3 ms·

> These contracts are enforced by math. Breaking them isn't a possibility. Math cannot "enforce" a contract, it can't even understand the terms of the agreemen

> These contracts are enforced by math. Breaking them isn't a possibility. Math cannot "enforce" a contract, it can't even understand the terms of the agreement, much less enforce it. > We're in the beginning stages of seeing our traditional corporations and nation states morphing into something new and barely recognizable. This kind of hyperbolic nonsense strains credulity.

rboyd 10y ago
Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. The future is always hard to believe until it's here. You can say you disagree and state why. But please don't call me a gullible idiot and then try to dress it up in fancy vocabulary. This kind of reply seems common in your comment history, like you're just generally angry around blockchain threads for some reason.
- will_brown 10y ago
  >Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. Can you give hard examples of how enforcement can be done programmatically and mathematically? For example, I contract you to do X in exchange I will pay $Y and to get things started I give you a 10% down payment. If you don't do X, even in a court of law, it would be extremely rare for a court to order you to do X, rather they will generally order you to return my deposit and any additional damages I can prove as a result of your breach. Explain how the smart contract programatically forces you to do X, or how the smart contract can calculate real world damages above and beyond the 10% deposit? Alternatively, if you do X, but I think its subpar and refuse to pay unless you redue X to my standards, explain how the smart contract can determine who is in breach you for X not being up to standard or me for not paying. Trust me it sounds great to say math and code enforces a contract and ensures it can't be breached, the point is putting a contact on the block chain may prove the contract exists (though even that is debatable) but it can't self enforce. More generally in law, almost everyone knows less than 10% of cases go to trial, yes the typically settle, but this is also because when there is no "issue of material facts" a judgment can be awarded without trial, this is almost never the case in breach of contract cases, because there is always a question of fact: was the contract breached or not?
  - rboyd 10y ago
    As a hard example consider the typical crowdfunding protocol. The contract (in english) is roughly: if this campaign hits goal before a deadline passes, all the backers pledge their money; or if the deadline comes before hitting the goal the money is returned to backers. In today's world we rely on kickstarter programs or staff, credit cards and banking. Codified using a smart contract these rules can be executed automatically such that the backers are never at risk. This is what we mean when we say enforcement is automated. This is a canonical example, as seen here http://ether.fund/contracts/crowdfund http://ether.fund/contracts/crowdfund The reason the contract can be enforced is because in many of these smart contracts funds are held in escrow and are transacted only by the distributed app without the requirement or possibility of human involvement. Also check out Section 1.5(3) in [1]. Not all contracts can be executed and evaluated as smart contracts. The kinds of work agreement contracts you describe wouldn't be a natural fit. Some folks have suggested novel alternatives which could fit into smart contracts such as voting to elect delegates, arbitration courts, reputation systems, etc. when things get fuzzy. Obviously it's not a 1:1 replacement and I didn't mean to imply that it was. I just think it could be a mistake to dismiss this technology and the changes that could be coming. [1] A LAWYER’S INTRODUCTION TO SMART CONTRACTS http://www.crypto-law.com/doc/A%20Lawyer's%20Introduction%20to%20Smart%20Contracts.pdf http://www.crypto-law.com/doc/A%20Lawyer's%20Introduction%20...
    - will_brown 10y ago
      >if this campaign hits goal before a deadline passes, all the backers pledge their money; or if the deadline comes before hitting the goal the money is returned to backers. Let's pretend the campaign hits its goal and gets all the funding. There are still a number of breaches that can occur after the fact at which point the contract/math/programming is not going to be able to enforce anything one way or the other. For example, as part of my pledge to the campaign the campaign promised me (and thousands of other backers) prizes. The contract can't do anything to enforce me getting my prize or it can't return my funds because they have been released to to company already. We have seen this time and again where the projects fail and refuse to return the money, the contracts themselves state the backers remedy is at law. Another