Agathon Fric (pronounced "fritz"), BA(Hon), JD, LLM, is a lawyer, writer, web designer, Carleton University political science alumnus, graduate of the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, and of the Harvard Law School. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies and has clerked for justices of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta and the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. He formerly worked at Norton Rose Fulbright in Calgary. His experience is as diverse as his talents are many. For nearly a decade, Agathon was at the forefront of developing original children's content targeted to youth between the ages of 8-14 as part of one of Canada's bestselling children's magazines. Tech-savvy, detail-oriented and forward-thinking, Agathon is passionate about finding creative new ways to meet the needs of his clients and his community.
Since 2017, the Canadian government has published excerpts from questionnaires that prospective j... more Since 2017, the Canadian government has published excerpts from questionnaires that prospective judges completed as part of the judicial selection process, subjecting newly appointed superior and federal court judges to a degree of scrutiny that is unprecedented in Canadian history. Using this novel source material, this article explores what a sample of 16 judges’ questionnaires do and do not say about the individuals behind the robes. This review suggests that those appointed to the bench in 2017 generally demonstrate insight into the judicial role in Canada. However, some provide only superficial responses, others parrot back normative values that the government has already prescribed, and many offer substantially similar answers. This suggests, first, that not all successful applications or, for that matter, applicants are created equal and, second, that applicants use the questionnaire less as an opportunity to demonstrate free thought and more as a test to prove their fealty to dominant assumptions about the court’s role in society. The questionnaire therefore misses an opportunity to show that diversity on the bench is more than skin-deep. Meanwhile, recent trends show that the government has lagged behind on its commitment to make judges’ applications public. The article concludes that if the government is serious about introducing greater transparency and accountability to the judicial selection process, then it should revise the questionnaire to elicit more meaningful responses from applicants and table legislation to codify the government’s political promise to publish appointees’ views on the role of the judiciary in Canadian society.
Depuis 2017, le gouvernement canadien publie des extraits des questionnaires remplis par les juges potentiels dans le cadre du processus de sélection judiciaire, soumettant ainsi les juges des cours supérieures et fédérales nouvellement nommés à un degré d’examen sans précédent dans l’histoire du Canada. En utilisant ce nouveau matériel de base, le présent article explore ce qu’un échantillon de 16 questionnaires de juges disent et ne disent pas à propos des individus portant la toge. Cet examen suggère que les personnes nommées à la magistrature en 2017 font généralement preuve d’une bonne connaissance du rôle judiciaire au Canada. Cependant, certains ne donnent que des réponses superficielles, d’autres reprennent les valeurs normatives que le gouvernement a déjà prescrites, et beaucoup offrent des réponses substantiellement similaires. Cela suggère, premièrement, que toutes les candidatures retenues ou, d’ailleurs, les candidats eux-mêmes ne sont pas créés égaux et, deuxièmement, que les candidats utilisent le questionnaire moins comme une occasion de démontrer leur libre pensée et plus comme un test pour prouver leur fidélité aux hypothèses dominantes sur le rôle de la cour dans la société. Le questionnaire manque donc une occasion de montrer que la diversité sur le banc est plus que superficielle. Entre-temps, les tendances récentes montrent que le gouvernement a pris du retard dans son engagement à rendre publiques les requêtes des juges. L’article conclut que si le gouvernement souhaite sérieusement introduire plus de transparence et de responsabilité dans le processus de sélection des juges, il devrait alors réviser le questionnaire pour obtenir des réponses plus significatives de la part des candidats et déposer un projet de loi pour codifier la promesse politique du gouvernement de publier les opinions des personnes nommées sur le rôle du pouvoir judiciaire dans la société canadienne.
On October 19, 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority of seats in the 42nd Canadian Gener... more On October 19, 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority of seats in the 42nd Canadian General Election. Within one week, news media were reporting that the new government would consider asking the Supreme Court of Canada to extend the amount of time it gave Parliament to pass legislation regulating physician-assisted death. Eight months earlier, the Court had ruled unanimously in Carter v. Canada that the country’s criminal prohibition on assisted suicide violated an individual’s right to life, liberty, and security of the person under Canada’s federal bill of rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, as a practical matter, the Court had suspended its declaration of invalidity for 12 months, giving Parliament one year to devise national regulations for medical aid in dying.
