100 years of whatever this will be

> All of the current histrionics that we hear from DeFi advocates regarding escaping the evil centralized Banks and Regulators and what not

There are several different people that seem inclined to be attracted to crypto. This is just one and there's a huge crossover with gold bugs. There are also people who have made a lot of money or missed out on making a lot of money and have bought into the narrative that crypto is the future and/or they're desperately seeking to be in on day one of the next Bitcoin.

I agree about rewrites in general. Almost always, in fact. But I also believe in software entropy and it can reach a point where the current requirements are so far removed from the original requirements that subsequent changes can become increasingly expensive and risky to the point where a partial or total rewrite might make sense. But people also pull the trigger way too often.

Considerations for a rewrite:

1. Timeline. Will the current system stagnate for a year? If so, it's a problem;

2. Can a rewrite be partial and coexist with the current system? If not, huge problem. You reduce timelines and risk by planning for partial rewrites; and

3. Is a rewrite or migration reversible? If not, it's a red flag.

It's also why it's so important to build in the capability to upgrade the system cleanly in part. A good example (of what not to do) is Git's utter reliance on SHA1 hashes. At the time it came out I'm absolutely shocked there was no allowance for updating the hashing algorithm given that MD5 obsolescence was recent history at that point.

> And I do think that there are equal parts incompetence and laziness at play.

I think naivete plays a big part too. That and hubris ("this time will be different").

I'm glad it went well for you :)

All of those guarantees are under threat of legal punishment enforced through court systems.

All of those guarantees are given to you based on good standing with various institutions. The bank, the intermediary, the seller.

If you were a person who was not in good standing with a bank, but you still had the money, could you have completed the transaction?

Technology has a trend of destroying middleman industries, as they don't provide value and take a portion of the proceeds for themselves.

DeFi, in this case, is targeting the financial institutions because we now have technological means to replace banks and lenders. Does that mean this process is smooth? or ready for mass adoption? Not necessarily, but the destruction of banks by technology is inevitable. It's just a matter of when

This is why I’m bullish on Chia. Their philosophy is quite plainly: operate within the existing regulatory framework and existing social ground rules (i.e. as a traditional capitalist institution beholden to the SEC) to provide and be the steward of a better backend and tools for doing (as the article asserts) the fundamentally distributed operation of processing payments and supporting markets. There’s a pre-farm that supports the company, they’re going to make a lot of money for their investors (which you can participate in too if you want). That’s nothing new and so be it. That’s the world we live in.

It is deliberately not, “burn the world we need a crypto revolution right now society be damned”. I don't like the term crypto and neither does Chia.

We need a modern ACH (you know the thing runs on FTP right?) and actual digital cash. And we need the people supporting the system to be “the people”. A decentralized ledger with a strong Eltoo (L2) ecosystem does serve this goal.

If you’re of the sane moderate opinion that we need better tools and that the ideas behind DeFi aren’t entirely worthless but still think society mostly kinda works but some parts need a refactor, check the chia community out. They’re thoughtful level headed players in the “DeFi” space. Refactor, not rewrite.

Freedom is slavery...

We're not all in the same boat. If you want to change the system, you're going to have to fight the people invested in the status quo. Most people aren't interested in the "greater good," even though they may maintain this position publicly because it is considered antisocial to openly say "f** the plebs," but actions speak louder than words--by their fruits you shall know them. When we see things like rampant homeless and crushing debt, we know such things are being said in private.

It's time to put aside our idealism and don a cynical outlook. Our rose colored glasses are holding us back. We just need to make sure we don't become evil in the process.

>But I wonder if democracies have optimized as far as they can.

If you dig your powdered wig out of the closet and look back at the founding of the united States of America, their big idea is still pretty good. The article makes this point, obliquely:

>All we need is to build distributed systems that work. That means decentralized bulk activity, hierarchical regulation.

Having the Big Nationwide Things happen at the federal level, and the Not Quite As Big Local Things happen at the State level was a fine idea. You can't get Tennessee and North Carolina to agree on BBQ; do you really think they're going to have the same ideas on social issues, or how to handle them? It's all well and good to have nationwide building codes, but even that falls apart rather quickly. You don't build the same way in California as you would on the Gulf Coast.

Cramming everything into the federal purview wheelhouse is great if you're in NYC or LA, and you can't stand that some people in Nebraska or Alabama disagree with you.