rishab@dxm.ernet.in writes:
"Force" is not necessarily physical and cannot be equated solely with the monopoly over guns. This whole thing started in the context of governance in cyberspace.
One question I have been thinking about based on the recent discussions with Tim May, Eric Hughes, Jason Solinsky, and others, is whether it makes sense to say that nothing done in cyberspace should be considered to be punishable by force. This leads to the position that double spending is OK if you can get away with it (but we set up the system so you can't get away with it). It also suggests that contracts as such cannot really be binding (in the usual sense) since they are just words and people can repudiate them freely. Nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to believe someone else's promise to pay you for work you do and deliver. If he wants to say, "tough luck, ha ha," then there's nothing much you can do about it other than try to be more careful next time (and let other people know who screwed you). I think this position is consistent and interesting, but it does seem like it may be inefficient compared to a system in which people can authorize the use of physical force applied against themselves under agreed-upon circumstances. It also seems like historically people have not used non-binding contracts as much as binding ones, and I wonder whether this suggests that non-binding contracts are less useful. Hal