Ray, your pictures are great. I hope this and other projects might consider integrating some of your images rather than merely stock or graphic design logos (which are beautiful, too, when done well, but nowhere near as expressive and unique as your work).

We have talked about a reputation system having a larger role for BitShares and/or society. Looks like China is introducing one run by Alibaba and Tencent. It has both financial credit and statist propaganda elements.

http://theantimedia.org/china-just-launched-the-most-frightening-game-ever-and-soon-it-will-be-mandatory/

Great news. Enjoy!

I understand your more measured approach Donkeypong, but to answer you and Chronos:

I don't support drunk driving, but if someone does drive drunk and there are no accidents or harm that's fine.  If someone is being rude  it doesn't mean I support rude behavior.  Does it mean there should be a law against rude behavior?  If so should some people in these forums pay a fine to the government?

Hence it's important to focus on the consequences.  If you drive drunk and you harm another there is a consequence of your action.  It's the same consequences of harming someone when you are not drunk.  There are some people who are just bad or negligent drivers.

In old common law and tort law focusing on consequences would probably be standard principle.   You can challenge others for emotional distress, but that would most likely be a tiny fraction of the compensation you can claim compared to physical harm. 

If you want to change cultural habits and highlight the dangers of drunk driving and make those actions unbecoming in the society that's fine, but you don't need statutory laws for that.  Your just giving up more power to the those that are in government.   Next time you are stopped during these holiday seasons for a DUI checkpoint and are asked to stand on one foot and touch your nose think a little bit more if that's really to protect people from drunk drivers.  Furthermore when a TSA agent starts touching your crotch or your children's at the airport, think if that really is to protect you from terrorists.  In the end the primary benefit for those in government to get public displays of authority is to condition the public into submission.   I mean if they can molest little girls in public at the airport how can you not think those in government are the boss?  In the end it's up to you.  Want to stand on one leg and touch your noise.  Go ahead and obey.  If you have the TSA touching your crotch.  Go ahead and obey.  If you see that happen to an old lady or little girl.  Go ahead and keep silent.  Then we'll all know who the boss is.

It's not fine to drive drunk. Society has a bright-line rule preventing bad behavior and I fully support having such lines as well as reasonable enforcement of them.

Do you seriously believe a legal system can function without statutory laws? That's a very naive view. If you want to strip those away and rely only on tort law, then I see at least four big problems with that.

First, it would be incredibly expensive, so get ready to pay MUCH higher taxes. You would need trials for everything, because in common law there is far more room for interpretation and argumentation than when someone is simply applying code-based statute law. You would need ten times as many courts, judges, juries, and more. That is why, in nearly all areas except for tort and property law (where the courts have been handling these questions for hundreds of years and we rely on past precedent to the best of our ability), states rely on statutes. In civil law countries, there is even more such reliance. That's not purely governmental authority; that's society saying we don't want to pay for this shit so let's just write down what you can and cannot do and let's try our best to enforce these rules fairly.

Second, tort and common law do not cover crimes adequately. That's why we have criminal codes. They are different bodies of law for different situations. Sure, you can sue someone for breaking into your house, but what doctrine would you rely on there? On paper, there is intentional tort law, but intentional torts are unwieldy and it's very difficult to prove a case. That's why it these are so seldom used. 95% of the time, you'd be stuck using negligence as your basis of liability. And so you'd be submitting every case to a jury and asking them to apply their objective "reasonable person" standard. In essence, applying the community standard, did this person fuck up or not? Did the defendant cross society's line or not? Sound familiar? That's the criminal code. That's why we draw a line and enforce it. Because applying a well-written statute is a hell of a lot easier, faster, cheaper, and less subject to legal wrangling.

Third, speaking of the differences between criminal and civil law, you're talking about (in common law countries, at least) a completely different standard of proof that's required. It's much easier to prove a civil case (preponderance of the evidence, probably around 51% certainty) than a criminal one (beyond a reasonable doubt, probably greater than 90% certainty). How are you going to reconcile those? Because if you are relying on civil law to solve all of society's problems, then you're going to "convict" a lot more people than the criminal law system would have convicted.

