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People always overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. Go to any country perhaps with the exception of Estonia and you will see that digita

People always overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. Go to any country perhaps with the exception of Estonia and you will see that digitalization was supposed to change governments for the better. Instead they mostly have created very sporadic successes but a lot of failed implementation sometimes even making it worse. Yet there is no doubt that in the long run things are changing for the better. The problem isn't the technology but the problems around legality and implementation and who it disrupts. There is however plenty of usages for blockchain just off the top of my head. Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market, digital art certification, tracking of how money for NGO's are being spent and of course as a gold standard for important deals done between large organization and of course as a truly international wiretransfer system. All these things will happen with new generations growing up and finding natural uses for them.

mutteraloo 9y ago
So 10-15 more years? In the meantime we can use blockchain/bitcoin to scam money from grandmas, retired folks, and millenials. So they can hate us technologists even more. Oh, and cause global warming and destroy the planet. That way humans will have to come up with a non-government backed currency.
- kindfellow92 9y ago
  I’m worth 13 million dollars because of crypto and I’ve diversified half... tell me more about how Bitcoin is a scam. :)
  - mutteraloo 9y ago
    I'm worth way more than 13 million, and you will most likely lose your million because you can't read :)
    - kindfellow92 9y ago
      I can read. I’m a millennial and I haven’t been scammed. Bitcoin is changing lives for the better and has allowed me and my family to join you in wealth but you seem to hate that.
  - oh_sigh 9y ago
    Im worth 16m because if the tulip bulbs I own. Did you diversify into other crypto currencies? You are only worth anything once you actually cash out into USD
    - kindfellow92 9y ago
      I diversified 6mm into index funds and bond funds on Vanguard :)
- zmonx 9y ago
  25 years for acceptance are very well aligned with the timeline that Richard P. Gabriel has outlined in "Models of Software Acceptance": • Technology in the lab (t=0) • Technology in the first company (t=2–10 years post-lab) • Technology in the first successful company (t=5–20 years post-lab) • Technology acceptance (t=10–25 years post-lab) Source: https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf In these slides, Richard gives several examples that match this model and includes several additional explanations. For example: • First window system: Stanford/SRI/Xerox PARC ~1975, MIT ~1976 • First commercial use: Symbolics (1979), LMI (1979), Xerox Star (~1980), Apple Lisa (~1982), Apple Macintosh (1984) • First use by a successful company: Microsoft (~1989) • Technology acceptance: Microsoft (~1995) Spreadsheets are another example that is given in the slides. In fact, 25 years for acceptance are quite common in software. Sometimes, it also takes much longer.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The internet was based on a foundational protocol built to withstand nuclear attacks and is 50 years old. Either you understand this perspective or you don't. We are talking about blockchain not one of the ways it can be realized, bitcoin. Furthermore, I gave a couple of examples of how the blockchain can be used no one is being scammed with that. In fact it allows for things that have never been possible before because you will not see nation-states work together in any meaningful way to solve these problems.
- dang 9y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do that with? Ideological battle, flamewars, and personal attacks are not wanted here.
joe_the_user 9y ago
The problem isn't the technology but the problems around legality and implementation and who it disrupts. The immediate problem is that an "automatic" contract circumvents the regular legal system and thus is going to be ... not-legal. The larger problem is that this is how things should be. That the regular system isn't automatic but rather includes considerations of intentions and individuals involves is not a bug but a feature, an extremely important feature (the non-enforceability of unconscionable contracts is pretty important today [1]). Unbreakable contracts open the door for unlimited abuses (how does an automatic contract system prevent contracts for illegal activity? Given legality is going to continue to depend on intentions, etc). The Etherium Fork illustrated all this and essentially discredited the approach. Also, it can take a while for successful tech to be successful. But there's also the tech that people spend years trying to get going without success. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The US might default. People still invest in the USD. Sure everything can fall apart, nothing is perfect. But it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. The blockchain is, directly and indirectly, undermining nation states so I am under no illusion that it will be easy peasy spread. But why should that ever be a bigger problem than spending millions of dollars on all sorts of foundational research that never goes anywhere? Opportunity cost.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  This is an excellent point. I've been looking into blockchain as used in supply chain integrity. Here is a company currently doing it: https://www.provenance.org/whitepaper https://www.provenance.org/whitepaper I have been wondering about how this will circumvent the diminishing scope of regulations in the US food and textile industries, and how this will present much better provenance data for the principled consumer and how this might disrupt current interests of US corporations. This would be great for the consumer, but bad for the corporations' bottom line. I can see it somehow being legally derailed via what you just outlined since it could direct consumers to better options hurting the profits of corporations who paid hefty lobbying sums. I hope this won't be the case, because I like the use of blockchain to help with supply chain integrity. It is a path toward sustainability in an increasingly hostile-to-sustainability market.
