Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer • Hacker News Board

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#231

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

mstade wrote: post #114

nemild wrote: post #24

The danger in a space like this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. - Yes, there are an insane amount of scams, and lots of dumb money flowing in - Yes, many use cases of blockchains should really be databases - Yes, many blockchain job posts are just PR initiatives for companies who want to differentiate themselves That said, it's an early time to have a tremendous amount of impact. Don't like "proof of wo…

> Get angry at banks? My response to anyone serious about competing with banks: go work for one. Banks are often portrayed as these evil faceless entities that act completely in their self interest. In reality, most banks that matter are simply too large to act as one – and not in the sense that they are too big to fail (although, that's probably true as well) but that they are huge organizations with thousands upon…

As a general note the suggestion to go work for a company or sector you dislike is interesting, just like getting to know someone you dislike is, or trying to do something you really dislike. At best, it broadens your horizon, you learn a lot about how not to do X, and perhaps you can change something from within. At worst, its a confirmation, you can't change anything, it remains a bad fit, and you move on. As an example, this is why people who are into open source and Linux and who went working at Microsoft around late '00/early '10 were making a brilliant move. Not only for themselves, but for Microsoft as well. But we should not forget it is a suggestion which has a price: it costs time/effort switching job, or learning to know someone. I'd say a positive mindset (curiosity, open-mindedness) is going to help, or may even be a necessity.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#232

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

hndamien wrote: post #218

mstade wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get angry at banks? My response to anyone serious about competing with banks: go work for one. Banks are often portrayed as these evil faceless entities that act completely in their self interest. In reality, most banks that matter are simply too large to act as one – and not in the sense that they are too big to fail (although, that's probably true as well) but that they are huge organizations with thousands upon…

I have a better solution for those that are angry at banks and wish to innovate around them. Don't use them. Build communities around you that are also happy to not use them. There are plenty of working solutions available now to be free of banks - the main thing that is tethering you is lack of faith in crypto/ each other and debt that is still required to be serviced. Once you can unshackle yourself of the debt, yo…

That's one new can of worms. See, I don't have a lack of faith in cryptography; I have a lack of faith in humans ie. PEBKAC. I believe cryptocurrencies are being and are continuing to be abused by human beings with immense repercussions --some of which we're already seeing, some of which is hidden in plain sight, some of which we're yet to see. From programming errors to deliberate scams to losses of hardware wallets the cryptocurrency world isn't for the faint of heart. Meanwhile, there are more ethical banks. They might not be as popular as the big names heck they might not meet your ethical standards in one way or another but... they are out there. I'd say, check out that solution first.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#233

Post by arbol » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

lucozade wrote: post #230

arbol wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent! They do not move the physical gold - they move the ownership of a digital token tied to gold, at a far lesser fee than current digital escrow. This is the same as ETF gold currently. Not many people receive actual, physical gold. In the case that you needed to receive the physical gold, the cost of trusting a delivery person remains fairly constant (until we have autonomous delivery robots). However, the p…

> They do not move the physical gold If you're not moving the gold, who needs escrow? You're just describing a cash settled spot market. > the cost of trusting a delivery person remains fairly constant Indeed, as you're having no effect on either escrow or post-settlement delivery. But that's my point, smart contracts don't make a blind bit of difference. > Amazon and eBay are also facilitators of value transactions…

Supply chain mistakes are costly and can result in unsaleable stock. There are existing standards (see GS1) but they are full of errors due to disparate systems and varying interpretations of XML messages. Smart contracts have the potential to reduce the cost of goods delivery through shared supply chain management systems, placing less risk on a potential 'new to market' market place or 'direct to consumer' seller. These are both direct challenges to Amazon and eBay.

Expensive digital assets will always require a mediation fee. You could write your own contract to transfer the assets for free but you would probably want to pay to guarantee that it worked.

Of course, if the digital transaction is of a suitably small value, a direct transfer of assets may be preferred via a self-authored contract. The loser in this case is VISA or whichever payment provider scalps off the top of music/movie/book/... sales currently.

I wasn't trying to specifically cite transactions as being the main target of smart contracts (although they are the most obvious). The example was to show how existing processes of a transactional nature can be recreated with less complexity and therefore utilise less resources. There is an endless list of examples where this holds to some extent.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#234

Post by mstade » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #231

mstade wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get angry at banks? My response to anyone serious about competing with banks: go work for one. Banks are often portrayed as these evil faceless entities that act completely in their self interest. In reality, most banks that matter are simply too large to act as one – and not in the sense that they are too big to fail (although, that's probably true as well) but that they are huge organizations with thousands upon…

As a general note the suggestion to go work for a company or sector you dislike is interesting, just like getting to know someone you dislike is, or trying to do something you really dislike. At best, it broadens your horizon, you learn a lot about how not to do X, and perhaps you can change something from within. At worst, its a confirmation, you can't change anything, it remains a bad fit, and you move on. As an ex…

You Sir have precisely understood the essence of what I was trying to say. Working for the "enemy", if you will, definitely comes at a price – but that up front cost could save you lots down the line both in time and capital, simply by virtue of having learned more about the domain you're trying to reform.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#235

Post by lucozade » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

arbol wrote: post #233

lucozade wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They do not move the physical gold If you're not moving the gold, who needs escrow? You're just describing a cash settled spot market. > the cost of trusting a delivery person remains fairly constant Indeed, as you're having no effect on either escrow or post-settlement delivery. But that's my point, smart contracts don't make a blind bit of difference. > Amazon and eBay are also facilitators of value transactions…

Supply chain mistakes are costly and can result in unsaleable stock. There are existing standards (see GS1) but they are full of errors due to disparate systems and varying interpretations of XML messages. Smart contracts have the potential to reduce the cost of goods delivery through shared supply chain management systems, placing less risk on a potential 'new to market' market place or 'direct to consumer' seller.…

If you have a big supply chain, like Amazon does, then managing the complexity of that chain is a tough problem. I happen to agree with IBM that a distributed ledger like technology can help with that. Not a public one, obviously as that would just be silly, but it would make sense for Amazon to run one. We're doing a variant of this in my field.

