I don't know what this is and I'm not even going to read the take-down article. If you slap "coin" onto the name of anything, I'll run a mile from it. I just dropped in to say that. bb.
Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
101–110 of 370 posts
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#102Like any other non-coin crypto tech, Worldcoin doesn't do what it set out to do because it doesn't solve the oracle problem. If you trust their orb, it generates a wallet for you - but anyone, human or otherwise - can use that wallet. There's a black market in China for these identities already [1] and of course the response from Worldcoin was there's nothing they can do - because there's nothing they can do. So this…
What’s the “Oracle Problem”? Google gives me conflicting results
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Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#103Like any other non-coin crypto tech, Worldcoin doesn't do what it set out to do because it doesn't solve the oracle problem. If you trust their orb, it generates a wallet for you - but anyone, human or otherwise - can use that wallet. There's a black market in China for these identities already [1] and of course the response from Worldcoin was there's nothing they can do - because there's nothing they can do. So this…
What’s the “Oracle Problem”? Google gives me conflicting results
Try to imagine using a computer without any internet access to book an airline ticket. It doesn't really matter how many or which operations your computer can perform, it is not able to book an airline ticket unless there is another computer which can accept that booking and which your computer can talk to. The internet is next to useless for booking ryan air flights until ryan air puts one of their computers onto the internet and gives it authority to issue bookings.
Blockchains are like virtual computers. It is absolutely possible to imagine ryan air deploying a smart contract to ethereum and giving it sufficient authority to issue bookings but until that happens ethereum is next to useless for booking ryan air flights. This is the oracle problem.
Here I've focused on the write-path but "the oracle problem" usually refers to the read-path. Say you have some prediction market where participants can place bets on who the next US president will be. How do you resolve that market? When Congress certifies the election they do not publish that certification onto any blockchain. Maybe some day they will. But for now blockchains have to make do with various hacks which allow them to imperfectly track what is happening in the outside world.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#104I am seeing a pattern here and I am starting to believe that Sam Altman is an Accelerationist: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism A lot of his actions, investments and marketing strategy seem to point in that direction.
I hope that the tech billionaires are simply blundering towards the destruction of society, rather than intentionally trying to do so with something like Effective Accelerationism. That would certainly fit with Hanlon's Razor.
I have a simple theory that tech billionaires are at least partly influenced by the sci-fi of their youth. While some of the older tech billionaires were brought up on utopian sci-fi like Star Trek, with wonderful ideas like the post-scarcity economy, some of the younger tech billionaires were brought up on the dystopian sci-fi of the 1980s. Unfortunately what seems to be happening is that they may have mistaken dystopia as a blueprint for what to build rather as a warning of what to avoid.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#105I don't think Worldcoin is the solution, but I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you think the solution to the bots-indistiguishable-to-humans problem could look like? Or should we just accept that the times of interacting over internet with strangers you can believe to be humans is over? The only idea I see is for some certificates handed out by government to citizens and I absolutely hate it even in a democr…
There isn't a single solution to be had because there isn't a single way you interact with strangers online.
Verifying identity is necessarily completely different if you're sending someone an item in exchange for money, or looking to date them for a while, or going into long-term business with them, or maybe just having a discussion where you want to validate that they work where they claim.
We don't need blanket verification of people's identities online. If a bot is posting on a service and is indistinguishable from an interesting human, why shouldn't it stay? "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" used to be the Web 1.0 motto.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean technically the system is proof-of-eyeball rather than proof-of-identity, so you also need to trust any opportunistic criminals in your zip code that have access to spoons.
It looks like the airdrop gives you something like 25 WLD, or $50. I don't know what the actual numbers are but it seems to be around this order of magnitude. Your hypothetical spoon-wielding lunatic would be risking serious consequences in order to earn $50; that doesn't seem like a particularly strong incentive.
cripple beggars in calcutta, for example, earn approx 30 cents per day and organized criminals maim and manage them in order to extract this amount.
you're confident they wouldn't use a spoon to take 160 days worth of income? and comparing to non-cripple beggars, it's about a full year of income. that sounds like substantial incentive to me.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
reputation based
The existing finance system is largely reputation based, with a light side of contract enforcement and a heavy dose of middlemen. It mostly works, but one of the biggest advantage of crypto stuff is removing the need for reputation and trust.
Is that an advantage? At the very least, what it entails is that losing your private key is game over.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean technically the system is proof-of-eyeball rather than proof-of-identity, so you also need to trust any opportunistic criminals in your zip code that have access to spoons.
It looks like the airdrop gives you something like 25 WLD, or $50. I don't know what the actual numbers are but it seems to be around this order of magnitude. Your hypothetical spoon-wielding lunatic would be risking serious consequences in order to earn $50; that doesn't seem like a particularly strong incentive.
There's no reason not to take both eyeballs then
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#109[flagged]
Yeah, the article and this whole comments thread is very intellectually dishonest.
Disclosure: I’m like, 70% optimistic about the project. I don’t believe that the team are lying. Anyway, as with many things, time will tell. I wouldn’t get worked up over it. If it fails it’s pretty inconsequential.
Re: Worldcoin isn’t as bad as it sounds: It’s worse
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny how, in the end, the ultimate and perhaps only proof of personhood is being a person, engaged in the world. Sort of how the ultimate decentralized currency is encompassed in the global market of rising and falling economic powers. The oracle problem is a problem because there are no oracles. There is only the test of time. Or something along that line.
People still don't understand the 'this is not a pipe' painting...
I never realized that painting was at the LA county museum of art until I was standing face to face with it. It felt ironic to have one level of meta removed. I was thinking "this is "this is not a pipe""