The haste with which Trudeau’s government decided to ask the Court for more time to act suggests, first, that the government felt it had to act and, second, that the government felt it needed the Court’s blessing to take more time. Neither of these assumptions was true. Instead, they represent implicit choices that tell an observer how advisors to the Trudeau government thought about the public problem it faced (physician-assisted death) and the solutions that were available to it. At the centre of that problem-solving process was the then-Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Personal, institutional, cultural, and political factors influenced the Minister’s handling of the physician-assisted death file, which stifled Parliament’s ability to pass farther-reaching reform. This suggests that the task of advising is a highly dynamic, context-specific process that often requires advisors and their principals to make difficult choices among imperfect alternatives.
Recent political developments have caused some to question whether our own survival is at stake. ... more Recent political developments have caused some to question whether our own survival is at stake. Such doomsday predictions are probably overstated, but the Rule of Law’s fate is much less certain. Protecting it starts by understanding what the Rule of Law means in 2017. This article offers a compelling and colourful metaphor for how lawyers should understand their moral and professional obligations to advocate for the rule of law in their communities.
Appeal: Review of Current Law and Law Reform, Mar 2016
Assessing reasonableness inherently calls upon courts to balance the interests of the state with ... more Assessing reasonableness inherently calls upon courts to balance the interests of the state with those of the individual. However, existing common law jurisprudence governing the reasonableness of searching the contents of Canadians’ personal electronic devices does not strike an appropriate balance between the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy and the state’s interest in intruding upon that expectation to pursue the objectives of law enforcement. Most notably, the Supreme Court of Canada’s majority judgment in R v Fearon does not sit comfortably alongside fundamental aspects of the legal record, contrary to legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin’s theory of law as integrity. This suggests that a better constructive interpretation of the law is needed in order to determine the reasonableness of computer searches at customs, for instance by referring to how reasonableness is assessed in other constitutional contexts. Courts ought to apply a more robust proportionality analysis, like that developed under section 1 of the Charter, in order to demonstrate integrity and to make the law on search and seizure of electronic devices “the best that it can be.”
The particular developmental challenges of youth make them vulnerable to privacy invasions online... more The particular developmental challenges of youth make them vulnerable to privacy invasions online that capitalize on their credulity and commoditize their personal information in ways that are not always readily apparent and with potential consequences that are still less understood. The current legal regime in which private organizations collect, use, and disclose the personal information of Canadian youth for commercial purposes has advantages and disadvantages. However, proposals for reform have so far myopically focused on tinkering with the existing consent-based model of informational privacy, which ignores youth’s own changing expectations of privacy. This suggests that in seeking to “protect” youth’s privacy online, legislators have disempowered children and their parents from determining what information practices are acceptable for them. The law should instead respect these choices, while providing families with the tools necessary to exercise them.
This article seeks to address what constitutes youth online privacy, how youth conceive of their privacy, whether their privacy needs protecting, and, if so, how youth privacy should be regulated online. First, the article begins by rooting the issue of online youth privacy in the current social, technological, economic, political, and legal context, drawing on social science research to demonstrate both the threats and opportunities created by technology for youth privacy. Second, the analysis focuses on the relative strengths and weaknesses of current federal legislation as the primary law governing the collection, use, and disclosure of youth’s personal information through their online activities, including their use of social networks and mobile applications or “apps.” It is worth noting that Canadian jurisprudence on youth privacy online is underdeveloped by virtue of the fact that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) generally diverts such grievances from the judicial system. Even then, the Privacy Commissioner has so far only conducted one investigation into a website that specifically targets youth. Accordingly, the Commissioner’s report into the complaint against Nexopia.com, a Canadian-made social network, figures prominently in this analysis. It serves as a case study of how federal privacy legislation is applied in practice, and an example by which the effectiveness of the existing regime may be evaluated. Third, after canvassing the shortcomings of the current legal regime, I consider proposals for reform and assess their merits. This analysis draws on the legislative experience of the United States, both as a possible model for reform and as a cautionary tale. Given that many of the world’s most popular websites among youth originate in the US, that country’s Congress has arguably had a greater influence on the information practices and privacy policies affecting Canadian youth than any other. Finally, I offer an alternative legal solution to give more meaningful expression to youth privacy rights, while avoiding the paradigmatic trap of most existing proposals.
