You need some kind of certifying agency to distinguish between "good" and "bad" treatments, which can work equally well as a public or private organization with no authority beyond withholding certification (ignoring the negative externalities of the public approach). You do not need an organization like the FDA with the legal authority to ban anything it doesn't deign to certify.
Fraud is on the short list of things most libertarians (aside from the anarchist variety) believe is within the legitimate realm of the state to prevent.
Note that the anarchist libertarians (by which I assume you mean anarcho-capitalists or agorists, since the other kind have no use for contracts) are also anti-fraud; we simply don't believe that the state is required to prevent it. The basic libertarian principles/qualifications regarding property and contracts are:
Contracts are defined as the conditional or unconditional transfer of title over alienable property from the current owner to a new owner. This includes performance bonds ("I hereby transfer title to $1,000 to Manager if the work is not completed as of 30 days after the signing of this contract.") but not mere promises ("I will complete the work within 30 days of signing this contract."), since the latter involve one's inalienable will rather than alienable property.
For a contract to be valid it must be voluntary, and both/all parties must know and understand the terms ("meeting of the minds").
In the absence of fraud, if a competent party claims to know and understand the terms of the contract then they cannot later repudiate that claim.
If any party sets out to actively deceive (defraud) any other party then there is no "meeting of the minds" and the contract is void. Active deception / fraud includes any false statements or other actions taken with intent to mislead another party, but does not include simply withholding information which may benefit another party.
If any party threatens force against any other party then the latter's acceptance is not demonstrably voluntary and the contract is void. Force is defined as the violation of a property right, including the inalienable right to self-ownership.
So fraud, force, and threats of force by any party to the contract against any other party void the contract, at which point any property involved reverts to the original owners (retroactively). If the property is not returned, or has been altered or destroyed in the interim, then normal remedies will apply. Naturally, being the one to commit fraud or threaten force makes any resulting damage (to any party, not just the one(s) deceived) deliberate rather than accidental, justifying retribution in addition to restitution.
Well, you can use both gyroscopes and linear accelerometers to measure changes in orientation[1], but for this purpose a gyroscope will react much more quickly and precisely and, unlike the accelerometer, is not affected by any "real" linear acceleration which may be occurring at the same time. So for the same common task, measuring changes in orientation, a gyroscope will typically perform better than an accelerometer.
Of course, as you pointed out, a gyroscope won't indicate linear acceleration at all. Nor can it tell you what the original orientation was; it only measures the changes. So they each have their own uses. Generally gyros are combined with accelerometers; the accelerometers provide the initial orientation and runtime calibration data for the gyros, along with linear acceleration, and the gyros provide fine orientation data and help to separate gravity from other acceleration by providing an independent 'up' vector.
[1] One measures orientation with an accelerometer—at rest—by the effective 1g upward acceleration; to be motionless in a 1g field is equivalent to experiencing 1g acceleration in null gravity (as per General Relativity).
Diamond v. Diehr didn't state that software was patentable, in any sense. It stated that:
While a mathematical formula, like a law of nature, cannot be the subject of a patent, cf. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63; Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, respondents do not seek to patent a mathematical formula, but instead seek protection for a process of curing synthetic rubber. Although their process employs a well-known mathematical equation, they do not seek to pre-empt the use of that equation, except in conjunction with all of the other steps in their claimed process. A claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer. [emphasis added]
So software was confirmed to be unpatentable by itself, but--as one would expect--inclusion of a software component is not enough to render an otherwise patentable physical process unpatentable. To qualify for a patent one must claim more than just software and prior art (e.g. a computer). Most existing software patents would not meet this standard.
So, if the Supreme Court were to suddenly claim that software isn't patentable would be going against the past 30 years of legislative history.
On the contrary, it would be affirming the past 30 years of legislative and judicial history. Software per se has never been ruled patentable by the Supreme Court, so there would be nothing "sudden" about it. And by your own logic that means that, by not rewriting the statute to include software, Congress has demonstrated its agreement that software is not meant to be considered patentable subject.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise.
But software isn't a process. At most it is a description of a process, one which is only carried out when the software is actually executed. However, what exactly is a "process" for the purpose of patent law? The definition in 35 USC is infuriatingly circular:
The term "process" means process, art, or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material.
