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>This so that some guy in China or India and some guy in the United States can agree on terms without having to haggle over whose legal jurisdiction will kick i

>This so that some guy in China or India and some guy in the United States can agree on terms without having to haggle over whose legal jurisdiction will kick in >there is no way around a smart contract environment that actually works. What about the present system where people develop trusting relationships in business and elsewhere and deal with the occasional anomalies and breaches of trust as they arise, but in the big picture they're not really a deal breaker because they are relatively rare and we humans are wired for socially harmonious behaviour and mutually beneficial actions. Is that a way around it? It seems to have been working decently well thus far in terms of facilitating extensive commercial networks around the world.

jacquesm 9y ago
> Is that a way around it? No, that's an alternative, and smart contracts are attempting to become a way around that.
- canoebuilder 9y ago
  Well it's not really an alternative, it's just reality at the moment, so long as smart contracts are more theory than practical. What if trust is a feature not a bug? Why is it something we need to engineer around?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    > What if trust is a feature not a bug? But not everybody can be trusted. > Why is it something we need to engineer around? We don't, but that won't stop it from happening and it is usually better to enter those situations informed rather than arguing from what world it would be nicer to live in. When the automobile entered mass production the world changed. You could have of course argued that this made the world a worse place to live in (which it did in many respects) but the reality was that once invented people apparently wanted automobiles and that demand ended up being satisfied. If enough people want smart contracts they will be a fact of life, knowing their limitations, how to deal with them and whether or not you should enter into one is important knowledge. No amount of sticking your head in the sand will reverse the course of history, smart contracts will happen, or they won't and if they do it will pay off to know about them. Right now they're on the edge of being useful, in a few more years we will know for sure whether or not they were a fad or a harbinger of a novelty whose impact will be hard to predict. I don't like them but I do believe they will happen and I also believe that they will alter our societies in material ways.

jacquesm 9y ago

> Is that a way around it? No, that's an alternative, and smart contracts are attempting to become a way around that.

canoebuilder 9y ago
Well it's not really an alternative, it's just reality at the moment, so long as smart contracts are more theory than practical. What if trust is a feature not a bug? Why is it something we need to engineer around?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > What if trust is a feature not a bug? But not everybody can be trusted. > Why is it something we need to engineer around? We don't, but that won't stop it from happening and it is usually better to enter those situations informed rather than arguing from what world it would be nicer to live in. When the automobile entered mass production the world changed. You could have of course argued that this made the world a worse place to live in (which it did in many respects) but the reality was that once invented people apparently wanted automobiles and that demand ended up being satisfied. If enough people want smart contracts they will be a fact of life, knowing their limitations, how to deal with them and whether or not you should enter into one is important knowledge. No amount of sticking your head in the sand will reverse the course of history, smart contracts will happen, or they won't and if they do it will pay off to know about them. Right now they're on the edge of being useful, in a few more years we will know for sure whether or not they were a fad or a harbinger of a novelty whose impact will be hard to predict. I don't like them but I do believe they will happen and I also believe that they will alter our societies in material ways.