Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#21

Post by jstnwill » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism?

We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return.

We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology.

Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collapse we are facing.

We need people on hackernews and Ridgewood elsewhere developing civic and social innovations that deepen our connections, not replacing them with with increasingly inauthentic, algorithmic, trustless, artificial substitutes.

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#22

Post by jchw » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

Animats wrote: post #17

Most of those ideas have been around before. See the classic "Why your idea for stopping spam sucks".[1] It's the same problem as email source addresses. [1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

Hashcash seemed like a good idea :/ didn’t really seem to pan out, though. There’s probably some good use cases for it around, but email anti-spam probably isn’t it.

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#23

Post by seer » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #11

This is a thoughtful treatment of some of the issues. I worked on digital identity in govt, and sovereign identity is considered seriously there. The concepts in the article force the question of what things like security, dystopian, and scalable mean, among others. If I were to articulate the gap in perspectives, it would be that it is between the engineering view of solving problems (e.g. Vitalik's "soul bound toke…

Visiting Copenhagen I pondered on those points too. Denmark seems to be a society that firmly embraced “centralized digital currency” - even the beggers have POS terminals and if you _request_ a cash payment at a restaurant people look at you funny.

But they have this “Freetown” of sorts right smack in the center of their capital, where you can buy illegal stuff with cash.

There’s no guards, no police posted at the entrance. People are just kinda OK with all that. You live a highly structured civilized life, but then a metro stop away you enter this place where people are selling weed on the streets and you can probably get other funky stuff.

And seems to be quite stable thing - they’ve had it for like 50 years or so.

Maybe thats what we need - unregulated places where societies can try out different things that are not accepted at large?

Maybe digital currencies in the future would incorporate that? A friend is working for a VMWare project where the etherium based crypto has an “escape hatch” built in with some allowance for “cash like” transactions … maybe something like that would work?

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#24

Post by beebmam » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:28 AM UTC

jstnwill wrote: post #21

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism? We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return. We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology. Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collaps…

What are the proposed alternatives to individualism? Collectivism? No thanks. I've seen what that does to the human spirit.

I'd rather take an extremely individualist culture and then fill in the gaps with taxation and some level of wealth redistribution.

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#25

Post by ev1 » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:29 AM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #15

motohagiography wrote: post #11

This is a thoughtful treatment of some of the issues. I worked on digital identity in govt, and sovereign identity is considered seriously there. The concepts in the article force the question of what things like security, dystopian, and scalable mean, among others. If I were to articulate the gap in perspectives, it would be that it is between the engineering view of solving problems (e.g. Vitalik's "soul bound toke…

I don't understand what you mean by "all value comes from risk." Could you give examples? I don't understand how, say, the value of some food you buy at a grocery store comes from risk. Also, you say that "instinctually people get they don't want to become solved problems and known quantities," but at least a large subset of the population wants to be famous. And it seems like being trusted by people you know has its…

The way I think of it, risk of accident of the delivery truck, the risk of the farm getting their crops ruined, risk of insolvency or net x day term payments, risk of loans taken out to cover patented seeds, risk of expired food.

If nobody wanted to take the risk to plant each time given the potential ROI, you wouldn't get grocery items?

(I'd consider this a random example https://www.callifd.com/uploads/1/3/0/7/130789654/chili_pepp...)

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#26

Post by hinkley » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:32 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #3

forum_ghost wrote: post #2

How can identity be self-sovereign? In the end, it boils down to everyone just asking to see the passport or some other government ID, or a proxy for that (credit card, library card, employee card).

The "web of trust" is the canonical example of "self-sovereign" identity: you publish your identity, others verify it, and (in theory) the "web" propagates through degrees of trust in peers. The big problem there is that it doesn't scale beyond a small handful of people who know each other well and trust each other for a specific purpose . Cryptocurrency companies seem to be aware of this (and of the prominent histor…

It also has the Byzantine problem where if you have enough wealth and your web is covetous enough, they can conspire to trick you into giving away financial information.

The birth of brand names was all about attaching enough status to a product line that if you ever broke that trust, that you harm yourself more than you did the customers. CAs are built on that idea. But then so is BP, 3M, and DuPont. So was Hooker Chemical Company (Love Canal), and Montrose Chemical Corp (DDT dumping off California). So I don't know what that really buys you.

I do think that trust in certificates needs to be incremental, especially when they change. And perhaps you need a way to ask your savvy friend to take a hard look at some and be able to veto them.

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#27

Post by Laura69 » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:33 AM UTC

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Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#28

Post by pas » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:37 AM UTC

jstnwill wrote: post #21

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism? We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return. We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology. Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collaps…

that seems like a straw man argument.

building systems that give better control to users online is orthogonal to social goals.

not too much knobs on Facebook helped elect Trump, quite the opposite

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#29

Post by etherael » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:42 AM UTC

jstnwill wrote: post #21

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism? We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return. We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology. Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collaps…

Are you now or have you ever been an adherent of "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism? I'm sympathetic to it presently and I have been in the past, but I must admit that I struggle mightily to view any segment of the past 40 years in meatspace as anything approaching a shrine to that philosophy. I'd actually find it much easier to say the exact opposite in fact, and I do believe that what's happening in crypto is in large part a backlash to that.

The entire point of it being in crypto of course is that the same people and forces that push back so hard against it in meatspace are relatively powerless to do so in the cyptosphere.

For better or worse, I can't see that changing any time soon. I was in a meeting at a very large crypto exchange recently and their branded coffee cups all had a very simple message; "freedom is here". That's basically at the core of everything happening in the space, and I don't think arguing against it is going to work in any way shape or form given the polarised attitude toward the philosophy on either side of the cyptosphere border.

Like it or not, it's not going away, and it's swinging more towards extreme individualism by the day, not less.

Re: Is “acceptably non-dystopian” self-sovereign identity even possible?

#30

Post by narag » Sat, Jun 11, 2022, 5:43 AM UTC

jstnwill wrote: post #21

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism? We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return. We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology. Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collaps…

I believe it was Bruce Schneier who coined the term "movie-plot threat" for a kind of security threat that gets more attention, not because it's plausible and around the corner, but because it excites our imagination the most.

It seems that there's something similar here. For most of the world, it's just natural that your government provides you with identity proof. USA and maybe other anglo countries could be the exception, although other times the question was discussed, I was told that, even if there is no official id card, other means like SS numbers provide an equivalent mechanism.

The movie plot, in which you are framed for some heinous crime and you need to go full Jason Bourne, is what justifies having a handful of fake passports, of course guns and a sizeable reserve of cash in a hole in the woods. Now it would be your bitcoin wallet and some sovereign identity keys in USB drives.

We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology.

Actually I think that those extreme views are a reaction to one ideology adopted by all mainstream parties. You see that no matter what you vote, you're going to be screwed, so you turn to fringe options.