February 10, 2015
On the intersection of Ricardian and Smart Contracts
In a bit of an experiment, I'm trying out an article using google docs. The topic of the article is how we relate my Ricardian Contacts to Nick Szabo's Smart Contacts.
This has always been a tricky topic but it should be easy. And in the end it is: the two are more or less orthogonal and independent ways to help people enter into agreements to do stuff. Both - slightly incorrectly - claim to be the contract whereas the courts know who sets the real contract. They do!
It's a bit of an experiment because the google docs rendition of this paper is totally open. Anyone can edit it! Crazy -- maybe ISIS will dive in an and render it all Koranic or our heads off!
In contrast to security wisdom, I've seen this sort of open document editing a few times now, and the result has been entirely polite and consensual. So let's give it a go. Comments welcome, you just highlight the words, and bring up the menu.
