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Is Web3 anything?

chris-granger.com

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Re: Is Web3 anything?

#81

Post by hansonkd13 »

newaccount74 wrote: post #54
jen729w wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it the visibility thing? Yeah a centralised database can do this. Good luck getting access to it. “Security” says you can’t. I think that one of the allures of the blockchain is that it’s publicly visible. This may or may not be a fallacy of reasoning but hey, we’re human.

A lot of government databases are publicly accessible. For example, in Austria we have the "Grundbuch", a register of land ownership. Everyone can inspect the Grundbuch database. Authenticity is guaranteed by requiring a public notary or a court to confirm any changes in the database, and there is a paper trail for every change to a record. It's boring old tech, but it works, and doesn't have all the gotchas of block…

Same thing exists in the US. Property ownership and property tax is open and publicly accessible

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#82

Post by drusenko »

ButtSpark69 wrote: post #49
dzonga wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

succinctly said. all these web3 / crypto folks forget complex laws exist to prevent and remedy situations that can't be simply solved by smart contracts. most of the laws are so complex, we've professionals who specialise in them.

You view the complexity of American law as a feature, not a bug??

Legacy code (aka the American legal system) is routinely despised by those new to the problem space. Most experienced programmers will know that the (new to them) code isn’t all flaws, despite its initial appearance - there are a myriad of embedded edge cases and branches that at first blush seem like cruft, but in reality are the result of learning from various failure modes.

As with any complex rewrite I suspect we are doomed to rediscover the rationale for the original design. Hopefully it will end up meaningfully better, and not a Digg 3.0.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#83

Post by onion2k »

pengwing wrote: post #8
lmm wrote: post #7

But is there any case where you'd actually trust a pile of blockchains more than an existing trust mechanism (whether that's neighbourliness, contract law, or something else)? If you're not a programmer, getting a programmer to review your smart contract probably costs more than getting a lawyer to review your regular contract. If you are a programmer, you probably know better than to rely on some code being bug-free…

The irony of course being that you would have to fully trust the programmer who reviews your contract.

You don't have to trust a single developer if you pay multiple independent reviewers though. If you paid a bonus for finding problems you could even incentivize their honesty.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#84

Post by linkdd »

Longwelwind wrote: post #62
tracyhenry wrote: post #3

> Once submitted, that “contract” will be carried out exactly as specified. It is observable to everyone, debuggable, and non-falsifiable. But a centralized database can also achieve this, right? The premise of the general public trusting a blockchain more than an established, centralized 3rd party (e.g. government) seems so feeble.

If I understood Web3 correctly, it would be exactly like traditional web, except that: * The source code of all websites would be open-source, and accessible to anyone. It could still be changed, but it could not be done secretly. * All the actions of the users of the websites would be public. If we take social forums, for example Hacker News, it would mean that: * The algorithm behind the front page of social forums…

> The message would still be accessible on the blockchain.

What about the right to be forgotten and GDPR laws?

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#85

Post by bobthepanda »

Fordec wrote: post #73
robbedpeter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that the systems are broken. The level of gatekeeping and lack of informed consent have made the legal system a mess. The lawyers are the ones writing the laws... for the benefit of the lawyers and the people with the highest bids. In a fair system, sure, but the American financial legal system is bonkers. There's a reason people are looking for alternatives.

Lawyers do not write laws. Politician, or at least the writing staff do. To stick to the analogy I guess: Lawyers -> Engineers Policy Writers -> Architects Politicians -> Executives, Directors, Sales and Marketing Judges -> QA

Well, lawyers are the plurality of Congresspeople (though their share of Congress has declined over time) https://thepractice.law.harvard.edu/article/declining-domina...

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#86

Post by js4ever »

pengwing wrote: post #8
lmm wrote: post #7

But is there any case where you'd actually trust a pile of blockchains more than an existing trust mechanism (whether that's neighbourliness, contract law, or something else)? If you're not a programmer, getting a programmer to review your smart contract probably costs more than getting a lawyer to review your regular contract. If you are a programmer, you probably know better than to rely on some code being bug-free…

The irony of course being that you would have to fully trust the programmer who reviews your contract.

Even if you trust the programmer, and even if he is competent he might still miss a very complex edge case ... and since there is no court / jury to take a human decision, you can be totally screwed.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#87

Post by vmception »

To me its just the open deployment and one time payment. Other development and cloud environments do not compete, from a founder or developer perspective. Users pay to use with no convincing necessary.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#88

Post by fatbird »

EGreg wrote: post #66
fatbird wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum has twice hard forked the blockchain to revert the results of "code is law", clearly saying that code is only law when a quorum of powerful individuals accept the outcome. Code isn't law, "code is law" is a slogan with as much veracity as slogans usually have.

I will quote from an article I wrote in CoinDesk last year: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/03/12/in-defense-of-block... For every technology we use today, there was a time it was laughably inadequate as a replacement for what came before. Code isn’t law, code is better than law. I wondered what I would have done 300 years agi before computers, and realized I’d probably be an architect or one of those lawmaker guy…

You're right, you can do all that--until vested interests revert your blockchain because the current blockchain status quo isn't to their liking, at which point your belief that code is better than law is a lie, because it still comes down to powerful individuals deciding what benefits them instead of letting "deterministic" outcomes stand.

It's not that people are laughing at it now; it's that it's already been proven to be a fraud, where the promise of an immutable blockchain is a grift to part suckers from their money.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#89

Post by cormacrelf »

robbedpeter wrote: post #55
Fordec wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come to the acceptance that lawyers are to the legal system as software engineers are to technical systems. You pay people who specialize in knowing the ins and outs of a complex system so you can get on with your life as a citizen, founder, etc. And people who espouse that we don't need laws or lawyers to run our society are making about as coherent sense as saying we can ship a unicorn entirely on no-code and…

The trouble is that the systems are broken. The level of gatekeeping and lack of informed consent have made the legal system a mess. The lawyers are the ones writing the laws... for the benefit of the lawyers and the people with the highest bids. In a fair system, sure, but the American financial legal system is bonkers. There's a reason people are looking for alternatives.

The laws are mostly fine. The process of getting justice when someone has broken them is the bigger problem. Unfortunately solving the problem of access to cheap and efficient justice is just not that glamorous. There’s not enough money in it, so let’s start again from scratch right?

Not to mention techno-libertarian anarcho-capitalism is the ideological driving force behind many decentralisation efforts (hello Bitcoin), which is kinda at odds with improving justice. Many people in the space actively wish to be outside the law. Those are the people who started looking for alternatives, everyone else will parrot any old extreme ideology like “get rid of courts” for a sweet well-paying gig.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#90

Post by fatbird »

impulser_ wrote: post #74
fatbird wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethereum has twice hard forked the blockchain to revert the results of "code is law", clearly saying that code is only law when a quorum of powerful individuals accept the outcome. Code isn't law, "code is law" is a slogan with as much veracity as slogans usually have.

Yes, but the original blockchain still exists. You can still use the original Ethereum blockchain, if you want too.

So what? Ethereum classic has two+ orders of magnitude less activity. The hard forks are where Ethereum is today. It's not just the maintainers deciding what's law, instead of code; the coin community actually wants it that way.
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