Bitcoin Common Law System

[kiba]

Anyone could explain me why would we need a new government now that we have a new, parasitefree, currency?

Who say there must be a new government?

The Common Economic Protocol doesn't exactly aspire to sovereignty or to install itself as the authority. So it will be the case with the Bitcoin Common Laws.

Too often, people misunderstand the purpose of this thread is to create coercive enforcement apparatus as the higher authority on the bitcoin economy. That's not what I am trying to do. I am trying to understand the "laws" as human beings voluntary agreed on in the little dispute cases that arise.

(Do I have to explain myself again and again? Please read the fricking thread!)

[markm]

Quote: "Anyone could explain me why would we need a new government now that we have a new, parasitefree, currency?"

I no longer have the quotes collections I used to use for .sigs, so I cannot recall the exact wording, but the Emperor Paul Muad'dib had a nice one about control the currency and the courts and the rabble can have the rest.

(Might also have been same place where he also enquired but who is to say who are the rabble and who the, uh, non-rabble I guess. Rulers, maybe?)

So basically, even the Emperor could see that currency and courts go together...

-MarkM- (Actually maybe Paul quoted Shaddam about currency and courts then added his enquiry?)

EDIT: google to the rescue:

--
"Control the coinage and the courts—let the rabble have the rest." Thus the Padishah Emperor advises you. And he tells you: "If you want profits, you must rule." There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are the rabble and who are the ruled?"
-Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan

[MoonShadow]

Quote: "Anyone could explain me why would we need a new government now that we have a new, parasitefree, currency?"

I no longer have the quotes collections I used to use for .sigs, so I cannot recall the exact wording, but the Emperor Paul Muad'dib had a nice one about control the currency and the courts and the rabble can have the rest.

(Might also have been same place where he also enquired but who is to say who are the rabble and who the, uh, non-rabble I guess. Rulers, maybe?)

So basically, even the Emperor could see that currency and courts go together...

-Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan

A court system can exist independently from a government, in fact that is preferred.

[markm]

Quote: "A court system can exist independently from a government, in fact that is preferred."

Apparently not by the Padishah Emperor.

-MarkM- (Though all other governments including Paul Muad'Dib doubtless agree with with you? Heh. Maybe Paul might? Arguable...)

Edit: "is preferred", ha ha, nice, reminds me of supreme commander...

[hazek]

A few disputes broke out over the last several weeks in area such as bankruptcy and suspected scamming. We don't have definite laws or procedure on how to deal with trespassers or processing evidence yet.

But I think a couple of details is emerging as far as law goes:

1. Bankrupted person will defer all payments to creditors and wronged parties for the amount that was owned.

2. Those who are suspected of scamming but protest their innocence could pay a 'fine' in case of damning evidence.

Those these laws are not definite as it need some more iteration and more testing to make it work.

I would give it a couple of 'court cases' before something good emerge.

What kind of tyranny is this? Making rules after making a deal?


You make a contract and specify conditions and penalties if either party violates those conditions. The courts may merely decided if a party violated a contract condition or not. Everything else is coercion and tyranny and if we want a principled and virtuous society we should all strongly reject it!

[hazek]

Anyone could explain me why would we need a new government now that we have a new parasite free currency?

Well, you need a government. You.. you just do.

LOL! No you don't!

I mean FFS you have this new commodity BitCoins that you're willing to use as currency that emerged without a government in a complete open non-coercive way and now all of the sudden we can't find agreement in other topics without coercion?! Please stop using your brainwashed mind and learn from what your participating in right now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jvKN64ZT9Q

[myrkul]

Anyone could explain me why would we need a new government now that we have a new parasite free currency?

Well, you need a government. You.. you just do.

LOL! No you don't!

I'm assuming you knew I was making a joke, and that's why you laughed... I have elsewhere (in this thread, I think) revealed that I'm 100% AnCap/Agorist. And outside this thread, linked to UPB, so... yeah. Preaching to the choir.

