| from a very broad conceptual viewpoint; "the law" exist from (or out of) written language (where "language" is seen as a social-technology). what computer technology and the internet (or for short: software) is doing to civilization is still at a very early stage. As I see this, the goal of "law" and the goal of "computer science" are quite similar. As I see these kinds of articles (stratechery focuses on exactly this), is that we're witnessing the 'adjustments' in society brought about by the invention of software. I put all of this on a level comparable to the invention of writing and the subsequent 'rise' of rule of law. having said this, the difficult thing to make sense of, and to explain to people with less software-experience is coming to understand what this article taps into in the section of "the global internet"; it's actually quite tricky to pin this down for me right now. I'm referring to that aspect (or quality) of software that causes several executives to say this kinds of things: >We have tried to get to what’s common, and the reality is it’s super hard on a global basis to design software that behaves differently in different countries. It is super difficult. >If you’re a global technology business, most of the time, it is far more efficient and legally compliant to operate a global model than to have different practices and standards in different countries. It's that thing sowftware does in which special cases worsen software complexity. Software (and computing, and even industrial automation) are all about doing the same thing, no matter what. It's all about finding ways to avoid special cases; to avoid code repetition; and all that. I'm sure that most people in Hacker News, due to our hands-on experience with software, are quite able to intuitively grasp this. But it's not so easy to explain and this 'quality of the digital' is (and will continue to) forcing contemporary capitalism to be re-evaluated (or something along these lines). |