But it doesn't make any sense to use smart contracts to manage the supply chain complexity of a business that, by definition, doesn't have a complex supply chain i.e. a direct to customer seller. Especially a seller of digital assets.

> Expensive digital assets will always require a mediation fee

Why? Most mediating supplies an overt service for those fees as well as the mediation. For example, producers at studios, editors at publishers, rights management and marketing/discovery at Netflix etc. Remove the value add and you're left with a commodity.

In that scenario you might have very small margin services but, just as likely, would be ad led services for free. I mean, they have useful financial information. There'll be a group that doesn't want that but there's no clear evidence it'll ever be more than niche.

So yes, there's value there but I just can't see any reason, for any of the examples you cite, to believe that incumbents will be challenged. If anything it may help entrenchment.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#236

Post by root_axis » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

dorgo wrote: post #226

root_axis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It allows one to seamlessly and securely work across human trust boundaries That's not really true though. The "trust boundaries" still exist when you try to convert your tokens into spendable money. Also, blockchain enthusiasts seem to forget that blockchain tokens are built on an intricate house-of-cards that can easily collapse under disaster circumstances. There is an implied trust that is always taken for gran…

Maybe that's the idea of crypto: that such powers don't belong into the hands of bureaucrats? Btw: everything can collapse under disaster circumstances. Why creating a startup if government can forbid startups tomorrow?

> that such powers don't belong into the hands of bureaucrats

Blockchain tokens don't solve this problem; the power is defacto in their hands and you'll either need their consent or continued ignorance to participate in the wider economy using tokens.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#237

Post by solotronics » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 3:33 AM UTC

drak0n1c wrote: post #120

nemild wrote: post #24

The danger in a space like this is throwing the baby out with the bath water. - Yes, there are an insane amount of scams, and lots of dumb money flowing in - Yes, many use cases of blockchains should really be databases - Yes, many blockchain job posts are just PR initiatives for companies who want to differentiate themselves That said, it's an early time to have a tremendous amount of impact. Don't like "proof of wo…

There are upcoming Distributed Ledgers that don't use blockchains or mining - like Hashgraph which uses a form of gossip protocol to handle more than 300k transactions/second. These distributed ledgers may soon handle traffic that currently requires centralized servers (MMORPG games, etc). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgwYU1Zr9Tg

is there an actual product or implemention of any of these? I can't seem to find any examples actually in the wild. Has any of that even been mathematically proven? It's easy to prove hashing and the block chain.

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#238

Post by hndamien » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #232

hndamien wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a better solution for those that are angry at banks and wish to innovate around them. Don't use them. Build communities around you that are also happy to not use them. There are plenty of working solutions available now to be free of banks - the main thing that is tethering you is lack of faith in crypto/ each other and debt that is still required to be serviced. Once you can unshackle yourself of the debt, yo…

That's one new can of worms. See, I don't have a lack of faith in cryptography; I have a lack of faith in humans ie. PEBKAC. I believe cryptocurrencies are being and are continuing to be abused by human beings with immense repercussions --some of which we're already seeing, some of which is hidden in plain sight, some of which we're yet to see. From programming errors to deliberate scams to losses of hardware wallets…

I hear what you are saying, but it isn’t actually that complicated. Granted, it does get more complicated with larger sums as risk and security requirements increase. That said, if you are an adult, maybe it is time to not rely on a third party to be between you and other economic actors. We don’t do this with information, why do we do it with financial information (who holds what wealth and owes whom how much).

Re: Turning Down a Blockchain Job Offer

#239

Post by Fnoord » Sat, Jan 27, 2018, 12:35 PM UTC

hndamien wrote: post #238

Fnoord wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one new can of worms. See, I don't have a lack of faith in cryptography; I have a lack of faith in humans ie. PEBKAC. I believe cryptocurrencies are being and are continuing to be abused by human beings with immense repercussions --some of which we're already seeing, some of which is hidden in plain sight, some of which we're yet to see. From programming errors to deliberate scams to losses of hardware wallets…

I hear what you are saying, but it isn’t actually that complicated. Granted, it does get more complicated with larger sums as risk and security requirements increase. That said, if you are an adult, maybe it is time to not rely on a third party to be between you and other economic actors. We don’t do this with information, why do we do it with financial information (who holds what wealth and owes whom how much).

> That said, if you are an adult, maybe it is time to not rely on a third party to be between you and other economic actors. We don’t do this with information, why do we do it with financial information (who holds what wealth and owes whom how much).

We are outsourcing (in the literal and figural sense) all the time, including with information. Google, Facebook, and arguably Amazon are examples of us outsourcing information. Even there, self hosting (e.g. Mastodon allows a Facebook/Twitter alternative) has its advantages and disadvantages. People do not take disadvantages seriously until it confronts them.