4 ms·

I never got why we call those things "smart". It just seems like a dumber, more pedantic kind of contract. The kind that can take into account intent via the c

by remram 5y ago

I never got why we call those things "smart". It just seems like a dumber, more pedantic kind of contract. The kind that can take into account intent via the courthouse mechanism is smarter.

8bitben 5y ago
Turns out unfettered immutability isn't the holy grail it was made out to be
- wpietri 5y ago
  Depends on the audience. This sort of immutability is still deeply loved by the blockchain idealists and the criminals. And more casually by all the people who love them some victim-blaming.
alpaca128 5y ago
I actually like this kind of naming nowadays, it tells you right away how trustworthy it is. Smart is becoming the Karen of the tech industry.
- egeozcan 5y ago
  As a person who never lived in an English-speaking country, associating Karen (or any name really) with such a bad personality has always made my "be nice" alarm bells ring. Truly sorry for the digression, just wanted to know what others think, and not blaming you or anything. Spoken languages are weird, even weirder than cryptocurrency contracts with accidental bad logic - the weird logic in spoken languages seems somehow desired.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    You are right, of course. Imagine how shitty is must be to be named Karen and have millions of people one day start using your name as an insult. Just one of the hundreds of ways the internet mob steamrolls over people.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      It wasn't fun being an Adolf in the beginning of the previous century =) These things tend to happen.
    - nlitened 5y ago
      That had happened to Dicks before though.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      >hundreds of ways the internet mob steamrolls over people. There's lots of names that have acquired negative stereotypes before. In my lifetime the name "Mike" at one point basically meant asshole (not so much anymore) and "Bob" basically meant boring, and "Patel" was a catchall negative for anyone from India. There's even research on some of the nuances of the phenomenon. [1] This isn't an aspect of internet mobs, it's an aspect of human nature, or at least society in general. The Internet may shine a light on our flaws, and provide some new outlets for them, but it doesn't really create new ones, we brought them with us, like settlers from Europe going to the "New World" to escape the plague only to find they brought it with them. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1996.9713993?journalCode=vsoc20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1996.97...
  - Jach 5y ago
    It's just some lingo, dog. (Not actually calling you a dog.)
  - wpietri 5y ago
    People are able to distinguish between "Karen" and "a Karen". It's no more of a problem than my dad had with people distinguishing between his name "Bill" and "a bill".
  - _lnwk 5y ago
    Unrelated, but I live in Poland and there's similar thing related to names. Stereotypical Janusz and Grażyna are boomers, Karyna means a poor woman that's not exactly educated, and so on. It is not only American phenomenon.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    I don't live in an English country either and we have our own equivalent male and female names. This is basically a common stereotype being so universally seen as negative that it becomes an insult. Not great because some people actually have that name (and most of them don't deserve this association), but then again a person's annoying behaviour isn't the worst reason for negative labels. Like always you can insult and hurt people with "clean" language and use vulgar words in non-offensive ways. But say what you want, I'll keep calling "smart" technology trash ;)
    - antifa 5y ago
      "Smart" these days often feels like it really means "smart enough to subvert the user's interests".
- floren 5y ago
  "Smart" is to contracts as "Democratic" is to country names
lr4444lr 5y ago
Well, non-repudiation is not the same thing as non-reversibility. The former is part of a Smart Contract. Unfortunately, most (all?) cryptocurrencies make you take the latter too.
denton-scratch 5y ago
Really? I would have thought that a "bulletproof" contract is better than a vague one, precisely because the latter is more likely to be litigated. What's the value of having a contract, if you have to go to court to find out what it means? Of course, I don't want a bulletproof contract imposed on me. It's better if "our standard contractual terms" are vague, so that I can sue suppliers. But if it's a private, custom contract, then I really need to know beyond doubt what it means. My problem with blockchain "contracts" is that they don't seem to be able to affect (or be affected by) the real world - fiat bank accounts, delivery of goods in working order, etc. They only seem to affect digital pictures of monkeys. I suppose that simply means I don't "get it".
- otterley 5y ago
  > What's the value of having a contract, if you have to go to court to find out what it means? The vast majority of business is performed under implicit or explicit contracts without any disputes whatsoever. We’re talking billions of interactions per day. Courts are there for the rare occasion when a dispute occurs. There are many kinds of disputes, but one occurs when there is a complex agreement that was drafted either vaguely or incorrectly. This happens because human beings are imperfect; unforeseeable events occur; and because the language in which the contract was drafted might be vague or capable of multiple interpretations. Court hearings give the litigants the opportunity to provide evidence and context so that a judge can decide the fairest outcome. So we don’t need courts to do business, but they exist because we need some peaceful way of resolving disputes. The alternative is violence.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    In professional live, when you are talking contractual provisions, after signsture, and during disputes the relationship is already ruined in most cases. And those conflicts are hardly ever litigated.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Nearly all major commercial contracts have an arbitration clause, so it's true that those conflicts are rarely litigated. "Disputes" are expected, but they go to arbitration. That doesn't at all mean that any relationships are ruined. There is a whole industry of arbitrators for hire. They are usually specialised in some field of business, so they don't need bringing up to speed. And they're all experienced lawyers. The work is nearly all paperwork - submissions, affidavits, disclosures. There is rarely a face-to-face hearing. It's more like doing accounts-receivable than sueing someone's ass. "Just business", as some mobster might have said.

by remram 5y ago

I never got why we call those things "smart". It just seems like a dumber, more pedantic kind of contract. The kind that can take into account intent via the courthouse mechanism is smarter.

