@cryptogee,

Hey mate.

This is the most articulate, honest and objective summary I've yet read about the issues at hand. (The Minority Report analogy ... nice.)

Typical Cryptogee. Good job.

The preemption issue you mentioned is analogous to a fundamental "Freedom of Speech" precept called "prior restraint." That is, the government cannot restrict a person from saying a thing before he says it ... the ultimate in censorship for it represents not just restraint on speech, but restraint on thought ... the essence of Orwell's dystopian warning in "1984."

By extension, one cannot be arrested for actual or presumed contemplation of a crime. Indeed, how many times have you thought to yourself, "God, I could kill that f---ing Quill for his damned verbosity?" Thinking it is OK. Doing it is not.

These real world subtleties and distinctions cannot be dismissed in the "cyber-ether" that Satoshi et al wish to create.

This is a theme about which I have opined for years. Cryptoland wants to create a "jursidictionless No Man's Land in cyberspace" where they get to make up any laws (or lack of them) they desire. This WILL NOT happen.

When incidents like the current brouhaha end up in a real world court, all of those centuries of jurisprudence, and the precepts and principles that resulted, are going to coming crashing down upon these anarchist schemers and dreamers.

None of this has been handled well by anyone. The Top 20 hijacked @justinsunsteemit's assets offering to free them in exchange for concessions. That's called extortion. It would be like me tying you to a chair, holding a gun to your head and saying, "Let's talk ransom."

Justin Sun responded in kind, effectively doing to them what they had done to him. I doubt that anything he did was illegal. The STEEM held at exchanges are effectively "in trust" and the exchanges are "trustees." But "trusts" are not "persons or things" like "people or corporations" ... they're "relationships." As such, the exchanges did not "steal" or "improperly use" the voting power associated with the STEEM held in trust at their institutions.

Whether Sun accurately represented why he wanted them to vote in support of his designated Witnesses (himself) ... well that's a matter of speculation but, in any event, it's not particularly germane ... they were not defrauded and suffered no consequential damages. While almost certainly not illegal, it was most certainly provocative, dramatically upping the ante.

As you can see, navigating any of this (even superficially) requires reference to a host of real world legal concepts, none of which are reflected in crypto code. But even if "the law" is not explicit in CryptoLand ... it's implied. And the real world folks, the ones with aircraft carriers, will insist upon said implication.

Speaking of implication, all this talk about "Steemit Inc.'s ninja-mined stake and an 'Implied Social Contract'" ... spare me. That line of argument would last about 10 seconds in front of a judge.

Besides ... I thought it was all about "having skin in the game and voting your stake?" That "anarchist morality" was whatever the consensus said it was ... and that it didn't matter how you achieved consensus, only that you did.

For years, some of the largest bidbots on the blockchain were owned and operated by Top 20 Witnesses. Naked vote-buying and -selling, which is the dictionary definition of corruption in any voting-based system. And I recall a huge Whale trying to organize a bidbot for auctioning Witness Votes to the highest bidder. "If you want to be a Top 20 Witness, you ought to be willing to compensate Whales for their support." He even used the world "kickback."

And yet to listen to the moral outrage of the (former) Top 20 Witnesses you'd think that they were Cardinals in Conclave agonizing about who should be God's Victor on Earth. You can't be pirates on day and claim to be the navy the next.

Quill