Do crypto folks who parrot Lessig's "Code is Law" maxim know that Lessig's point is that because code can powerfully regulate individuals it should, like regular law, be democratically accountable and therefore regulated? In many ways "code is law" is anti free speech.
@valkenburgh yea, not generally: medium.com/@lessig/code-m…
I generally don't support the crypto community's usage of the phrase but "as in nothing else constrained the users of that code" is not entirely how I interpret it. More charitably I'd say the community uses it as "code is [private] law." As in, in the absence of a typical contractual agreement evidenced in writing, the code itself is the binding contract. This ties in with the use of the term smart contract (which I also think does more harm than good). If this is the case then examples like Ethereum's DAO bug hard fork and the Mango markets exploit become interesting. If the code is the contract then an exploit is like a unilateral mistake and may not, inherently, void the contract or indicate any wrongdoing.