Naive is a particularly strong word here. What part do you think is naive? Thiel is talking about both a 20-50 year vision and a 1000-year vision, and he is pretty non-committal about the 1000-year vision. And I don't think his 20-50 year vision is clearly wrong or naive. Rather - as a lawyer and as an engineer - I actually agree with it.
US law is supposed to be an axiomatic rule based system, but it is not consistent or complete, and in practice it ends up looking sort of arbitrary. But I don't think this means it is naive to assume that automation will make the system more consistent, or that it will help to simplify much of the complexity.
I am not suggesting that law will not always have some complexity and fuzziness - in fact I think it will - but I don't hear Thiel as explicitly saying the opposite - that we will ever get to a point where there is no complexity or fuzziness.
Comments
Naive is a particularly strong word here. What part do you think is naive? Thiel is talking about both a 20-50 year vision and a 1000-year vision, and he is pretty non-committal about the 1000-year vision. And I don't think his 20-50 year vision is clearly wrong or naive. Rather - as a lawyer and as an engineer - I actually agree with it.
US law is supposed to be an axiomatic rule based system, but it is not consistent or complete, and in practice it ends up looking sort of arbitrary. But I don't think this means it is naive to assume that automation will make the system more consistent, or that it will help to simplify much of the complexity.
I am not suggesting that law will not always have some complexity and fuzziness - in fact I think it will - but I don't hear Thiel as explicitly saying the opposite - that we will ever get to a point where there is no complexity or fuzziness.
> an axiomatic rule based system, but it is not consistent or complete
Without disagreeing with your larger point, I can't help but point out you're bringing the wrath of Godel down on yourself here.
Comments like this are the reason I love HN.
:-)