Since 2017, the Canadian government has published excerpts from questionnaires that prospective j... more Since 2017, the Canadian government has published excerpts from questionnaires that prospective judges completed as part of the judicial selection process, subjecting newly appointed superior and federal court judges to a degree of scrutiny that is unprecedented in Canadian history. Using this novel source material, this article explores what a sample of 16 judges’ questionnaires do and do not say about the individuals behind the robes. This review suggests that those appointed to the bench in 2017 generally demonstrate insight into the judicial role in Canada. However, some provide only superficial responses, others parrot back normative values that the government has already prescribed, and many offer substantially similar answers. This suggests, first, that not all successful applications or, for that matter, applicants are created equal and, second, that applicants use the questionnaire less as an opportunity to demonstrate free thought and more as a test to prove their fealty to dominant assumptions about the court’s role in society. The questionnaire therefore misses an opportunity to show that diversity on the bench is more than skin-deep. Meanwhile, recent trends show that the government has lagged behind on its commitment to make judges’ applications public. The article concludes that if the government is serious about introducing greater transparency and accountability to the judicial selection process, then it should revise the questionnaire to elicit more meaningful responses from applicants and table legislation to codify the government’s political promise to publish appointees’ views on the role of the judiciary in Canadian society.
Depuis 2017, le gouvernement canadien publie des extraits des questionnaires remplis par les juges potentiels dans le cadre du processus de sélection judiciaire, soumettant ainsi les juges des cours supérieures et fédérales nouvellement nommés à un degré d’examen sans précédent dans l’histoire du Canada. En utilisant ce nouveau matériel de base, le présent article explore ce qu’un échantillon de 16 questionnaires de juges disent et ne disent pas à propos des individus portant la toge. Cet examen suggère que les personnes nommées à la magistrature en 2017 font généralement preuve d’une bonne connaissance du rôle judiciaire au Canada. Cependant, certains ne donnent que des réponses superficielles, d’autres reprennent les valeurs normatives que le gouvernement a déjà prescrites, et beaucoup offrent des réponses substantiellement similaires. Cela suggère, premièrement, que toutes les candidatures retenues ou, d’ailleurs, les candidats eux-mêmes ne sont pas créés égaux et, deuxièmement, que les candidats utilisent le questionnaire moins comme une occasion de démontrer leur libre pensée et plus comme un test pour prouver leur fidélité aux hypothèses dominantes sur le rôle de la cour dans la société. Le questionnaire manque donc une occasion de montrer que la diversité sur le banc est plus que superficielle. Entre-temps, les tendances récentes montrent que le gouvernement a pris du retard dans son engagement à rendre publiques les requêtes des juges. L’article conclut que si le gouvernement souhaite sérieusement introduire plus de transparence et de responsabilité dans le processus de sélection des juges, il devrait alors réviser le questionnaire pour obtenir des réponses plus significatives de la part des candidats et déposer un projet de loi pour codifier la promesse politique du gouvernement de publier les opinions des personnes nommées sur le rôle du pouvoir judiciaire dans la société canadienne.
On October 19, 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority of seats in the 42nd Canadian Gener... more On October 19, 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority of seats in the 42nd Canadian General Election. Within one week, news media were reporting that the new government would consider asking the Supreme Court of Canada to extend the amount of time it gave Parliament to pass legislation regulating physician-assisted death. Eight months earlier, the Court had ruled unanimously in Carter v. Canada that the country’s criminal prohibition on assisted suicide violated an individual’s right to life, liberty, and security of the person under Canada’s federal bill of rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, as a practical matter, the Court had suspended its declaration of invalidity for 12 months, giving Parliament one year to devise national regulations for medical aid in dying.
