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Comment by thomassmith65 | Hacker News Reader

This was satisfying to read:

  “Code is not law. Law is law,” Mr. Gottlieb wrote in a lengthy thread to Mr. Medjedovic on X in late October, 2021. “And what you did was not a ‘clever trade.’ It was market manipulation. It’s illegal. And people go to prison for it.”

Tech exceptionalism is eternal. It takes the occasional Napster or PirateBay failure to disabuse a generation in the tech community of the triumphalist nonsense it talks itself into believing. But then the next generation comes along and doesn't know better.

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While satisfying, that quote is also hilariously one-sided in it's perspective. I imagine that lawyer in the courtroom saying something like the following:

> Yes, my client did take a stack $100 bills and leave it on the sidewalk atop an elaborate contract proclaiming that those $100 bills should be given to the very next person going by the name of "John" who found this stack of $100 bills upon the sidewalk, including specific language stating that anyone, even an unforeseen party meeting such criteria, would be entitled to that money. And indeed, my client signed and dated that document in triplicate. Yes my client did go to great lengths to write such a detailed and specific contract, and he was quite sure that such a contracts terms would be sufficient to ensure that only my clients brother, John Williams, would be entitled to the money, that same John Williams who lives across town. The brother would never find that money though, because the villainous, criminal, thief of a man John Smith stole that money from off the sidewalk when walking out of Smiths front door! Smith would have you believe that he was merely fulfilling the terms of a fortuitous open ended contract foolishly entered into by an idiot who failed to think critically about the terms said idiot entered into. That, however, is not important! I am here today to say that the terms of such a contract are not what is relevant, what is relevant is how upset my client is that he no longer has his money. I can prove that Smith stole that money, no matter what the documents signed by my client say! Those contracts are not law, only the law is law. What Smith did was not a "clever deal", it was theft. Which is illegal, and people go to prison for it.

A bit over dramatic, but that's how the lawyers statement reads to me.

Are you familiar with what happens when large sums of money are erroneously deposited in your bank account? Such as due to a payroll error?

I am indeed aware that in such situations, since the depositor has not publicly and loudly declared their intent to deposit that money into my account, nor informed me that they will be depositing that money into my account, nor has the depositor published a contract that I've engaged with stating they need to send me that money, that such a situation would be interpreted as an accident by any reasonable person, including the legal system.

However, we are talking about a system where a party has loudly and publicly stated that they'll move money under certain public conditions and a third party has walked up and said, "I meet those conditions, I am owed said money", and the computer dutifully agrees. We are currently looking at the foolish party who has entered into a contract trying to get out of that contract because they no longer like it's terms. Unfortunately for them, human law mostly sides with contracts, even when those contracts are represented in code.

Even allowing for such a contrived example, would it be so bad if the money was taken from John Smith? The contract writer was an idiot, sure, but John Smith is an idiot too for just taking the money and expecting to be able to keep it. To say otherwise is to say we want to encourage people to take money they didn't earn, to avoid reporting it to an authority, because they'll be able to get away with it. It is also to say that the punishment for stupidity is whatever happens to be the consequence, rather than a fair punishment reasoned out by society.

(I am against prosecution in this case, but I think he should have most of the money confiscated)

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