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Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

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Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#301

Post by coldtea »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #255
coldtea wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for not having fraud prevention tech is like blaming TCP/IP stack for delivering a scam email to your inbox. It's more like blaming a water utility company that doesn't give potable water, and its supporters tell you "but you can always buy a bottle of water fro…

That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal nor does it truly require user consent to complete transactions. Clever cryptography makes it possible to do both building on top of Bitcoin or whatever ledger has the desired security and feature set.

>That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal

Neither the "full blockchain solution" would, once the fraud protection and other safety checks are added.

Which is the point I've made.

You can't simultaneously claim the benefits of blockchain being without protection, and respond to the criticism about the dangers with "it's just a toolkit, you can add protection in layers above". Or you can, but you're claiming the pros on both sides of a XOR feature set.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#302

Post by 5h »

z3c0 wrote: post #221
5h wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've set yourself up for a question: Please give an example, with a deeper-lever perspective, of a real-world use-case for (non-crypto) blockchain that isn't better solved with non-blockchain technology. Edit to answer this question: > What about this is intrinsically "dangerous nonsense"? The article isn't about the tech itself, it's about the interfaces of the tech and the real world. The problems there are shame…

And you've set yourself up for an answer;) I think any adversarial system has something to gain from blockchain. When participants of a system are naturally pitted against one another due to being competitors (a la engaging in a zero-sum game), the solution is usually to agree to auditing by a third-party. However, this method is easily corruptible by replacing the auditors with biased parties[1]. This is not an unco…

Short comment to say I appreciate the thoughtful response here, and that implications of public vs private blockchains in real world contexts is something I've not given enough thought to - thanks for the homework :)

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#303

Post by [deleted] »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #255
coldtea wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blockchain is just a decentralized ledger of transactions. A cryptocurrency is an implementation of digital currency using a blockchain. Blaming blockchain for not having fraud prevention tech is like blaming TCP/IP stack for delivering a scam email to your inbox. It's more like blaming a water utility company that doesn't give potable water, and its supporters tell you "but you can always buy a bottle of water fro…

That's not true. A bank does not allow universal and unquestioning withdrawal nor does it truly require user consent to complete transactions. Clever cryptography makes it possible to do both building on top of Bitcoin or whatever ledger has the desired security and feature set.

[deleted]

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#304

Post by dbrgn »

tsimionescu wrote: post #293
dbrgn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a Merkle hash tree. You can call that a blockchain if you want, but we already have a much older and more specific term for it: Merkle hash tree.

Sure, I just wanted to point out that building merkle hash trees, or blockchains, or whatever you want to call it, isn't "all rubbish". There are some valid use cases.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#305

Post by coldtea »

Grustaf wrote: post #258
coldtea wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think protection against human-factor scams and frauds was ever a goal, you certainly never hear it as an argument. Doesn't matter if "it was a goal". It should have been a goal, and it's necessary (doesn't have to be perfect, but absolutely has to exist) for anything wanting to be used as a means of exchange in a modern economy, outside of Mad Max situations and speculation. > Clearly people feel it is a p…

> It should have been a goal, and it's necessary (doesn't have to be perfect, but absolutely has to exist) for anything wanting to be used as a means of exchange in a modern economy, outside of Mad Max situations and speculation. Why are you the one to decide what should have been a goal? And aren't you aware that a lot of people do live in Mad Max like scenarios? Even in a modern country like Argentina the currency…

>Why are you the one to decide what should have been a goal?

Notice how this is an absurd strawman. Also how this is not an argument.

I'm not claiming "I am the one to decide", if it wasn't obvious.

I'm stating my opinion on what should have been decided, followed by some arguments/qualifiers on where/why it should be applicable.

Generally, when people say something, it's their opinion. No clarification is required on that, it's a convention of human discussion. Even though people state things should be X or Y, they don't necessarily make the claim that they are the sole arbitrers of the ultimate authority on a subject: they convey their take on what should be/have been done.

>And aren't you aware that a lot of people do live in Mad Max like scenarios? Even in a modern country like Argentina the currency is in free fall, not to mention many unstable African countries

We've had inflation and catastrophes and we managed to move value without the blockchain.

