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Isn't fuzziness a feature of most legal codes? Treating the law like an absolute immutable contract sounds anathema to a healthy judicial system. I'm not sure

Isn't fuzziness a feature of most legal codes? Treating the law like an absolute immutable contract sounds anathema to a healthy judicial system. I'm not sure why some technologists have such a fascination with legalism. I'm not against the idea of digital government and having laws be distributed under a free documentation license with the ability for citizens to discuss and amend laws. A standard version control and issue tracker model sounds much more appropriate, however. Perhaps even just email and diffs, so as to have a barrier to entry.

ris 11y ago
Yes, there are some things that make me uneasy about this attitude of Ethereum being used as a kind of law. The problem is, traditional law has a some room for the idea of something being "reasonable" or not. I fear it would be quite easy for an disreputable dealer to draw up contracts in code in an obfuscated way, perhaps having hidden subversive behaviour, or clauses that behave in a way different from how a brief inspection would suggest. This is of course possible in standard law too, hiding clauses in impenetrable legalese. However, in standard law (as far as I know), such tricks don't tend to stand up in court as the behaviour is considered "unreasonable". Ethereum, being self-enforcing, gives no recourse to victims of tricksters. It's all set in stone.
bachback 11y ago
Good observation. There is a continuum in legal language between expressive power in the natural language and the legal formal language. "Absolute immutable contracts" are however very desirable in many cases where people interact with or through machines. Consider that modern computers, in terms of the hardware are extremely deterministic on a macro level, but a lot of the software is fuzzy (UI).
- davidgerard 11y ago
  If there is a market for these, why don't they exist already?
gweinberg 11y ago
No, it's a defect. It's probably futile attempting to write "perfect" law, and probably for the best that jurists look to the law's intent rather than always trying to apply the law literally. But how can it be a good thing if people honestly do not and cannot know what is and is not legal?
- jevgeni 11y ago
  Ambiguity of legal language doesn't mean you cannot figure out if a certain phenomenon is legal or not. For example, how would one write insurance contracts? Is it possible to write out every single eventuality? No, so the solution is generic language. There are of course badly worded laws, but it does not mean that everything has to be concretely written out.
ewzimm 11y ago
Ethereum is a currency and enforcement system built for computers. Initially, ambiguity isn't a feature because it's meant for contracts and things which are meant to be precise. Room for ambiguity in ethereum can be added later, once computers are intelligent enough to negotiate ambiguity. The main feature of this system is removing the need for enforcement. Think about how much goes into maintaining police, bounty hunters, debt collection services, reposession services, prisons. In many people's opinions, if enforcing a contract is possible through software rather than physical force, software is always preferable. It brings its own issues of course and isn't instantly perfect, but the possibility of a world with much less need for violence to enforce the law is worth pursuing. The biggest advantage of this is that it can be completely automated. Corporations can be programmed to run themselves and negotiate enforcable contracts with each other without any human intervention. You could have a personal digital assistant which interacts with other digital assistants to manage your finances and investments, and everything can be enforced by software. As long as enough people are running free software, everyone can share mutually beneficial enhancements to the algorithms which govern their behavior. You might not want this kind of thing today instead of a trained financial advisor, but 30 years from now, it's likely that software will be better able to make financial decisions than any unaugmented human. Even more important would be movement of commodities around the world between people who need them. Instead of relying on profit-motivated markets to distribute goods, we could have optimal algorithms for moving resources where they're most needed, and enforcement of these agreements will not depend on the strength of a nation's military or economic power but rather smart contracts which are perfectly enforcable whether they belong to a first or third-world nation. None of this comes free, and there are real challenges to overcome. People will try to exploit them for personal profit. Software will have bugs and make bad decisions. Those are some of the growing pains we'll need to work through to get to a more fair, less violent world.
- mempko 11y ago
  You misunderstand why contract enforcement leads to violence. In the real world, contracts among equals are always fungable and rarely enforced with violence. It is different when the contracts are between powerful and the not so powerful. Violence propagates down. Ethereum, by automating contract enforcement is going to end up being a tool for the powerful against the weak. A tool which brings the cost of lowering contract enforcement will lead to powerful organizations using Contracts more often against the weak.
mode80 11y ago
Fuzziness is a feature when you benefit and a bug when you get burned. I'd like an option with no ambiguity.