example, I pledge $10,000 and funds get released to the campaign, but turns out I am a minor and as such a contract is legally unenforceable against me, not only that it turns out I used my parents credit card without permission, the smart contract isn't going to be of any help here either. Funny enough this only raises another potential breach, bc without my $10k the goal wasn't reached, so some backers now want their money back and others don't, is the campaign in breach if it doesn't return the funds? That is a question of fact for the court not one a smart contract can resolve. How about if I back something, funds are released, and then I do a charge-back and the CC company reverses the charge, I am likely in breach, but again nothing the smart contract can do about it. >I just think it could be a mistake to dismiss this technology and the changes that could be coming. Trust me I have no problem with technology and escrow accounts, they certainly help facilitate the performance contracts. But marketing of "smart contracts" as something self-enforcing based on math and programming? That doesn't exist even in the canonical example of smart contracts.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  > Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. That is a tautological statement. Smart contracts are not "enforced" programmatically in any sense of the word that is distinct from all other pieces of software since the rules of all programs are "enforced programmatically" by definition. "These contracts are enforced by math" is a meaningless platitude. > But please don't call me a gullible idiot and then try to dress it up in fancy vocabulary I didn't call or imply that you're a gullible idiot. I chose my words for their specific meaning, not for the sake of "fancy vocabulary". I might be mistaken but I think you're misinterpreting the meaning of the phrase "strains credulity", I'm not calling you gullible, I'm saying that your statement invokes feelings of skepticism because it's grandiose, wildly speculative, and generally unsubstantiated. > The future is always hard to believe until it's here. Not really. The future is pretty believable most of the time, it's relatively rare to face a paradigm shift that alters our expectations of the future in a fundamental way; most of the time, things move along more or less as expected from an arbitrary point in time (of course, the farther you go in time from a given point, the more unexpected things may become, but they are also exponentially more difficult to predict with any expectations of certitude). > This kind of reply seems common in your comment history, like you're just generally angry around blockchain threads for some reason. I won't comment on your assumptions about my emotional state, but I'll say that I think blockchains are a very cool technology (including bitcoin), but I find the excessively bombastic claims about how these technologies are going to alter the course of human history to be absurd and worthy of rebuffing.
  - lazaroclapp 10y ago
    > "These contracts are enforced by math" is a meaningless platitude. Not quite. For example, assuming you accept cryptocurrencies have an actual monetary value, now I can pay any amount of money I want to a "smart contract" that will then proceed to pay that money to whomever solves a mathematical problem of interest to me (for example, I could give it to someone who gives me the cheapest route to visit 50 cities of my choosing, given the point to point cost). Once the contract is defined and created, the following is true: a) I no longer can choose not to pay, even if I change my mind, b) Only someone who solves the problem I posed will be able to claim that payment, and c) They will be able to cash in the prize without ever needing to reveal their identity to me. Now there is two potential problems with this. First, it might very well be that the kind of "contracts" we care about for running organizations are beyond what can be expressed and enforced by smart-contracts (specially "enforced" in the sense of the example above, versus simply "reported"). Second, the above guarantees hold only as long as the underlying network holds, and that is a social system in the final degree, made of people who can as a whole destroy or subvert it. However, regarding the not-turtles-all-the-way-down argument about the cryptocurrency networks being social systems in the end, well... so is the Internet, the international trade system, the national governments, etc. Smart-contracts are not magic, but they are a different way of organizing resources and bootstrapping trust between parties. Will they eliminate the need for governments and traditional corporations? Probably not. Some people said that about the internet too, and they were, in the short to medium term at least, wrong. But if it has even 1% of the impact in the world the Internet had, well...

