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Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

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Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#101

Post by ohthehugemanate »

isodev wrote: post #39
Grustaf wrote: post #18

I'm very sceptical of blockchain (though I've been in crypto off and on since 2013) but most of the arguments in this article are non-sensical. For example: > But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer. I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds…

> I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds was ever a goal, you certainly never hear it as an argument. These features and capabilities are usually implied for financial systems. It's really just common sense.

to be clear about the semantics here: cash doesn't count as a "financial system", right?

Blockchain currencies are basically counterfeit-proof, digital cash with an audit trail. comparing them to credit cards is an apples:oranges comparison.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#102

Post by lovingCranberry »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #63
lovingCranberry wrote: post #54

> A recent example for this insanity from here in Germany is the development of the digital vaccination certificate in early 2021. In the beginning it was planned to use blockchain technology. In this specific case they wanted to use not only one, but five. Why? Nobody knew exactly and after massive criticism from the public the plan was dropped and replaced by a simpler architecture without blockchains, that’s still…

> Text explains why a thing is generally bad > Text gives an example of said thing being used > Comment points out how the example doesn't prove the thing is bad Congratulations, you've almost figured out how examples work.

Have you read the whole article? The author claims that "Neither I or anybody I know has ever heard of any usage of blockchain that’s in any way useful".

Well, I'm just trying to say that Bitcoin is actually useful, but the other applications are not :)

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#103

Post by [deleted] »

frankenst1 wrote: post #89

> But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer. Nirvana fallacy. Bitcoin allows people to control their own money, if they decide to give it to scammers, it's not Bitcoins fault. > The absolutely perverted energy usage in times of climate change is only one of those (…

[deleted]

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#104

Post by nicbou »

frankenst1 wrote: post #89

> But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer. Nirvana fallacy. Bitcoin allows people to control their own money, if they decide to give it to scammers, it's not Bitcoins fault. > The absolutely perverted energy usage in times of climate change is only one of those (…

> if they decide to give it to scammers

"Decide" is an interesting choice of word.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#105

Post by smt88 »

traveler01 wrote: post #33
onebot wrote: post #3

It amazes me how polarizing blockchain and cryptocurrency is. It is to black/white, love/hate. I really don't ever remember a technology that has created such a visceral reaction from people. I personally, believe there is a quite novel concept behind the trust-less consensus mechanisms. It amazes me that computers can come to an agreement in a hostile environment--fully decentralized. How that is put to use in pract…

That's the world we live in. Nobody can stay in the middle, people either hate it or love it, it's either black or white. Nobody can do pros/cons on everything, specially giving valid criticism to improve an idea.

> That's the world we live in. Nobody can stay in the middle, people either hate it or love it, it's either black or white.

This is an illusion created by spending time online. The loudest people are polarized, but the majority of people are still in the middle somewhere, sometimes in a very ambivalent state.

A great example of this is Elon Musk. Online (Twitter, reddit, etc.) people worship him or loathe him. But the average person rarely thinks about him at all and doesn't care that much about him. They certainly don't have a strong opinion.

If you look at research (I read a lot of Pew surveys), this is true for most topics. There are 5-25% of people on the extremes, and everyone else can be said to be "not extreme" about the topic in some way (either ambivalent or just not knowledgeable enough to give a response).

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#106

Post by dbrgn »

mnd999 wrote: post #16
karxxm wrote: post #6

> The idea to get rid of having to trust centralized organizations might sound tempting, but it doesn’t work: Blockchains don’t get rid of “trust”, they just change, who has to be trusted. What if a group of trusted organizations run a blockchain together?

Plenty of people trying to sell private blockchain snake-oil for precisely that purpose. It’s all rubbish, just use a database.

Certificate transparency is a permissioned blockchain (a merkle hash tree), ran by a group of trusted organizations and observed by third party monitors ("validators"). Your browser probably queried that blockchain when you opened hackernews.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#108

Post by plaguepilled »

>The idea to get rid of having to trust centralized organizations might sound tempting, but it doesn’t work: Blockchains don’t get rid of “trust”, they just change, who has to be trusted.

More people need to read this. Developers can betray trust too, and I'm a little tired of reading "In a shocking turn of events, new cryptocurrency previously supported by Seemingly Trustworthy Source is actually a pump-and-dump. More news at 11."

(A nonexhaustive list of examples: Save The Kids, Tether, Safemoon)

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#109

Post by abiro »

> Blockchain doesn’t solve anything

Blockchains solve state-machine replication in a distributed, permissionless, partially synchronous setting with Byzantine fault tolerance. This is a fundamental breakthrough in distributed systems. It's up to us to figure out what to do with it.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#110

Post by knorker »

Grustaf wrote: post #18

I'm very sceptical of blockchain (though I've been in crypto off and on since 2013) but most of the arguments in this article are non-sensical. For example: > But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer. I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds…

> I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds was ever a goal, you certainly never hear it as an argument.

I don't think this argument is nonsensical. It's true that these things were not goals.

The author's point, I think, is that obviously they should have been. Because this is how people lose money. You can't just call all the most important aspects of monetary transfers "out of scope" if you're trying to create a system for monetary transfers.

> Clearly people feel [the loss of reversal] is a price worth paying.

I don't think so. I think the vast majority of even pro-bitcoin people are actually either in the camp of not realizing the full meaning of this, or they don't truly understand that there's no recourse, until it actually happens to them.

Certainly people in general expect "the bank" or "the police" or "courts" to "just fix it". If cryptocurrency people were honest about this in their MLM pitches then people would tell them to piss off.

> It can be used for storing and (slowly) transferring value in a decentralised way, and that is really the main idea.

Well, "store of value" is the idea now, now that the initial plan proved a massive failure.

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