The haste with which Trudeau’s government decided to ask the Court for more time to act suggests, first, that the government felt it had to act and, second, that the government felt it needed the Court’s blessing to take more time. Neither of these assumptions was true. Instead, they represent implicit choices that tell an observer how advisors to the Trudeau government thought about the public problem it faced (physician-assisted death) and the solutions that were available to it. At the centre of that problem-solving process was the then-Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Personal, institutional, cultural, and political factors influenced the Minister’s handling of the physician-assisted death file, which stifled Parliament’s ability to pass farther-reaching reform. This suggests that the task of advising is a highly dynamic, context-specific process that often requires advisors and their principals to make difficult choices among imperfect alternatives.
Recent political developments have caused some to question whether our own survival is at stake. ... more Recent political developments have caused some to question whether our own survival is at stake. Such doomsday predictions are probably overstated, but the Rule of Law’s fate is much less certain. Protecting it starts by understanding what the Rule of Law means in 2017. This article offers a compelling and colourful metaphor for how lawyers should understand their moral and professional obligations to advocate for the rule of law in their communities.
Appeal: Review of Current Law and Law Reform, Mar 2016
Assessing reasonableness inherently calls upon courts to balance the interests of the state with ... more Assessing reasonableness inherently calls upon courts to balance the interests of the state with those of the individual. However, existing common law jurisprudence governing the reasonableness of searching the contents of Canadians’ personal electronic devices does not strike an appropriate balance between the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy and the state’s interest in intruding upon that expectation to pursue the objectives of law enforcement. Most notably, the Supreme Court of Canada’s majority judgment in R v Fearon does not sit comfortably alongside fundamental aspects of the legal record, contrary to legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin’s theory of law as integrity. This suggests that a better constructive interpretation of the law is needed in order to determine the reasonableness of computer searches at customs, for instance by referring to how reasonableness is assessed in other constitutional contexts. Courts ought to apply a more robust proportionality analysis, like that developed under section 1 of the Charter, in order to demonstrate integrity and to make the law on search and seizure of electronic devices “the best that it can be.”
The particular developmental challenges of youth make them vulnerable to privacy invasions online... more The particular developmental challenges of youth make them vulnerable to privacy invasions online that capitalize on their credulity and commoditize their personal information in ways that are not always readily apparent and with potential consequences that are still less understood. The current legal regime in which private organizations collect, use, and disclose the personal information of Canadian youth for commercial purposes has advantages and disadvantages. However, proposals for reform have so far myopically focused on tinkering with the existing consent-based model of informational privacy, which ignores youth’s own changing expectations of privacy. This suggests that in seeking to “protect” youth’s privacy online, legislators have disempowered children and their parents from determining what information practices are acceptable for them. The law should instead respect these choices, while providing families with the tools necessary to exercise them.
This article seeks to address what constitutes youth online privacy, how youth conceive of their privacy, whether their privacy needs protecting, and, if so, how youth privacy should be regulated online. First, the article begins by rooting the issue of online youth privacy in the current social, technological, economic, political, and legal context, drawing on social science research to demonstrate both the threats and opportunities created by technology for youth privacy. Second, the analysis focuses on the relative strengths and weaknesses of current federal legislation as the primary law governing the collection, use, and disclosure of youth’s personal information through their online activities, including their use of social networks and mobile applications or “apps.” It is worth noting that Canadian jurisprudence on youth privacy online is underdeveloped by virtue of the fact that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) generally diverts such grievances from the judicial system. Even then, the Privacy Commissioner has so far only conducted one investigation into a website that specifically targets youth. Accordingly, the Commissioner’s report into the complaint against Nexopia.com, a Canadian-made social network, figures prominently in this analysis. It serves as a case study of how federal privacy legislation is applied in practice, and an example by which the effectiveness of the existing regime may be evaluated. Third, after canvassing the shortcomings of the current legal regime, I consider proposals for reform and assess their merits. This analysis draws on the legislative experience of the United States, both as a possible model for reform and as a cautionary tale. Given that many of the world’s most popular websites among youth originate in the US, that country’s Congress has arguably had a greater influence on the information practices and privacy policies affecting Canadian youth than any other. Finally, I offer an alternative legal solution to give more meaningful expression to youth privacy rights, while avoiding the paradigmatic trap of most existing proposals.
