The Metaverse: Building a Fairer World in Virtual Reality (Legal insights)
... Because natural laws in the metaverse are editable in a way they are not in the real world, they can also reflect our moral judgements.
For example, no natural law prohibits Alice from stealing Bob's car. Because she is physically able to steal the car, our legal system needs to identify her, prove that she committed the crime, establish some punishment and attempt to make Bob whole again by returning the car or ordering restitution. The physics of the metaverse could absolutely restrict Alice from taking Bob's car. In effect, there is a new natural law in that metaverse: you cannot exercise control over another's possessions. Alice can no more easily violate that law than we can escape gravity's pull.
As another example, Carlton formally promises to buy Derek's virtual home for 0.001 bitcoin (BTC) if the price of 1 BTC exceeds $30,000 within the next 90 days. The entire transaction lives in the metaverse's digital realm: crypto currency is being exchanged for digital real estate upon a triggering event. Such transactions are the basis of smart contracts, and there is no opportunity to breach because the agreement automatically executes, as would computer code. Carlton and Derek's transaction becomes part of the fabric of their metaverse's legal system, and executes automatically if the triggering event occurs. ...
We can do in the virtual world what we can never hope to accomplish in the real world – we can bend the virtual world's parameters to match our moral judgments and build a space that by its nature executes our understanding of what is just and fair. ...
See the full story here: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/07/the-metaverse-building-a-fairer-world-in-virtual-reality