In the absence of any guidance whatsoever regarding the intended meaning of "process", the following definition entered into case law by the USSC should not be considered judicial activism, but rather merely a clarification of existing law:
A process is a mode of treatment of certain materials to produce a given result. It is an act, or a series of acts, performed upon the subject-matter to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing. -- Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 70 (1972)
The kinds of processes software may describe clearly do not meet this definition per se. Their inputs and output are not materials to be transformed, but rather pure information. How this information is represented in material terms is part of the prior art (the computer), not the software. The USSC has consistently ruled (Gottschalk v. Benson, Parker v. Flook, Diamond v. Diehr) that pure software is not patentable subject matter, although a machine which includes a software element is not rendered unpatentable by that fact provided that the device as a whole fulfills the other requirements. (The case in question in Diamond v. Diehr involved a physical process, the curing of synthetic rubber, performed by a machine under software control. The court's opinion was clear: the software itself was not patentable by itself, but the overall physical process was.)
Other than In re Bilski, which didn't specifically address software patents, the USSC has not made any recent rulings on patentable subject matter. However, the only position consistent with the case law cited above would be that pure software, or the simple combination of software and existing prior art (i.e. a computer), cannot be patentable as such. This would show most existing software patents to be invalid.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise.
The GP is giving away the idea for free, so the "stated value" would be zero and there would be no tax. That's the whole point: the harder you make it for the public to purchase the IP into the public domain, the more you pay each year in IP taxes.
I'm not sure whether the paradox was deliberate or not in the original context. In the movie it seemed to be given as impromptu advice, which would imply that either the speaker didn't see the paradox, or the phrase, its paradox, and the resulting lesson were all well-known to both master and apprentice despite never being mentioned elsewhere.
However, this is not the original context. I was responding to the quotation in Kingrames' comment, where it appeared to me to be taken literally. Perhaps I was wrong; subtle sarcasm is hard to reliably detect without the regular audible clues.
Taking the square root of both sides leaves you with: ±1 = ±(-1)
This is obviously true, as the order does not matter, but the unordered set equality (1, -1 = -1, 1) does not imply that (1 = -1). I expect most people forget that when you take a square root you get both negative and positive results, since the negative result is often omitted, but here it is relevant.
Where are you getting a positive connection between "demand for child porn" and "likelihood that consumers will find it"? If anything, relative demand will be higher when the effective supply is limited. Flood the market with copies of enough existing images and the demand for new CP will mostly disappear.
Anyway, offering a deliberate or accidental financial incentive, even for something like murder or creation of CP, does no harm to anyone. For harm to occur someone must act on that incentive, and that person is wholly responsible for his or her own choices. Paying someone specifically to create new CP would be one thing, as you cannot help but be aware of the direct consequences of fulfilling such a request, but one cannot justly be held responsible for what others choose to do on their own.
If you really want to address this problem, you could start by looking into the price floors which prevent efficient allocation of human resources: minimum wage, mandatory benefits, government-backed unions, etc. The jobs exist, but often are not productive enough to justify the minimum cost to the company of adding an extra employee. The legal overhead of being self-employed or starting a small business would also fall into this category.
The problem with "insider trading" isn't private knowledge, which is a perfectly normal and useful thing. The problem is when the appointed managers of a publicly-traded company abuse their position (privileged knowledge and/or influence) for private gain at the expense of their principals, the shareholders. It's an abuse of the agent/principal relationship, and not a matter of "fairness".
I'm with you on the inflation issue, however. It's well past time to switch to a currency which can't be manufactured so cheaply.
Now, the stock market is a closed system - any buck that the day trader made, someone else had to put in. The stock exchange doesn't generate any value.
No, the stock exchange doesn't generate any money. It generates value by helping to allocate scarce resources toward production of the highest-valued goods; or, to put it another way, by preventing scarce resources from being wasted on lower-valued goods when they could be used to produce higher-valued goods.
The "right thing" in the stock market is to maximize one's profit (without violating anyone's property rights, of course). If any potential profit remains to be pursued then the optimal allocation of goods has not yet been achieved. Whether that profit is based on long-term or short-term investments makes no difference at all.