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Papers by Agathon Fric
Depuis 2017, le gouvernement canadien publie des extraits des questionnaires remplis par les juges potentiels dans le cadre du processus de sélection judiciaire, soumettant ainsi les juges des cours supérieures et fédérales nouvellement nommés à un degré d’examen sans précédent dans l’histoire du Canada. En utilisant ce nouveau matériel de base, le présent article explore ce qu’un échantillon de 16 questionnaires de juges disent et ne disent pas à propos des individus portant la toge. Cet examen suggère que les personnes nommées à la magistrature en 2017 font généralement preuve d’une bonne connaissance du rôle judiciaire au Canada. Cependant, certains ne donnent que des réponses superficielles, d’autres reprennent les valeurs normatives que le gouvernement a déjà prescrites, et beaucoup offrent des réponses substantiellement similaires. Cela suggère, premièrement, que toutes les candidatures retenues ou, d’ailleurs, les candidats eux-mêmes ne sont pas créés égaux et, deuxièmement, que les candidats utilisent le questionnaire moins comme une occasion de démontrer leur libre pensée et plus comme un test pour prouver leur fidélité aux hypothèses dominantes sur le rôle de la cour dans la société. Le questionnaire manque donc une occasion de montrer que la diversité sur le banc est plus que superficielle. Entre-temps, les tendances récentes montrent que le gouvernement a pris du retard dans son engagement à rendre publiques les requêtes des juges. L’article conclut que si le gouvernement souhaite sérieusement introduire plus de transparence et de responsabilité dans le processus de sélection des juges, il devrait alors réviser le questionnaire pour obtenir des réponses plus significatives de la part des candidats et déposer un projet de loi pour codifier la promesse politique du gouvernement de publier les opinions des personnes nommées sur le rôle du pouvoir judiciaire dans la société canadienne.
The haste with which Trudeau’s government decided to ask the Court for more time to act suggests, first, that the government felt it had to act and, second, that the government felt it needed the Court’s blessing to take more time. Neither of these assumptions was true. Instead, they represent implicit choices that tell an observer how advisors to the Trudeau government thought about the public problem it faced (physician-assisted death) and the solutions that were available to it. At the centre of that problem-solving process was the then-Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Personal, institutional, cultural, and political factors influenced the Minister’s handling of the physician-assisted death file, which stifled Parliament’s ability to pass farther-reaching reform. This suggests that the task of advising is a highly dynamic, context-specific process that often requires advisors and their principals to make difficult choices among imperfect alternatives.
You can view a two-minute introductory video to this article at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWOSfjN_XLk.
This article seeks to address what constitutes youth online privacy, how youth conceive of their privacy, whether their privacy needs protecting, and, if so, how youth privacy should be regulated online. First, the article begins by rooting the issue of online youth privacy in the current social, technological, economic, political, and legal context, drawing on social science research to demonstrate both the threats and opportunities created by technology for youth privacy. Second, the analysis focuses on the relative strengths and weaknesses of current federal legislation as the primary law governing the collection, use, and disclosure of youth’s personal information through their online activities, including their use of social networks and mobile applications or “apps.” It is worth noting that Canadian jurisprudence on youth privacy online is underdeveloped by virtue of the fact that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) generally diverts such grievances from the judicial system. Even then, the Privacy Commissioner has so far only conducted one investigation into a website that specifically targets youth. Accordingly, the Commissioner’s report into the complaint against Nexopia.com, a Canadian-made social network, figures prominently in this analysis. It serves as a case study of how federal privacy legislation is applied in practice, and an example by which the effectiveness of the existing regime may be evaluated. Third, after canvassing the shortcomings of the current legal regime, I consider proposals for reform and assess their merits. This analysis draws on the legislative experience of the United States, both as a possible model for reform and as a cautionary tale. Given that many of the world’s most popular websites among youth originate in the US, that country’s Congress has arguably had a greater influence on the information practices and privacy policies affecting Canadian youth than any other. Finally, I offer an alternative legal solution to give more meaningful expression to youth privacy rights, while avoiding the paradigmatic trap of most existing proposals.
