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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.
Another y-combinator contrarian post of the form "the thing everyone likes is actually crap." Fortunately for the author I happen to agree with this particular thesis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
What you're saying is also just plainly logically unsound. If we tried to explore every possibility, irrespective of its potential, humanity would be nowhere. "Hunting for arguments why something will never work" is one of the finest anti-insanity protocols we have at our disposal.
However, this is where they go awry:
Instead of relying on trust or regulation, in the blockchain world, individuals are on-purpose responsible for their own security precautions.
THIS is the revolution. And the revolution will not be centralized :)
Blockchains are just one example of it. Kademlia trees and close consensus is another, used by SAFE network. Go look it up.
The whole POINT is, it is very hard not just for someone to tamper with a file, but to cut off access to it. Crypto-currencies also have the added requirement of preventing “double-spending”, which is very hard to do.
EXAMPLE: Why trust the landlord to have keys to open your apartment instead of an electronic lock that lets you set permissions YOURSELF? Use your phone to authenticate yourself instead of facebook controlling it. “Oh what if I lose the phone?” “Then have a backup.” “What if I lose everything?” “Then have M of N friends plus a key derived from a passphrase you know to restore it.” “Ok what about if I get amnesia and lose my phone?” “This is 0.00001% of the population and even Jason Bourne implanted a chip in his own ass.”
This guy doesn’t live in a country where the institutions people rely on have routinely screwed people. The solution is usually “throw more Democracy at it”, which is what can lead to totalitarianism.
Ever read “fuck the cloud”? It’s a good read. Why SHOULD I pay someone I don’t know to store all my files, and delete my local copies?
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1717
Have you all seen just recently what Facebook does? Why would I entrust my data, identity and brand to them?
Have we seen websites censored or DDOSed? Or just broken links to useful stuff?
SAFE network and Freenet etc. are the decentralized future. I agree that Blockchain is only a small part of the future.
Blockchains with one writer are, for example Scuttlebutt. Super resilient.
I also agree that there is no viable medium of exchange that’s fast and cheap for everyday transactions because the way blockchains currently work, they need a global consensus about every friggin transaction. That doesn’t scale. That’s why we launched intercoin.org
If you want to see more about this topic, I just wrote about it: https://qbix.com/blog
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Lisk, Nxt, Bitshares and dozens of others.
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'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…
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.