Code as Law: How Bitcoin Could Decentralize the Courtroom

[cryptocurrencylive]

Code as Law: How Bitcoin Could Decentralize the Courtroom


http://motherboard.vice.com/read/code-as-law-how-bitcoin-could-decentralize-the-courtroom

[franky1]

pfft

The vending machine is a simple example. The machine holds onto the snack until it receives payment. But once a user slips in some money and selects from an array of snacks, the selection pops out. The code executes when a payment is made. The deal is between you and the machine.

a vending machine is a good example but the use if bitcoins is bad..

a bitcoin vnding machine would have QR codes for each product. you dont dlip in funds then choose a product. you simple send funds to the QR code that represents a product.

now onto courtrooms - jury get 1 satoshi each, the judge gets 13 satoshi's so that he can over rule the verdict or to solidify a accurate verdict or a split decision.

mark karpeles guilty or not guilty of fraud - jury and judge to send coin to decide (addresses are not real for example use only)
not guilty - 1N0tgu1ltyaddr3s5
guilty 5yr sentance - 1gu1lty5yrsaddr3s5
guilty 10yr sentance - 1gu1lty10yrsaddr3s5
guilty 25yr sentance - 1gu1lty25yrsaddr3s5

now isnt that simple.

[InwardContour]

pfft

The vending machine is a simple example. The machine holds onto the snack until it receives payment. But once a user slips in some money and selects from an array of snacks, the selection pops out. The code executes when a payment is made. The deal is between you and the machine.

a vending machine is a good example but the use if bitcoins is bad..

a bitcoin vnding machine would have QR codes for each product. you dont dlip in funds then choose a product. you simple send funds to the QR code that represents a product.

now onto courtrooms - jury get 1 satoshi each, the judge gets 13 satoshi's so that he can over rule the verdict or to solidify a accurate verdict or a split decision.

mark karpeles guilty or not guilty of fraud - jury and judge to send coin to decide (addresses are not real for example use only)
not guilty - 1N0tgu1ltyaddr3s5
guilty 5yr sentance - 1gu1lty5yrsaddr3s5
guilty 10yr sentance - 1gu1lty10yrsaddr3s5
guilty 25yr sentance - 1gu1lty25yrsaddr3s5

now isnt that simple.

In other words the judge can simply make a decision (for your example)

This system would not work as in criminal cases the jury must make a unanimous decision, meaning that they all must agree.  This system would make things more complicated as the judge can simply ask the jurors how they voted after they read their verdict.

Defendants are guaranteed the right to a trial by a jury of his peers by the constitution so determining if someone is guilty strictly by "code" would never work.

[ixne]

How is this less complicated than the current system where the jury just votes?

[InwardContour]

How is this less complicated than the current system where the jury just votes?

It is not less complicated and it would not work because people have the right to have a jury hear their case.

[TheTruth4]

The types of cases cryptography would be good at resolving generally don't reach trial anyways. Where the contract is clear the parties arrive at a settlement between themselves because the courts decision is easily predictable. The problems generally arise with issues unforeseen in the drafting of the contract.

[tigeRshoes]

This is an idea proposed and propagated by people who've never been in a courtroom and never seen a contract dispute. We have tons of ways of recording contracts. The disputes arise from different interpretations of terms, or issues left unspecified and left open to interpretation.

[unexecuted]

Very cool that this type of thing is being reported by larger media outlets.

[brian_23452]

When the only tool you have is a hammer.....

Seriously, why can't we just accept that bitcoin is very, very good at doing exactly what it was designed to do (allow irreversible transfers of funds between parties without the need for a trusted third party) and leave it at that?  Why do we have to try and shoehorn every damn thing we can think of into it?

[PalmerLaura]

Very cool that this type of thing is being reported by larger media outlets.

Vice is pretty sensationalist, isn't it? They post what gets them viewers.

[cccarnation]

Very cool that this type of thing is being reported by larger media outlets.

Vice is pretty sensationalist, isn't it? They post what gets them viewers.

They're in that weird spot between random blog and huffington post. This was a pretty good article though.

[BADecker]

Probably the most important words in this topic are "code as Law." Here's why.