Depuis 2017, le gouvernement canadien publie des extraits des questionnaires remplis par les juges potentiels dans le cadre du processus de sélection judiciaire, soumettant ainsi les juges des cours supérieures et fédérales nouvellement nommés à un degré d’examen sans précédent dans l’histoire du Canada. En utilisant ce nouveau matériel de base, le présent article explore ce qu’un échantillon de 16 questionnaires de juges disent et ne disent pas à propos des individus portant la toge. Cet examen suggère que les personnes nommées à la magistrature en 2017 font généralement preuve d’une bonne connaissance du rôle judiciaire au Canada. Cependant, certains ne donnent que des réponses superficielles, d’autres reprennent les valeurs normatives que le gouvernement a déjà prescrites, et beaucoup offrent des réponses substantiellement similaires. Cela suggère, premièrement, que toutes les candidatures retenues ou, d’ailleurs, les candidats eux-mêmes ne sont pas créés égaux et, deuxièmement, que les candidats utilisent le questionnaire moins comme une occasion de démontrer leur libre pensée et plus comme un test pour prouver leur fidélité aux hypothèses dominantes sur le rôle de la cour dans la société. Le questionnaire manque donc une occasion de montrer que la diversité sur le banc est plus que superficielle. Entre-temps, les tendances récentes montrent que le gouvernement a pris du retard dans son engagement à rendre publiques les requêtes des juges. L’article conclut que si le gouvernement souhaite sérieusement introduire plus de transparence et de responsabilité dans le processus de sélection des juges, il devrait alors réviser le questionnaire pour obtenir des réponses plus significatives de la part des candidats et déposer un projet de loi pour codifier la promesse politique du gouvernement de publier les opinions des personnes nommées sur le rôle du pouvoir judiciaire dans la société canadienne.
The haste with which Trudeau’s government decided to ask the Court for more time to act suggests, first, that the government felt it had to act and, second, that the government felt it needed the Court’s blessing to take more time. Neither of these assumptions was true. Instead, they represent implicit choices that tell an observer how advisors to the Trudeau government thought about the public problem it faced (physician-assisted death) and the solutions that were available to it. At the centre of that problem-solving process was the then-Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould. Personal, institutional, cultural, and political factors influenced the Minister’s handling of the physician-assisted death file, which stifled Parliament’s ability to pass farther-reaching reform. This suggests that the task of advising is a highly dynamic, context-specific process that often requires advisors and their principals to make difficult choices among imperfect alternatives.
You can view a two-minute introductory video to this article at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWOSfjN_XLk.
This article seeks to address what constitutes youth online privacy, how youth conceive of their privacy, whether their privacy needs protecting, and, if so, how youth privacy should be regulated online. First, the article begins by rooting the issue of online youth privacy in the current social, technological, economic, political, and legal context, drawing on social science research to demonstrate both the threats and opportunities created by technology for youth privacy. Second, the analysis focuses on the relative strengths and weaknesses of current federal legislation as the primary law governing the collection, use, and disclosure of youth’s personal information through their online activities, including their use of social networks and mobile applications or “apps.” It is worth noting that Canadian jurisprudence on youth privacy online is underdeveloped by virtue of the fact that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) generally diverts such grievances from the judicial system. Even then, the Privacy Commissioner has so far only conducted one investigation into a website that specifically targets youth. Accordingly, the Commissioner’s report into the complaint against Nexopia.com, a Canadian-made social network, figures prominently in this analysis. It serves as a case study of how federal privacy legislation is applied in practice, and an example by which the effectiveness of the existing regime may be evaluated. Third, after canvassing the shortcomings of the current legal regime, I consider proposals for reform and assess their merits. This analysis draws on the legislative experience of the United States, both as a possible model for reform and as a cautionary tale. Given that many of the world’s most popular websites among youth originate in the US, that country’s Congress has arguably had a greater influence on the information practices and privacy policies affecting Canadian youth than any other. Finally, I offer an alternative legal solution to give more meaningful expression to youth privacy rights, while avoiding the paradigmatic trap of most existing proposals.