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Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

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Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#341

Post by Grustaf »

dmitriid wrote: post #337
Grustaf wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I'm not a smart contract evangelist, I'm just replying to your point that they are risky, that you need to understand them before using them. You do, that's why most people shouldn't. As to use cases, you only proposed two things, coffee and real estate. Those examples are both silly, for different reasons. I think in general it very seldom would make sense to use smart contracts for real assets. The only real…

> Then you need a centralised institution that people trust, which mostly defeats the purpose. However, even with "purely digital assets" you will end up needing to trust people and exactly for the reason I outlined: unless you're able to read and debug code written in esoteric programming languages, you trust the creator of the contract not to screw you over. And even creators of contracts themselves can't find mist…

We've been over this, I don't think anyone is claiming that it's impossible to write buggy smart contracts.

But it's not the case that you need to trust the creator, since you can verify it yourself. If you don't understand the code, maybe you can find someone you trust that does. Or just trust that _someone_ hopefully finds any flaws. It's a much better situation than having to blindly trust its correctness.

I wouldn't personally use a smart contract for anything of significant value, but they're not useless just because the transactions are irreversible.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#342

Post by mattdesl »

dmitriid wrote: post #338
mattdesl wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole point is peer to peer transfer of digital assets and digital state that is recorded on-chain . The goal is not “how to transfer a physical asset.” These assets do have market value (despite your own personal feeling on what they “should” be worth) and so users do wish to find ways of interacting with and trading them without an intermediary. The TLD/ICANN is irrelevant, as “.eth” is a construct for Ethereum…

> of digital assets and digital state that is recorded on-chain. The goal is not “how to transfer a physical asset.” Even with "purely digital assets" you have the trouble with oracles that provide you with data and whom you must explicitly trust, and with trust in general (when someone sells you NFTs that may or not be stolen from someone else). The sum total of "p2p transfer of digital assets and digital state that…

I'm not sure what point you are making. Using a blockchain doesn't mean you no longer need trust. But it can be used as a tool to help build social consensus about certain digital state/records without placing the data in control of a single centralized entity. Same discussion was had here[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190947

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#344

Post by dmitriid »

mattdesl wrote: post #342
dmitriid wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> of digital assets and digital state that is recorded on-chain. The goal is not “how to transfer a physical asset.” Even with "purely digital assets" you have the trouble with oracles that provide you with data and whom you must explicitly trust, and with trust in general (when someone sells you NFTs that may or not be stolen from someone else). The sum total of "p2p transfer of digital assets and digital state that…

I'm not sure what point you are making. Using a blockchain doesn't mean you no longer need trust. But it can be used as a tool to help build social consensus about certain digital state/records without placing the data in control of a single centralized entity. Same discussion was had here[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190947

> I'm not sure what point you are making.

As a simbling comment desctibed it, "the scope of the problem you're solving is way smaller than that of a generic transaction, to the point that it has very little relevance for pretty much anything real."

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#345

Post by dmitriid »

Grustaf wrote: post #341
dmitriid wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then you need a centralised institution that people trust, which mostly defeats the purpose. However, even with "purely digital assets" you will end up needing to trust people and exactly for the reason I outlined: unless you're able to read and debug code written in esoteric programming languages, you trust the creator of the contract not to screw you over. And even creators of contracts themselves can't find mist…

We've been over this, I don't think anyone is claiming that it's impossible to write buggy smart contracts. But it's not the case that you need to trust the creator, since you can verify it yourself. If you don't understand the code, maybe you can find someone you trust that does. Or just trust that _someone_ hopefully finds any flaws. It's a much better situation than having to blindly trust its correctness. I would…

> But it's not the case that you need to trust the creator, since you can verify it yourself.

Literally my very first message, and also the one you're replying to: "Ah yes, it's up to the user to review and debug code written in an esoteric programming language to make sure that it works... When even creators of said contracts can't find bugs in their code and fall prey to mistakes "

> Or just trust that _someone_ hopefully finds any flaws. It's a much better situation than having to blindly trust its correctness.

