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Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

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Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#21

Post by novalis78 »

jmagoon wrote: post #15

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

Originally, "dharma" just meant "thing/object". More abstract (and derived therefrom) is a bifurcation into "true thing, real thing, truth, etc.." and on the other end of the spectrum "object, mental object, thought". Think of Carolus Linnaeus and not so much religion.

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#22

Post by guruparan18 »

jmagoon wrote: post #15

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

I got reminded for Dharma initiative from Lost. It has quite a fan following off screen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_Initiative

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#24

Post by nahollander »

siliconc0w wrote: post #20
nicpottier wrote: post #4

Forgive what might be an obvious question, but though I see there is a concept of trying to determine the risk of a loan, it isn't clear to me how that is actually done. What is used as a source of identity of the borrower? IE, how do you punish bad borrowers on future loans? Or does that fall outside of this?

I think the idea is that RAAs can bridge the reality divide by tying the pseudo-anonymous contract identity to a real life identity. You can, for example, require the user upload a video showing them, any government IDs, their house number, their last utility bills, pay stubs, etc. You might require a mobile app that could look at ongoing phone telemetry/contact info to see someone has a network and is regularly goin…

Exactly. Tala's a great analogy insofar as developing world microfinance faces a lot of same challenges Dharma will likely encounter -- namely the lack the of legal recourse for defaults.

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#25

Post by bjl »

buckie wrote: post #14
nahollander wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not off topic in the slightest! In fact, all too topical, given the past few weeks. For what it's worth -- I'm a former engineer at Coinbase / Google and recently graduated from Stanford. Though I didn't touch Solidity as part of my work at Coinbase, I've been following Ethereum extremely closely since its beginnings, and any mainnet release I'd push forward would certainly undergo rigorous third-party auditing at th…

This project is simultaneously a great example of the democratizing effect of Ethereum while also being truly terrifying. A Stanford '17 grad with a few internships worth of industry experience is able to create and deploy a peer-to-peer loan infrastructure. This isn't meant to be demeaning in any way, I'm just remarking on how incredible of an accomplishment it is for both you and Ethereum that the previous sentence…

> I'm not saying you shouldn't do it (I wouldn't but you do you) or that you must have more exp to do it. I'm just recommending to be careful. Have fun and good luck!

OP should also definitely consult a lawyer before making this public. Eth advocates love to parrot the 'code is the contract' slogan, but the actual law could very well disagree.

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#26

Post by sigstoat »

nahollander wrote: post #19
sigstoat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you attempted to apply any formal methods (coq, isabelle, tla, whatever) to your code? or will you be content with mere auditing?

Not as of yet, but I'd definitely be interested in exploring the possibility. If you know of any good resources or primers on those, please do send them my way.

shrug, the reference books for all those things are the standard resources. i think they've shown up on hacker news a couple times each.

if i were aware of any material on formalizing solidity or the EVM, honestly i'd keep it to myself and use it to identity vulnerabilities in your contracts. in that hypothetical world, my question was a means to check and see if you were a good target.

good luck. :)

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#27

Post by jmagoon »

marsrover wrote: post #18
jmagoon wrote: post #15

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

> It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). According to Wikipedia, > In certain contexts, dharma designates human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, principles that prevent chaos, behaviours and action necessary to all life…

Different cultures have different definitions of the loanword. For East Asian Buddhists, Dharma generally means the teachings of the Buddha. As in the phrase, 'Turning the wheel of Dharma'. I guess if you pick that one section of wikipedia and say that's what it means, then sure.

Dharma is also used by Hindus--I'm not Hindu, so I won't comment on what the word means for them.

Saying "it's just a name" is a valueless claim. Of course it's just a name. Names have meaning, and in this case, the word has four thousand years of history in Asia. I just don't understand why this particular name was chosen, and why borrowing something fundamental to two major world religions is the logical choice for a protocol.

"The Gospel", in my understanding of the Christian term, is also a concept, and not a book.