The United States, Canada and Britain, along with Australia, are common law nations. The CODE is not computer program scripting. Rather, it is the so-called laws that are made by governments. We need to learn that government laws are not laws. Rather, they are code. Try untangling government legal codes some time. It's harder that reverse engineering a computer script.

IF A PERSON IN A COMMON LAW COUNTRY HAS NOT CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO THE CODES OF A GOVERNMENT, THEN THE CODE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM AS A LAW.

So, why is it that we have to obey the laws of the country or the State? It's because government tricks us into make agreements with them through the words we use and the government papers we sign without understanding. For example. If you ever used an attorney for something, did you know that an attorney is an officer of the court? Did you know that the attorney's first obligation is to the court and not to you? If the judge says jump, the attorney needs to jump, and maybe on the way up ask, "How high?" The attorney's last obligation is to you.

Under common law, if you haven't entered into agreements with government by what you have said or signed, the only laws you are obligated to obey are:
1. Harm nobody;
2. Don't damage any property that is not yours;
3. Fulfill your contractual obligations.
That's it, PERIOD. The courts get you through #3. NOTE: If you are incorporated with a corporation, you are in contract with government who gave you permission to incorporate.

If you are interested in getting out from under all the thumbs of the government's non-law codes - like traffic tickets, and income taxes, and whatever the requirement government may have laid on you - and if you want to make a lot of money off of government at the same time, listen to the audios and the videos on the following three websites. If you have a situation, contact Karl.

http://www.broadmind.org/

http://www.unkommonlaw.co.uk/

http://www.myprivateaudio.com/Karl-Lentz.html

There is a lot of "wasted" time and space on those audios and videos before you get to the nuggets of gold, but be patient. The rewards are great. They have to do with getting governments off our back so that we can use Bitcoin to get the banks out of our finances.

[franky1]

not guilty - 1N0tgu1ltyaddr3s5
guilty 5yr sentance - 1gu1lty5yrsaddr3s5
guilty 10yr sentance - 1gu1lty10yrsaddr3s5
guilty 25yr sentance - 1gu1lty25yrsaddr3s5

In other words the judge can simply make a decision (for your example)

This system would not work as in criminal cases the jury must make a unanimous decision, meaning that they all must agree.  This system would make things more complicated as the judge can simply ask the jurors how they voted after they read their verdict.

Defendants are guaranteed the right to a trial by a jury of his peers by the constitution so determining if someone is guilty strictly by "code" would never work.

my example was just about how to log the verdict. no need to knit pick the finer details of jury's discussions before they vote, or judges powers after.. it was simply to show that logging the verdict is as simple as sending coin to an address.

[murraypaul]

Probably the most important words in this topic are "code as Law." Here's why.

The United States, Canada and Britain, along with Australia, are common law nations. The CODE is not computer program scripting. Rather, it is the so-called laws that are made by governments.

That is exactly the wrong definition of common law.
Common law is that which does not derive from any known government statute, but from historical usage and previous court decisions.

Common law (also known as case law or precedent) is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch.

There are very few common law offences left in most common law countries, they having been replaced with statutory equivalents.

IF A PERSON IN A COMMON LAW COUNTRY HAS NOT CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO THE CODES OF A GOVERNMENT, THEN THE CODE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM AS A LAW.

This is, it should hardly need to be said, wrong.

Under common law, if you haven't entered into agreements with government by what you have said or signed, the only laws you are obligated to obey are:
1. Harm nobody;
2. Don't damage any property that is not yours;
3. Fulfill your contractual obligations.
That's it, PERIOD. The courts get you through #3. NOTE: If you are incorporated with a corporation, you are in contract with government who gave you permission to incorporate.

As is this.
What is it that you think the phrase 'common law' means?

[murraypaul]

my example was just about how to log the verdict. no need to knit pick the finer details of jury's discussions before they vote, or judges powers after.. it was simply to show that logging the verdict is as simple as sending coin to an address.

How is that 'simple', compared to just asking the jury?

[BADecker]

Probably the most important words in this topic are "code as Law." Here's why.

The United States, Canada and Britain, along with Australia, are common law nations. The CODE is not computer program scripting. Rather, it is the so-called laws that are made by governments.