claudiulodro 9y ago
> digital art certification Interesting. So you have an original piece of digital art and the owner of the art is verified on the blockchain? How would that work? Can't I just take a screenshot or something of the art and have a copy? What's the advantage of having one "true" piece of digital art and is it feasable? Genuinely curious how this would work. It's a very intriguing idea.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  I went to Ars Electronica in Linz years back (highly recommended) one of the big discussions that year was digital art and how it could be sold (and things like do you pay for a software upgrade) The "problem" with digital art is that if you get a hold of the source code you could just reproduce it and "double spend" and thus it has diminishing value. If you use the blockchain to verify you have the original you make it possible for the value to follow the owner. Same thing with ebooks. You could be buying the version of a book that Eminem owned and it could increase in value. Many people misunderstand what value can be. Sometimes it's the actual "thing" (ex. the chair) but often, very often, it's the idea of the thing. The whole art scene is based on this principle.
  - allodoxia_bleak 9y ago
    https://www.verisart.com/about https://www.verisart.com/about "Verisart is the world's leading platform to certify and verify artworks and collectibles using the Bitcoin blockchain. Since its launch in 2015, Verisart has provided contemporary artists including Shepard Fairey with a free and easy way to generate permanent certificates of authenticity and reduce the scope for fraudulent activity. Verisart combines museum certification standards, distributed ledger technology and image recognition to its provenance and registry services. The company is headed by Robert Norton, formerly CEO & co-founder of Saatchi Online & Sedition Art and its Board Advisers include Peter Todd, Bitcoin core developer and Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, Professor of the Art & Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University."
    - ThomPete 9y ago
deckard1 9y ago
> Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market None of these are realistic examples. Do you think Nintendo won't want a piece of that digital trading market? Or Amazon, for ebooks? Digital assets aren't going to be decentralized. Never. Corporations are going to maintain their walled garden platform, and make sure all transactions are conducted within that platform so they scrape off a few dollars here and there. You don't need all the complexity of a blockchain when a centralized architecture works just fine.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  "Digital pokemon cards" is already a thing it of course wasn't meant literally https://www.cryptokitties.co/ https://www.cryptokitties.co/ some of those got sold for $100K There are plenty of opensourced games out there and plenty of opensource projects and there will only be more in the future. Every new generation growing up is a new generation who will be affected by other things than the previous generation. Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games. Either you understand this perspective or you don't. It's cool with me that you don't understand it, but it's already happening while you say it never will.
  - TheDong 9y ago
    > Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games. I legitimately can't tell if this is trolling or sarcastic. Regardless, the fact that something else seemed ridiculous but ended up not being so has no bearing. People can predict arbitrary things and will only remember the ones that turned out right; for every thing that seemed wrong but succeeded, there are a million things which seemed wrong and were wrong. Just because there are examples of things succeeding in spite of predictions of failure doesn't mean predictions of failure are signs of success.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      Why do you assume it's trolling? You forgot the sentence which came before here is the entire argument. "Every new generation growing up is a new generation who will be affected by other things than the previous generation. Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games." The point is that looking at your own generation is not a good indicator of where things will go. Look at those younger generations which haven't yet been affected by what is right or wrong. That was my argument. Girls will grow up knowing what it takes to be good at a computer game it won't just be something nerds do, but something they themselves do. The point here is to understand what allows progress. Sure something might or might not come to fruition but this one my predictions were based on understanding what it would take for it to be popular. I am not trolling but 100% serious.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market Are you kidding? So the big use of the blockchain is to take things that have zero marginal cost of production, and enforce a completely artificial cost of production, to make non-scarce goods scarce?
- ThomPete 9y ago
  Those are just some of the examples and yes it has quite a lot of value. Many things in the physical world is also built on these simple principles.
  - Vendan 9y ago
    That's a downside of physical, not an advantage.
    - ThomPete 9y ago
      It's both an upside and a downside depending on perspective. From a value perspective, it's an upside just ask the art-scene.
      - Vendan 9y ago
        That's not an upside. That's a downside that got parlayed into an upside.
        ThomPete 9y ago
        Again it depends on the perspective. To those who stand to benefit it's an upside. Just like those who benefit from stock or owning art which has increased in value.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    I wouldn't describe turning Infinity into One as having "quite a lot of value". I'd describe that as pointing a machine gun at value and spraying it with bullets.

