Quote from: augustocroppo on November 08, 2012, 09:34:19 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on November 08, 2012, 08:23:00 PM

Cool - I can play that game too.

(...)

I rest my case.

Rest well, because all you did was not to provide any evidence which indicates that IRC logs are accepted as direct evidence to determine that a contract was signed, even less that any court of law have relied on IRC logs to determine the legitimacy of a contract.

All quotes you posted does not substantiate MPOE-PR claims.

Quote from: MPOE-PR on November 08, 2012, 08:30:00 PM

In fact it has been long established legal practice (where "long" means > 100 years) in both civil and common law that any exchange which shows agreement between businessmen of the sort they would normally employ in the usual course of their trade is sufficient and binding as a contract. These aren't retail investors dealing here.

You are clever only to do claims. As I had already admitted, you fail to understand the meaning of evidence. Since you only have a IRC log, that does not count as contract, but as evidence for a mutual agreement. Without a physical or digital signature from both parties, there is not a method to determine if both parties have changed the contract after the initial agreement. That means you or Patrick cannot prove which party is providing the legitimate contract.

Do you like old books? I suggest you read this before you send another 500 Bitcoins to an Internet user:

Handbook of the law of contracts (Open Library)

http://www.archive.org/stream/lawrencecontracts00clar#page/n3/mode/2up

That's pretty retarded throughout, but the bolded part is particularly funny. Even WITH a signed contract there's no way to determine that. The latter contract would have to be brought up by the interested party. Which, you know, the interested party is welcome to do at any time, instead of sending in the likes of you and Katz to make these outrageously funny arguments you make.

Quote from: AndrewBUD on November 08, 2012, 11:28:26 PM

Well no.. But something is better than nothing. no?

No, it is not.

Quote from: JoelKatz on November 09, 2012, 12:11:15 AM

Quote from: SgtSpike on November 08, 2012, 11:56:17 PM

No. The people who loaned Patrick money made the mistake of trusting Patrick.

And Patrick made the mistake of trusting the people he loaned money to. Same mistake.

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And Patrick made the mistake of trusting whoever it was claimed to be a PTT.

Right.

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The people who loaned Patrick money did NOT have a choice of where it was invested.

That's not true. They could have imposed any restrictions they wanted to on how the funds were invested. And they chose to invest with Patrick.

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Because Patrick chose how to invest it, and because he offered a risk-free contract (i.e., a set payback amount and period, not a payback based on whether his investments panned out or not), Patrick is liable to his investors for the FULL amount that he promised he would pay.

He didn't offer a risk-free contract. He stated that he believed he had sufficient diversity in his loans to cover a Pirate default.

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Patrick could have said "if the investments I am investing this money in default, then you will not be repaid", but he made no such specification in his contract. All he did was promise a certain payback over a certain period of time. And that's exactly what he should be held liable to.

Right, but in this case that was after both parties agreed that he had sufficient diversity to cover a Pirate default. If two people agree on X and then agree "therefore Y", if X turns out to be false, they didn't actually agree on Y. Read the transcript:

Aug 10 08:06:54 hey. your deposits still bs&t free ?
Aug 10 08:07:21 I run a slightly complicated business, but most of the deposit accounts I run are BS&T free
Aug 10 08:07:39 that's what the market wanted
Aug 10 08:07:58 you deem yourself able to repay your depositors in the event bs&t goes bankrupt, and nothing is recovered ?
Aug 10 08:08:00 back in a couple of minutes - grabbing a glass of wine - friday evening here
Aug 10 08:09:57 back
Aug 10 08:10:17 in the event BS&T goes bust, I have more than enough assets to cover that
Aug 10 08:10:41 mainly because the 15,500 coins I hold on deposit are not invest in BS&T
Aug 10 08:10:56 well that works. i'd like to put 500 bitcoins with you
Aug 10 08:11:02 do you mind id'ing with gribble ?

Both parties agreed that Patrick's loan portfolio was significantly free from correlated risk. Patrick concluded, based on that agreed fact, that he would have enough equity in his portfolio to cover a Pirate default. However, Patrick's loan portfolio was not significantly free from correlated risk, and thus he didn't have enough equity in his portfolio to cover a Pirate default. The parties never discussed what would happen if the portfolio had significant correlated risk -- it was something neither party considered.

For example:

A: My house is 1,200 square feet.
B: I'll paint it for $2,500.
A: Deal.
-
If the house isn't 1,200 square feet, A is responsible.

B: I measured your house, it's 1,200 square feet. I can paint it for $2,500.
A: Deal.
-
If the house isn't 1,200 square feet, B is responsible.

