There are some appealing aspects of the future portrayed (an apparently efficient legal system), but taking a step back this does not quite look like where we want to head (the death of privacy and fair-use).
It makes the scenario scarier, in some ways, than a clearly dystopian future, as one could see society falling into just such a suboptimal trap, where the gains in one area allow apathy to to shrug off the concerns in another.
I hope it's not too much to ask for both legal efficiency and fair copyright laws, not to mention privacy.
As for frivolous suits, I think you're right that leveling the playing field will also let the victims retaliate more easily. I'd hope they prove less stubborn than spammers, at any rate; I don't like the idea of spam that carries legal weight.
What makes this scenario extremely scary to me is the proposition that every single person alive would have to spend even 15 minutes dismissing/paying off frivolous lawsuits every single day.
Having the overhead of a parasitic legal system spread thin over the entire population doesn't make it any less of a monstrous sink of lifetime.
That's a story conceit. If you're going to pay off < 5 cent suits, and ignore suites from Nigeria, you just program your lawsuit filter to do it. If that doesn't cut it, you buy access to an legal expert service that is updated as needed for suites, and decides for you using bounds you set.
So there would actually be two mutually parasitic industries, much as there are today for virii/virus filters, and spam/spam filters. Of course they're still both social parasites, not a nice thing, etc.
Comments
There are some appealing aspects of the future portrayed (an apparently efficient legal system), but taking a step back this does not quite look like where we want to head (the death of privacy and fair-use).
It makes the scenario scarier, in some ways, than a clearly dystopian future, as one could see society falling into just such a suboptimal trap, where the gains in one area allow apathy to to shrug off the concerns in another.
I hope it's not too much to ask for both legal efficiency and fair copyright laws, not to mention privacy.
As for frivolous suits, I think you're right that leveling the playing field will also let the victims retaliate more easily. I'd hope they prove less stubborn than spammers, at any rate; I don't like the idea of spam that carries legal weight.
What makes this scenario extremely scary to me is the proposition that every single person alive would have to spend even 15 minutes dismissing/paying off frivolous lawsuits every single day.
Having the overhead of a parasitic legal system spread thin over the entire population doesn't make it any less of a monstrous sink of lifetime.
That's a story conceit. If you're going to pay off < 5 cent suits, and ignore suites from Nigeria, you just program your lawsuit filter to do it. If that doesn't cut it, you buy access to an legal expert service that is updated as needed for suites, and decides for you using bounds you set.
So there would actually be two mutually parasitic industries, much as there are today for virii/virus filters, and spam/spam filters. Of course they're still both social parasites, not a nice thing, etc.