So, at best it's not better than what exists today (trust thrid parties), and at normal (that is not even at worst) is worse than whatever we have today.

I fail to see how this is "not the flaw of technology it's just one way in which it differs from what we are used to"

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#346

Post by swalsh »

D13Fd wrote: post #334
swalsh wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sure, if I'm allowed to change the games, I can link them even without a block chain." The game should be integrated with the blockchain directly, if I was unclear I apologize. That means, when you open the game, you need to use your wallet to connect to the game. You don't have a "Steam" account or whatever, you have your Web3 identity. "Transacting digital assets on a particular market (be it a single blockchain o…

> The game should be integrated with the blockchain directly, if I was unclear I apologize. But it could just as easily be integrated with a non-blockchain central authority. And you are still trusting their code to integrate it, so you haven't solved any trust issue. Nothing stops their code from saying "asset transferred" when the asset wasn't actually transferred. Blockchain solves nothing here. All of this could…

"But it could just as easily be integrated with a non-blockchain central authority."

Sure, you could. But then you'e in a feudal arrangement instead of a free economy.

"And you are still trusting their code to integrate it, so you haven't solved any trust issue"

The tokens are trustless, the transaction of those tokens are trustless. How the are tokens used has nothing to do with my ability to freely trade the tokens.

"Blockchain solves nothing here. All of this could be accomplished just as well or better without it."

Well, perhaps you're just not trying to have a good faith discussion. Because I pointed out what it solves, and you keep ignoring it. The blockchain creates the ability to have a free market with many participants without having to be under the control of a central authority. Free markets are unquestionably better, and so I'd say "accomplished just as well or better" is just flat out wrong. A centralized service is not better unless you disagree that a free market economy is superior to feudalism.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#347

Post by mattdesl »

dmitriid wrote: post #344
mattdesl wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what point you are making. Using a blockchain doesn't mean you no longer need trust. But it can be used as a tool to help build social consensus about certain digital state/records without placing the data in control of a single centralized entity. Same discussion was had here[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190947

> I'm not sure what point you are making. As a simbling comment desctibed it, "the scope of the problem you're solving is way smaller than that of a generic transaction, to the point that it has very little relevance for pretty much anything real."

The scope of the problem is basically what is happening on Uniswap (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC20 tokens) and Opensea (peer-to-peer swapping of ERC721/1155 tokens), which together account for the vast majority of Ethereum's daily contract activity.

These discussions often circle back to the notion that USDC, ENS, or any other ERC20 or ERC721 (NFT) is "not real" and therefore this problem is not worthy of study.

And yet nobody has an issue with Namecheap marketplace—a centralized ledger that manages token balances and virtual property exchange (domain names), without these token credits/debits ever being realized in your bank account (i.e. you can transact within their virtual dollar system without withdrawing funds to PayPal).

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#348

Post by nicbou »

Grustaf wrote: post #92
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #74

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. In a sense, it admits that traditional banking has the advantage in that regard because it has things like traceability, reversibility, insurance, accountability, and legal guarantees. These have been put aside on purpose in the crypto market, and while I think I understand the whys and wheref…

For most people it isn't. Maybe at some point it will, if governments let the money printer brr even more, or if we see more of what Canada did. If that is amplified by say 10x, I think a lot of people would start to reconsider.

If the money printer runs for long enough, we might get to see the sort of volatility that's a daily occurence with crypto.

...so therefore crypto is better?

And if you're afraid of cancel culture coming to a financial instrument near you, why would you want to put all your financial transactions on a permanent record? Sure, it's pseudonymous, but your entire purchase history is one hell of a fingerprint.

Traditional currency has a perfectly anonymous payment method: send cash.

Re: Blockchain Is Dangerous Nonsense

#350

Post by nicbou »

lustforleif wrote: post #274
SideQuark wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every banking system ever? At vastly lower energy waste, at higher transaction rates, and with all the legal protection of centuries of well developed needs.

> trust-less Trusting a central authority (bank) is not a solution to trust-less prevention of double spending.

Why does it need to be trustless? And why is it worth paying such a premium for it?
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