Delaware is home to more corporations than people. Human people, that is, as under longstanding state law and the US Supreme Court’s infamous 2010 ruling, corporations are people, too.
A judge in Delaware—a state with more registered business entities than people—ruled Monday in favor of a small town that allows corporations to vote in local elections.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that the town of Fenwick Island, population 400, did not violate the state Constitution by permitting business entities—which make up 12% of the town’s “population”—to vote in municipal elections, as case plaintiff the ACLU of Delaware had claimed.
“What is a ‘person?’ When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question,” Karsnitz wrote to open his 20-page ruling.
Don’t even have to, just make a thousand AI agents. If they can initiate legal proceedings, then they’re people.
If someone says “They can’t initiate legal proceedings, because they’re not people,” then just tell them “But they are people, because they can initiate legal proceedings.”
This is going to be fun…
ETA: Basically the only two possible conclusions reduce to “They’re not people, so therefore they’re not people” and “They’re people, so therefore they’re people.”
These are simultaneously contradictory and equally valid from a logical standpoint. That’s why the ruling is so absurd. The justification itself is logically invalid, because it creates this absurdity.
I believe the main fallacy it commits is “circular reasoning,” but there may be others.