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Smart contract do not override existing law os if there's sanctions for say selling PS3s to Iranians, even if smart contract could let you do that, it wouldn't

Smart contract do not override existing law os if there's sanctions for say selling PS3s to Iranians, even if smart contract could let you do that, it wouldn't be legal. In any case the existing case law in the US and UK already has it that a contract does not have to written down to exist so if you're pretty sure things are going to go well - say mowing the lawn, you can go ahead and just enter the contract with nothing written down (an no need for smart contract either)

derefr 8y ago
I'm not really talking about overriding sanctions; just an absence of trade/treaty relations between two countries. You can't have an iterated prisoner's dilemma on an international level without an extradition treaty. (Well, you can, using the sort of arbitrary state-to-state gifts that international diplomatic incidents are resolved by, but that doesn't scale.) > already has it that a contract does not have to written down to exist so if you're pretty sure things are going to go well - say mowing the lawn, you can go ahead and just enter the contract with nothing written down Yeah, but there's a reason people do write contracts down rather than... not doing that, when they want to actually have them be enforced in the breach. Personally, I don't even really want smart contracts to "do" anything on their own; all they would need to be useful is to be predicates—executable code running on a distributed computer that automatically detects a breach of contract, so that legal measures can be taken. That, by itself, is much more useful than a regular two-party written contract that devolves into "burn down their office to get out of the contract", or the regular three-party (you, them, a lawyer) written contract that costs $500/hr to facilitate.
discovan 8y ago
Actually, smart contract DOES override existing law - if the subject of the contract is fully on-chain. In that case you can engage all the courts and police in the state, still, they won't be able to undo your transaction. Obviously, this does not apply to the example with PS3.

derefr 8y ago

I'm not really talking about overriding sanctions; just an absence of trade/treaty relations between two countries. You can't have an iterated prisoner's dilemma on an international level without an extradition treaty. (Well, you can, using the sort of arbitrary state-to-state gifts that international diplomatic incidents are resolved by, but that doesn't scale.) > already has it that a contract does not have to written down to exist so if you're pretty sure things are going to go well - say mowing the lawn, you can go ahead and just enter the contract with nothing written down Yeah, but there's a reason people do write contracts down rather than... not doing that, when they want to actually have them be enforced in the breach. Personally, I don't even really want smart contracts to "do" anything on their own; all they would need to be useful is to be predicates—executable code running on a distributed computer that automatically detects a breach of contract, so that legal measures can be taken. That, by itself, is much more useful than a regular two-party written contract that devolves into "burn down their office to get out of the contract", or the regular three-party (you, them, a lawyer) written contract that costs $500/hr to facilitate.

discovan 8y ago

Actually, smart contract DOES override existing law - if the subject of the contract is fully on-chain. In that case you can engage all the courts and police in the state, still, they won't be able to undo your transaction. Obviously, this does not apply to the example with PS3.