Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

blockgeeks.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 144 posts

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#31

Post by ghufran_syed »

GrinningFool wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

> And in places like India you see wealthy people living in enclaves treating the working class around them like a different species. I'm frightened that a decline of nationalism and populism in the US could see a move in the same direction. We're already there, we just don't yet see it for what it is. Yesterday I watched a man on the phone while paying for his goods at a convenience store. The cashier spoke to him s…

Or maybe he was reading a text message about the death of a family member? Extrapolating from almost zero data usually isn't helpful, and probably often ends up being an opportunity to reinforce our own biases.

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#32

Post by chrispeel »

wpietri wrote: post #22

For a period as a child, I was thrown in among the happy-clappy sort of evangelical Christian [1] whose answer to every problem was, "Jesus can help you with that!" No money? Pray to Jesus. Sick? Pray to Jesus. Husband beating you? Pray to Jesus. Not sure if Jesus is real or just Santa Claus for adults? Pray to Jesus! This was an awful experience, but I learned a valuable lesson. When a group of people have exactly o…

As a counter example to your implication that blockchain enthusiasts are fanatics, I offer my opinion that centralized tech is the right choice in many cases. For context, I'm the organizer of the Silicon Valley Ethereum meetup[1] and am hopeful that blockchains and related distributed technology will have a big impact on society. Many compare the rise of blockchain tech to the rise of the Internet; I think blockchain tech is in the protocol development stage (1970s, maybe 80s), and that it will take 5 to 25 years for the tech to evolve to the point that average person will use it (90s and 2000's).

For context, in the cryptocurrency world, often the word maximalist is used to refer to hardcore tech evangelicals; so there are bitcoin maximalists and blockchain maximalists. Even though I am naturally a skeptic and not a maximalist, I don't want to discourage them. Yes, they're crazy[2]; a part of that craziness is a hope for a better future that I find refreshing.

[1] http://www.meetup.com/EthereumSiliconValley/

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rwsuXHA7RA

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#33

Post by zilchers »

Ya, this is kind of silly. I'll actually say - before this election I was all about a Blockchain / electronic voting system. After Russia and Wikileaks and everything, no way. The paper based, locally run elections are incredibly secure, and protect against systematic attacks (which in an electronic world could even mean phishing, or something more mundane than actual hacks).

I'm a huge fan of bitcoin, but I'm still looking for the killer Blockchain app.

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#34

Post by CyberDildonics »

wpietri wrote: post #22

For a period as a child, I was thrown in among the happy-clappy sort of evangelical Christian [1] whose answer to every problem was, "Jesus can help you with that!" No money? Pray to Jesus. Sick? Pray to Jesus. Husband beating you? Pray to Jesus. Not sure if Jesus is real or just Santa Claus for adults? Pray to Jesus! This was an awful experience, but I learned a valuable lesson. When a group of people have exactly o…

I don't see how this is remotely relevant. For starters, there is evidence that shared distributed ledgers actually exist.

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#35

Post by CyberDildonics »

eternalban wrote: post #14
aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

I 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.

Who has claimed wikileaks is decentralized?

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#36

Post by clarkmoody »

bandrami wrote: post #27

Yeah, yeah, the neoliberal global order is falling apart and we all applaud. The fact that over the past 20 years it saw the largest reduction in global poverty and inequality in world history? Doesn't matter: it made middle class tech-savy people in industrialized countries feel slightly constrained, so we're cheering as it burns.

Yeah, but the 20 years before that also saw the largest reduction in global poverty in history. And the 20 before that.

Not sure what's burning though.

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#37

Post by gbrindisi »

wpietri wrote: post #22

For a period as a child, I was thrown in among the happy-clappy sort of evangelical Christian [1] whose answer to every problem was, "Jesus can help you with that!" No money? Pray to Jesus. Sick? Pray to Jesus. Husband beating you? Pray to Jesus. Not sure if Jesus is real or just Santa Claus for adults? Pray to Jesus! This was an awful experience, but I learned a valuable lesson. When a group of people have exactly o…

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#38

Post by mikeash »

ghufran_syed wrote: post #31
GrinningFool wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And in places like India you see wealthy people living in enclaves treating the working class around them like a different species. I'm frightened that a decline of nationalism and populism in the US could see a move in the same direction. We're already there, we just don't yet see it for what it is. Yesterday I watched a man on the phone while paying for his goods at a convenience store. The cashier spoke to him s…

Or maybe he was reading a text message about the death of a family member? Extrapolating from almost zero data usually isn't helpful, and probably often ends up being an opportunity to reinforce our own biases.

This kind of thing happens constantly. They're not all receiving dire news. They're just oblivious.

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#39

Post by maxerickson »

chrispeel wrote: post #32
wpietri wrote: post #22

For a period as a child, I was thrown in among the happy-clappy sort of evangelical Christian [1] whose answer to every problem was, "Jesus can help you with that!" No money? Pray to Jesus. Sick? Pray to Jesus. Husband beating you? Pray to Jesus. Not sure if Jesus is real or just Santa Claus for adults? Pray to Jesus! This was an awful experience, but I learned a valuable lesson. When a group of people have exactly o…

As a counter example to your implication that blockchain enthusiasts are fanatics, I offer my opinion that centralized tech is the right choice in many cases. For context, I'm the organizer of the Silicon Valley Ethereum meetup[1] and am hopeful that blockchains and related distributed technology will have a big impact on society. Many compare the rise of blockchain tech to the rise of the Internet; I think blockchai…

Are there really any successes beyond Bitcoin?

(which I would call a qualified success, I think it is handy for a small group of people more than it is really having any impact on society)

Re: Is Blockchain Technology Going to Disrupt Our Political System: We Hope So

#40

Post by denom »

eternalban wrote: post #14
aaron-lebo wrote: post #6

I 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.

It's the spirit of pure corruption. The subtext of the blockchain 'spiritualism' is to have market forces unleashed without regards to ethical or legal systems.
Post reply on HN