
Stop Calling It Theft: Thoughts on TheDAO - galapago
http://www.benrady.com/2016/06/stop-calling-it-theft-thoughts-on-thedao.html
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tzs
> While I could go into discussions about the rule of law, or decentralized
> political systems, I think the best way to explain my position is an idea
> that most gamers will find familiar: __If the game lets you do it, then it
> 's not cheating __.

Most MMORPGs I've played banned players if they exploited behavior that the
game software allowed if that was allowed due to a bug or a design oversight
or went against the spirit of the game. For instance, if you found a way to
duplicate items or currency and used it to your advantage that would earn a
ban.

Another example that could earn a ban would be finding and using a place in
the terrain where a monster gets stuck and can be killed with ranged attacks
without the attacker being in danger.

Even things that do not involve any bug at all commonly could earn a warning,
and punishment (up to a ban) if you persisted. For example, taking a high
level magic user into a low level zone and using area effect spells to clear
the zone of all low level monsters and keep it clear so that newbies have
trouble finding things they can fight.

EverQuest did once try a "no rules" server where you could do anything the
game allowed. They made it a PvP server, leaving it up to the players to
define and enforce punishments against people who were playing in ways the
community did not like.

That lasted until Fansy the Famous Bard, of the wonderful Flowers of Happiness
guild, figured out a way to get people killed without them being able to do
anything to hurt him, and the "no rules" server was given rules [1].

[1]
[http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php](http://www.notaddicted.com/fansythefamous.php)

~~~
xuejie
While I do agree that game is a bad example, the argument still holds IMHO.

Ethereum has been advertised from the very beginning that it is a
decentralized platform where the only rule/law will be the code, and no one
authority can control that. However, what they are doing right now is exactly
gaining control back from the code, hence making the platform less or even not
decentralized.

I know this probably will get me a lot of downvotes but if there always will
be a central group of people that I need to trust, I'd rather trust existing
banks which have a lot of existing experience than a group of software
engineers who might be experienced in coding, but not so experienced in
finance.

I admit that it's very sad those much money was involved, but I believe the
people who took the money away(I don't want to call them attackers, they are
really not) just played the rule smartly and did nothing wrong.

