Great info. I'm especially eager to see the national identities diminishing greatly. They're as bad as religion.
Supranational entities are just as bad, except even less responsive to local conditions.
Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
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Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#12As usual, I have little idea what the author means by "blockchain".
If he means a bitcoin-like blockchain based on proof of work, it is completely overkill, as there is no problem in forking and merging vote logs if everything is authenticated and public enough.
But anyway, it completely ignores the elephant in the room. Get an electronic voting system that is both anonymous, verifiable, and free of voting coercion, and we start talking. The idea of adding a blockchain somewhere helps solving none of those problems.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#13I feel like the extreme decentralization people just ignore human nature which history has revealed time and time again. The wild west no existing power structure idea is great until some entity inevitably comes along and controls it and its not so decentralized anymore. Decentralization exists when a small enough community can be self-policing and actors have noble goals. That all changes when you get a single bad a…
> That all changes when you get a single bad actor who takes advantage off their weaknesses and well-meaning nature and controls the new system
I think part of the goal of these new decentralization movements is to create a system that has no weaknesses, despite how impossible that may seem. For example, using paper money has the weakness that people can counterfeit it. A naïve solution to that problem is putting security threads, serial numbers, and watermarks on the cash to make it harder to counterfeit. A more complete solution would be something like a blockchain-type ledger. You cannot counterfeit an entry in a log that everyone in the world shares without corrupting enough people in the world to support you.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#14I feel like the extreme decentralization people just ignore human nature which history has revealed time and time again. The wild west no existing power structure idea is great until some entity inevitably comes along and controls it and its not so decentralized anymore. Decentralization exists when a small enough community can be self-policing and actors have noble goals. That all changes when you get a single bad a…
> Goodbye, critical thinking?
Looks like it: Trump an 'outsider', Wikileaks "decentralized", and blockchain tech to the rescue of Siemmens' controllers.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#15Great info. I'm especially eager to see the national identities diminishing greatly. They're as bad as religion.
When people give up national identity, they replace it with other kinds of group identities. Those replacements aren't necessarily better. Query what the dissolution of national identity does to the modern welfare state. Can we maintain that when people feel more allegiance to their social class or profession than to their countrymen? My family emigrated away from the sub-continent, which has a deep-seated culture of…
On the other hand, in a context of globilization, nationalism and populism is performing very poorly.
The rich people and most importantly rich companies are basically a class on their own and their look after themselves on global scale. Their profit and their power is distributed. Nationalism however stop at the border allowing larger than country entities to play a social race to the bottom between different countries. Everyday the fraction of wealth that is stuck by borders diminishes meaning regardless how much solidarity you have for your countrymen the pot of national money is getting smaller.
Not that I have a solution and I don't really disagree with you or agree to GP. Just some counter example: Socialism that looked after working class across all of Europe did shape the social fabric of Europe and is arguably better than the US version. Nationalism, as in the case of Brexit or in France, Austria, Belgium, Holland is difficult to see in a positive light. Sure all those movement do the talk about caring for the little man but their policies are all clearly on the dismantling of the welfare state, not strengthening it.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
When people give up national identity, they replace it with other kinds of group identities. Those replacements aren't necessarily better. Query what the dissolution of national identity does to the modern welfare state. Can we maintain that when people feel more allegiance to their social class or profession than to their countrymen? My family emigrated away from the sub-continent, which has a deep-seated culture of…
> decline of nationalism and populism in the US Did you just put nationalism in a good light by comparing it with classism? First of all, the two are not necessarily opposed and often go together. Also this is a false dilemma. Humans can live without a group identity or identify as living beings instead of being a "proud $skin_color $religion $nationality $gender". It's not far-fetched to say that this could prevent…
I don't think human beings can live without group identity. I grew up in a DC suburb full of "open minded" cosmopolitan people. Group identity, along economic, political, and educational lines, was intense. People were vicious in demeaning "the dumb uneducated rednecks that live in flyover country." Group identity was asserted by having the right education, belonging to the right political party, having the right profession and aspirations.
Human beings are fundamentally social creatures. Consider the ritual of meeting someone for the first time. People grill each other trying to figure out what they have in common. "Oh, how do you know $PARTY_HOST?" Oh, are you from Chicago too? How about the Cubs this year, huh?"
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#17I feel like the extreme decentralization people just ignore human nature which history has revealed time and time again. The wild west no existing power structure idea is great until some entity inevitably comes along and controls it and its not so decentralized anymore. Decentralization exists when a small enough community can be self-policing and actors have noble goals. That all changes when you get a single bad a…
> That all changes when you get a single bad actor who takes advantage off their weaknesses and well-meaning nature and controls the new system I think part of the goal of these new decentralization movements is to create a system that has no weaknesses, despite how impossible that may seem. For example, using paper money has the weakness that people can counterfeit it. A naïve solution to that problem is putting sec…
But the weakness that causes people to take control of the Wild West isn't counterfeiting, it's just the inevitable end result of the chaos. The issue isn't fraud, it's that even people accumulating money honestly turns harmful over time; you acquire money because you're good at business, you use that money to buy out competitors, you pass that money on to your children as is your right, your children use it to consolidate more power... power is often a positive feedback loop, and no matter how solid the system of exchanges, it loops back to feudalism without regulation.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#18When I think of "decentralisation" I think everyone having more or less equal say. When blockchain people talk about "decentralisation" they are just talking about some kind of market based solution. I find that a bit misleading.
Blockchain decentralization doesn't imply a market-based solution. Bitcoin's market value perpetuates its ledger but that market isn't necessarily involved in every blockchain app.
Furthermore, to achieve true "1 person = 1 vote" decentralization you would need to solve the sybil attack problem which is an issue that greatly effects but is separate from blockchain and voting.
These two concepts are often conflated.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#19Sorry, but this sounds like just another silicon valley startup, living in their own little bubble, thinking that their special code can "change the world".
Imagine a log of transactions (a blockchain) confirming that Clinton got 1.5 million popular votes. That has ZERO effect on the Electoral College selecting Trump. So why even bring the election up? This guy might as well say that "a blockchain could stop the Patriot Act and the NSA wiretaps". No, it couldnt. Real political change happens through laws, constitutional ammendments, and court decisions. No amount of electronic blockchains will change that fact.
Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So
#20When I think of "decentralisation" I think everyone having more or less equal say. When blockchain people talk about "decentralisation" they are just talking about some kind of market based solution. I find that a bit misleading.
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