I know its is how the legal system works, but it seems kinda silly that murder laws from 1860 apply to my autonomous knife-throwing killbot.
Why? They are designed to stop people making money from crimes. Seems to be exactly what was intended.I happen to think that drugs should be legal but that's a different issue.
They are designed to prevent people from making too much money anonymously.
Taxes took care of that already. Money laundering rules are designed to make it hard to conceal how you earned large amounts of money.
Is it equally silly that laws from the 19th century apply to somebody born in the '80s? It seems like more or less the same thing — laws keep applying to new instances of the things covered until the laws are changed.
On the contrary, what's silly is when politicians decide every new technology demands a new law instead of simply ensuring laws are written to cover particular evils regardless of the tools being used.
You are quite right because bitcoin is existentially different from a legal perspective. A no-trust system does not need the same legal "protections" as legacy systems and requires a fresh approach.