[hazek]

Ahhhh.. well no, I didn't realize

I'm glad that's the case though

[rebuilder]

What kind of tyranny is this? Making rules after making a deal?


You make a contract and specify conditions and penalties if either party violates those conditions. The courts may merely decided if a party violated a contract condition or not. Everything else is coercion and tyranny and if we want a principled and virtuous society we should all strongly reject it!

As far as I can tell no-one here is proposing any kind of non-voluntary punitive system. I don't know why so many insisting on seeing it that way.

Anyway, this thread is probably done. A better use of time would be to work on a common contract base, ways to trade securely and, if possible, arbitration. By trading securely, I mean doing business in such a way that all parties can prove whether or not the contract has been fulfilled.That's probably the biggest nut to crack.

Of course this still leaves open how to handle "unsolicited" mistreatment - theft of assets by, say, cracking passwords etc. I can't think of much more except trying to secure your coins as well as possible, keeping good logs of everything  (what, exactly?) and working towards being able to actually prove that a specific person has stolen something. Likely that will not always be possible, some losses will simply have to be accepted. I know if I have to choose between arbitrary denouncements of possibly guilty parties or letting some thieves get away scot free, I'll tend to follow the old adage:

"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

Exchange operators would do well to have TOS stating whether or not they will interfere where foul play is suspected. That way no-one can complain if they get their funds frozen or what have you - that becomes a risk one explicitly, knowingly takes when using services that will interfere. To go one better, operators could provide a more detailed outline of the kinds of actions they will undertake and what recourse, if any an accused party has against such action. Keeping to these guidelines would then become another element the operator's trust hinges on.

[breandan81]

I'd just like to point out something that seems obvious to me.  Any central exchange/business selling for bitcoins/private party that reneges on debt, is an actual person, who already lives in a meatspace jurisdiction.  Bitcoin transactions are simply viewed as barter under normal state laws, and there are already bankruptcy systems and court systems.  If we set up a system for the bitcoin community, it is not enforceable without coercion, since we do not have a monopoly on force in any meatspace jurisdiction, attempting to enforce community rules will likely involve things that are technically illegal, and limit acceptance of bitcoin as a whole.  This is all very nice to try to make a working anarchocapitalist platform, but if you want mainstream acceptance we can't set up our own system of laws and courts, real world businesses will simply not participate in such a thing.  It is better to just view this as a parallel market where, while normal laws apply, they are very difficult to enforce, and exercise due caution because of this. 

[rebuilder]

I'd just like to point out something that seems obvious to me.  Any central exchange/business selling for bitcoins/private party that reneges on debt, is an actual person, who already lives in a meatspace jurisdiction.  Bitcoin transactions are simply viewed as barter under normal state laws, and there are already bankruptcy systems and court systems.  If we set up a system for the bitcoin community, it is not enforceable without coercion, since we do not have a monopoly on force in any meatspace jurisdiction, attempting to enforce community rules will likely involve things that are technically illegal, and limit acceptance of bitcoin as a whole.  This is all very nice to try to make a working anarchocapitalist platform, but if you want mainstream acceptance we can't set up our own system of laws and courts, real world businesses will simply not participate in such a thing.  It is better to just view this as a parallel market where, while normal laws apply, they are very difficult to enforce, and exercise due caution because of this. 

I agree that it would be foolish to ignore "meatspace" laws. Those enforcing them will not ignore you. However, as you say, they can be very difficult to enforce, so perhaps we can do something more relevant to the nature of pseudonymous or anonymous trading, instead. Such safeguards will offer no protection from litigation in meatspace, but may offer increased protection to traders who are unable or unwilling to take matters into courts.

[ArsenShnurkov]

When a new government is created it usually leads to creation of a new currency

Each true leader should start his own calendar and religion (like Jesus)

[sturle]

I, personally, think that this idea of some kind of virtual bitcoin common law is extremely naive, a non-starter and simply utter nonsense.

++

We have to abide to our respective national laws.  Believing that we can make a Bitcoin law and somehow enforce it is nonsense.  I.e. an exchange operated in one country would have to follow different laws and regulations than an exchange operated in another country.

