Nick Szabo  🔑

"Code is law." "Sometimes laws should be broken." Discuss. @VladZamfir @VitalikButerin @TokenHash @_Kevin_Pham @CleanApp @NickSzabo4 @derose @el33th4xor

Salus Publica Suprema Lex (Public safety is the highest law) Necessity does not acknowledge any law. This is why Scipio killed Gracchus in the name of the law, stating "Now the consul has betrayed the state, let every man who wishes to uphold the laws follow me!"

so #CodeisLaw, insofar as it can maintain itself, but when under true crisis (such as the reforms that Gracchus was implementing in SPQR), or a hacker draining the DAO, the necessity of the decision for public safety of the community becomes the praxis of the law.

Bitcoin has never done a fork to reverse unintended consequences of a smart contract, however large, and has a ruthless dogma against doing so. Thus its much smaller argument surface and much greater market value.

That's because Bitcoin's pursuit of "astronomical improvement in FINANCE" has focused on digital assets and digital asset control, which is far easier to code/implement than even the easiest #autorepoauto K w/ massive real world integration.

Common sense as well as wisdom to tackle and even master the easy things before tackling the much harder and more advanced things. Especially when the easier things, money and many kinds of purely financial contracts, alone have $trillions in potential value.

"Money" is NOT easy. It's arguably the hardest and most complex socio-legal institution that humans have designed. Both exceedingly rational & irrational; global & hyper-territorial; etc. #AutoRepoAuto is the easier thing. Says who? Szabo'94.

Nope I didn't say that, and certainly don't now believe that.