ris 11y ago

Yes, there are some things that make me uneasy about this attitude of Ethereum being used as a kind of law. The problem is, traditional law has a some room for the idea of something being "reasonable" or not. I fear it would be quite easy for an disreputable dealer to draw up contracts in code in an obfuscated way, perhaps having hidden subversive behaviour, or clauses that behave in a way different from how a brief inspection would suggest. This is of course possible in standard law too, hiding clauses in impenetrable legalese. However, in standard law (as far as I know), such tricks don't tend to stand up in court as the behaviour is considered "unreasonable". Ethereum, being self-enforcing, gives no recourse to victims of tricksters. It's all set in stone.

bachback 11y ago

Good observation. There is a continuum in legal language between expressive power in the natural language and the legal formal language. "Absolute immutable contracts" are however very desirable in many cases where people interact with or through machines. Consider that modern computers, in terms of the hardware are extremely deterministic on a macro level, but a lot of the software is fuzzy (UI).

davidgerard 11y ago
If there is a market for these, why don't they exist already?

gweinberg 11y ago

No, it's a defect. It's probably futile attempting to write "perfect" law, and probably for the best that jurists look to the law's intent rather than always trying to apply the law literally. But how can it be a good thing if people honestly do not and cannot know what is and is not legal?

jevgeni 11y ago
Ambiguity of legal language doesn't mean you cannot figure out if a certain phenomenon is legal or not. For example, how would one write insurance contracts? Is it possible to write out every single eventuality? No, so the solution is generic language. There are of course badly worded laws, but it does not mean that everything has to be concretely written out.

ewzimm 11y ago

Ethereum is a currency and enforcement system built for computers. Initially, ambiguity isn't a feature because it's meant for contracts and things which are meant to be precise. Room for ambiguity in ethereum can be added later, once computers are intelligent enough to negotiate ambiguity. The main feature of this system is removing the need for enforcement. Think about how much goes into maintaining police, bounty hunters, debt collection services, reposession services, prisons. In many people's opinions, if enforcing a contract is possible through software rather than physical force, software is always preferable. It brings its own issues of course and isn't instantly perfect, but the possibility of a world with much less need for violence to enforce the law is worth pursuing. The biggest advantage of this is that it can be completely automated. Corporations can be programmed to run themselves and negotiate enforcable contracts with each other without any human intervention. You could have a personal digital assistant which interacts with other digital assistants to manage your finances and investments, and everything can be enforced by software. As long as enough people are running free software, everyone can share mutually beneficial enhancements to the algorithms which govern their behavior. You might not want this kind of thing today instead of a trained financial advisor, but 30 years from now, it's likely that software will be better able to make financial decisions than any unaugmented human. Even more important would be movement of commodities around the world between people who need them. Instead of relying on profit-motivated markets to distribute goods, we could have optimal algorithms for moving resources where they're most needed, and enforcement of these agreements will not depend on the strength of a nation's military or economic power but rather smart contracts which are perfectly enforcable whether they belong to a first or third-world nation. None of this comes free, and there are real challenges to overcome. People will try to exploit them for personal profit. Software will have bugs and make bad decisions. Those are some of the growing pains we'll need to work through to get to a more fair, less violent world.

mempko 11y ago
You misunderstand why contract enforcement leads to violence. In the real world, contracts among equals are always fungable and rarely enforced with violence. It is different when the contracts are between powerful and the not so powerful. Violence propagates down. Ethereum, by automating contract enforcement is going to end up being a tool for the powerful against the weak. A tool which brings the cost of lowering contract enforcement will lead to powerful organizations using Contracts more often against the weak.

mode80 11y ago

Fuzziness is a feature when you benefit and a bug when you get burned. I'd like an option with no ambiguity.