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Velorien comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, March 2015, chapter 119 - Less Wrong
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You mean like the fact that criminals can make Unbreakable Vows not to commit crimes, as an alternative to permanent trauma and probable death in Azkaban? (other criminals can power them for a reduction in sentence time or as part of the same type of bargain - permanent loss of some magical power is still better than Azkaban)
Sure, but that's only just scratching the surface.
Why can anyone commit crimes? Why can wizards lie, or fight except in self defense? The Trust Machine is the pearl of great price, and even wizards would build it.
If everyone was under an unbreakable vow not to commit crimes, Voldemort (who has horcruxes and can't die from something as simple as an unbreakable vow) would just need to get one law passed saying that all must obey him. Vows against lying can be bypassed with memory charms, so they're not really any better then veritaserum.
The Vow doesn't kill you if you violate it, it makes you unable to violate it.
Voldemort can't get the law passed that everyone must obey him because the law-passers are vowed not to be intimidated by snake-nazis.
Its vows all the way down.
It kills you if you violate it.
That's the official version. Given the details in the chapter where Harry makes the vow and the details in this chapter where it mentions Harry being unable to give the final order, it seems like in the HPMoR verse that isn't how it works.
Actually, the one wow I really do not get all wizards are not under is very simple. Merlin laid down his interdict due to a crisis of magic being used in wars in utterly unrestrained ways. Blocking people from learning certain kinds of magic is a daft way of stopping that. What you do is you take every single wizarding child of 8, and make them swear to never use any magic that would harm more than one person. Still free to fight, still free to defend themselves, just noone capable of area effect magics of destruction anymore.
How do we know the crisis was war, and not (for example) people gradually reinventing the arts with which the Atlanteans destroyed themselves?
The description of the founding of the wizengamot. War is probably not a very descriptive term for what was going on before it - The political structure implies that it is what came after a period of feuding families. In this case, feuding families with magical might backing up the kind of stupidity bloodfeuds cause.