Yet, the whole point of investing in the market is more or less (at least it was traditionally) based on a perpetual growth principle where there would always be new markets to conquer thus, rising stocks on average and a perpetually growing economy.
Not really. That is: yes, overall purchasing-power growth helps, but even without that there are benefits to becoming a shareholder. Owning shares in a company places you in the position of receiving a portion of the rent for that company's capital goods, in the form of either dividends or higher share prices as the company's assets increase. In this way it is no different from renting out real estate, machinery, money (loans), or even your own labor: you receive compensation for helping others to benefit from the use of your property, and deferring your own consumption. Such rental income is not dependent on perpetual growth. In economic terms it actually creates growth (increases net wealth) by allowing others to trade their future purchasing power—which you desire—for the immediate goods which they desire.
Evolution doesn't have a speed.... Evolution, at its core, is really a very simple principle: if the environment changes, some will be an advantage, and those will... well, have an advantage.
I believe the GP's point was simply that the rate of adaptation to changing environments ("speed of evolution") is itself one of the traits which evolves. Organisms which adapt slowly are generally at a disadvantage compared to organisms which adapt quickly. Faster adaptation can also have its drawbacks, of course, including over-specialization. However, thinking organisms which can adapt their behavior to changing conditions—or even just the expectation of changing conditions—within a single generation tend to be less prone to extinction than other organisms whose behavior changes only slightly from one generation to the next.
That's "arts" as in "techniques" or "processes". (Think "the dark arts", a similar use which has persisted to the modern day.) Technology, in other words, not what is now known as "fine art". The term is the basis for patents, not copyrights.
Copyrights exist for the sciences: works of learning, academics, knowledge, study. Writings and the like. Works of art and, much more tenuously, entertainment.
A big part of social engineering is that users don't have the patience for the sorts of full explanations required to implement that. Consider Microsoft's new UAC system, for example—that's close to what you described, but users tend to either just hit "yes" as quickly as possible to get on with their work, or disable it entirely.
From Wikipedia (near the end of the Overview section):
[Friedrich] Hayek saw the British philosophers David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke and William Paley as representative of a tradition that articulated beliefs in empiricism, the common law, and in traditions and institutions which had spontaneously evolved but were imperfectly understood. The French tradition included Rousseau, Condorcet, the Encyclopedists and the Physiocrats. This tradition believed in rationalism and the unlimited powers of reason, and sometimes showed hostility to tradition and religion.... Hayek saw the Frenchmen Montesquieu, Constant and Tocqueville as belonging to the "British tradition" and the British Thomas Hobbes, Godwin, Priestley, Richard Price and Thomas Paine as belonging to the "French tradition". [emphasis added]
The Saturn brand has been shut down. The Flextreme itself—a refinement of the Volt/Ampera design—will ultimately be manufactured by a European subsidiary of GM (Opel), and could easily be sold under another brand (GM, Chevy) in the US.
Fair enough, I suppose. I would hardly be the only one to consider modern libertarianism (and anarcho-capitalism, and agorism) to be the logical continuation of classical liberalism, but it is true that there are several significant differences between these more developed ideologies and their classical forerunner.
Still, classical liberalism has always been biased in favor of voluntaryism and non-aggression, even while it compromised on the issue of government in the interest of perceived practicality. The NAP may have not have been officially introduced until much later on, but it is really nothing more than a formal restatement of this guiding principle.
Note, also, that there are actually two versions of "classical liberalism", the "British tradition" and the "French tradition". My views (like those of Thomas Paine, and unlike Adam Smith) fall closer to the French tradition, which emphasizes reason rather than traditional institutions and common law.
I have yet to see any documented "abuse" of strict contract law which does not amount to one party attempting to defraud the other, either to get the other party into the contract or to get themselves out of it without compensation after claiming to have understand and voluntarily agree to the terms. The former case automatically renders (that part of) the contract void, even under the strict-contract system, and the latter is clearly destructive and deceptive behavior which should not be encouraged.
Fraud and coercion aside, restricting the scope of contracts only serves to prevent people from knowingly entering into contracts which they believe to be in their own best interest. On what basis do you claim any right to gainsay their decision?