That is exactly the wrong definition of common law.
Common law is that which does not derive from any known government statute, but from historical usage and previous court decisions.

Common law (also known as case law or precedent) is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch.

There are very few common law offences left in most common law countries, they having been replaced with statutory equivalents.

IF A PERSON IN A COMMON LAW COUNTRY HAS NOT CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO THE CODES OF A GOVERNMENT, THEN THE CODE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM AS A LAW.

This is, it should hardly need to be said, wrong.

Under common law, if you haven't entered into agreements with government by what you have said or signed, the only laws you are obligated to obey are:
1. Harm nobody;
2. Don't damage any property that is not yours;
3. Fulfill your contractual obligations.
That's it, PERIOD. The courts get you through #3. NOTE: If you are incorporated with a corporation, you are in contract with government who gave you permission to incorporate.

As is this.
What is it that you think the phrase 'common law' means?

Common law is essentially tradition, and usually local tradition. Its greatest formal example is in the Maxims of Law, which can be found in many places on the Internet, such as http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/bouvier/maxims.shtml.

Common law is also a term that has been codified into a separate thing from the original common law. It includes the results of court cases. However, to use the codified common law, one must step out of the original common law, except when he uses the examples of codified common law without the citations or references to it the "argument" he uses.

This isn't my idea. The three websites I listed in my https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=677338.msg7716631#msg7716631 post, describe how Karl Lentz is helping people all over the place fight in the courts outside of the government "system," using original common law, within the basic 3 areas of original common law:
1. Harm nobody;
2. Don't damage any property that is not yours;
3. Fulfill your contractual obligations.

Nobody is expected to understand this if he/she has been in court. The more a person has been in court, the harder it will be for him/her to understand this. It took Karl 9 years of constant legal study, and a lot of coaching by members of the legal community, plus a bunch of special circumstances, to find out this important, almost completely hidden, truth.

The thing that is destroying the freedom of people is the fact that they are unfamiliar with the ways to understand and use original, non-governmental common law. If the people were completely using original common law, there would be no need for attorneys, government would be tiny, we wouldn't have the U.S. interfering in the affairs of all kinds of other countries, there wouldn't be any such thing as income taxes or central banks, and people would rule as REAL, LITERAL kings and queens on their own land.

Listen to the way Karl says it in the websites in my post above. Check the law out. Realize that codes are not law except that a person agrees that they are law for him (Often a person says things to government and in court that let the court treat him/her as though he/she were under the jurisdiction of the court, and the person doesn't even know that he/she said such.). Get out from under the thumb of government and the banks. Let Bitcoin thrive.

[murraypaul]

Probably the most important words in this topic are "code as Law." Here's why.

The United States, Canada and Britain, along with Australia, are common law nations. The CODE is not computer program scripting. Rather, it is the so-called laws that are made by governments.

That is exactly the wrong definition of common law.
Common law is that which does not derive from any known government statute, but from historical usage and previous court decisions.

Common law (also known as case law or precedent) is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch.

There are very few common law offences left in most common law countries, they having been replaced with statutory equivalents.

IF A PERSON IN A COMMON LAW COUNTRY HAS NOT CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO THE CODES OF A GOVERNMENT, THEN THE CODE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM AS A LAW.

This is, it should hardly need to be said, wrong.

Under common law, if you haven't entered into agreements with government by what you have said or signed, the only laws you are obligated to obey are:
1. Harm nobody;
2. Don't damage any property that is not yours;
3. Fulfill your contractual obligations.
That's it, PERIOD. The courts get you through #3. NOTE: If you are incorporated with a corporation, you are in contract with government who gave you permission to incorporate.

As is this.
What is it that you think the phrase 'common law' means?

Common law is essentially tradition, and usually local tradition. Its greatest formal example is in the Maxims of Law, which can be found in many places on the Internet, such as http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/bouvier/maxims.shtml.

You wrote: The United States, Canada and Britain, along with Australia, are common law nations
'Common Law' used here means the English common law system, used by many ex-colonies and others, as opposed to civil law jurisdictions, such as France.
It predates the link you have given by many hundreds of years.