mutteraloo 9y ago

So 10-15 more years? In the meantime we can use blockchain/bitcoin to scam money from grandmas, retired folks, and millenials. So they can hate us technologists even more. Oh, and cause global warming and destroy the planet. That way humans will have to come up with a non-government backed currency.

kindfellow92 9y ago
I’m worth 13 million dollars because of crypto and I’ve diversified half... tell me more about how Bitcoin is a scam. :)
- mutteraloo 9y ago
  I'm worth way more than 13 million, and you will most likely lose your million because you can't read :)
  - kindfellow92 9y ago
    I can read. I’m a millennial and I haven’t been scammed. Bitcoin is changing lives for the better and has allowed me and my family to join you in wealth but you seem to hate that.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  Im worth 16m because if the tulip bulbs I own. Did you diversify into other crypto currencies? You are only worth anything once you actually cash out into USD
  - kindfellow92 9y ago
    I diversified 6mm into index funds and bond funds on Vanguard :)
zmonx 9y ago
25 years for acceptance are very well aligned with the timeline that Richard P. Gabriel has outlined in "Models of Software Acceptance": • Technology in the lab (t=0) • Technology in the first company (t=2–10 years post-lab) • Technology in the first successful company (t=5–20 years post-lab) • Technology acceptance (t=10–25 years post-lab) Source: https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf https://www.dreamsongs.com/Files/AcceptanceModels.pdf In these slides, Richard gives several examples that match this model and includes several additional explanations. For example: • First window system: Stanford/SRI/Xerox PARC ~1975, MIT ~1976 • First commercial use: Symbolics (1979), LMI (1979), Xerox Star (~1980), Apple Lisa (~1982), Apple Macintosh (1984) • First use by a successful company: Microsoft (~1989) • Technology acceptance: Microsoft (~1995) Spreadsheets are another example that is given in the slides. In fact, 25 years for acceptance are quite common in software. Sometimes, it also takes much longer.
ThomPete 9y ago
The internet was based on a foundational protocol built to withstand nuclear attacks and is 50 years old. Either you understand this perspective or you don't. We are talking about blockchain not one of the ways it can be realized, bitcoin. Furthermore, I gave a couple of examples of how the blockchain can be used no one is being scammed with that. In fact it allows for things that have never been possible before because you will not see nation-states work together in any meaningful way to solve these problems.
dang 9y ago
We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Would you please stop creating accounts to do that with? Ideological battle, flamewars, and personal attacks are not wanted here.

joe_the_user 9y ago

The problem isn't the technology but the problems around legality and implementation and who it disrupts. The immediate problem is that an "automatic" contract circumvents the regular legal system and thus is going to be ... not-legal. The larger problem is that this is how things should be. That the regular system isn't automatic but rather includes considerations of intentions and individuals involves is not a bug but a feature, an extremely important feature (the non-enforceability of unconscionable contracts is pretty important today [1]). Unbreakable contracts open the door for unlimited abuses (how does an automatic contract system prevent contracts for illegal activity? Given legality is going to continue to depend on intentions, etc). The Etherium Fork illustrated all this and essentially discredited the approach. Also, it can take a while for successful tech to be successful. But there's also the tech that people spend years trying to get going without success. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability

ThomPete 9y ago
The US might default. People still invest in the USD. Sure everything can fall apart, nothing is perfect. But it doesn't need to be perfect to be useful. The blockchain is, directly and indirectly, undermining nation states so I am under no illusion that it will be easy peasy spread. But why should that ever be a bigger problem than spending millions of dollars on all sorts of foundational research that never goes anywhere? Opportunity cost.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
This is an excellent point. I've been looking into blockchain as used in supply chain integrity. Here is a company currently doing it: https://www.provenance.org/whitepaper https://www.provenance.org/whitepaper I have been wondering about how this will circumvent the diminishing scope of regulations in the US food and textile industries, and how this will present much better provenance data for the principled consumer and how this might disrupt current interests of US corporations. This would be great for the consumer, but bad for the corporations' bottom line. I can see it somehow being legally derailed via what you just outlined since it could direct consumers to better options hurting the profits of corporations who paid hefty lobbying sums. I hope this won't be the case, because I like the use of blockchain to help with supply chain integrity. It is a path toward sustainability in an increasingly hostile-to-sustainability market.

claudiulodro 9y ago

> digital art certification Interesting. So you have an original piece of digital art and the owner of the art is verified on the blockchain? How would that work? Can't I just take a screenshot or something of the art and have a copy? What's the advantage of having one "true" piece of digital art and is it feasable? Genuinely curious how this would work. It's a very intriguing idea.