8bitben 5y ago

Turns out unfettered immutability isn't the holy grail it was made out to be

wpietri 5y ago
Depends on the audience. This sort of immutability is still deeply loved by the blockchain idealists and the criminals. And more casually by all the people who love them some victim-blaming.

alpaca128 5y ago

I actually like this kind of naming nowadays, it tells you right away how trustworthy it is. Smart is becoming the Karen of the tech industry.

egeozcan 5y ago
As a person who never lived in an English-speaking country, associating Karen (or any name really) with such a bad personality has always made my "be nice" alarm bells ring. Truly sorry for the digression, just wanted to know what others think, and not blaming you or anything. Spoken languages are weird, even weirder than cryptocurrency contracts with accidental bad logic - the weird logic in spoken languages seems somehow desired.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  You are right, of course. Imagine how shitty is must be to be named Karen and have millions of people one day start using your name as an insult. Just one of the hundreds of ways the internet mob steamrolls over people.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    It wasn't fun being an Adolf in the beginning of the previous century =) These things tend to happen.
  - nlitened 5y ago
    That had happened to Dicks before though.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    >hundreds of ways the internet mob steamrolls over people. There's lots of names that have acquired negative stereotypes before. In my lifetime the name "Mike" at one point basically meant asshole (not so much anymore) and "Bob" basically meant boring, and "Patel" was a catchall negative for anyone from India. There's even research on some of the nuances of the phenomenon. [1] This isn't an aspect of internet mobs, it's an aspect of human nature, or at least society in general. The Internet may shine a light on our flaws, and provide some new outlets for them, but it doesn't really create new ones, we brought them with us, like settlers from Europe going to the "New World" to escape the plague only to find they brought it with them. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1996.9713993?journalCode=vsoc20 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1996.97...
- Jach 5y ago
  It's just some lingo, dog. (Not actually calling you a dog.)
- wpietri 5y ago
  People are able to distinguish between "Karen" and "a Karen". It's no more of a problem than my dad had with people distinguishing between his name "Bill" and "a bill".
- _lnwk 5y ago
  Unrelated, but I live in Poland and there's similar thing related to names. Stereotypical Janusz and Grażyna are boomers, Karyna means a poor woman that's not exactly educated, and so on. It is not only American phenomenon.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  I don't live in an English country either and we have our own equivalent male and female names. This is basically a common stereotype being so universally seen as negative that it becomes an insult. Not great because some people actually have that name (and most of them don't deserve this association), but then again a person's annoying behaviour isn't the worst reason for negative labels. Like always you can insult and hurt people with "clean" language and use vulgar words in non-offensive ways. But say what you want, I'll keep calling "smart" technology trash ;)
  - antifa 5y ago
    "Smart" these days often feels like it really means "smart enough to subvert the user's interests".
floren 5y ago
"Smart" is to contracts as "Democratic" is to country names

lr4444lr 5y ago

Well, non-repudiation is not the same thing as non-reversibility. The former is part of a Smart Contract. Unfortunately, most (all?) cryptocurrencies make you take the latter too.

denton-scratch 5y ago

Really? I would have thought that a "bulletproof" contract is better than a vague one, precisely because the latter is more likely to be litigated. What's the value of having a contract, if you have to go to court to find out what it means? Of course, I don't want a bulletproof contract imposed on me. It's better if "our standard contractual terms" are vague, so that I can sue suppliers. But if it's a private, custom contract, then I really need to know beyond doubt what it means. My problem with blockchain "contracts" is that they don't seem to be able to affect (or be affected by) the real world - fiat bank accounts, delivery of goods in working order, etc. They only seem to affect digital pictures of monkeys. I suppose that simply means I don't "get it".

otterley 5y ago
> What's the value of having a contract, if you have to go to court to find out what it means? The vast majority of business is performed under implicit or explicit contracts without any disputes whatsoever. We’re talking billions of interactions per day. Courts are there for the rare occasion when a dispute occurs. There are many kinds of disputes, but one occurs when there is a complex agreement that was drafted either vaguely or incorrectly. This happens because human beings are imperfect; unforeseeable events occur; and because the language in which the contract was drafted might be vague or capable of multiple interpretations. Court hearings give the litigants the opportunity to provide evidence and context so that a judge can decide the fairest outcome. So we don’t need courts to do business, but they exist because we need some peaceful way of resolving disputes. The alternative is violence.
- hef19898 5y ago
  In professional live, when you are talking contractual provisions, after signsture, and during disputes the relationship is already ruined in most cases. And those conflicts are hardly ever litigated.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Nearly all major commercial contracts have an arbitration clause, so it's true that those conflicts are rarely litigated. "Disputes" are expected, but they go to arbitration. That doesn't at all mean that any relationships are ruined. There is a whole industry of arbitrators for hire. They are usually specialised in some field of business, so they don't need bringing up to speed. And they're all experienced lawyers. The work is nearly all paperwork - submissions, affidavits, disclosures. There is rarely a face-to-face hearing. It's more like doing accounts-receivable than sueing someone's ass. "Just business", as some mobster might have said.