rboyd 10y ago

Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. The future is always hard to believe until it's here. You can say you disagree and state why. But please don't call me a gullible idiot and then try to dress it up in fancy vocabulary. This kind of reply seems common in your comment history, like you're just generally angry around blockchain threads for some reason.

will_brown 10y ago
>Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. Can you give hard examples of how enforcement can be done programmatically and mathematically? For example, I contract you to do X in exchange I will pay $Y and to get things started I give you a 10% down payment. If you don't do X, even in a court of law, it would be extremely rare for a court to order you to do X, rather they will generally order you to return my deposit and any additional damages I can prove as a result of your breach. Explain how the smart contract programatically forces you to do X, or how the smart contract can calculate real world damages above and beyond the 10% deposit? Alternatively, if you do X, but I think its subpar and refuse to pay unless you redue X to my standards, explain how the smart contract can determine who is in breach you for X not being up to standard or me for not paying. Trust me it sounds great to say math and code enforces a contract and ensures it can't be breached, the point is putting a contact on the block chain may prove the contract exists (though even that is debatable) but it can't self enforce. More generally in law, almost everyone knows less than 10% of cases go to trial, yes the typically settle, but this is also because when there is no "issue of material facts" a judgment can be awarded without trial, this is almost never the case in breach of contract cases, because there is always a question of fact: was the contract breached or not?
- rboyd 10y ago
  As a hard example consider the typical crowdfunding protocol. The contract (in english) is roughly: if this campaign hits goal before a deadline passes, all the backers pledge their money; or if the deadline comes before hitting the goal the money is returned to backers. In today's world we rely on kickstarter programs or staff, credit cards and banking. Codified using a smart contract these rules can be executed automatically such that the backers are never at risk. This is what we mean when we say enforcement is automated. This is a canonical example, as seen here http://ether.fund/contracts/crowdfund http://ether.fund/contracts/crowdfund The reason the contract can be enforced is because in many of these smart contracts funds are held in escrow and are transacted only by the distributed app without the requirement or possibility of human involvement. Also check out Section 1.5(3) in [1]. Not all contracts can be executed and evaluated as smart contracts. The kinds of work agreement contracts you describe wouldn't be a natural fit. Some folks have suggested novel alternatives which could fit into smart contracts such as voting to elect delegates, arbitration courts, reputation systems, etc. when things get fuzzy. Obviously it's not a 1:1 replacement and I didn't mean to imply that it was. I just think it could be a mistake to dismiss this technology and the changes that could be coming. [1] A LAWYER’S INTRODUCTION TO SMART CONTRACTS http://www.crypto-law.com/doc/A%20Lawyer's%20Introduction%20to%20Smart%20Contracts.pdf http://www.crypto-law.com/doc/A%20Lawyer's%20Introduction%20...
  - will_brown 10y ago
    >if this campaign hits goal before a deadline passes, all the backers pledge their money; or if the deadline comes before hitting the goal the money is returned to backers. Let's pretend the campaign hits its goal and gets all the funding. There are still a number of breaches that can occur after the fact at which point the contract/math/programming is not going to be able to enforce anything one way or the other. For example, as part of my pledge to the campaign the campaign promised me (and thousands of other backers) prizes. The contract can't do anything to enforce me getting my prize or it can't return my funds because they have been released to to company already. We have seen this time and again where the projects fail and refuse to return the money, the contracts themselves state the backers remedy is at law. Another example, I pledge $10,000 and funds get released to the campaign, but turns out I am a minor and as such a contract is legally unenforceable against me, not only that it turns out I used my parents credit card without permission, the smart contract isn't going to be of any help here either. Funny enough this only raises another potential breach, bc without my $10k the goal wasn't reached, so some backers now want their money back and others don't, is the campaign in breach if it doesn't return the funds? That is a question of fact for the court not one a smart contract can resolve. How about if I back something, funds are released, and then I do a charge-back and the CC company reverses the charge, I am likely in breach, but again nothing the smart contract can do about it. >I just think it could be a mistake to dismiss this technology and the changes that could be coming. Trust me I have no problem with technology and escrow accounts, they certainly help facilitate the performance contracts. But marketing of "smart contracts" as something self-enforcing based on math and programming? That doesn't exist even in the canonical example of smart contracts.
vectorpush 10y ago
> Smart contracts are enforced programmatically, that's kind of the point. That is a tautological statement. Smart contracts are not "enforced" programmatically in any sense of the word that is distinct from all other pieces of software since the rules of all programs are "enforced programmatically" by definition. "These contracts are enforced by math" is a meaningless platitude. > But please don't call me a gullible idiot and then try to dress it up in fancy vocabulary I didn't call or imply that you're a gullible idiot. I chose my words for their specific meaning, not for the sake of "fancy vocabulary". I might be mistaken but I think you're misinterpreting the meaning of the phrase "strains credulity", I'm not calling you gullible, I'm saying that your statement invokes feelings of skepticism because it's grandiose, wildly speculative, and generally unsubstantiated. > The future is always hard to believe until it's here. Not really. The future is pretty believable most of the time, it's relatively rare to face a paradigm shift that alters our expectations of the future in a fundamental way; most of the time, things move along more or less as expected from an arbitrary point in time (of course, the farther you go in time from a given point, the more unexpected things may become, but they are also exponentially more difficult to predict with any expectations of certitude). > This kind of reply seems common in your comment history, like you're just generally angry around blockchain threads for some reason. I won't comment on your assumptions about my emotional state, but I'll say that I think blockchains are a very cool technology (including bitcoin), but I find the excessively bombastic claims about how these technologies are going to alter the course of human history to be absurd and worthy of rebuffing.
- lazaroclapp 10y ago
  > "These contracts are enforced by math" is a meaningless platitude. Not quite. For example, assuming you accept cryptocurrencies have an actual monetary value, now I can pay any amount of money I want to a "smart contract" that will then proceed to pay that money to whomever solves a mathematical problem of interest to me (for example, I could give it to someone who gives me the cheapest route to visit 50 cities of my choosing, given the point to point cost). Once the contract is defined and created, the following is true: a) I no longer can choose not to pay, even if I change my mind, b) Only someone who solves the problem I posed will be able to claim that payment, and c) They will be able to cash in the prize without ever needing to reveal their identity to me. Now there is two potential problems with this. First, it might very well be that the kind of "contracts" we care about for running organizations are beyond what can be expressed and enforced by smart-contracts (specially "enforced" in the sense of the example above, versus simply "reported"). Second, the above guarantees hold only as long as the underlying network holds, and that is a social system in the final degree, made of people who can as a whole destroy or subvert it. However, regarding the not-turtles-all-the-way-down argument about the cryptocurrency networks being social systems in the end, well... so is the Internet, the international trade system, the national governments, etc. Smart-contracts are not magic, but they are a different way of organizing resources and bootstrapping trust between parties. Will they eliminate the need for governments and traditional corporations? Probably not. Some people said that about the internet too, and they were, in the short to medium term at least, wrong. But if it has even 1% of the impact in the world the Internet had, well...