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> I'm saying the legal system takes authority. A smart contract doesn't avoid or override that authority. On a blockchain, this is absolutely false. The nodes

by jMyles 5y ago

> I'm saying the legal system takes authority. A smart contract doesn't avoid or override that authority. On a blockchain, this is absolutely false. The nodes interpret smart contracts. The "legal system" needs to be applied by some kind of oracle or by force to a node operator. Smart contracts are authoritative in their native environment.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
> The "legal system" needs to be applied by some kind of oracle or by force to a node operator. Yes, this is usually how it's done. Business logic is not a legal authority.
- jMyles 5y ago
  This is a strange statement. It's like saying that a forloop isn't authoritative because it hasn't been approved by a court. "Legal authority" isn't a well-defined object in the evaluation of smart contracts. It is certainly not an authority in the sense that the EVM (or, for other blockchains, corresponding VM) code is. Is this really a surprise? Nodes don't evaluate common law, they evaluate smart contracts. That's one of the reasons for enthusiasm for blockchain tech. Not everyone believes in the legitimacy of the state, let alone that the legal system is somehow the proper authority for evaluation of disambigous source code.
  - wins32767 5y ago
    >Not everyone believes in the legitimacy of the state, let alone that the legal system is somehow the proper authority for evaluation of disambigous source code. This is something that I haven't been able to figure out about blockchain enthusiasts. Assuming the blockchain is wildly successful, it poses an inherent threat to the ability of the modern state to collect taxes. Why do blockchain enthusiasts, who already don't think the state is legitimate, not take the logical next step. A potentially existential threat illegitimate parties that have large militaries will end well for the blockchain how? To put it more glibly, how many divisions has bitcoin?
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Or to paraphrase a US president (Andrew Jackson) when he didn't like a Supreme Court ruling, "make me. Oh right, you don't have an army. I do."
    - jacoblambda 5y ago
      The key thing here is that nobody can force you to pay your taxes. If you refuse to pay you can be arrested and/or go to jail but the change here is that you can't force someone to give you money but you can compel them to. I like to see cryptocurrency and crypto-assets as a pseudo force of nature. It's not really possible for governments to stop them and they pretty fundamentally change the game for most governments. I personally believe the result of this will be a shift to geoist taxes where taxes are paid on properties or paid by corporations.
      - wins32767 5y ago
        The internet requires a bunch of physical infrastructure to operate and crypto requires use of that physical infrastructure. Physical infrastructure is definitely controllable by governments if they so desire. The CEO of Comcast isn't going to go to jail to ensure that Bitcoin is accessible to the average user of their network.
        jacoblambda 5y ago
        Sure they may try but I don't see how they could make Bitcoin any less accessible than Bittorrent is nowadays. Doubly so considering that if this was to become a legitimate issue cryptocurrencies could just update their peer discovery mechanisms to minimise the meaningful damage that governments or ISPs could do. The cat is out of the bag and unless governments want to start seriously pushing into authoritarian territory there's very little they can do to stop it. Could China kill cryptocurrencies within their borders? Probably. Now could the US or countries within the EU? Probably not. Particularly in the US I can't see this ever happening. It's too close to infringements upon the first amendment that I can't see any meaningful legislation or regulations sticking.
    - 5y ago
  - rebolek 5y ago
    Not believing in the legitimacy of the state is like not believing in the gravity.
ineedasername 5y ago
Parties to a contract exist in jurisdictions that do not see things this way, and even block chains are rooted in some form on physical media in legal jurisdictions. In the case if IRON, the 0.75 in actual money exists somewhere, a bank presumably. Wherever that is, the jurisdiction might be friendly for IRON, or not, but there is in a very real sense no pure native environment for smart contracts. At a minimum, the parties involved will always exist in a physical legal sovereign jurisdiction that regards it's own authority as higher than the smart contract and has some ability-- perhaps limited, perhaps extensive-- to enforce that authority.

by jMyles 5y ago

toomuchtodo 5y ago

> The "legal system" needs to be applied by some kind of oracle or by force to a node operator. Yes, this is usually how it's done. Business logic is not a legal authority.

jMyles 5y ago
This is a strange statement. It's like saying that a forloop isn't authoritative because it hasn't been approved by a court. "Legal authority" isn't a well-defined object in the evaluation of smart contracts. It is certainly not an authority in the sense that the EVM (or, for other blockchains, corresponding VM) code is. Is this really a surprise? Nodes don't evaluate common law, they evaluate smart contracts. That's one of the reasons for enthusiasm for blockchain tech. Not everyone believes in the legitimacy of the state, let alone that the legal system is somehow the proper authority for evaluation of disambigous source code.
- wins32767 5y ago
  >Not everyone believes in the legitimacy of the state, let alone that the legal system is somehow the proper authority for evaluation of disambigous source code. This is something that I haven't been able to figure out about blockchain enthusiasts. Assuming the blockchain is wildly successful, it poses an inherent threat to the ability of the modern state to collect taxes. Why do blockchain enthusiasts, who already don't think the state is legitimate, not take the logical next step. A potentially existential threat illegitimate parties that have large militaries will end well for the blockchain how? To put it more glibly, how many divisions has bitcoin?
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Or to paraphrase a US president (Andrew Jackson) when he didn't like a Supreme Court ruling, "make me. Oh right, you don't have an army. I do."
  - jacoblambda 5y ago
    The key thing here is that nobody can force you to pay your taxes. If you refuse to pay you can be arrested and/or go to jail but the change here is that you can't force someone to give you money but you can compel them to. I like to see cryptocurrency and crypto-assets as a pseudo force of nature. It's not really possible for governments to stop them and they pretty fundamentally change the game for most governments. I personally believe the result of this will be a shift to geoist taxes where taxes are paid on properties or paid by corporations.
    - wins32767 5y ago
      The internet requires a bunch of physical infrastructure to operate and crypto requires use of that physical infrastructure. Physical infrastructure is definitely controllable by governments if they so desire. The CEO of Comcast isn't going to go to jail to ensure that Bitcoin is accessible to the average user of their network.
      - jacoblambda 5y ago
        Sure they may try but I don't see how they could make Bitcoin any less accessible than Bittorrent is nowadays. Doubly so considering that if this was to become a legitimate issue cryptocurrencies could just update their peer discovery mechanisms to minimise the meaningful damage that governments or ISPs could do. The cat is out of the bag and unless governments want to start seriously pushing into authoritarian territory there's very little they can do to stop it. Could China kill cryptocurrencies within their borders? Probably. Now could the US or countries within the EU? Probably not. Particularly in the US I can't see this ever happening. It's too close to infringements upon the first amendment that I can't see any meaningful legislation or regulations sticking.
  - 5y ago
- rebolek 5y ago
  Not believing in the legitimacy of the state is like not believing in the gravity.

ineedasername 5y ago

Parties to a contract exist in jurisdictions that do not see things this way, and even block chains are rooted in some form on physical media in legal jurisdictions. In the case if IRON, the 0.75 in actual money exists somewhere, a bank presumably. Wherever that is, the jurisdiction might be friendly for IRON, or not, but there is in a very real sense no pure native environment for smart contracts. At a minimum, the parties involved will always exist in a physical legal sovereign jurisdiction that regards it's own authority as higher than the smart contract and has some ability-- perhaps limited, perhaps extensive-- to enforce that authority.