prior probability

Apple pays only 1% to 7% tax on overseas income, via “the Paradise Papers” and Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany’s biggest newspaper). File Under: Another example of bogus “corporate social responsibility.” Alternative file under: Another example of why Milton Friedman was right: firms exist to maximize their profits.

More at The Joy of Tax Law, via WordPress.

Read the full disturbing story (“Something Is Wrong on the Internet”) by James Bridle here (hat tip: digg.com). From a tort law perspective, could YouTube (Google/Alphabet) be legally liable for the troubling videos that are proliferating on the YouTube Kids platform, perhaps under the attractive nuisance doctrine? Should State courts allow Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to trump our legal rights under the common law? (In other words, isn’t Section 230 an unconstitutional encroachment of those police powers reserved to the States in our federal system of government?) #TenthAmendment #Federalism

Is iPhone X the new Blackberry? According to Square Trade, the iPhone X is not only the most breakable smartphone ever made; it’s also the most expensive to repair. So, can anyone explain to us why Apple addicts (like this one) still want (need?) to signal their fiendish devotion to Apple’s overrated and overpriced products?

Perhaps there is no way to prevent evil men from killing innocent people, but there is a way of making those who profit from these killings pay monetary damages to the victims. It’s called tort law. Unfortunately, however, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), signed into law on 26 October 2005, protects firearms manufacturers and dealers from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products. Given that the U.S. now has a domestic terrorism problem, isn’t it time for the Congress to at least consider repealing this grotesque piece of special-interest legislation? In the alternative, couldn’t a State court simply declare the PLCAA unconstitutional? After all, tort law is by and large the domain of the States, so what constitutional authority does the Congress have under Article I to immunize an entire industry from legal liability under a State’s tort law? (Congress is not really regulating commerce under the PLCAA; it is shielding an entire industry from playing by the same rules of tort law as other industries.)

In our previous post, we shouted out Donald Kochan’s paper on the history of the Takings Clause, available here via SSRN. His work poses an intriguing and important question: From a consumer or marketing perspective, how should we label the various protections and rights set forth in the Constitution, with reference to the right being granted or with reference to the power being controlled? For example, according to Professor Kochan, the Takings Clause, which prohibits the government from taking private property without paying just compensation, was not actually called the “Takings Clause” by any court before 1955 nor did any justice of the U.S. Supreme Court use the moniker “Taking Clause” in any opinion before 1978. So, why don’t we refer to this protection of property rights as the Keepings Clause instead of the Takings Clause? Prof Kochan’s academic article applies interdisciplinary insights regarding the power of “framing”, including the study of consumer products labeling in marketing and advertising. Below the fold is an excerpt from the abstract of his paper:  Continue reading →

Updated 11/5 (9AM): We’re attending the eighth annual constitutional law colloquium at Loyola Law School in Chicago, where we are presenting our work-in-progress on “Bayesian voting.” So far, our favorite paper presented at the colloquium is Donald Kochan’s work on the “framing” or labeling of constitutional rights. (We are intrigued by his thesis and will be reading his paper on our return flight home tonight.) In addition, honorable mentions go to (1) Paul Gowder’s talk on constitutional collective action (“Beyond the arab spring: digital collective action and the rule of law”), (2) Eang Ngov’s talk on “Police ignorance and mistake of law,” and (3) Mihailis Diamantis’s talk on limiting the scope of the third party doctrine in Fourth Amendment cases. We will be posting more details about these talks soon.

Picbreeder, created by University of Central Florida computer scientist Kenneth Stanley, is a computer algorithm that can create art. (More information here, via FiveThirtyEight. Hat tip: Cliff Pickover, via Twitter.)

In this post, we will explain what “Bayesian voting” and “probabilistic verdicts” are. Simply put, under Bayesian voting a judge would assign a numerical score reflecting his relative degree of belief in what the proper outcome of an issue or case should be. Ideally, the score would be anywhere in the range of 0 to 1:

The higher the score, the greater the judge’s confidence level or degree of belief. A score below 0.5, for example, would mean that the party with the burden of persuasion is not expected to prevail. A score above 0.5, by contrast, indicates that the party is expected to prevail, while a score of 0.5 means the judge is undecided about which party should prevail. (For more information about Bayesian voting and probabilistic verdicts, check out my 2011 paper The Turing Test and the Legal Process.) In our next few posts, we will compare and contrast issue-voting versus outcome-voting and then consider the possibility of “herd behavior” and “strategic behavior” by judges.

According to Reddit user Wolfinton, Sweden was the very first country to introduce a ban on corporal punishment of children (1979). In recent years, many other countries have followed suit. (As of today, 52 countries have banned corporal punishment of children.) Question: Is the frequency of child abuse any lower in these 52 countries than elsewhere?

Source: “Save the Children” (h/t Wolfinton, via Reddit)