[smitty1e]

The countering question is: why does the economic/legal model have to be so over-engineered that nobody outside the Priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances?

One should think that keeping the complexity minimized would be a goal of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive society.

[wesselbindt]

That's an interesting question, but not a good counterquestion. Your question acknowledges and accepts that the legal system is too complex for us to give weight to a layman's opinion, and hence is completely in agreement with your parent question. A counterquestion, albeit a poor one, would be "is the economic/legal model so overengineered that no one outside the priesthood is capable of grasping the nuances?" The question is loaded and the answer to the non-loaded version is obvious, so it's not a great counterquestion.

[smitty1e]

If the legal system runs athwart the lay opinion, there ought to be some wisdom driving the tension, and that wisdom ought to be better explained than "Shut up, peasant."

[AnimalMuppet]

Fair enough - but the place it will be explained is in the judge's decision. We don't have that yet.

So all we have is a lay opinion, and others of us recognizing that it's a lay opinion and may well not hold water. That's not "Shut up, peasant", that's "You're a peasant just like us, so we don't think you actually know any better than we do."

[wesselbindt]

Yeah sure, still doesn't make it a counterquestion. Were you rejected from law school or something? You seem like super salty.

[llamaimperative]

It's a noble goal but the reality is the world is obscenely complex, and made evermore complex by adversarial forces trying to blow holes in each others' cases.

[smitty1e]

But to punt on the need to communicate would seem to reinforce the adversarial forces, no?

[StackRanker3000]

But is it realistic to get to a point where laymen across the board have a clear understanding of every facet of the law, even with great communication? Or is it so complicated that you’ll just have to defer to those that have spent years training in it?

To the other person’s point, I’m not convinced that it’s overengineered per se, it just deals with an incredibly complex system.

[smitty1e]

"Complexity is a subsidy."--Jonah Goldberg.

I submit that you're setting yourself up for a mugging.