There is no straw man here. Yes, the article is poorly put together, starts with one thought and never finishes, etc.
But the inability to truly understand the impact of technology on the country and the globe by the highest court in the land - and further inability to understand that much of that impact exists without deep historical context and outside traditional court definitions - is worrying. To think that this group of technology-illiterate academics can hand down judgments that can drastically alter the legality of future innovations - without understanding the most basic parts of those innovations - should give everyone pause.
I'm sure their clerks are incredibly bright - but so are the lawyers standing before the Supreme Court - and if they can't explain the technology they're trying to defend to the justices, what makes you think a clerk can do better?
It's incredibly easy to stifle innovation and its potential offspring for centuries by not understanding it.
>But the inability to truly understand the impact of technology on the country and the globe by the highest court in the land - and further inability to understand that much of that impact exists without deep historical context and outside traditional court definitions - is worrying.
>To think that this group of technology-illiterate academics can hand down judgments that can drastically alter the legality of future innovations - without understanding the most basic parts of those innovations - should give everyone pause.
This is not the job of courts nor is it intended according to the US constitution. That job falls on the other two branches of the government i.e Congress that needs to make and update laws of the land and the executive which has some discretion on which are actually enforced etc.
The job of the courts is only to see what the written word of laws means and get inside the heads of the lawmakers wrote that law at the time to try to learn the intent behind the law and how it applies to the case at hand. Thus analogies are perfectly appropriate to pursue.
If Congress thinks that, for example, the Aereo decision was wrong and hurts innovation, they can pass legislation legalizing Aereo in probably just a week or two. It's not the court's job to decide that Aereo is good for innovation so it should be allowed to operate, even if it's illegal. It's the courts job to understand what Aereo is, and how the law and it's intent applies to it.
But the inability to truly understand the impact of technology on the country and the globe by the highest court in the land - and further inability to understand that much of that impact exists without deep historical context and outside traditional court definitions - is worrying. To think that this group of technology-illiterate academics can hand down judgments that can drastically alter the legality of future innovations - without understanding the most basic parts of those innovations - should give everyone pause.
I'm sure their clerks are incredibly bright - but so are the lawyers standing before the Supreme Court - and if they can't explain the technology they're trying to defend to the justices, what makes you think a clerk can do better?
It's incredibly easy to stifle innovation and its potential offspring for centuries by not understanding it.