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Is Web3 anything?

chris-granger.com

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Re: Is Web3 anything?

#141

Post by derefr »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #136
jayd16 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the thought experiment of a true anarchy, how do you ultimately enforce the off-chain part of a transaction? If BTC is traded for goods or services, how do you enforce that the goods and services have been sufficiently provided?

If your argument is that decentralized ledger technologies cannot in their current state or perhaps ever entirely replace governments then I guess any reasonable person will just have to give that to you. And I doubt as many "crypto evangelicals" would actually argue with you on this.

Right; distributed smart contracts complement legal systems, like a road network complements a rail network.

Of course, that’s just the simple, “immutable logic” kind of smart contracts. The “updatable policy” kind of smart contracts are really just a way to encode and implement a legal system. (See: the regulation model in security tokens.)

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#142

Post by dehrmann »

supermatt wrote: post #100

The term "Web3" was hijacked by ethereum. web 3.11 (crypto optional edition) as I see it is about decentralised services over p2p networks (which may include crypto/blockchain).

> web 3.11

I hear there's something called "Web NT" (new technology) that'll be big in 5 years.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#143

Post by maccolgan »

cormacrelf wrote: post #137
tsimionescu wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I think the stated use case is bizarre and useless, I will note that economic sanctions are almost universally bad, used to hurt the populace of countries like Iran, North Korea, Cuba and others without doing anything to hurt the ruling elites. That said, the problem with such sanctions and trade embargoes is usually the flow of goods, which Bitcoin does less than nothing to solve of course.

I agree, but as we speak Russia has amassed 150k+ troops on the Ukrainian border and Putin is waiting to see whether the West can apply enough sanctions to make the whole effort a net loss before he gives the green light on an invasion.

But why do I have to care about that? Due to the overreach of US policies even companies in countries which don't have sanctions against Russia have to worry about the efficiency and performance of payments going towards Russia. SEPA and ACH may be marginally performant but SWIFT is incredibly expensive, which is the only option you have for international transfers that doesn't depend on an American monopoly of power.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#144

Post by GVRV »

infinityplus1 wrote: post #131
GVRV wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a developed nation. I'm from one of the tier-2 cities in India. I cannot hold stable, diversified collection of global currencies in my bank account and cannot invest in global markets without going to a branch in a bigger town and without significant paperwork. I cannot legally accept money from around the world for my software development skills without being a part of the existing banking system.…

You can invest in mutual funds which invest in foreign companies. Creating online accounts for direct mutual funds investments is fully digital using Video KYC.

Yes, I'm aware of that. However, I need to go through a mutual fund and rely on their stock picking strategy and fees (we've had mutual funds default very recently). I want to enter into a position in a specific stock according to my strategy at a price I'm comfortable at.

This again leads to the same point: why are we so _comfortable_ with the status quo?

I want to think about what could be possible, not what sub-par alternative is available today.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#145

Post by karlerss »

jayd16 wrote: post #119
derefr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. That’s nice when you and your counterparty are part of the same democracy, or potentially allied ones. But how do you enforce contracts when your government and their government are at war? (The governments say “you shouldn’t; they’re the enemy.” Well, screw the governments, I want to make positive-sum trades in the hopes of increasing global GDP a…

In the thought experiment of a true anarchy, how do you ultimately enforce the off-chain part of a transaction? If BTC is traded for goods or services, how do you enforce that the goods and services have been sufficiently provided?

In OP article the interfacing with real world is solved by some group voting.

In the real world, when disagreements arise, we have voting + due process + a hierarchy of courts. It could be argued that due process is an essential part of finding justice.

Baking due process into a smart contract is, although extremely interesting, probably impossible.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#146

Post by eru »

jayd16 wrote: post #119
derefr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. That’s nice when you and your counterparty are part of the same democracy, or potentially allied ones. But how do you enforce contracts when your government and their government are at war? (The governments say “you shouldn’t; they’re the enemy.” Well, screw the governments, I want to make positive-sum trades in the hopes of increasing global GDP a…

In the thought experiment of a true anarchy, how do you ultimately enforce the off-chain part of a transaction? If BTC is traded for goods or services, how do you enforce that the goods and services have been sufficiently provided?

David Friedman's book 'Legal Systems Very Different From Ours' might provide some inspiration:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Legal%20Systems/LegalSystemsCo...

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#147

Post by nefitty »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #21
jolux wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the government is not just some unaccountable third party that sits between you and the rest of society. It is meant to embody the society, and, in a democracy, represent its interests effectively.

The government, and all of its institutions, are indeed a third party. The government is not some representative of the collective will. Thomas Sowell provides his experience at the Department of Labor in 1960 as a poignant demonstration of the fallacy of that notion: https://youtu.be/v6PDpCnMvvw?t=38 Another example would be the latest $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. It was 1,500 pages long and no legislator read…

1500 pages to govern 330 million people. Was there ever a time in history when an individual understood all the laws of a country?

The fact that the provision you mentioned was discovered is an argument FOR this system. The fourth and fifth estates need to play precisely this role, of parsing and communicating the actions of government and business.

Living up to the unfortunate pun, cryptocurrencies make crypto-fascists giddy. No accountability. No transparency. No arbiters of justice. Every segment of society decouples from accountability to any other: individuals hide from governments, governments hide from the press, business hides from government...

What exactly is the argument that you think would make that a worthwhile future to pursue?

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#148

Post by latchkey »

fatbird wrote: post #117
latchkey wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miners choose which chain to follow, not the quorum of powerful individuals. If you believed that ETC was the correct option in that decision, you were free to mine that chain all you want.

Miners choose where it's profitable to mine, which will always be the more active blockchain. It's called voting with your feet, and clearly Ethereum miners followed the quorum of powerful individuals. What matters your massive holdings of ETC when there's no buyers?

Disclosure: I'm a very very large miner and I've been doing it across many protocols over the last 7 years.

You're right that miners choose profitability, but we also choose technology. I don't mine BTC any more, I mine with GPUs (and thus ETH). There are a dozen chains I could mine with these GPUs, but I'd like to see the success of ETH over others.

I can tell you with certainty, no quorum of powerful individuals influenced that decision.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#149

Post by mattwilsonn888 »

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.

"Seems feeble?" You can go on about implementation details, UX flaws, problems with the state of crypto today - but what's been mathematically obvious since Bitcoin's inception is that the right ledger is both permanent and open enough to disregard issues of trust (you could say it has infinite trust, which is an exaggeration, but in a practical sense this is how its used without blemish), and that governments and central parties are easily corruptible and capable of cheating in ways so as to never get caught or noticed.

You either know very little about cryptography and game theory or very little about government to be asserting such doubt. Crypto-currencies have many problems, but finding ones where trust can be taken for granted is trivial.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#150

Post by maccolgan »

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.

A centralized database can't achieve being public without putting trust in a third party (and no Web3 developer seem to eminently trust the government) to verify the double spend problem, otherwise blockchain is just a database. Non-falsiability can be verified through cryptography, yet we have no centralized but non-falsiable database system ready to use.
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