This is meant as the first of a series of very brief reflections about ongoing conversations within the social media interface of ‘lawtech’.

In my experience, a reoccurring question echoes in a variety of ways through our law/tech discussions: ‘Can we develop relationships outside the confines of state-backed law?’

Beneath this question is an even heavier philosophical concern — that elusive Western grail, ‘Freedom’.

What do we talk about when we talk about freedom? I want to make two initial observations. In some crypto threads, ideas of freedom sometimes end up just meaning a) the freedom to accumulate more money (eg libertarianism), and b) in seeking freedom through algorithms, we often associate law with non-freedom. …