[kiba]

We have to abide to our respective national laws.  Believing that we can make a Bitcoin law and somehow enforce it is nonsense.  I.e. an exchange operated in one country would have to follow different laws and regulations than an exchange operated in another country.

Why should bitcoiners care about if you follow national laws or not? Will you provide the goods and services, or will you not?

[breandan81]

This is pretty much my point, if you are a mainstream business person, that is identifiable in real life, you need to observe local laws.  You (the customer) don't have to care about that at all, but you can't set up some sort of bitcoin community law in order to do business using the currency.  In fact, this is sort of a nonsensical discussion anyway, since you have no authority and no ability to enforce such a system, and a system of voluntary contracts would only be enforceable through local courts.  Mainstream businesses will need to do business according to their local laws, that includes bankruptcy protection and all the risk that comes with it, private individuals can rely on bitcoin to be more or less like cash, and simply rely on being under the radar if they choose.  The idea of having a separate system of economic regulations for the bitcoin community is not feasible, however, and if widely supported would just alienate mainstream businesses, because they cannot comply with such a system while still obeying their own laws.  For arguments sake Amazon could accept bitcoin at some point in the future, and it would be fantastic for the currency, but they have business licenses, tax IDs in almost ever US state and lots of other countries, if you think you can somehow make them comply with some sort of bitcoin community law before their other obligations, which are enforced with monopoly of violence in real geographic jurisdictions, you are delusional.  If bitcoin works well, such a parallel legal system will be unenforceable for private transactions as well.  So while I understand the ideals behind this whole discussion, I think it's misguided.  I should add that if you simply mean to set up some sort of community standards system in which reputation counts and violation of the "laws" cause a lowering of "credit rating" that's fine... that's totally doable, and in fact is already being done at bitcoin-otc.

[kiba]

This is pretty much my point, if you are a mainstream business person, that is identifiable in real life, you need to observe local laws.  You (the customer) don't have to care about that at all, but you can't set up some sort of bitcoin community law in order to do business using the currency.  In fact, this is sort of a nonsensical discussion anyway, since you have no authority and no ability to enforce such a system, and a system of voluntary contracts would only be enforceable through local courts.  Mainstream businesses will need to do business according to their local laws, that includes bankruptcy protection and all the risk that comes with it, private individuals can rely on bitcoin to be more or less like cash, and simply rely on being under the radar if they choose.  The idea of having a separate system of economic regulations for the bitcoin community is not feasible, however, and if widely supported would just alienate mainstream businesses, because they cannot comply with such a system while still obeying their own laws.  For arguments sake Amazon could accept bitcoin at some point in the future, and it would be fantastic for the currency, but they have business licenses, tax IDs in almost ever US state and lots of other countries, if you think you can somehow make them comply with some sort of bitcoin community law before their other obligations, which are enforced with monopoly of violence in real geographic jurisdictions, you are delusional.  If bitcoin works well, such a parallel legal system will be unenforceable for private transactions as well.  So while I understand the ideals behind this whole discussion, I think it's misguided.  I should add that if you simply mean to set up some sort of community standards system in which reputation counts and violation of the "laws" cause a lowering of "credit rating" that's fine... that's totally doable, and in fact is already being done at bitcoin-otc.

It isn't unfeasible because some of us are not "mainstream business". We rely solely on our reputation.

[myrkul]

The bitcoin community can enforce compliance with anything we decide in a very simple way:

We don't like what you do with our bitcoins, you don't get any more of our bitcoins.

The best part: Each of us gets to make this decision each time we make a transaction.

[TiagoTiago]

And how will you know who someone is if they don't tell you?

[kiba]

And how will you know who someone is if they don't tell you?

They have no reputation. Nobody trust them.

[TiagoTiago]

That will be an issue for newcomers, even worse if someone got lots of money they want to convert into BTC 'cause they've just learned about it.


I don't think we should be thinking in terms of punishment for the guilty, we should instead focus on educating the innocent.