Law is an artificial thing, something that we have invented wholecloth.

What we know as law now, I agree. But I think it has an organic basis in cultural norms upheld by communities.

There wasn't any need to write down the rules, they were chiseled into your brain by being raised within that particular social environment. I don't have any reason to believe that this would fail as a system to enforce order - the common criticism of "subjective" loses meaning when everyone involved shares the values and outlooks that give weight to that subjectivity.

Eventually, communities consider dealing with people outside their community. Whether it's the formation of a large town or even the simple tolerance of a merchant, these communities end up being asked and expected to produce a concrete list of rules that must be followed. The purpose is clear: to allow outsiders to interact with the community without accidentally breaking the rules. This easily shifts to allowing outsiders to comingle, immigrate and integrate successfully.

However, it invites some dangers. First, now any time that the community has a need to update its rules/values, it must engage that concrete list to update it. What was a simple process of communal understanding now demands the extra step of formalization, but this may involve negotiating with a law master when the community has to share territory with other communities. Second, because the purpose of the concrete ruleset is to be understood by outsiders, these outsiders must be consulted when writing the rules because what's easy for the community to understand may be hard for outsiders to understand. So now you've got outsiders able to sneak loopholes in with clever wording. Third, it invites outsiders to challenge the rules as written. Challenge is a good thing, but the process of making the results concrete can create the start of legalese by making the rules overcomplicated or harder to understand. Example:

Say a community has the rule "don't eat meat on rainy days". An outsider would challenge it, saying "rainy days" is too broad because one might eat meat for breakfast and end up breaking the rule due to rain at noon. So now the rule is "don't eat meat during periods of rainfall". Well what if the meat's in your mouth when it starts raining? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining". How much rain counts as raining? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining audibly". My hearing isn't good, can you give another indicator? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining audibly or the rain is enough to cover your hands in water" etc etc until you need to create a new job for the sole purpose of translating the rules.

The history example you give is solid. My only proper counter is that while the positives outweigh the negatives, the positives do not increase over time while the negatives do increase over time. It only really demands reform and/or rebellion, but that can get really messy.

Even with all this, I can't quite say that making communal rules into a concrete form for outsiders is a doom flag. I am autistically bitter about it, though.

[tagging u/exilde since I'm butting into the conversation]

Law is an artificial thing, something that we have invented wholecloth.

What we know as law now, I agree. But I think it has an organic basis in cultural norms upheld by communities.

There wasn't any need to write down the rules, they were chiseled into your brain by being raised within that particular social environment. I don't have any reason to believe that this would fail as a system to enforce order - the common criticism of "subjective" loses meaning when everyone involved shares the values and outlooks that give weight to that subjectivity.

Eventually, communities consider dealing with people outside their community. Whether it's the formation of a large town or even the simple tolerance of a merchant, these communities end up being asked and expected to produce a concrete list of rules that must be followed. The purpose is clear: to allow outsiders to interact with the community without accidentally breaking the rules. This easily shifts to allowing outsiders to comingle, immigrate and integrate successfully.

However, it invites some dangers. First, now any time that the community has a need to update its rules/values, it must engage that concrete list to update it. What was a simple process of communal understanding now demands the extra step of formalization, but this may involve negotiating with a law master when the community has to share territory with other communities. Second, because the purpose of the concrete ruleset is to be understood by outsiders, these outsiders must be consulted when writing the rules because what's easy for the community to understand may be hard for outsiders to understand. So now you've got outsiders able to sneak loopholes in with clever wording. Third, it invites outsiders to challenge the rules as written. Challenge is a good thing, but the process of making the results concrete can create the start of legalese by making the rules overcomplicated or harder to understand. Example:

Say a community has the rule "don't eat meat on rainy days". An outsider would challenge it, saying "rainy days" is too broad because one might eat meat for breakfast and end up breaking the rule due to rain at noon. So now the rule is "don't eat meat during periods of rainfall". Well what if the meat's in your mouth when it starts raining? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining". How much rain counts as raining? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining audibly". My hearing isn't good, can you give another indicator? "don't put meat in your mouth if it is currently raining audibly or the rain is enough to cover your hands in water" etc etc until you need to organically create a new job for the sole purpose of translating the rules.

The history example you give is solid. My only proper counter is that while the positives outweigh the negatives, the positives do not increase over time while the negatives do increase over time. It only really demands reform and/or rebellion, but that can get really messy.

Even with all this, I can't quite say that making communal rules into a concrete form for outsiders is a doom flag. I am autistically bitter about it, though.

[tagging u/exilde since I'm butting into the conversation]