Law and the Multiverse

An anonymous reader writes "jwz posted a link to this intensely nerdy blog co-authored by two attorneys who write about applying real-world law to comic books. Example topics include Mutants and Anti-Discrimination Laws (a three part series!), Is Batman a State Actor?, and Federalism and the Keene Act."

Comments

Re:Misdirected energy

[Aladrin]

And yet you decided not to be an expert and spend time doing other things yourself.

You don't get to dictate how other people spend their time.

It may sound silly.....

[Creepy Crawler]

But these laws need to be figured out, as our fellow humans in Tibet have already done so, to an interesting extent.

In the Tibetan region, reincarnation isn't some religious lofty newage crap: it's true and obvious to their culture. It's well known that you are born, live, and die, and when you die, you'll find a new place to be reborn in. Almost always, unless otherwise needed, you will be reborn somewhere on your family tree, just as the ancient Celts also believed.

Understanding that: Tibetans and Ancient Celts alike form contracts that are binding between lives. Now admittedly, these contracts aren't in the usual that some property is transferred, but instead promising protection or other services one can do themselves.

Re:Attorneys wrote this?

[Grond]

Hi, I'm one of the two co-authors, although I did not write that particular article. A comment on the blog raised the issue of incorporation as a solution, and my co-author addressed it in a follow-up comment. The short version is that easily-created corporations did not exist until the mid-1800s, so it would only be a solution for immortals that aren't actually very old yet. Before that corporations could only be created by royal charter or a private act of the legislature (depending on the country), which are not very compatible with maintaining anonymity.

One of the Better Angles of Movie "Hancock"

[RobotRunAmok]

Not to mention "The Incredibles."

I mean, how long do you think some do-gooder who's Doing of The Good involved the typical comic book level of property damage would stay out of court (and bankruptcy) in Real Life?

"Lookit, I don't care if he did just stop an invasion from a Hell Dimension, SOMEBODY'S PAYING FOR THAT GODDAM WINDOW!!"

Re:Speaking of law

[fooslacker]

The etymology of the phrase "pedantic troll" comes from a combination of the word pedantic which means asshole who wants to argue subtleties as though they were core precepts to show that he is smart and understands how dumb others are and the word troll which means asshole who posts just to get a reaction. There are many of these double asshole creatures in the multi-verse though they are more common in some universes than others. In most universes they tend to congregate on an internet site (or local universe equivalent) which aggregates various articles of news and opinions for the technically inclined and socially inept members of society.

Re:Misdirected energy

[Amorymeltzer]

Meh. You and I spend our time on some random website semi-conversing with other people who largely agree with us. The person(s) who wrote that ain't getting paid for it, so that's their hobby, and I just learned a lot about about our laws and got some really good conversation material because of it. Sometimes even lawyers deserve a little time away from work.

Re:Attorneys wrote this?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The short version is that easily-created corporations did not exist until the mid-1800s, so it would only be a solution for immortals that aren't actually very old yet.

Of course, the mid-to-late 1800s was also about the time that it started becoming more difficult for people to establish an identity simply by saying who they were. An immortal older than that could have existed very easily up to that point just by moving around a lot, and then -- seeing which way the winds were blowing, with corporations becoming effectively immortal people in the eyes of the law -- started building a corporate identity.

Wrong mix

[gmuslera]

In a world where superpowers, immortality and such exists, and are known in the open, laws should take them into account. Laws are meant to adapt to a changing world, what if we did that in a world where noone could go faster than 40km/h, and suddently someone with a modern car jump in? Our world hadnt laws regarding fast cars before, but somehow the legal system acknowledged that something changed and added laws for them. The alternative is acknowledge that something weird and unique is there, and do nothing about it because you can't do nothing, and probably shouldnt. Would you give an speeding ticket to Superman or try to put him in prison? In the other hand, if those superpowers are unknown for almost people, you can be breaking the law (in some cases, of physics), but as noone knows that, it could happen. More than the comics world, there are several sci-fi stories about immortal people, or that are around since a lot of time ago, you have from the dumb soldier that were around since middle century (that wasnt very bright, so all the money he won usually got lost in poker games and such things), or the time traveler that deposited money in compound interest 500 years ago, making in the present just enough accomulated money to build the time machine that enable him do the back in time trip, nothing in the law forbids any of both cases, even if there is an exploit to the system in the second one.

