![]() Private “write your own law ” means RoboCops and/or radical restriction of existing contractual rights. Even so called “private law” enforcement regimes of today, like enforcement of choice-of-law/choice-of-forum contractual provisions, or domestic/transnational arbitration, ultimately rely on public law enforcement mechanisms (in the case of cross-border arbitration, for instance, this is the mechanism of the New York Convention for the recognition and enforceability of foreign arbitral awards, etc.). Private en-force-ment (on-chain/off-chain) is a MAJOR departure from the status quo. From a legal perspective, the most significant part of that posture is self-en- force-ment (private remedial mechanisms). But as an assumption, it seems totally unnecessary to the crypto project, and often, just gets in the way.īlockchains are “write your own law” in the same way the ability to manufacture vending machines or create locks with arbitrary structures is the ability to “write your own law” it’s the ability to write your own incentive mechanism, sure, but law continues to exist and influence our behavior alongside it.īlockchain “write your own law” is not just incentive design, or some refreshed version of “freedom of contract.” Since the first time Szabo invoked the vending machine as a prototypical so-called “smart contract,” CryptoLaw was conceived as a self-enforcement mechanism. ![]() ![]() It’s not clear why crypto theorists invoke “immutable physics” unless it’s just a core premise of some crypto objectivist philosophy and/or operates as a background assumption. This isn’t just one person’s subjective view of the world: there’s a huge and growing body of rigorous literature on this, including entire fields like Science and Technology Studies (STS). One’s ability to build a fusion reactor, or build a world supercomputer, or … - are all bounded by human value systems, roughly translated, and imperfectly scripted into things like … law. Think of the most “settled,” most “objectively true,” most “incontrovertibly fixed” physical phenomena - materials science (what is H2O?), electro-magnetism (what is electricity?), optics (what is light?), and one quickly sees that these aren’t just contested philosophical riddles these are actually incredibly complex and evolving socio- legal constructs too. The time scales at which these “laws” mutate may be so long (from the perspective of an ordinary human observer) that they *seem* immutable. ![]() “Laws of physics” are human constructs, and as such are socio-legally bounded and inherently mutable. “actions ultimately dictated by (truly immutable) laws of physics” It suffuses the Ethereum Yellowpaper, and is traceable directly to Szabo, which is why we keep coming back to him to get him to acknowledge the theoretical dead end that he crafted for crypto (for make no mistake about it, it is a theoretical dead end, as Vlad and many others have argued). You’re not the only one who pushed for that framing. But adding this for context to preempt and defuse more of the simplistic “CleanApp is for legal control/regulation/intervention” tropes. You’re a voracious reader so you know all this. See here, and here, and here - and the sum total of the effort at Crypto Law Review, including our Crypto for Regulators series. We completely agree, and a big part of our decision to intervene in crypto discourse was precisely to dispel the counter-productive Crypto v. “I don’t think this framing of blockchains vs law as some kind of Great Battle To Determine the Future of How Society Does Dispute Resolution is productive (and yes, I am aware that I myself used to promote such framing ~5 years ago).” “I don’t think this framing of blockchains vs law as some kind of Great Battle To Determine the Future of How Society Does Dispute Resolution is productive (and yes, I am aware that I myself used to promote such framing ~5 years ago).” CleanApp’s Response to Buterin re: Law & Physics
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