Questions tagged [law]
For questions related to the sets of rules set in place by organizations to govern the behaviour of the people.
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy
Once you do the handwaving needed to explain a modern-day world with flight-capable dragons in it, how would said dragons interact with the bureaucracy surrounding flying in the modern world? What ...
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How does Santa protect himself from IP lawsuits?
As is well known, all of Santa's presents are manufactured by elves at the North Pole. However, a lot of presents are protected by various IP rights. Be it Adidas clothing, a DVD of the newest ...
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Can a casino system prove my (divine) luck as cheating?
I walked this morning and met a street fortune-teller. This old gypsy invited me to get my luck told, and she just blabbed those old nonsense phrases about how this day will be my lucky day and such. ...
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What's the impact of a "cloning" teleporter?
Extending upon my prior question, could-a-viable-interstellar-civilization-form-with-this-technology.
From what I've read there's two basic ideas which describe how teleportation might work:
Destroy ...
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How would the rules for carry and use of weapons be affected by reliable stun guns?
Imagine an effective ranged stun gun that renders an opponent unconscious is built in the near future and is easily produced. It works like this:
for most people if shot they will be knocked ...
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Result of a goverment where extra votes can be bought, earned, or lost?
Just an interesting idea for a government, not really sure if it's a good idea, but still interested in the results of one existing.
The idea is for your traditional representative democracy, or ...
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Why do governments not execute or otherwise permanently contain super villains?
The argument for superheroes to capture villains alive is that superheroes are already illegally operating as vigilantes and compensating for muggle law enforcement is all they are morally obligated. ...
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Using international waters to avoid legal punishment
I am playing with the idea of a lateral thinking puzzle based around abusing international waters to make an action 'legal'. For the sake of this question lets assume someone from the US is looking ...
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Simple Legal System
I've recently been reading a lot of utopian/dystopian fiction, and quite a few of them (e.g. Thomas More's Utopia) has this idea that people shouldn't be ruled over by laws that they can't understand. ...
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How/could a legal system whose punishments were based off of "level of certainty" that crime occured function?
Yet another one of my attempts to create an interesting/different feeling for an alternate government, while being functional. I'm asking about a theoretical world that exists, not necessarily ...
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How does the law treat uploaded personalities?
Setting
Humans have spent centuries investigating human consciousness, brain physiology, AI, and other technologies. We've finally figured out how to "upload" a "consciousness" (these are quoted ...
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, the sequel: Dragons on Instruments!
Starting with the background provided in this question, how would a dragon outfit himself/herself (avionics, power systems, etal) for operating under the Instrument Flight Rules? How would the ...
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, part 3: Plopping a Dragon into Today's World (or Papers, please, big fella)
Given the context of my previous dragon questions -- slow, but fairly high-flying dragons (say FL250 or so for a service ceiling), capable of flying under Earth's conditions and growing up to RJ or ...
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Crashland onto a new planet: Origin of the Legal System?
I've been researching the origins of my world's legal system. I'm trying to develop it over time in a somewhat logical and organic manner and I've come to realise that I don't yet have a clear idea of ...
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The legality of Direct Neural Link Technology [closed]
One of the most prominent features of the future is the technology to link the world with the human mind. The applications of what I like to call Direct Neural Link technologies are as varied as they ...
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Truth Stone: Effects on the justice system, and criminal world
The setting is the medieval ages, vaguely European. No magic exists except what is explicitly stated in the question. The judicial system is similar to historic examples, with the head-of-state ...
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What questions should I ask myself when designing a legal system for a fantasy world?
QUESTION
In the real world, the history of law in pre-industrial states is as sprawling and complex as can be imagined, and includes all kinds of unique and fascinating systems, from the Code of ...
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Could the law be implemented as a computer program?
The laws would be defined in code written in a programming language. Maybe it would be in two parts, the actual rules and then a library that could run them (like how a form validation library is ...
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Why would the Federation ban escape pods that come with manual override?
The year is 2216 C.E., humanity develops an economic solution to travel to the Alpha Centauri A, our closest star system, in a matter of decades. Despite mankind's technological prowess our species is ...
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How could a private corporation take over the British government
I've been toying with how to word this question but I can't think of how to word it well.
Under current British law would it be possible to 'privatize' the government?
In my scenario I'm wanting a ...
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Magic and the Legal System
Alfred is on trial. He stands accused of murdering Frank. He was caught red handed with a knife that tested positive for Frank's blood. He was also seen dumping Frank's body into the river by Bob, ...