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You need some kind of certifying agency to distinguish between "good" and "bad" treatments, which can work equally well as a public or private organization with no authority beyond withholding certification (ignoring the negative externalities of the public approach). You do not need an organization like the FDA with the legal authority to ban anything it doesn't deign to certify.
Fraud is on the short list of things most libertarians (aside from the anarchist variety) believe is within the legitimate realm of the state to prevent.
Note that the anarchist libertarians (by which I assume you mean anarcho-capitalists or agorists, since the other kind have no use for contracts) are also anti-fraud; we simply don't believe that the state is required to prevent it. The basic libertarian principles/qualifications regarding property and contracts are:
So fraud, force, and threats of force by any party to the contract against any other party void the contract, at which point any property involved reverts to the original owners (retroactively). If the property is not returned, or has been altered or destroyed in the interim, then normal remedies will apply. Naturally, being the one to commit fraud or threaten force makes any resulting damage (to any party, not just the one(s) deceived) deliberate rather than accidental, justifying retribution in addition to restitution.
So it's not a rotational accelerometer like I thought, but I'm not sure what the functional differences are.
A gyro measures changes in orientation—absolute angular velocity—whereas a rotational accelerometer measures changes in angular velocity.
Well, you can use both gyroscopes and linear accelerometers to measure changes in orientation[1], but for this purpose a gyroscope will react much more quickly and precisely and, unlike the accelerometer, is not affected by any "real" linear acceleration which may be occurring at the same time. So for the same common task, measuring changes in orientation, a gyroscope will typically perform better than an accelerometer.
Of course, as you pointed out, a gyroscope won't indicate linear acceleration at all. Nor can it tell you what the original orientation was; it only measures the changes. So they each have their own uses. Generally gyros are combined with accelerometers; the accelerometers provide the initial orientation and runtime calibration data for the gyros, along with linear acceleration, and the gyros provide fine orientation data and help to separate gravity from other acceleration by providing an independent 'up' vector.
[1] One measures orientation with an accelerometer—at rest—by the effective 1g upward acceleration; to be motionless in a 1g field is equivalent to experiencing 1g acceleration in null gravity (as per General Relativity).
Diamond v. Diehr didn't state that software was patentable, in any sense. It stated that:
While a mathematical formula, like a law of nature, cannot be the subject of a patent, cf. Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63; Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, respondents do not seek to patent a mathematical formula, but instead seek protection for a process of curing synthetic rubber. Although their process employs a well-known mathematical equation, they do not seek to pre-empt the use of that equation, except in conjunction with all of the other steps in their claimed process. A claim drawn to subject matter otherwise statutory does not become nonstatutory simply because it uses a mathematical formula, computer program, or digital computer. [emphasis added]
So software was confirmed to be unpatentable by itself, but--as one would expect--inclusion of a software component is not enough to render an otherwise patentable physical process unpatentable. To qualify for a patent one must claim more than just software and prior art (e.g. a computer). Most existing software patents would not meet this standard.
So, if the Supreme Court were to suddenly claim that software isn't patentable would be going against the past 30 years of legislative history.
On the contrary, it would be affirming the past 30 years of legislative and judicial history. Software per se has never been ruled patentable by the Supreme Court, so there would be nothing "sudden" about it. And by your own logic that means that, by not rewriting the statute to include software, Congress has demonstrated its agreement that software is not meant to be considered patentable subject.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise.
But software isn't a process. At most it is a description of a process, one which is only carried out when the software is actually executed. However, what exactly is a "process" for the purpose of patent law? The definition in 35 USC is infuriatingly circular:
The term "process" means process, art, or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material.
In the absence of any guidance whatsoever regarding the intended meaning of "process", the following definition entered into case law by the USSC should not be considered judicial activism, but rather merely a clarification of existing law:
A process is a mode of treatment of certain materials to produce a given result. It is an act, or a series of acts, performed upon the subject-matter to be transformed and reduced to a different state or thing. -- Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. 63, 70 (1972)
The kinds of processes software may describe clearly do not meet this definition per se. Their inputs and output are not materials to be transformed, but rather pure information. How this information is represented in material terms is part of the prior art (the computer), not the software. The USSC has consistently ruled (Gottschalk v. Benson, Parker v. Flook, Diamond v. Diehr) that pure software is not patentable subject matter, although a machine which includes a software element is not rendered unpatentable by that fact provided that the device as a whole fulfills the other requirements. (The case in question in Diamond v. Diehr involved a physical process, the curing of synthetic rubber, performed by a machine under software control. The court's opinion was clear: the software itself was not patentable by itself, but the overall physical process was.)