Re:Wrong mix

[Grond]

In a world where superpowers, immortality and such exists, and are known in the open, laws should take them into account. Laws are meant to adapt to a changing world, what if we did that in a world where noone could go faster than 40km/h, and suddently someone with a modern car jump in? Our world hadnt laws regarding fast cars before, but somehow the legal system acknowledged that something changed and added laws for them.

It's true that laws normally adapt to changing circumstances, but in many comic books the world is presented as essentially the same as our own, except with superheroes and supervillains. Legal institutions and actors like courts, the police, judges, lawyers, juries, mayors, governors, legislatures, etc still exist and seem to function like they do in the real world. Occasionally a point is made about a new or different law, such as a Mutant Registration Act or the Keene Act. Our conclusion (and the premise of the blog) is that in the comic book world the legal system is basically the same as the real world, so there must usually be some way to reconcile the law of the real world with the facts of the comic book world. So for example we can find a way to make the Keene Act constitutional.

Sometimes it is not possible to do this, though. For example, if we conclude that Batman would be a state actor in the real world, which seems likely to me, then that would lead to contradictions in the comic book world. Therefore, Batman is not a state actor in the comic book world, and the law must be different in the comic book world. Then we can think about the most likely tweak to the law in the comic book world necessary to accommodate the facts.

Basically we first try to explain how the facts and the law agree. Failing that we figure out how to adjust the law to fit the facts. Failing that we say, eh, it's a comic book.

Re:Misdirected energy

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I'd much rather experts spend their energy trying to get Bush and Cheney behind bars for willful torture, and other possible war crimes, than worry about pretend beings.

So do you think about doing your job, and nothing but doing your job, all the time? If not, why not?

The blog is written by comic book nerds who happen to be lawyers. It's natural for them to think about how their professions might apply to fictional worlds they enjoy. It's entertaining for them, and for the rest of us reading it. No further justification is needed, and there's no reason to think it detracts from their ability to do serious business.

I'm a full-time scientist and occasional science fiction writer. The latter does the former no harm; if anything, they're complementary.

Comics and the law at Yale Law School

[phiz187]

Yale Law Library has also delved into this subject, putting together a video and exhibit about the law's depiction in comic books. I don't know to what extent the library is open to the public, but if you are near New Haven, the exhibit closes 16 Dec. 2010.

http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/rarebooks/archive/2010/10/18/video-of-quot-superheroes-in-court-quot-talk-is-now-available.aspx

Re:How is this not idle?

[dyfet]

Using his charity to both invest in and lobby for Monsanto and British Petroleum as a means of investing in private wealth to evade taxes and demanding nations change laws to suit his business needs before engaging in his self serving charity used as a mask for greed and malevolence worldwide. This would be the very business model of Lex Luther, if you ask me...

Re:How is this not idle?

[TheRaven64]

I don't think that donating drugs to countries on the condition that they sign strong patent-protection treaties with the USA, crippling their local industry for a generation and meaning that they can't locally produce the same drugs and so are dependent on more 'donations' from the west actually counts as 'very good purposes'. But maybe your definitions are different.

Re:Speaking of law

[shawb]

The argument is especially useless when you consider that our knowledge also changes. When we labeled everything we could see or study as the universe, we had insufficient reason to think there was anything else. That definition eventually came to pretty much mean everything that arose from the big bang that we can interact with. We have since come to the conclusion that there may indeed be more than just that which came from the big bang. Changing the definition of the word "universe" and then coming up with a term that encapsulates its current meaning causes more confusion than simply accepting the fact that the etymology may be imperfect, especially once you consider that there is a long legacy of papers, books, etc that use the term "universe" which would have to be corrected.

Unless you want to start arguing that we need to find a different name for the atom. You know, that which can not be divided.