At that moment, however, Academy City's attention was not on the Far East.
As geneticism took deeper root, Academy City underwent more and more changes, all of which were pushing things in a better direction, seeping into the hearts of every individual.
One of the most crucial events in this process was a public debate between Welt Yang and a group of legal professionals on a public media channel.
This debate held significant importance for Academy City.
Namely, the legal principle of the "unity of subjective and objective" was fiercely criticized by Welt from a political standpoint.
"The so-called principle of subjective-objective unity does not exist in the laws of the old era. This principle is false, a shoddy product without any individual standpoint."
"The unity of subjective and objective has not only failed to supplement the objective, but has actually caused greater damage to the objective due to subjective conjecture!"
"When we talk about subjective-objective unity, we always think it's about the unity of the subjective and objective in the incident from the perspective of the person involved. But in reality, there is only one kind of subjective-objective unity..."
"And that is the subjective-objective unity of the enforcer!"
On the channel, Welt righteously refuted the bastards within Academy City who clung to the laws of the old era. His stern words and combative demeanor on the debate stage drew waves of cheers from many in the audience.
But at the same time, there were many who refuted him. Not everyone in Academy City supported its legal principle of balancing rights and responsibilities.
Bronya, as the head of the Security Guard, didn't know what to say.
She was in a state of shock, completely floored by Welt's masterful application of dialectics.
"Is... is this something you can just say out loud?"
She couldn't understand how Welt's combat prowess could be so strong. No wonder Bronya always felt that many legal judgments were problematic, but could never pinpoint where the problem lay.
It turned out the problem had been there from the very root. Noldrei had summoned the laws of a new era, but this stuff was a relic that future humans had discarded.
It was like how many modern people know that capitalism unswervingly supports 'private ownership,' but they don't know why capitalism unswervingly supports 'private ownership.' One of the purposes of insisting on private ownership is to maximize the concentration of power over the means of production to counter the social dregs of an organized feudal bureaucracy. It's to achieve a balance between the means of production and the organization.
"Of course you can say it. There's nothing that can't be said. If we don't understand what capitalism was born in opposition to, we won't understand that after we overthrow the old era, we must take on the responsibilities that the old era was supposed to bear."
"We can't just tear down the old, only to let something even older come back to life, can we?"
Dr. Tesla spread her hands helplessly. She certainly didn't want the era to regress to a more ancient past. Although she couldn't get too involved in political matters, she had learned no less than anyone else and knew what Noldrei had done to this era.
Welt Yang's live debate on public media was for this very purpose.
The demands of this era were just that: it demanded people to have stronger reason, stronger memory, broader knowledge, and more profound abilities.
Welt Yang was undoubtedly a talent cultivated in this way. His knowledge and abilities were already top-notch among everyone. After in-depth study in the Stigma Space, he had a deeper grasp of humanity's historical data and a much more thorough understanding of the current investigations than those sitting on the judge's bench.
Applying stronger AI technology to search legal texts, using stronger memory to target the current judiciary.
This was the most crucial change brought by Schicksal and Anti-Entropy's quantum AI.
To kill a person, you must first crush their spirit.
And crushing their spirit means leaving your opponent completely exposed under the public's gaze.
Bronya was stunned. She knew, of course, what the "even older thing" was. But Welt's battle had directly sealed off the original legal principle, and in turn, profoundly explained the reality of the world described by Marx.
"I never expected the former leader of Anti-Entropy to take the initiative to do this kind of work. But if we don't follow the original legal principles, how should we define a person's... um, value judgments and normative judgments? Without these, how can the laws of Academy City be re-established?"
Bronya had also studied these matters. Otherwise, what was she, the head of the Security Guard, doing? Was she just a freeloader?
Dr. Tesla's take was much simpler. She said coolly, "Because how those judgments are made is not up to you, it's up to the judge. Do you understand? The point isn't the value and the norm, the point is whose value and norm. Under the principle of subjective-objective unity, you must first prove that the judge's value and norm are the same as the public's."
But were they really the same as the common people's value and norm?
Bronya was now a bureaucrat herself. She could openly tell everyone that the value and norm of a bureaucrat were completely different from those of the common people.
For example, the feeling of losing 2,000 yuan is completely different for a rich person and a poor person.
For the former, it's a drop in the ocean, no threat to their survival. But for the latter, they might starve to death next week.
This was the fundamental reason for the difference in their value and norm!
This was what Welt Yang was debating on stage. What he was attacking now was undoubtedly one of the principles of criminal responsibility in Shenzhou.
If Academy City's law based on the theory of rights and responsibilities was to be promoted, it had to refute the criminal theories of the old era in a public debate.
Now was the time for the wave of Academy City's internal rules to truly sweep the globe.
Academy City had moved from technology, to power, to ideology, and now it had reached the stage of ideology itself.
At this moment, a legal professional on stage refuting Welt argued, "You say that a person's subjectivity is defined by their value and norm. Since we now have products like Stigma battlesuits that can identify ideology, why can't we use them to actively define a person's subjective thoughts and actions? This way, we can further eliminate the loopholes in our legal principles."
Welt pushed up his glasses and sneered, "You didn't understand anything I just said, did you? For the common people, the most crucial thing is never how perfect the trial process is, but whether the person judging them is on the same side. So the key is to determine whether the judge's value and norm align with the needs of the common people."
"So, my dear legal professional, do you dare to have all legal professionals in your country be supervised by Stigma battlesuits? To select the Stigma consciousness that is closest to the needs of the common people, and thereby achieve ideological unity among social and legal professionals."
"According to our Academy City's principle of equal rights and responsibilities, since the adjudicator has made the ideology of the parties in the field transparent, the adjudicator should also make their own ideology transparent."
"If only the judged party's subjective and objective are unified, while the adjudicator's subjective and objective are irrelevant, then I can only say that every one of your lawsuits has nothing to do with subjective-objective unity."
"Academy City's law is different from the old era. We not only restrict the enforcement power of the organization, but we also equally restrict the judicial power of the organization!"
"Step down. Let's have our American legal friend take the stage!"
Welt waved his hand, dismissing this rather inept friend. He had to continue his battle with the next one.