"That as well. And loopholes-- things should be allowed, or disallowed. Not 'allowed if you happen to know a sneaky trick.'

I might be a bit too overall against laws, but they could stand to be much less complicated."

"I think laws are important for the things that might be obviously bad to one person but not another - there's a species back home who reincarnate after death, and keep their memories, so dying is a minor inconvenience and they don't consider murder a serious crime. Having laws specifically banning murder give us something to point to, so it doesn't seem like we're being arbitrary towards visitors. Other laws simplify the whole 'getting more people to live together than could reasonably know each other personally' issue. But those laws should be consistent and well thought out."

"Yeah. The things is, laws should be for important things-- and I've seen them used for petty things, or just plain old controlling people, often enough. Like the Imperium banning interaction with non-humans, or Craftworlds only letting you stay if you follow a very specific philosophy.

Consistent and well thought out is good- but the Craftworlders think their laws are consistent and well thought out. As does the Imperium."

"Hm. More - there's a concept I want to get at that I don't have the words to express, I think, but that's essentially it. I maybe should've paid more attention to philosophy growing up. But... Intended to reduce suffering and increase flourishing? Would be in the vague area."

"Laws that did that would be good. A small, carefully vetted selection of laws with that goal would be good. I've yet to see anywhere with laws with those goals-- but I imagine they'd be nice places to live."

"It's the same at home. Laws are usually to benefit the lawmakers. Some divine planes have local laws like that, but they also don't allow immigration and are usually composed of - beings that are essentially concept elementals. Embodiments of an alignment."

"...I'd imagine with places like that, the fact that everyone would agree would help have a smaller list of laws. But I'm not sure it would work great in places with different kinds of people."

"That is the biggest problem, yes, especially when you wind up with species with different psychology and biology."

"Oh, yeah. Different biology would be obvious enough --like your resurrecting species -- but different psychology could sneak up on you. And the all of a sudden it turns out you've accidentally traumatised a bunch of people and you didn't know."

"Species also are different in how - society building? They are. Like, goblins don't do communities larger than thirty or non-common law, kobolds like having a hundred carefully constructed rules for everything and get anxious when there aren't any concrete rules around."

"That would affect things. Like, it would be hard to construct a society where both I and kobolds would be happy --I'd find the number of laws they want stifling. I don't want to say it's impossible, but it'd be tricky.

"In multicultural areas, there's a lot of compromise, and then self-selecting who you spend time with. But kobolds tend to only live around similar species; same with goblins. A single world government would probably be a terrible idea, for us, or would need some incredibly convoluted laws and exceptions."

"You could maybe have some sort of base of laws that everyone agreed on, and then extras in places that want extras. That way, the kobolds could have their laws about when you brush your teeth, while still agreeing with everyone else that non-self-defense murder is bad."

"Yeah. It gets to be a bit of a problem when you have people trying to live in the same city, but a perfect society would have ways of managing that."

"Same city would be tricky. With the bigger differences -- the ones kobolds and goblins have, for example -- the fact they wouldn't want to live in a city like that would help. But the subtler differences could get really tricky to handle. Things like 'how harshly should this be punished' or 'is x worse than y' could get-- very heated."

"Very. I think we manage decently, but there's also an assumption that the laws aren't for us, which keeps things from getting - personal?"

"Hmm. Who are the laws for? The society in general?"

"Currently default assumption is for the lawmakers. Nominally, they're made for the benefit of stability."

"I would have assumed that having rules that weren't for you would increase the friction."

"I think most people avoid taking the rules personally? Or grumble about them but follow them anyways. And a lot of people's interests do align with keeping things stable."

"I guess if you thought that you couldn't change them anyways, and the stability was worth it-- It's still on odd mindset to me."

"People're safer, when things're stable. And most people have families - kids even - they need to worry about. But, yes, it's... A poor situation, often."

"...If it's a safety thing-- I still don't get it, but I think have an idea why I don't.  Drukhari don't really do safe or stable. I was safer inside a Kabal than I was before I joined or after I left, but I was never safe."

"There's cultures and species like that, too, but most people would get stressed. I'm fine with an unsafe life, but that's unusual among my mother's people."

"That makes sense. Most Drukhari deal fine with it, more or less- but I'm not sure the ones that would be stressed by it would live long. So."