4 ms·

In my view what you are saying is a libertarian pipe dream. A fully decentralized world (mostly I mean web) will be a nightmare. People are already mad how Redd

by nora4 9y ago

In my view what you are saying is a libertarian pipe dream. A fully decentralized world (mostly I mean web) will be a nightmare. People are already mad how Reddit/Twitter are so abusive as platforms. And these are still centralized systems, albeit more free compared to Facebook/Instagram. Just imagine the kind of hate, racism, nazism, *-ism that will be unleashed in a fully decentralized system. We are already complaining about Fake News and its torpedo effect on US democracy and the world. Now imagine if on top of that Facebook and so were in fact decentralized and permissionless. In one corner of the web, I hear people being mad when Twitter doesn't ban the POTUS. And on the opposite side I hear you complaining about centralization. I can't somehow get around both of these angry voices operating at the same time (even maybe by the same people). Do we want a centralized system at the end, or a decentralized permisionless system with all the nasty things it entails? For me, I don't know. I lean toward preferring centralized systems. I rather embrace the devil I know. Not sure, why you are so in love with decentralization. Are you sure we really want it? It's not all roses and flowers with decentralized systems.

cgmg 9y ago
There's a simple solution: Filter out what you (or your community) don't want to see, but don't force your sensibilities on everyone else.
- jraedisch 9y ago
  That's what I thought: in a world with decentralized markets, people will probably spend more on the (software) clients or filtering services.
- lazyjones 9y ago
  That doesn't work when you (or your small community) face thousands or millions of spammers or abusive users. People will just turn to centralised censorship/filtering authorities as they do with e-mail (even if you install SA on your own server, you will use blacklists maintained by others).
  - cgmg 9y ago
    >That doesn't work when you (or your small community) face thousands or millions of spammers or abusive users. Umm... yes it does. That's precisely the role of a whitelist.
    - nora4 9y ago
      Last time I checked whitelists don't work in permissionless networks (and no real identity). Do you have a fix to that?
      - cgmg 9y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. Why do you say whitelists don't work in a decentralized context?
        nora4 9y ago
        I see maybe, I misunderstood. So do you mean whitelisting messages (tweets, posts, any other atomic units) based on content? I think white listing based on content may be hard, especially say images or videos, in a decentralized network. So I thought you mean whitelisting based on identity/id which is useless in mostly-anonymous permissionless network. (But actually content-based filtering may not be too impossible now that I think..)
  - ghthor 9y ago
    I think the cream here is if the underlying network is decentralized and I disagree with my centralized provider, then I have the power to change providers. Its comparing email to facebook, if my email provider does something I disagree with I'm free t take my data to a another provider without losing all my connections. The same for open currencies. The promise of open currencies with decentralized exchanges is I can now hold my value in a currency I trust a long a there is a path of exchange between my value and the value of the party I'm paying for or recieving from. And now its my decision which currency I hold and I'm free to change.
- nora4 9y ago
  Are you sure it's a simple solution? If it's so simple, why fake news is a problem with social media right now? (And what about revenge porn, child pornography, etc.? Merely you not seeing it through your filters, it doesn't mean the world won't. It's equivalent of the guy closing his eyes to make sure all outside threats disappear.)
  - CryptoPunk 9y ago
    Fake news has to be solved through a mechanism other than censorship. Censorship is much more dangerous than ignorance. As long as we have the freedom of speech, all forms of ignorance can be solved. Once we give that up, we lose the mechanism through which society finds solutions to complex multi-factor problems, and disseminates those solutions.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- adrianN 9y ago
  The solution that, in my opinion, works better for society is not surrounding yourself in a nice cushy filterbubble where your views are never challenged, but instead becoming more tolerant of contrarian opinions.

by nora4 9y ago

cgmg 9y ago

There's a simple solution: Filter out what you (or your community) don't want to see, but don't force your sensibilities on everyone else.

jraedisch 9y ago
That's what I thought: in a world with decentralized markets, people will probably spend more on the (software) clients or filtering services.
lazyjones 9y ago
That doesn't work when you (or your small community) face thousands or millions of spammers or abusive users. People will just turn to centralised censorship/filtering authorities as they do with e-mail (even if you install SA on your own server, you will use blacklists maintained by others).
- cgmg 9y ago
  >That doesn't work when you (or your small community) face thousands or millions of spammers or abusive users. Umm... yes it does. That's precisely the role of a whitelist.
  - nora4 9y ago
    Last time I checked whitelists don't work in permissionless networks (and no real identity). Do you have a fix to that?
    - cgmg 9y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean. Why do you say whitelists don't work in a decentralized context?
      - nora4 9y ago
        I see maybe, I misunderstood. So do you mean whitelisting messages (tweets, posts, any other atomic units) based on content? I think white listing based on content may be hard, especially say images or videos, in a decentralized network. So I thought you mean whitelisting based on identity/id which is useless in mostly-anonymous permissionless network. (But actually content-based filtering may not be too impossible now that I think..)
- ghthor 9y ago
  I think the cream here is if the underlying network is decentralized and I disagree with my centralized provider, then I have the power to change providers. Its comparing email to facebook, if my email provider does something I disagree with I'm free t take my data to a another provider without losing all my connections. The same for open currencies. The promise of open currencies with decentralized exchanges is I can now hold my value in a currency I trust a long a there is a path of exchange between my value and the value of the party I'm paying for or recieving from. And now its my decision which currency I hold and I'm free to change.
nora4 9y ago
Are you sure it's a simple solution? If it's so simple, why fake news is a problem with social media right now? (And what about revenge porn, child pornography, etc.? Merely you not seeing it through your filters, it doesn't mean the world won't. It's equivalent of the guy closing his eyes to make sure all outside threats disappear.)
- CryptoPunk 9y ago
  Fake news has to be solved through a mechanism other than censorship. Censorship is much more dangerous than ignorance. As long as we have the freedom of speech, all forms of ignorance can be solved. Once we give that up, we lose the mechanism through which society finds solutions to complex multi-factor problems, and disseminates those solutions.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adrianN 9y ago
The solution that, in my opinion, works better for society is not surrounding yourself in a nice cushy filterbubble where your views are never challenged, but instead becoming more tolerant of contrarian opinions.