ThomPete 9y ago
I went to Ars Electronica in Linz years back (highly recommended) one of the big discussions that year was digital art and how it could be sold (and things like do you pay for a software upgrade) The "problem" with digital art is that if you get a hold of the source code you could just reproduce it and "double spend" and thus it has diminishing value. If you use the blockchain to verify you have the original you make it possible for the value to follow the owner. Same thing with ebooks. You could be buying the version of a book that Eminem owned and it could increase in value. Many people misunderstand what value can be. Sometimes it's the actual "thing" (ex. the chair) but often, very often, it's the idea of the thing. The whole art scene is based on this principle.
- allodoxia_bleak 9y ago
  https://www.verisart.com/about https://www.verisart.com/about "Verisart is the world's leading platform to certify and verify artworks and collectibles using the Bitcoin blockchain. Since its launch in 2015, Verisart has provided contemporary artists including Shepard Fairey with a free and easy way to generate permanent certificates of authenticity and reduce the scope for fraudulent activity. Verisart combines museum certification standards, distributed ledger technology and image recognition to its provenance and registry services. The company is headed by Robert Norton, formerly CEO & co-founder of Saatchi Online & Sedition Art and its Board Advisers include Peter Todd, Bitcoin core developer and Dr. Ahmed Elgammal, Professor of the Art & Artificial Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University."
  - ThomPete 9y ago

deckard1 9y ago

> Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market None of these are realistic examples. Do you think Nintendo won't want a piece of that digital trading market? Or Amazon, for ebooks? Digital assets aren't going to be decentralized. Never. Corporations are going to maintain their walled garden platform, and make sure all transactions are conducted within that platform so they scrape off a few dollars here and there. You don't need all the complexity of a blockchain when a centralized architecture works just fine.

ThomPete 9y ago
"Digital pokemon cards" is already a thing it of course wasn't meant literally https://www.cryptokitties.co/ https://www.cryptokitties.co/ some of those got sold for $100K There are plenty of opensourced games out there and plenty of opensource projects and there will only be more in the future. Every new generation growing up is a new generation who will be affected by other things than the previous generation. Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games. Either you understand this perspective or you don't. It's cool with me that you don't understand it, but it's already happening while you say it never will.
- TheDong 9y ago
  > Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games. I legitimately can't tell if this is trolling or sarcastic. Regardless, the fact that something else seemed ridiculous but ended up not being so has no bearing. People can predict arbitrary things and will only remember the ones that turned out right; for every thing that seemed wrong but succeeded, there are a million things which seemed wrong and were wrong. Just because there are examples of things succeeding in spite of predictions of failure doesn't mean predictions of failure are signs of success.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    Why do you assume it's trolling? You forgot the sentence which came before here is the entire argument. "Every new generation growing up is a new generation who will be affected by other things than the previous generation. Everyone also laughed when I in the 90'ies said you would one day be able to score girls from being good at playing computer games." The point is that looking at your own generation is not a good indicator of where things will go. Look at those younger generations which haven't yet been affected by what is right or wrong. That was my argument. Girls will grow up knowing what it takes to be good at a computer game it won't just be something nerds do, but something they themselves do. The point here is to understand what allows progress. Sure something might or might not come to fruition but this one my predictions were based on understanding what it would take for it to be popular. I am not trolling but 100% serious.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>Digital Pokemon cards, 2nd hand ebooks market, 2nd hand digital assets market Are you kidding? So the big use of the blockchain is to take things that have zero marginal cost of production, and enforce a completely artificial cost of production, to make non-scarce goods scarce?

ThomPete 9y ago
Those are just some of the examples and yes it has quite a lot of value. Many things in the physical world is also built on these simple principles.
- Vendan 9y ago
  That's a downside of physical, not an advantage.
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    It's both an upside and a downside depending on perspective. From a value perspective, it's an upside just ask the art-scene.
    - Vendan 9y ago
      That's not an upside. That's a downside that got parlayed into an upside.
      - ThomPete 9y ago
        Again it depends on the perspective. To those who stand to benefit it's an upside. Just like those who benefit from stock or owning art which has increased in value.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  I wouldn't describe turning Infinity into One as having "quite a lot of value". I'd describe that as pointing a machine gun at value and spraying it with bullets.