Fourth, if you are relying on tort law, then most tortfeasors (wrongdoers) would not have the money to pay adverse judgments. Most individual defendants can't pay jack. That's why when a plaintiff brings a lawsuit, there must be a defendant with very deep pockets. If Joe Shmo causes an accident, then you sue Joe Shmo, but more importantly, you also sue Joe Shmo's employer (if he was running an errand for them) or the car manufacturer (if the accident was caused by a defect), etc., etc. Deep pockets fuel the tort system today and it's the reason we have additional consumer protection laws (both civil and criminal statutes, which I know you don't like) to cover other areas that tort law's deep-pockets-free-market approach cannot touch. In other words, the system would break down immediately because there wouldn't be any point in suing individuals. It would be more expensive to bring a lawsuit than it would be worth in the judgment, and that's if you could collect from Joe Shmo, which most of the time you couldn't. And if no one is bringing lawsuits, then Joe Shmo can do whatever he damn well pleases. No rules, no enforcement, no civilization, no society.

So next, you may argue that this whole thing still could work if you had a reputation system. I think a reputation system would be good. But who would end up administering and enforcing that? If it wouldn't be the credit agencies (credit scores) or the courts (record of legal judgments, recordings of alimony, etc.), then you would still need some kind of private company or nonprofit entity (ICANN? Yeah, that worked well) that does so. Two things I'll tell you right now. First, that won't be enough to hold this system together, given the problems above and the lack of any real penalty for anyone who doesn't play by the rules. And second, if you don't have a government or nonprofit overseeing it, or if you have a weak administration, then you're leaving it up to the market to do so, and that's when you get cartels, mafia, and organized crime. Think payday lenders and bail bondsmen financed by drug or oil money.

One way or another, power will fill the vacuum.

Quote from: Xeldal on December 21, 2015, 08:56:19 pm

I reject the idea that having hurt no one, where no individual can make a claim of damages against me, that I may be subject to the violent coercive aggression of a state or government.

So you support drunk drivers, as long as they don't hurt anyone? I think that taking risks with other people's lives is undesirable for society.

I fully agree and I won't join any society that bails people out for stupid shit. That's just money down a hole and it does nothing to make the world any better. Some rules enforce an important code of behavior that society has set, even when (thankfully) there's been no harm done in the immediate instance. I don't always agree with where the lines are drawn; often they are more conservative than I would like. But I can respect that without some such guidelines, some people would crap everywhere and make the world a lot uglier for everyone else. Civilization has its trade-offs, but the alternatives aren't very pretty.

This is a ponzi scheme.

No, it's not. From a certain angle, any kind of insurance is a ponzi scheme of sorts. You have people paying into it, and those continued payments being required so that others can get payouts. But insurance, benefit societies, and community rainy day funds have been around for thousands of years, and their models are not pponzis.

The difference between insurance and Ponzis is that insurance companies can invest and build up the money they get from premiums. Their businesses can sustain themselves based on returns from their investments and current policyholders paying premiums. If they needed to attract new pay-ins in order to have the money to pay claims, etc., then they would be Ponzis. 

You're basically just becoming a gambler with a lot of inventory if you can't rapidly turn it over. 

That's the key. In a low margin business, you must have high volume. That's the only way to make money. And with the price spikes of precious metals, if you're not turning them over quickly, then you are stuck with inventory that can lose a lot of value (or gain it) within days. And then you have the cost of storage, shipping, insurance, etc., which you damn well better figure into your costs. Plus, if you aren't doing enough volume, then your costs have to be higher than other sellers and people will shop around. So the only way for BitShares to engage with this, I think, would be to partner with an established business that already has that cost structure and wouldn't mind adding a bit more volume from us.