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Interesting perspective, but it sounds like you're mixing up smart contacts with transactions. A smart contact defines what transactions might happen. Transacti

Interesting perspective, but it sounds like you're mixing up smart contacts with transactions. A smart contact defines what transactions might happen. Transactions are the actual actions. One contract can run for an indefinant amount of time and cause many transactions.

jrm4 5y ago
By this definition, a vending machine is a contract. Which it isn't. You could put a sign on the machine, contact so-and-so if it steals your money, we will definitely repay you. That would be a contract.
- foobarbecue 5y ago
  Yeah, the price list on a vending machine is an implied contract defining a monetary transaction for food. So if someone wants to call a vending machine a contract, I'm fine with that.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    I'm a lawyer and you shouldn't be. That's my point. I've already seen people immediately make this mistake. "Oh, I don't need a lawyer now because the contract is now on the blockchain." Wrong wrong wrong. If you'd like to do a blockchain transaction thing with or without a lawyer, that's fine, the risk is on you. But, the thing called a smart contract does not fundamentally replace what the lawyer does.
    - foobarbecue 5y ago
      Wow, for real? People think a smart contract on the blockchain is a legal contract? I suppose I often underestimate how dumb people can be...
      - foobarbecue 5y ago
        Speaking of which, I'd like to apologize for mistyping "indefinite" earlier.
      - jrm4 5y ago
        Hahaha be nice, but yes. I think I pay a lot of attention to this as a lawyer because of the whole trope of "lawyers always muddy the waters," and the deeply silly but attractive-to-tech-people idea that you can replace lawyering with technology, like with more "precision" or something like that. Not gonna happen anytime soon; at the end of the day what lawyers do is work on "when humans being human disagree on things where the stakes are big," not "writing things clearly like a computer."

jrm4 5y ago

By this definition, a vending machine is a contract. Which it isn't. You could put a sign on the machine, contact so-and-so if it steals your money, we will definitely repay you. That would be a contract.

foobarbecue 5y ago
Yeah, the price list on a vending machine is an implied contract defining a monetary transaction for food. So if someone wants to call a vending machine a contract, I'm fine with that.
- jrm4 5y ago
  I'm a lawyer and you shouldn't be. That's my point. I've already seen people immediately make this mistake. "Oh, I don't need a lawyer now because the contract is now on the blockchain." Wrong wrong wrong. If you'd like to do a blockchain transaction thing with or without a lawyer, that's fine, the risk is on you. But, the thing called a smart contract does not fundamentally replace what the lawyer does.
  - foobarbecue 5y ago
    Wow, for real? People think a smart contract on the blockchain is a legal contract? I suppose I often underestimate how dumb people can be...
    - foobarbecue 5y ago
      Speaking of which, I'd like to apologize for mistyping "indefinite" earlier.
    - jrm4 5y ago
      Hahaha be nice, but yes. I think I pay a lot of attention to this as a lawyer because of the whole trope of "lawyers always muddy the waters," and the deeply silly but attractive-to-tech-people idea that you can replace lawyering with technology, like with more "precision" or something like that. Not gonna happen anytime soon; at the end of the day what lawyers do is work on "when humans being human disagree on things where the stakes are big," not "writing things clearly like a computer."