Is Web3 anything? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#201

Post by jgilias » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

fnoof wrote: post #197

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these schemes always still might need some higher authority in the end e.g. who decides when the work is done? Putting up collateral only ensures that someone has the money, it does not ensure that one actually gets the money. Because defining when "the work" is done, can be really complicated in real life projects. Contracts in real life are complicated. Real life is messy etc.

I’d imagine they would, kind of like the levels of arbitrators and courts today. The article said the neighbours first vote that work is done. Most of the time that could work. But it also mentions the neighbours could collude to steal the collateral. In that case courts could get involved and force money be returned etc. I’m very far from a legal expert, but smart contracts seem like a potentially useful tool, withi…

> courts could get involved and force the money be returned

So, it's the government enforcing the contract.

EDIT: Just wanted to add that I actually completely agree with your last sentence!

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#202

Post by dTal » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #114

cormacrelf wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that’s what you want web3 for, I’m actually quite happy for you to record your treachery on a public ledger. There is a reason the government doesn’t want you to do it, and that’s that sanctions are one of the only reasonable deterrents to war that we have. I can’t believe you would advocate for interfering with that on a public forum, in 2021 when western democracies are already struggling to make economic sancti…

You’re assuming I’m talking about selling things to North Korea, or arms dealing, or something; but in the multilateral case, I’m actually talking about enabling trade in situations where arbitration of otherwise- legal contracts is impractical due to enforcement of contracts requiring ongoing positive relations (e.g. for mutual extradition) which have lapsed, or requiring the crossing of a DMZ — leaving parties on e…

But your argument also justifies selling arms to North Korea. After all, it's a positive-sum transaction that increases global GDP?

The flaw is that a transaction isn't positive-sum just because you and your trade partner are both happy. Your transaction may well incur negative externalities that outweigh the total profit enjoyed by you and your partner. For example, the world is much worse off if you sell a button-that-destroys-America to North Korea, even though you and North Korea are both pleased at the arrangement.

I don't want to put activity out of the reach of governments. Governments are the organ by which we decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior. If our governments are behaving unreasonably, the solution is to fix them, not to pursue anarchy.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#203

Post by giantrobot » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #181

meheleventyone wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random question but as a large miner and supporter of ETH how will the proposed switch to PoS next year impact you?

Thanks for asking. My business model has always been larger than just mining ETH. I'm focused on building data centers for providing decentralized compute to all these web3 applications being built today. Mining (aka: being paid to validate anonymous transactions) is just one use case. You see all these articles about how a dApp went down because AWS was down? I'd like to help solve that issue. It isn't just about re…

> I'm focused on building data centers for providing decentralized compute to all these web3 applications being built today.

You're building data centers for decentralized compute?

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#204

Post by endymi0n » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

It's not supposed to mean something.

It's supposed to mean anything, so your imagination, excitement and greed can inpaint the rest.

"Then they go up one more level: people send files, but web browsers also “send” requests for web pages. And when you think about it, calling a method on an object is like sending a message to an object! It’s the same thing again! Those are all sending operations, so our clever thinker invents a new, higher, broader abstraction called messaging, but now it’s getting really vague and nobody really knows what they’re talking about any more. Blah.

When you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes smart thinkers just don’t know when to stop, and they create these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and fine, but don’t actually mean anything at all."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28353157 — Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You (2001) (joelonsoftware.com)

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#205

Post by ajdegol » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

I like crypto, it’s interesting, from a technical perspective.

And if you e ever had to send money to a foreign currency and pay exchange rates then sending a bit of crypto is like “huh, so that’s how that should feel”.

However, the argument that you need it to be free from government and society troubles me because it all runs on electricity and other infrastructure. Maybe solar panels and satellites will help in the short term, but we’d need a bit more of a robust internet solution.

I really like cardano’s approach. Trial in places that aren’t developed countries. That will teach you a lot.

Everyday on hacker news there is a new shit-on-web3 post on the fp. To me this would be a strong signal to buy some.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#206

Post by timdaub » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

CurrentB wrote: post #43

Nice read. What I don't get about all the crypto haters, who will probably make up the majority of replies here, are they really just happy with the status quo? Do they really think the current financial system is great and their online bank account is perfect and nothing radical is worth trying? That usernames and passwords given to each of a million different companies are so great, why would people want to manage…

My theory is that the people who shitpost about blockchain on HN every day do it for the same reasons as crypto people post positive things: We all want more money at the end of the day.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I think all of this is about incentives. And so that stephendiehl.com fellow must have the same kind of stake in some technology as a crypto maximalist, but maybe directed elsewhere.

There are enough people in this world that are living a happy life without blockchains and for them, it looks like a threat so they belittle it and try to argue it away.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#207

Post by nicbou » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

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 other biggest downside is that anyone else can just copy your website and profit off it.

I already have a pretty hard time with SEO spammers rephrasing the content I live from and passing it as their own. I can't imagine people lifting the entire website and making a permanent copy of it, profiting from 4 years of my work.

That's for a 100% free website with no "secret sauce" besides hard work. I can imagine any other website might want to hold their cards even closer.

Then there's also the site owners being held responsible for hosting illegal content, and being powerless to delete it.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#208

Post by roberrrrrrt » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

throwaway405769 wrote: post #196

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these schemes always still might need some higher authority in the end e.g. who decides when the work is done? Putting up collateral only ensures that someone has the money, it does not ensure that one actually gets the money. Because defining when "the work" is done, can be really complicated in real life projects. Contracts in real life are complicated. Real life is messy etc.

> who decides when the work is done? This is part of the smart contract, which has to explicitly define the conditions on which the collateral is confiscated. Getting real life data reliably into the blockchain is hard, but there are different approaches to solve this.

The “different approaches to solve this” part, if it ever arrives, would be much more revolutionary than the blockchain itself.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#209

Post by nicbou » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:27 AM UTC

berkes wrote: post #122

newaccount74 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many people complain about transaction fees and limited throughput of a blockchain. I can only imagine this ancient system to be a magnitude worse in those regards.

Depends on the system. We served webpages quickly 20 years ago. Berlin also has an open data portal, and it's as fast as any other website.

Re: Is Web3 anything?

#210

Post by streamofdigits » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

> trust-less commitments seem to be at the heart of what web3 really is and that feels much harder to dismiss than owning JPEGs or speculating on currencies

This is indeed the core feature of this whole genre but arguably makes it easier to dismiss in its entirety as concept and philosophy.

Technology should enable building trust. Simply enabling a trust-less society to limb along in a transactional way reveals the libertarian bitcoin roots of web3 that actually believes "there is no such a thing as society".

Designing institutions that are authoritative while democratically accountable is a continuous struggle against power grabbing insiders but it is not impossible.