Nintendo Kid posted:

We can do it with a new language.

zoux posted:

I'm not talking about the tactical realism of such a device but the philosophical reasons behind certain societal things. I'm not proposing such a device be invented nor even that it could but rather what it would mean if a device like that did exist and if the surety of justice it provided would be worth the erosion of privacy.

zoux posted:

So let's say they invented a machine that with 100% reliability could tell if a person was lying. Would using that in lieu of due process and jury trials be justified?

zoux posted:

Yes the tech language from the Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Oh I was making a 1984 joke there

paragon1 posted:

I wish Better Off Ted was still on the air, that show was really funny.

paragon1 posted:

I wish Better Off Ted was still on the air, that show was really funny.

paragon1 posted:

I wish Better Off Ted was still on the air, that show was really funny.

skaboomizzy posted:

The "manual drinking fountain" gag from the motion sensor episode was the funniest thing I've seen on network TV in years.

skaboomizzy posted:

The "manual drinking fountain" gag from the motion sensor episode was the funniest thing I've seen on network TV in years.

Magres posted:

Any chance there are youtubes of it?

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I don't like jury trials, anyway. Complete lack of accountability.

zoux posted:

I'm not talking about the tactical realism of such a device but the philosophical reasons behind certain societal things. I'm not proposing such a device be invented nor even that it could but rather what it would mean if a device like that did exist and if the surety of justice it provided would be worth the erosion of privacy.

euphronius posted:

Jury trials rarely happen (relative to the case load) and they are important in that they take the "hard decisions" out of the hand of the government and thus are a bulwark against tyranny.

quote:

Also I guess I have a bad opinion of judges but if you think trials by juries are dumb, well, hahah, wait till you see trials by judges.

euphronius posted:

even positing that such a machine exits, which OK fine, I don't know if it could be applied. See that is my point.

There is no truth. People don't even know. People in trials don't know if they are telling the truth or not. No one remembers right. The questions are designed to not be readily answered as 0 or 1. Could your machine spit out an answer like "DEPONENT PROBABLY TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT CERTAIN ASPECTS OF TESTIMONY BUT OTHER AREAS GENERALLY UNDERMINED BY CONFLICTING EVIDENCE END OF LINE>"

euphronius posted:

Jury trials rarely happen (relative to the case load) and they are important in that they take the "hard decisions" out of the hand of the government and thus are a bulwark against tyranny.

Also I guess I have a bad opinion of judges but if you think trials by juries are dumb, well, hahah, wait till you see trials by judges.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

alright I hadn't thought about the bulwark against government aspect of it but there's gotta be a better way than having cases decided by twelve people with no legal experience that were too unlucky and dumb to get out of jury duty.

Nintendo Kid posted:

it's been known that polygraphs are pretty much useless except as an intimidation tool for a very long time, hence why they're barely ever admissible evidence.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

alright I hadn't thought about the bulwark against government aspect of it but there's gotta be a better way than having cases decided by twelve people with no legal experience that were too unlucky and dumb to get out of jury duty.

euphronius posted:

I mean we could just not have criminal law at all.

That is an option.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

We could have 12 strawmen be the jurors, too.

Raskolnikov38 posted:

After the zimmerman trial I'm not sure there wouldn't be a decrease in trial quality if 12 literal scarecrows were the jurors.

zoux posted:

At least we don't elect judges in political elections. That would be a disaster.

R. Mute posted:

my advice is actually turn off your brain because it's so full of autism that it can't enjoy a fantasy film without sperging out. now, i could obviously say 'well, the writing in this film didn't manage to engage wolfsheim enough to overcome his crippling autism' and blame it on the film, but it seems pretty unfair to the film when you even fail to understand that the whole memory erasing thing is just a plot device. its details are unimportant, it doesn't have to work.

but that's just the thing - it does work. it makes sense. there are no holes in the logic here, it's just that you don't find it believable. and why don't you find it believable? the procedure and business model is purposefully kept vague (because, ironically, it'd distract from the plot) and based on the glimpses you saw (the index cards) you assume it wouldn't work. but that's 90% you. who knows, maybe normally the person having the procedure done will have told their friends and relatives, and the index cards are there as reminders and to notify people who aren't as close but still see the person enough to accidentally say something. i mean, why not? it's perfectly fair to assume this, given the information we received. but you just went straight for *in the seinfeld voice* 'it makes no sense!'

the problem is that you think the thing about the memory erasing company needs to be shoved further in the background, but you're wrong. not because it deserves attention, but because it's already in the background. it's already there. you obsessing about it is the thing that makes it more prominent than you think it should be.

so my actual actual advice is to focus on the thing you're meant to focus on, on the thing the film's actually about, keep your brain on but don't obsess over unimportant details and watch the film in good faith. or don't and just shut up.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Absurd Alhazred posted:

[citation needed]

At least if a judge is dumb that can be used to remove them or have them improve. If a jury is dumb, welp, it's done, never going to see those folks again!

quote:

Real was noted for his judicial behavior in the 2000s. From 2001 to 2009, he had custody of disputed Filipino assets, which he had to account for in 2009. A federal appeals court panel then wrote "This curious statement plainly fails to account for all transactions involving the assets during the eight years they were held in the clerk of court's custody. It doesn't give the reader even a basic understanding of the path by which $33.8 million worth of assets deposited in September 2000 came to be worth $34.7 million today".

On January 11, 2012, the Ninth Circuit removed Real from the controversial case of Alexander Sanchez, a former M13 gang leader turned gang interventionist. His handling of this case has been compared to the judge in the infamous "Chicago Eight" trials by some commentators. Real has since been removed from other cases for behavior that threatened the fairness of the trials. In November 2012 it was reported that Real had shown a pattern over a number of years of making rulings in favor of companies in which he owned stock.

quote:

In 2009, there were calls for the 85 year-old Real to retire his seat on the federal bench, citing his high rate of appellate reversals and dictatorial manner in the courtroom. According to the Los Angeles Times: "Judiciary analysts have calculated that Real's reversal rate in some years has been as high as 10 times the average for federal district judges." However, judicial misconduct overview agencies have found his behavior to lack the "willfulness" required for formal sanctions.