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Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

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Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#11
post #8
post #5

Blockchain consensus algorithms are slow and use a lot of power. There may be competing technologies, like Hashgraph, that solve speed and power usage issues in the future. As of now all live implementations of blockchain are underwhelming.

Not all. I think you are specifically talking about Bitcoin (Proof of Work)

What live implementations are using POS (Poof of Stake)? It's all academic and likely to be only marginally faster without a lot of risky optimizations.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#13

No coiners. Its fine, we will listen to them protest for years and years, telling us it cant work, it isn't a real solution, etc, while we invent the future. This internet thing will never take off, you need a box that screeches, connected to your phone all day long! I can't even get faxes while im 'online'. Pointless.

Your attempt to equivocate the internet (and its impact) and blockchain is laughable.

I wouldn't say it's equivalent, after all, blockchain is a layer on the internet. But it is common for people to underestimate the impact of technology in the long term. Just as the dot com bubble left people disillusioned with the internet as a platform for commerce, so too is the current state of blockchain. It will continue to evolve, it will continue to grow, and something will rise up and change commerce in a dramatic way. I'd argue that the industry has already come a long, long way and it still has a long, long way to go.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#14
The problem that proof-of-work blockchain solves is widely misunderstood. It uses proof-of-work to establish consensus over points in time which are universally unique. Prior to the publication of Satoshi's paper we did not have a solution to this problem and for that reason it is a significant advance in technology. I wouldn't call it crappy, it's actually quite brilliant.

For a detailed description see this: https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#15
Wow--it's both amazing to me and yet deeply unsurprising that the comments here so far seem to ignore the thrust of the article. Well, whatever--I like how it makes explicit the political theses embedded in current discussion of an "apolitical" technology.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#16
post #6

One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end. That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.

Thank you for saying this. I always try to find the words but you said it eloquently.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#17
post #6

One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end. That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.

> One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end.

That does not seem to be a truism on the face of it. Some things change and some things stay the same. New or old is not clearly a winner, the world is more complex than that.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#18
I agree that it'll be hard, if not impossible for bitcoin to work as well as normal systems built on normal trust. However I think we increasingly do need some system of verifiable trust in a world where anonymity is common, since all current forms of trust require it's participants to not be anonymous.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#19
post #6

One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end. That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.

> One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end. That does not seem to be a truism on the face of it. Some things change and some things stay the same. New or old is not clearly a winner, the world is more complex than that.

That does not seem to be a truism on the face of it.

Agreed. It's actually quite empty, on the face of it.

Re: Systems built on trust, norms, and institutions function better than blockchain

#20
post #6

One thing is sure, if you're hanging on to the past you'll always lose in the end. That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.

> That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.

I don't believe this is the same as discrediting solutions looking for problems. Blockchain proponents desire a technical fix to people problems. That is untenable, as people will always override software, whether that's through a courtroom, a government/regulatory body, or a fork based on majority consensus.

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