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Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

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Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#181

Post by andybak »

BeetleB wrote: post #153
andybak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Web3" has been fully co-opted to be blockchain related. Any former meaning is now drowned out by that definition, whether you like it or not.

> Any former meaning is now drowned out by that definition, whether you like it or not. Random pronouncements on HN don't make it true. If you want to restrict your understanding of the term, by all means do so. But don't expect others to follow suit.

Ok. We'll see where this end up.

I hate it too but it feels too late to turn back the tide.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#182

Post by lottin »

zelag wrote: post #36
metadat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the divide? Crypto is 99% full of hucksters, and the remaining 1% are the sorry saps. The intelligent people I know want nothing to do with it. Folks I've met IRL who are into it usually aren't all that bright. The traits they do have are affinity for risk taking, and being somewhat technical but not too much so, just enough to be dangerous. They certainly won't be opening any PRs to fix Ethereum bugs. In ot…

People like Ari Juels, Gavin Wood and Vitalik Buterin aren't intelligent to you?

I don't know the first two. Vitalik intelligent? He used to believe, and maybe still believes, that you could do quantum computing by simulating a quantum computer on a conventional computer. In fact, he even founded a start-up if I recall correctly, based around this bizarre idea.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#183

Post by ozim »

debacle wrote: post #141
mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #59

Isn't a brutish tweet still a brutish tweet no matter who its from? There have been infinitely more interesting crypto conversation starters on this board than this - I don't care who the author is - I care about the content, of which this has none.

Guido is not a controversial figure in the industry. This isn't an Elon or Linus tweet. This is a well-respected individual poo pooing pretty directly on the "web3" scene.

Notice that this is reply to some kind of "pushy person" that did @ to Guido without being any kind of acquittance of his.

It would be maybe OK if that guy would @ him and said "look this is cool, what do you think of that" - but guy made specific question to Guido.

This is not some rant thrown into the net "just because" like Elon does.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#184

Post by ivarv »

therealmarv wrote: post #100

I don't get the extreme positions on that. There will be some sort of web3 and will be really relevant for some bigger groups of people. Saying that it should die and (the other extreme) saying "it's the solution for everything" is just ignorant.

The "it should die" camp take their view literally. At issue for many of us is the rampant consumption of resources to keep web3/cryptomining going. The ends() do not justify the means.

() for any variation of "ends" people have come up with so far.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#185

Post by [deleted] »

yumraj wrote: post #99
mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #59

Isn't a brutish tweet still a brutish tweet no matter who its from? There have been infinitely more interesting crypto conversation starters on this board than this - I don't care who the author is - I care about the content, of which this has none.

You mean like most of Musk's tweets, which are almost always brutish, have no content, yet make news.

[deleted]

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#186

Post by Sharlin »

Honestly the older I get, the more absurd the world seems to become. Things like NFTs, an utter and total April's Fools joke of a concept that nevertheless people are now building six-figure careers on top of. Was it like this during the first dotcom bubble? I was a highschooler back then, so not yet totally "in" in the scene. Surely the current bubble must burst at some point as well?

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#187

Post by Tao331 »

sprague wrote: post #9

The interesting thing about crypto to me is how there seems to be a deep divide among very smart people, some who think it's the greatest thing ever and some who think it's a fraud. I can't remember when there's ever been such a Bigendian-scale dispute in technology before. Can you?

Those categories aren't mutually exclusive.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#188

Post by time_to_smile »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #98
labrador wrote: post #60

I just created the worlds slowest database. People will have to pay many dollars to specialists called "miners" to update it. For design reasons, no one can delete anything from it. It's going to change the world.

I just created the world's most redundant and incorruptible database. People will have to pay many dollars to specialists called "miners" to add rows. For integrity reasons, no one can delete anything from it. It might change parts of the world where redundancy and integrity are threats to very powerful people who want to control transactions and corresponding data. -- Fixed it for you

Many cryptography books will include a brief mention of "Rubber-hose cryptanalysis", pointing out the gap between theoretically sound crypto-systems and realpolitik. Everyone in the cryptography community knows that, no mater how secure your system, if a powerful state actor really wants to get you, they will.

It's surprising to me that anyone taking blockchain technologies seriously for "standing up to power" fails to recognize some basic realities of how power works in practice.

Blockchain is an obstacle to no real power, since real power does not care if some external source disagrees with it. There is no dictator that is going to say "damn, got me with that blockchain stuff *sigh* you win", they'll just torture you until you agree that you don't see anything troublesome in the ledger either.

As we've seen from cryptocurrencies rampant use in scams and ransomware it is absolutely impotent in the face of real corruption and power.

Ironically for crypto to work at all for these idyllic cases it requires a remarkably stable civil society, in which case a piece of paper in the public square works as well.

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#189

Post by Kranar »

spyspy wrote: post #147
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect, you can't "change anything in the database" with a 51% attack. You can block transactions from being processed, reorder new transactions, and reverse your own (but not others) transactions to double spend. You can't just go arbitrarily deleting previous transactions, or modifying balances.

I'm curious, if you owned 51% of the network what's to stop you from rebuilding the entire history of the chain and then adding new transactions (including any of your new fraudulent ones) on top?

Nothing, mcintyre1994 is simply wrong about this. You don't need 51% to block transactions, any miner who completes the proof of work can legitimately block a transaction and Bitcoin went long periods of time where various miners blocked transactions and just took the mining reward.

As for deleting, unless you want to enter a philosophical argument on the nature of deleting, and whether anything in the universe can truly be deleted [1], for all practical purposes a 51% attack does allow one to delete transactions off the blockchain but the older the transaction is the more expensive and impractical it would be to do so.

A 51% attack does not allow someone to create new bitcoins or spend coins they don't have the keys to, but they could double spend coins or delete existing transactions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-hiding_theorem

Re: Guido van Rossum: Let Web3 die in a flaming ball of fire

#190

Post by [deleted] »

Sharlin wrote: post #186

Honestly the older I get, the more absurd the world seems to become. Things like NFTs, an utter and total April's Fools joke of a concept that nevertheless people are now building six-figure careers on top of. Was it like this during the first dotcom bubble? I was a highschooler back then, so not yet totally "in" in the scene. Surely the current bubble must burst at some point as well?

[deleted]
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