Bitcoin can only be adopted worldwide if it is neutral.
You're raising good questions that help me explain this better.
Here I'd suggest to you that Bitcoin is the most neutral money that has ever existed, because it conforms with and harmonizes with long-inured principles of international law more than any money ever has. What is more, it even has a mechanism for further harmonization with international law should such a pressing need ever arise. I suggest it is more neutral than gold, even, which is divisive due to tracing issues (and would be moreso if only it were used more).
Geopolitically, the world is very divided. The USA, Russa and China are true adversaries in many ways.
That's the beauty of Bitcoin. These adversaries are unlikely to agree on anything except what is universally abhorent. Meanwhile, Bitcoin as neutral money makes anyone not using it an economic cripple. It incentivizes use and leverages countries' inability to agree to great effect to ensure its monetary properties are kept maximally intact. (But understand that in any society money is a legal construct as well as an economic one.)
International politics decided through hash wars?
A preponderance of countries will either reverse a few transactions from major human trafficking rings on chain, or do nothing on chain. If there isn't enough agreement, nothing happens and it's just Bitcoin as usual (where it can still look like "code is law," merely because Bitcoin code fits so well into the contours of law). If there is, there are no wars or politics as they reached agreement. If there is some minority government that disagrees, their choices are to use Bitcoin as international law prescribes, or don't use Bitcoin and be crippled economically. Not much to fight about.
Again this only happens (if ever) in the situation where something is so universally reviled by custom that a majority of these highly divergent governments from vastly different cultures all agree.
As John Hasnas says, "Customary law is coercive, but it isn't a vehicle for domination of some parties by others." Minority dissenters getting squelched on issues around universally abhorrent practices does not constitute a mechanism for Bitcoin to be used as a tool for some countries to push others around in general.
I hope that makes some sense. It's a subtle distinction I first learned when reading Hasnas's great essay
The Depoliticization of Law. Took me a while to get my head around.
Note also, all this I am mentioning isn't a proposal; it's an observation. Even if we wanted it to be otherwise, it could not be.
For example, the US could never allow large parts of the US economy to start using Chinese money services. If that were to happen, the Chinese could shut down access or seize money at any moment. No money solution run by any single government can ever become the world currency.
Yes, this is exactly what Bitcoin stops. It stops whims of single governments. It stops the politicking around money. It removes power centers from having control over money, by forcing their only control to consist in being in agreement with most of their rivals and simultaneously competing with them economically. Since ONLY what is universally abhorrent can have any hope of inducing agreement to mess with the chain, and only in the most limited of ways (if ever), it takes away the levers of power over money.
Again I suggest it's the most neutral money that has ever existed, perhaps the most neutral money possible. It forces governments to compete on economics, not politicking around money. Again a subtle point that took me a while to get.
I realize I'm laying a ton out at once here, so I don't take ongoing disagreement as anything unexpected or bad. If this were me of a year ago I'd be raising all the same objections, and probably more vehemently.
Repossessing a UTXO is a rule change. I hope we can agree on this term. Different nodes with different rules diverge to different chains. That's a chain split and a hard fork.
Well let's take a look specifically at what happens:
1) A sends coins to B by signing digitally.
2) Bunch of high courts send those coins to C by signing on paper.
3) In both cases, miners record all legally signed transactions into the ledger, like always.
I suspect the above will seem strange, so let's step back for a moment. What do miners do? They don't send coins. Users, as legal entities, do that. (This is the P2P user network, the outer layer of two P2P networks that comprise the mandala network that is Bitcoin (the inner P2P network is miners).)
To see what I mean in an example, imagine a merchant hands you a transaction template (like in BIP70) and you sign it and hand it back. At that point, legally, the coins belong to the merchant.
Even if the merchant never pushes the tx to the mining network! Yes you still retain control of the coins if the tx is unpushed, but you don't retain legal ownership.
Miners merely record the fact that the transaction was duly signed, as far as they know
legally signed under international law, on the ledger.
A transaction signature by a bunch of global courts is not just a legal Bitcoin signature "as far as the miners know"; it is in fact a legal Bitcoin signature without any possible doubt. As the jurisdiction of the Bitcoin contract to which miners are a party (as agents) is international. Their signed transaction is at least equal to, if not
more legitimate a Bitcoin transaction than any signed with a private key. The judges' joint signature fits into the chain of digital signatures like any other. Bitcoin is a proxy for international law; international law
is international law. Its status is equal to or greater than its proxy.
Basically a sig with privkey is analogous to your lawyer signing for you, whereas a sig by a global collection of high courts is analogous to you signing for yourself. It'd be topsy-turvy to suggest your lawyer signing on your behalf is more legit that you signing directly.
If you see that the agents in Bitcoin (the miners) are bound to operate a proxy system whose purpose is to enforce international legal findings within the context and framework of the contract that is Bitcoin, you can see that it would likewise be topsy-turvy to suggest a Bitcoin sig with private key supersedes the ruling of the international legal finding that that signature is standing in for. Any contract specifies provisions the parties anticipatorily expect to be upheld in court. To see this, imagine you signed your name on a contract whose provisions you didn't expect the relevant courts to uphold. This would be a pointless thing to do, as the whole reason you sign a contract is to invoke law, which you know is ruled on by the relevant courts.
Unless maybe you never expected the other party to take you to court, which'd be similar to sending coins illegally but hoping it will be small enough to avoid court action. Often it may. But for huge amounts of money to the worst crime organizations (think child smuggling rings, which it should go without saying that all countries are vehemently against), this principle should make sense: the criminals are essentially signing a contract as if invoking international law, but doing so is pointless if it actually goes to a bunch of international courts as it'll be struck down if it does manage to get that far.
To think that code=law is to put the cart before the horse. Rather, the Bitcoin code attempts to be a perfect proxy for law.
But it is not necessary. Courts can require individuals and companies to pay. It's like cash. A court can require you to hand over a bag of cash and the police can raid your home and try to take the cash.
Yes, typically that's as far as it would go. Maybe always. I mentioned above that this is as much about making a point about how Bitcoin works in law as it is about observing what could happen if a bunch of global courts agree. The point is important to understand whether or not the specific example outcome is likely.
Thanks for a great discussion so far.