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How can I legally reduce religion in my world?
Religious rights are protected, and freedom to religion is secured, how can we reduce religion in a country without breaking religious rights laws.
Here are some examples:
Ban religious schools (...
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Why would Patent Terms be extended to centuries?
I need technology patent terms to last centuries, thousands of years even (not necessarily millions though). Obviously I don't need the Patent Laws to change overnight. The Laws can take its time to ...
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How would deafening as punishment be carried out?
Blinding, amputation and other punitive mutilations have been used effectively in the past; however there are no accounts of deafening, e.g. removal of one's sense of sound, being carried out.
How ...
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What is a good reason for every spaceship to carry a weapon on board?
In the near future humanity has started mining on Mars. International (and interplanetary) treaties governing the use of lethal weapons in space dictate that anyone possessing such a weapon must carry ...
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Protecting "rights" of androids that are not considered persons by law
Consider a society where the population includes a number of sentient androids, practically indistinguishable from humans in appearance. In practice, they are treated exactly like humans under most ...
user42460
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Trial: If an animal has human or near-human intellect, how might a western legal system determine its personhood?
Suppose humans are living in conjunction with several intelligent and communicative species of animals, dogs and cats for example. These animals might be legally considered people; being held ...
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Forcing everyone to speak the same language
Let's say that I own a planet and I have the chance to set up rules before any human can move in. I want to make a law that would welcome anyone to the planet as long as they only speak the decided ...
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How can the wealthy prevent the illegal propagation of their genetic code?
The human genome has been completely mastered and understood by the end of this century, which has led to a service industry revolving around genetic codes. Gene editing to prevent diseases are now ...
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Who owns genes? [closed]
I'm building a world where humans reproduce by machine, not by sex. Two or more individuals submit their DNA together to a breeding company. This company has pods that take multiple people's DNA, ...
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How would the world governments react if the supernatural was discovered? [closed]
So for the question, take these things into account.
Up to very recently, the world was exactly as ours.
Everyone from angsty teenagers to modern pagans, fraternities to secret societies perform ...
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What could cause vegetarianism to be outlawed?
In my fictional country, you are not allowed to be a vegetarian. Meat eating is recommended and mandatory.
The law prohibiting vegetarianism was created somewhere around 1780-1850.
The question is:
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Why do governments not permanently restrain super villains?
The argument for superheroes to capture villains alive is that superheroes are already illegally operating as vigilantes and compensating for muggle law enforcement is all they are morally obligated. ...
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What sort of legal and penal system might a space colony develop?
I'm using this question about likely forms of government for a space colony.
What sort of legal and penal system might develop on such a colony?
This is a pretty broad question, so assume the ...
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How to build a world that can still be reused if the associated work to be published is rejected?
This is a suggested question by Monica Cellio, who I want to thank for providing. I hope I kept the idea in spirit as possible.
How to build a world that can still be reused if the associated work to ...
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Single Time Zone on a spherical planet
I am particularly interested in the case of feasibility to have all countries and all regions of our planet, the Earth, to have a unified Single Time Zone (say UTC). Suppose all countries and all ...
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How might digital intellectual disability be dealt with by society?
In the question asked by Jim2B regarding the legal personhood of uploaded personalities, my answer came to the conclusion that uploaded personalities of people would be regarded as children of the ...
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Dragons and aviation bureaucracy, part 4: Studying for the PPL
So, the big, wingy, smart, talking, fire-breathin', scaly fella from this question managed (somehow) to become a legal permanent resident of the USA (green card or citizenship). Now, he wishes to get ...
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Logical legal basis to outlaw the use of automobiles within cities? [duplicate]
So, I’m creating a post-apocalyptic world set 97 years after nuclear war, in the former state of California, AD 2059. The Californians, compared to the rests of the wastes, have done good for ...
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How to handle plea bargains in a court where punishment is based off confidence that the accused committed a crime
an expantion to this question: How/could a legal system whose punishments were based off of "level of certainty" that crime occured function?
The basic idea is that there are different ...
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Murder on the Moon [closed]
Set in this modern time, NASA sent a team of astronauts made up of different races and sexes to the Moon.
Their directives are to setup a "campfire" and perform a series of "moonwalk" during their 7 ...
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What would happen in the USA if they would tax bullets [closed]
The citizens of the USA wants to keep the second amendment, the right to own and bear arms.
So to lower the amount of killings going on by rampaging vigilantes the US have put tax on bullets where as ...
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