Today, I was replying to a friend on Facebook about his remark on widespread corruption in his country.
I will not say which one- as I think that corruption, with varying degrees, is endemic in our way of setting out regulations and laws.
From that, while writing my reply, I started re-thinking about something else: why do we have corruption?
Because we have rules that somebody is willing to circumvent- and somebody else able to let them do it.
And why? Because too many laws and rules are built to regulate something that is already available.
With few exceptions, a law or regulation is and cannot be preemptive.
I am now ignoring the “details” of the difference between common law and countries following the Napoleonic approach, because, in our globalized world, also “laissez faire” countries are increasingly regulating tiny details. Either directly or via reporting/control rules.
It is a chicken-and-egg issue.
Yes, it is probably more of an issue in countries that over-regulate, as the chance that you are violating some rules is higher than in more “laissez faire” countries.
But still- anywhere you have a regulation and red-tape, you can find somebody that, for the right price, will turn a blind eye (or, in our automated world, pretend to, just to skim some money, while actually the procedure has a time limit)- unless you have the proper set of checks and balances to control the controller.
I have done a bit of tiptoeing in expert systems and AI long ago, in 1980s, refreshed once in a while.
And have done a little bit of political studying on the ground when it cost me nothing.
I was just a (lazy) high school student look for motivation in a library.
So, spending hours to read and compare documents in the public library or the library of the advocacy group where I used to “work” wasn’t absorbing time from my work.
Later, I started building controlling and decision support models, and management reporting.
I always wondered at the number of ex-post (or close the barn doors after the cattle run away) “KPIs” (Key Performance Indicators), reporting, and so on.
And if you work on the financial/operational control of companies when you are still a kid (I was 20 something when I started), you have the chance of seeing things as they are, not as you are told to see- or consider normal to see.
Often, the “flexibility” in the system was needed- to ensure that business kept going, while new and old rules co-existed.
If that meant that something was lost by attrition, what mattered was that it was controllable.
Pick a balance sheet. Look at the “loss and recover”: what do you think that is contained there?
Years ago, I was told of weight controls for trucks, that could result in a lengthy detour for a check.
How was it solved? Well, the driver say transporting a consumer product, left the truck open while he want to pick up his papers, came back, and everything was fine.
Yes, something from the load disappeared- but that was cheaper than a detour.
And this applies in any complex system: if the cost of control exceeds the value controlled, it is a Pyrrhic victory.
If you have too many rules- it can quickly become too expensive to check compliance. But without the checks and balances, you risk running out of control.
The pragmatic approach is usually to identify an organic cost of control (i.e. something that is acceptable), and introduce “ad hoc” statistical inspections to avoid that too much “unfiltered” activities get through.
Still, this means that you run after events way too often, and that try to regulate ex-post.
And that means that, often a regulation or law is a fig-leaf, as there will always be a number of countries and territories that have still to accept, adopt, sign, integrate the new rules.
Therefore, once the research or innovation is published, also if it is stopped, there will be somebody else applying it- and generating therefore indirect pressure to apply the rules of the weakest jurisdiction.
Moving back to the title- preemptive lawmaking.
My idea is more a “what if” than a project, but it is quite simple.
Consider what follow the introduction to a science-fiction story…
What if one day we will have “framework laws” and instant ad hoc regulations, a kind of “minority report”-like environment, but for business 
The idea is this: if you define a framework, you can define general principles that are not burdened by details.
Therefore, you can legislate before the knowledge is perfect- this is the “preemptive” side.
While a research is started, a new general description could be discussed.
Once that is shared, it becomes a guideline for research and the development of a “framework of agreed principles”.
While the research progresses, the new knowledge is transmitted also the “framework”, so that any innovation is assessed vs the “framework of agreed principles”.
Instead of legislating on each new application or innovation, whoever wants to develop the innovation would be required to check with the “framework of agreed principles” that the proposed evolution is acceptable.
The difficult side? Representing knowledge.
And manage the process if something is refused.
But, at least, it would free the time to legislate on “frameworks of accepted principles”, instead of trying to transform our legislators into johnny-knows-all or Leonardo da Vinci
And preempt the continuation of “Pandora’s box” research and activities that are not covered by the current regulations- instead of just formally stopping it in few jurisdictions.
And then, allow to focus on the exceptions- while putting on hold what has been refused.
Yes, it would probably slow some innovation- but being a technical solution (an expert system of some sort), it would not violate the intellectual property rights of the applicants, and actually would speed up innovation, as the check could be done at any time and at any stage.
If you want: it could be a complement to an innovative intellectual property rights/copyright/patent system, that would allow to give the applicant preliminary rights.
Before resources are committed to a research or innovation or activity that would then be stopped- a waste of resources (and not just financial ones).
Evolving principles is easier than having to play “gotcha!” with an infinite number of details.
And principles are relatively easier to negotiate on a global level, instead of details (see the recent Doha WTO round).
Also because: our society and technology are so complex, that nobody can realistically be assumed to be able to know about it all. Or to command all the details.
You can specialize. But that is for technicians like me (I consider a technician anybody with a specialization in a field- no matter how “intangible” that specialization is).
Ok- I probably read too much Plato’s Republic as a kid…
But if you think that this is less democratic than the current system… ask yourself: who is providing the knowledge about the technical choices to lawmakers that are required to focus and vote on the details?
Tags: accepted, doha, expert, framework, innovation, intangible, law, making, plato, preemptive, principle, research, shared, system, wto