Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> unable to produce an interpretation of the law consistent with a completely analytical meaning letter of the law

The legal profession writ large (including legislators) consider this a feature, not a bug. The reason this is the legal profession's opinion essentially three points:

1. You can't write "bug free" laws and regulations

2. Fixing mistakes in laws and regulations is slow

3. The amount of damage someone can do with unintended legal cover can be catastrophic (imagine if I found a legal loophole to take possession of your home!)

So this has been chosen as the "least bad" solution. My personal opinion is that the SEC is acting within the spirit of the law which is what we should expect and if congress wanted to change things they should pass a new law.



Is the spirit of the law always aligned with the analytical meaning ? Do you think it is here ?

I understand the spirit of the law, but I do not feel like that can override an analytical interpretation.


> I understand the spirit of the law, but I do not feel like that can override an analytical interpretation.

You may feel so, but our entire legal tradition is based on the idea that this is not the case. In fact, no active legal tradition I'm aware of nation holds strictly to analytical interpretations of its laws. This is one aspect of the world it's better to accept as a fact of life, I believe there's good reason it's what everyone has settled on.


This makes enormous sense, and, incidentally, shows why the notion of "smart contracts", "the code is the law", etc. is pure folly.


If this indeed the case it explains the true power these organizations and current legislature have, which I do find worrisome.

I believe that this situation may be a failure of that way of working.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: