
You are assuming that, even with these things in place, it could possibly work. I have yet to see the evidence. Why should people rely on your mere assertions that it will work? Do you hold yourself out as infallible, or somebody whose views should be accepted unquestioningly?
[quote:2fxy4y0s](At a minimum, I would like to see an anthropologist consultant to a justice system -- to every justice system, RL or SL. A justice system that is not sensitive to the human distinctiveness, human values, human feelings (the general humanity) of the people who come before the bench is not just, no matter how systematized it is. Many American courts have such consultants -- and have had the equivalent of such consultants, at least when dealing with Native American people, for more than 100 years -- and our courts are far better off for it.)[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
Again, this is just your assertion: do you have any independent way of showing this, or do you, again, expect people to accept what you claim unquestioningly? Precisely what [i:2fxy4y0s]kind[/i:2fxy4y0s] of "sensitivity to human distinctiveness" do you think ought manifest in a justice system, in precisely what sort of way?
[quote:2fxy4y0s]It might be unfair -- and I have been hostile to attempts to divide our community into theoretical camps before -- but I think we can divide our community into those who think the justice system is about process, and those who think the justice system is about people. No matter how effective and efficient and predictable a process we have, if people feel demeaned or misunderstood or short-changed by the process, we have a bad process. A less efficient or less predictable process, provided it leaves people with faith that they were heard and respected as people, would be a better one. I don't think that we can have a fully-detailed process (at the outset, at least) without setting details for very bad reasons (such as "it works in England") and disrepecting people as a result.[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
This is an incoherent distinction because "process" and "people" are not exclusive facets or functions of a justice system. It is absurd and disingenuous to claim that anybody believes that a judicial system is "all about process" in the sense that the process is part of its function: it is not. Process is a means to an end. People are, of course, part of that end, as all ends relevant to people necessarily are, so your second pole is so vague as to be meaningless. Everybody agrees that a judicial system (1) should do useful things for people; and (2) should have a process that serves those ends well. The question (which is merely begged by your meaningless distinction) is what kind of process serves the (necessarily) people-related ends that a justice system exists to serve.
Do you accept, by what you write above, that having detailed rules is more efficient, and more predictable than not having detailed rules? If you do, it necessarily follows that you also accept that a system that has detailed rules does, at least in two significant senses, serves the (people-related) ends that a judicial system inherently seeks to serve better than what you propose. You seem to be claiming that at least some people will dislike any given set of rules despite the fact that they are inherently superior to having no or few rules, because those rules are not consonent with those people's first-life cultures, and that, in consequence of that disliking, will, somehow, cause the judicial system to serve less well those ends that a judicial system inherently seeks to serve; yet you provide no evidence to substantiate this. You merely guess. Why should people disrespect a system because it has rules that, although they work very well indeed, happen to be different from the rules that prevail in that person's own culture? Indeed, if that were so, would it not mean that [i:2fxy4y0s]everybody[/i:2fxy4y0s] would strongly disrespect and disregard the system that you propose, which is vastly different to [i:2fxy4y0s]any[/i:2fxy4y0s] given rule-set from any given legal culture?
[quote:2fxy4y0s](As we learn about ourselves and SL disputes through our use of the system, we will come to have good reasons to set certain details -- but it is premature and harmful to set the details too early just because we want detail. I, at least, don't want detail that much. I want to get things right, even if that requires that we start with an extremely general and simplistic system because we don't know, and can't yet know, what details will be right.)[/quote:2fxy4y0s]
Why do you claim that we cannot know what details will work? What stops us from knowing what will work as to rules on admissibility of evidence, the burden and standard of proof, pre-trial disclosure, legal professional privilege, and leave to appeal? What, precisely, is so different about people who interacting through the medium of SecondLife to people interacting through other media, including in person, that means that the rules on those things that work or make sense in the first life do not in SecondLife?