A: My house is 1,200 square feet.
B: I know, I measured it. I can paint it for $2,500.
A: Agreed.
-
Common mistake. If the house isn't 1,200 square feet, A and B are jointly responsible.

Let's try and put this insanity to rest.

I. If A trusts B and B trusts C, these are not nor could they ever be "the same". They are different. They are of the same kind, they may have the same name or belong in the same category, they may be similar. They are not the same. In order for them to be the same in this context they would have to be identical, which is to say the same exact thing. Not two different cherries that are both cherries and thus "the same", but the same exact cherry.

II. The common mistake is a doctrine in common law that allows setting aside contracts that have no basis in fact. If for instance Mircea Popescu and PatrickHarnett both heard about this virtual cryptocurrency called Bitcoin (by reading on Something Awful, let's say) and then entered the original contract, except later it was discovered that there exists no such thing as "Bitcoin", it all being a joke pulled by SA, then indeed the contract would be void, by reason of common mistake.

However, even in this case, the voiding of the contract would not release PatrickHarnett from the obligation to repay all sums he might have received under the presumed contract. So, if indeed Bitcoin did not exist, and Patrick Harnett recieved $5,000 to invest in Bitcoin loans, PatrickHarnett would be held to repay the $5,000. It is true that the contract was void, it is true that this was because of a common mistake, it is not true that one gets to walk with the other's money.

III. The common mistake is always narrowly construed. The case of Bell vs Lever Brothers Ltd. is particularly informative. The relevant quote is

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A mutual mistake as to some fact which, by the common intention of the parties to a contract, whether expressed or implied, constitutes the underlying assumption without which the parties would not have made the contract they did, and which, therefore, affects the substance of the whole consideration, is sufficient to render the contract void.

In this case a company hired some people on generous terms. It was later shown those people engaged in fraudulent activities. The company sought to quash the contract, on the grounds that had it known about those activities it would not have entered into the contracts. This was denied by the Lords, on the grounds that the cited mistake wasn't sufficient to nullify or negate the consent of the parties. This is still case law to this day, upheld in Appeals as recently as 2002.

So, if two people contract to convey a certain piece of machinery, which the seller certifies as "free of defects" and then the buyer finds a defect this is not enough to void the contract. The buyer may have access to equitable relief, but since the piece of machinery was actually conveyed the contract is, principally, satisfied (barring specification in the contract to the contrary).

If two people contract to convey a certain piece of art, which both the seller and the buyer mistakenly identify as Ulysses and the Sirens by H.J. Draper in spite of the circumstance that the only recognizable shape on the canvas is a truck apparently carrying a couple of oversized cherries, and they later discover that in fact they were mistaken and that piece of art is not Ulysses and the Sirens by H.J. Draper this is not enough to void the contract: the certain piece of art was in fact conveyed.

If however two people contract to convey interest in land for the purpose of building a public land pool where the general public may be admitted to swim in earth for a fee, and they later discover that their assumption that one could swim through the earth like they would through water is mistaken, then the contract could be voided for common mistake.

IV. The understanding entered was that the lender will lend, that the borrower will repay with interest, and in a specified contingency (pirate default) the borrower will make good with his own money ("I have more than enough assets to cover that"). There's no room for common mistake here. There is plenty of room for misrepresentation of fact, as in, one party represented they had assets they did not have, represented they were using assets in a manner substantially different from the way assets were actually used and other such fraudulent representations. All this falls squarely under fraud in contracts, and has nothing to do with "mistakes" (which, obviously, is a term of art).

This is all plain obvious, ofcourse, and it is completely unassailable by rational means, of course. Nevertheless, I have not the faintest hope that the forum entertainers (and by this I mean at the very least JoelKatz) might leave their nuttery aside and come to sense - for the very simple reason that once an idiot has made any personal investment whatever into some particular idiocy, that idiot will expend all available effort and all available capital in pursuit no matter how doomed of the illusory hope that his idiocy, his darling idiocy, might be somehow enacted as sensible. This is, after all, how people ended up buying pirate "debt" after the unraveling of that scam.

Quote from: JoelKatz on November 09, 2012, 12:11:15 AM

This is like the last case. Both parties, with sufficient information to realize otherwise, concluded that the loan portfolio was free from correlated risk. Patrick's agreement was based on that shared mistaken conclusion.

You've stated this numerous times, it was rebuffed as FALSE numerous times. Again: Patrick's portofolio was never discussed nor considered. Instead of repeating the same FALSE claim numerous times, be so kind as to actually substantiate it.