Common law
Since 1189, English law has been described as a common law rather than a civil law system; in other words, no major codification of the law has taken place and judicial precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive. This may be a legacy of the Norman conquest of England, when a number of legal concepts and institutions from Norman law were introduced to England. In the early centuries of English common law, the justices and judges were responsible for adapting the system of writs to meet everyday needs, applying a mixture of precedent and common sense to build up a body of internally consistent law. An example is the Law Merchant derived from the "Pie-Powder" Courts, named from a corruption of the French pieds-poudrés ("dusty feet") implying ad hoc marketplace courts. As the Parliament of England became ever more established and influential, legislation gradually overtook judicial law-making such that today, judges are only able to innovate in certain very narrowly defined areas.

In 1276, the concept of "time immemorial" often applied in common law was defined as being any time before 6 July 1189 (i.e. before Richard I's accession to the English throne).

The link you have given is not a definition of common law.

Listen to the way Karl says it in the websites in my post above. Check the law out. Realize that codes are not law except that a person agrees that they are law for him

This is just as wrong as if I were to say that gravity doesn't affect me unless I agree it does.
Commit a crime and get caught, and you will be punished, however loudly you claim that the law doesn't apply to you.

This...

IF A PERSON IN A COMMON LAW COUNTRY HAS NOT CONTRACTUALLY AGREED TO THE CODES OF A GOVERNMENT, THEN THE CODE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM AS A LAW.

...is rubbish. It is simply wrong.

[BADecker]

...is rubbish. It is simply wrong.

Now it is you who are wrong. It seems that you want to almost skirt the point. The point is, listen to Karl. See the successes he and others have been having. Consider that it is only since the 1950s or so that the attorney and judicial systems have become bloated, the reason being that they have convinced or coerced the people out from under common law into civil law. The true, basic, original common law isn't dead. It is simply almost empty of users.

Consider a group of families living in a community, without any formal government system. They are simply living in close proximity to one another. The law is simple for them. It is: harm nobody; damage the property of nobody else; live up to your agreements; if you accidentally damage someone in some way, whether you know it or not, when you become aware of it, make it right. That's it! There is nothing else... at least not until the people as a group agree on something else. But then it starts to become civil law. The common law that we mainly exercise in the United States is really civil common law. It is a form of common law that has been adopted by the civil law government, to look like common law when it really is NOT, so that the government can craftily drag the people out from under the REAL common law, and turn the country into a civil law nation.

Believe what you want. But do yourself a favor and listen to the audios at the three links for Karl, the links in my post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=677338.msg7716631#msg7716631.

Thank you for responding, however. Even though you are trying to throw some bad light on the REAL common law by advocating that I am wrong about it, your posts are keeping this topic near the top of the forum, where lots more people will get a chance to view it. Some of them will use Karl's info to beat the "system."

[murraypaul]

Thank you for responding, however. Even though you are trying to throw some bad light on the REAL common law by advocating that I am wrong about it, your posts are keeping this topic near the top of the forum, where lots more people will get a chance to view it. Some of them will use Karl's info to beat the "system."

I bet they won't.
If you actually try to apply any of his ideas, you'll see exactly how far you get.
He either believes what he says, in which case he is a fool, or doesn't, in which case he is a charlatan.
If you break the law of the land and get caught, you will be fined/locked up as appropriate, regardless of whether you recognize their jurisdiction or not.

When people talk about 'common law countries', or 'common law jurisdictions', they mean places whose legal systems are based on the English one. That is what the term means. If you want to say something else, you should use a different term. There is nothing about the English common law system which says that you are only obliged to follow those laws you 'contractually' agree to.

[misterbowls]

When the only tool you have is a hammer.....

Seriously, why can't we just accept that bitcoin is very, very good at doing exactly what it was designed to do (allow irreversible transfers of funds between parties without the need for a trusted third party) and leave it at that?  Why do we have to try and shoehorn every damn thing we can think of into it?

You're right, Bitcoin doesn't need the added baggage.

Thats why we have altcoins/DACs.  Check out wiki.bitshares.org for a great example. 

It doesn't mean everything has a better decentralized implementation for that which is possible, but it is a lot of fun to push it !