Other than In re Bilski, which didn't specifically address software patents, the USSC has not made any recent rulings on patentable subject matter. However, the only position consistent with the case law cited above would be that pure software, or the simple combination of software and existing prior art (i.e. a computer), cannot be patentable as such. This would show most existing software patents to be invalid.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise.
The GP is giving away the idea for free, so the "stated value" would be zero and there would be no tax. That's the whole point: the harder you make it for the public to purchase the IP into the public domain, the more you pay each year in IP taxes.
Actually, it has something like this 4x4x0.9mm ITG-3200 Triple-Axis Digital-Output Gyroscope. Not one, but three real MEMS gyroscopes in a single surface-mount IC package.
Yes, they actually can make them that small these days. Amazing, isn't it?
I'm not sure whether the paradox was deliberate or not in the original context. In the movie it seemed to be given as impromptu advice, which would imply that either the speaker didn't see the paradox, or the phrase, its paradox, and the resulting lesson were all well-known to both master and apprentice despite never being mentioned elsewhere.
However, this is not the original context. I was responding to the quotation in Kingrames' comment, where it appeared to me to be taken literally. Perhaps I was wrong; subtle sarcasm is hard to reliably detect without the regular audible clues.
How about "only a sith deals in absolutes"?
That sounds like the sort of absolute statement a Sith would make.
Or perhaps it's not just the Sith who deal in absolutes after all.
The problem is here: 1^2 = (-1)^2; 1 = -1
Taking the square root of both sides leaves you with: ±1 = ±(-1)
This is obviously true, as the order does not matter, but the unordered set equality (1, -1 = -1, 1) does not imply that (1 = -1). I expect most people forget that when you take a square root you get both negative and positive results, since the negative result is often omitted, but here it is relevant.
Where are you getting a positive connection between "demand for child porn" and "likelihood that consumers will find it"? If anything, relative demand will be higher when the effective supply is limited. Flood the market with copies of enough existing images and the demand for new CP will mostly disappear.
Anyway, offering a deliberate or accidental financial incentive, even for something like murder or creation of CP, does no harm to anyone. For harm to occur someone must act on that incentive, and that person is wholly responsible for his or her own choices. Paying someone specifically to create new CP would be one thing, as you cannot help but be aware of the direct consequences of fulfilling such a request, but one cannot justly be held responsible for what others choose to do on their own.
Why should the GP back up an argument he/she never made?
Note: "preventing spread of CP" != "protecting actual victims"
If you really want to address this problem, you could start by looking into the price floors which prevent efficient allocation of human resources: minimum wage, mandatory benefits, government-backed unions, etc. The jobs exist, but often are not productive enough to justify the minimum cost to the company of adding an extra employee. The legal overhead of being self-employed or starting a small business would also fall into this category.
The problem with "insider trading" isn't private knowledge, which is a perfectly normal and useful thing. The problem is when the appointed managers of a publicly-traded company abuse their position (privileged knowledge and/or influence) for private gain at the expense of their principals, the shareholders. It's an abuse of the agent/principal relationship, and not a matter of "fairness".
I'm with you on the inflation issue, however. It's well past time to switch to a currency which can't be manufactured so cheaply.
Now, the stock market is a closed system - any buck that the day trader made, someone else had to put in. The stock exchange doesn't generate any value.
No, the stock exchange doesn't generate any money. It generates value by helping to allocate scarce resources toward production of the highest-valued goods; or, to put it another way, by preventing scarce resources from being wasted on lower-valued goods when they could be used to produce higher-valued goods.
The "right thing" in the stock market is to maximize one's profit (without violating anyone's property rights, of course). If any potential profit remains to be pursued then the optimal allocation of goods has not yet been achieved. Whether that profit is based on long-term or short-term investments makes no difference at all.