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#28

Post by ThePhysicist »

nahollander wrote: post #17
buckie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This project is simultaneously a great example of the democratizing effect of Ethereum while also being truly terrifying. A Stanford '17 grad with a few internships worth of industry experience is able to create and deploy a peer-to-peer loan infrastructure. This isn't meant to be demeaning in any way, I'm just remarking on how incredible of an accomplishment it is for both you and Ethereum that the previous sentence…

I think the problems you're alluding to are problems with the blockchain ecosystem in general, and I don't purport to have a silver bullet to solve the inherent issues with immutable software deployments, particularly in financial applications. But, after all, a dark horse 20 year old college dropout spearheaded the development of Ethereum, and the technology now secures nearly 20B worth of value. Maybe it's impossib…

Cool project, congrats! As you speak of the "20B worth of value" I have a question:

I always ask myself what the total monetary value stored in ETH actually is, as the 20B $ is the market capitalization (as far as I understand), which in my opinion is NOT the value. Drawing on my Economics classes (from a long time ago), my thinking goes like this:

Let's assume I create 100 million items of a new cryptocurrency. At first, my coins have no value whatsoever. Now, you offer to buy 1 cryptocoin for 200 $ from me. This would instantly give my currency a market capitalization of 200 $ * 100 MN = 20 BN $! But is my currency now worth 20 BN $? I would say no, as there is probably no way for me to sell the remaining 99.999.999 coins for the same price for which I sold the first coin. And even after distributing a large amount of coins (say 50 % of the total), I would probably not be able to sell my remaining coins for their market value, as my offer volume would rapidly drive down the price of the coins by creating an oversupply (depending on the transaction volume of the currency of course).

Following this logic I always thought that speaking of 20 BN $ of value stored in ETH as misleading, as the real monetary value of the currency (as determined by how much value you could actually extract when liquidating it entirely) is probably much less than that. And given that most people invest in ETH purely for speculation, I would even wager that a single seller who puts a large number of ETH on the market (as compared to the average daily volume) could cause a massive price drop, since there is no "fundamental" value in ETH (contrary to an asset-backed currency or a company stock).

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#29

Post by ue_ »

marsrover wrote: post #18
jmagoon wrote: post #15

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

> It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). According to Wikipedia, > In certain contexts, dharma designates human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, principles that prevent chaos, behaviours and action necessary to all life…

Although I agree with what you're saying, I personally find it a little irksome beacuse we're calling some kind of lending/contract/whatever system 'dharma', not that it's adharmic, but it's like when you see someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, or buying soap embossed with "Fight Cub". Instead of focusing on the impermanence of phenomena, dispassion and the attainment of peace, we're... making contracts or borrowing or something?

Yes, I'm being facetious, but I think GP has a point. It seems as though a cool sounding word was chosen and used for the fun of it. And this is what words become, it just feels somewhat irresponsible to start a potential change in culture to favour your hot new tech over sage advice to better the human condition. So while the original word isn't gone, it is always at risk, and with the loss of words comes blunted ability to explain concepts. So while I would not describe it as 'yanking', I would more describe it as 'eroding', which doesn't have to be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's happening.

I'm hardly one to talk about "cultural appropriation", as nobody in particular really has claim to ownership of culture, but the naming does sit somewhat off with me, though it's just a personal preference of course.

Adorno wrote about the commodification of art in The Culture Industry. Can the same be said about our ideas? Gramsci wrote about cultural hegemony, can the same be observed in our replacement of the meaning of words in this way?

Re: Show HN: Dharma – Programmable Peer-To-Peer Loans Using Ethereum Smart Contracts

#30

Post by djtriptych »

marsrover wrote: post #18
jmagoon wrote: post #15

I know this is off topic, but why the heck is it called Dharma? Just a cool sounding eastern word? It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. I get that it's hip for westerners to yank Buddhist words, but this one really pushes my East Asian buttons. It doesn't even semantically make sense--in fact, it's a total antonym in many ways.

> It's like calling something 'The Gospel' or 'The New Testament' or the 'Quran Protocol'. Yeah, I don't think that is true, at all. Dharma is a concept and you've listed books (or close enough to books). According to Wikipedia, > In certain contexts, dharma designates human behaviours considered necessary for order of things in the universe, principles that prevent chaos, behaviours and action necessary to all life…

This is an oversimplified answer. Dharma certainly has religious significance to many millions of people. So, it's not "like any other name". It's evocative, and if you are unaware of just which feelings you are evoking, your product is at risk.

Consider the case of the javascript test runner, Karma. It was originally named testacular. Possibly a play on spectacular, but also close enough to testicular to make female consumers of the library a bit uncomfortable. Ultimately, products have to be sold to someone, and this is a problem that makes that job harder.

Dharma does carry a secular sanskrit definition, but sanskrit is not a precise written language like English. The meanings of words are often only discoverable in context, and approachable only with a prior familiarity of common illustrations and allegories depicting the concept. Westerners, unfamiliar with such depictions as the Bhagavad Gita, which MOST Indians are familiar with, are severely disadvantaged in discussing the true concept behind the word. Relying on a particular English transliteration is risky.

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