>Not to mention that Trudeau let the cat out of the bag, you can't even trust that teddybear of a country with your money if you say something the government doesn't like.

You can trust the blockchain even less then.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#306

Post by mattdesl »

tsimionescu wrote: post #297
mattdesl wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If both assets are defined by the same blockchain protocol, a contract can be written that provides both users the ability to deposit the two assets into it. Only once both assets have been deposited will the atomic swap occur. And at any point before this, a deposit could be safely withdrawn (ie: if other party backs out of deal). Edit: if your question is “how does this technically look in practice”, here is an exa…

You claimed that blockchains solve the problem of atomically transferring digital assets. I gave an example of two digital assets I may like to transfer. Please tell me how Ethereum solves the problem of exchanging WoW gold for FF14 Gil in a trust less manner. The problem of transferring digital goods controlled by the same entity in a trust less manner is trivial and solved by many technologies predating Bitcoin. I…

This is a pretty stupid argument; WoW and FF14 gold are not assets defined on the network. The goal of Ethereum is to record Ethereum-based assets (e.g. ERC20, ERC721), not to record the exchange of every asset on the web.

> I can already trustlessly sell a piece of copper in World of Warcraft for gold without involving any other third party.

In this case the third party is Blizzard Entertainment, who can control the state and data.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#307

Post by maxerickson »

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…

It's not just the computers coming to agreement, a majority of participants in a network (by control weight) can decide to ignore the conclusion the computers came to and do something else.

And of course it has happened.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#308

Post by Marazan »

mattdesl wrote: post #78
mightyRodri wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no baby. The technology does not solve technical problems that havent been solved better. The only thing bchains does is give ppl with a lot of money to become stakeholders, the possibility to comodify even more parts of the internet. Thats the only upside of the technology, scam ppl for their money. https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/against-crypto.html https://web3isgoinggreat.com/

> technology does not solve technical problems that havent been solved better Critics like Diehl repeat this often, but without ever referencing the solutions. What non-blockchain solution solves the double spend problem when transferring digital assets in a peer-to-peer network? Or, in the case of Ethereum, providing solutions to general-purpose decentralized computation and state (rather than only peer-to-peer paym…

Yes, Blockchain does indeed solve the problem it creates.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#309

Post by swalsh »

tsimionescu wrote: post #299
swalsh wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A digital car... yeah. The more i've tried to hack with smart contracts for physical stuff, the more I realize that's not what it's good for. But if you stop thinking of the physical world, and only think of the digital world, and you use a modern chain (I use avax). It works pretty good. I think there's a few missing pieces of infrastructure still, but the people who "are in it to build, and not for the money" (I in…

Ok, then how can I buy a World of Warcraft mount from another player I don't trust by using my Final Fantasy 14 money and a block chain? Or, if that's too silly, how do I buy a .com domain name in exchange for some ETH, assuming neither I nor the seller of the domain name trust each other? These are all digital goods, so can avax help me do it?

The games needs to be built to allow this, however here's how it works for games that do implement it.

This is using the C-Chain. Most games now would use a subnet (which is like a parallel blockchain integrated with the mainnet, but cheaper transactions)

1. Dev Create an ERC721 contract for WoW items

2. Dev Create an ERC20 contract for Final Fantasy 14 money

3. ANYONE can Create a liquidity pair for the Final Fantasy ERC20 with AVAX in one or more of the numerous dex's (since i'm using avax, probably using Trader Joe's)

4. Players Swap Final Fantasy money for AVAX, use AVAX to purchase WOW NFT at any of the numerous NFT marketplaces.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#310

Post by rvz »

rvz wrote: post #41
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…

> How that is put to use in practicality maybe debatable. But I think arguments like this tend to just throw the baby out with the bathwater. Maybe is that why companies like Stripe are still using it then for crypto payouts? [0] What is nonsense is totally thinking that it is going to go away 100% due to the scam projects, fraud, etc like what the author has said AND totally thinking ever project is going to survive…

Obviously with the nonsense replies being here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31133074 of course.
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