Yet, the whole point of investing in the market is more or less (at least it was traditionally) based on a perpetual growth principle where there would always be new markets to conquer thus, rising stocks on average and a perpetually growing economy.
Not really. That is: yes, overall purchasing-power growth helps, but even without that there are benefits to becoming a shareholder. Owning shares in a company places you in the position of receiving a portion of the rent for that company's capital goods, in the form of either dividends or higher share prices as the company's assets increase. In this way it is no different from renting out real estate, machinery, money (loans), or even your own labor: you receive compensation for helping others to benefit from the use of your property, and deferring your own consumption. Such rental income is not dependent on perpetual growth. In economic terms it actually creates growth (increases net wealth) by allowing others to trade their future purchasing power—which you desire—for the immediate goods which they desire.
Evolution doesn't have a speed.... Evolution, at its core, is really a very simple principle: if the environment changes, some will be an advantage, and those will... well, have an advantage.
I believe the GP's point was simply that the rate of adaptation to changing environments ("speed of evolution") is itself one of the traits which evolves. Organisms which adapt slowly are generally at a disadvantage compared to organisms which adapt quickly. Faster adaptation can also have its drawbacks, of course, including over-specialization. However, thinking organisms which can adapt their behavior to changing conditions—or even just the expectation of changing conditions—within a single generation tend to be less prone to extinction than other organisms whose behavior changes only slightly from one generation to the next.
That's "arts" as in "techniques" or "processes". (Think "the dark arts", a similar use which has persisted to the modern day.) Technology, in other words, not what is now known as "fine art". The term is the basis for patents, not copyrights.
Copyrights exist for the sciences: works of learning, academics, knowledge, study. Writings and the like. Works of art and, much more tenuously, entertainment.
A big part of social engineering is that users don't have the patience for the sorts of full explanations required to implement that. Consider Microsoft's new UAC system, for example—that's close to what you described, but users tend to either just hit "yes" as quickly as possible to get on with their work, or disable it entirely.
From Wikipedia (near the end of the Overview section):
[Friedrich] Hayek saw the British philosophers David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke and William Paley as representative of a tradition that articulated beliefs in empiricism, the common law, and in traditions and institutions which had spontaneously evolved but were imperfectly understood. The French tradition included Rousseau, Condorcet, the Encyclopedists and the Physiocrats. This tradition believed in rationalism and the unlimited powers of reason, and sometimes showed hostility to tradition and religion. ... Hayek saw the Frenchmen Montesquieu, Constant and Tocqueville as belonging to the "British tradition" and the British Thomas Hobbes, Godwin, Priestley, Richard Price and Thomas Paine as belonging to the "French tradition". [emphasis added]
The Saturn brand has been shut down. The Flextreme itself—a refinement of the Volt/Ampera design—will ultimately be manufactured by a European subsidiary of GM (Opel), and could easily be sold under another brand (GM, Chevy) in the US.
Fair enough, I suppose. I would hardly be the only one to consider modern libertarianism (and anarcho-capitalism, and agorism) to be the logical continuation of classical liberalism, but it is true that there are several significant differences between these more developed ideologies and their classical forerunner.
Still, classical liberalism has always been biased in favor of voluntaryism and non-aggression, even while it compromised on the issue of government in the interest of perceived practicality. The NAP may have not have been officially introduced until much later on, but it is really nothing more than a formal restatement of this guiding principle.
Note, also, that there are actually two versions of "classical liberalism", the "British tradition" and the "French tradition". My views (like those of Thomas Paine, and unlike Adam Smith) fall closer to the French tradition, which emphasizes reason rather than traditional institutions and common law.
There is at least one diesel-electric series hybrid in development: the Saturn Flextreme, due for production in "late 2010".
I have yet to see any documented "abuse" of strict contract law which does not amount to one party attempting to defraud the other, either to get the other party into the contract or to get themselves out of it without compensation after claiming to have understand and voluntarily agree to the terms. The former case automatically renders (that part of) the contract void, even under the strict-contract system, and the latter is clearly destructive and deceptive behavior which should not be encouraged.
Fraud and coercion aside, restricting the scope of contracts only serves to prevent people from knowingly entering into contracts which they believe to be in their own best interest. On what basis do you claim any right to gainsay their decision?