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Trust has always been a problem. A trustless currency doesn't solve the problem any more than anything else has. Blockchains can't and won't solve the UK brexit

by zaphar 8y ago

Trust has always been a problem. A trustless currency doesn't solve the problem any more than anything else has. Blockchains can't and won't solve the UK brexit problem. It won't solve the US politics problem. It won't solve the businesses too big to fail problem or the politics, power, and money corrupting people problem. I agree that trust in institutions is a problem but blockchain won't solve it. It will just displace it. In return if you aren't careful you'll lose the benefits of third party arbitrators. The very thing that in the current system gives you any hope of righting the wrongs that the systems you don't trust have inflicted on you. It's quite probable that rather than making things better cryptocoins will make them worse. It's also quite probably that they will devolve into the very thing they were trying to avoid becoming. As a case in point: Ethereum forked because of a bug in a smart contract. A central authority had to step in to right a wrong. (You can't trust people to write correct software). And that was early on in the cryptocurrency history. There will be more such occasions and each one will prove that not only can you not trust your bank to always get it right. You also can't trust the cryptocurrency developers or the smart contract developers.

ghthor 8y ago
The difference here is that the source code for the EVM is open source and auditable. And I wouldn't use a smart contract that isn't the same, open source and auditable. This is my realm of expertise, this is how I think about systems and interactions, it's my turf so I have far higher levels of trust executing a smart contract then walking through the TSA scanners.
- zaphar 8y ago
  Yes, but our demographic is a very small part of the wider target audience so what makes sense for us does not at all make sense for them. Any solution that requires the market as a whole to level up to our level of expertise has the same problem for them that we have when walking through TSA scanners. The only difference is that now you are the TSA which again only shifted the problem. It didn't solve it.
  - ghthor 8y ago
    Thats where web of trust comes in and empowers us, the engineers, compared to the past. Let's say my relative is having an issue with her mortgage, something that should be fairly straightforward to codeify in a smart contract. In the past, I'd have to shrug my shoulders and help her with a human communication problem. In the future I might be able to actually inspect the code of her mortgage. This allows me to assert my understanding about how it works. I can say, I know it's correct or I know it's incorrect. This is in contrast to modern day where it's much harder for me to understand, therefore I would likely shrug my shoulders and say, I don't know, you'll have to contact an expert. It's similar to another example. I moved my mom over to use Linux as her operating system. I now know, for a fact, that her system is secure and updated. I trust the distribution to audit and package software safely, therefore my stress levels are much much lower and I barely get technical support questions from my mother, compared to before. Smart contracts enable this same level of trust to develop for complex protocols between people & computers, like mortgages, insurance, DNS, software package building and distibution systems. It allows for advances levels of trust to develop in the system itself, and as an engineer I can now transmit that trust through my web of relationships which is how it reach and benefit non technical users. In a way, it allows for engineers to take more responsibility for the systems we live within, versus today where you have to pay me to give a shit and I try to take as little responsibility for the systems I support because I know they are fucked up and broken and I don't want to be the one on the hook when someone gets hurt by the system I and responsible for.
aeternus 8y ago
Trust in, and disagreements over monetary policy may actually be at the root of many of the problems you outline. The euro crisis was likely a significant contributing factor to Brexit. The US bailouts of 2008 are still are source of political contention. Yes Ethereum forked, but that actually gives users a choice, and still does. Some people who disagree with the choice to step in can still run and transact using Ethereum Classic. With both Bitcoin & Ethereum, market forces seem to be doing a decent job of maintaining consensus.

by zaphar 8y ago

ghthor 8y ago

The difference here is that the source code for the EVM is open source and auditable. And I wouldn't use a smart contract that isn't the same, open source and auditable. This is my realm of expertise, this is how I think about systems and interactions, it's my turf so I have far higher levels of trust executing a smart contract then walking through the TSA scanners.

zaphar 8y ago
Yes, but our demographic is a very small part of the wider target audience so what makes sense for us does not at all make sense for them. Any solution that requires the market as a whole to level up to our level of expertise has the same problem for them that we have when walking through TSA scanners. The only difference is that now you are the TSA which again only shifted the problem. It didn't solve it.
- ghthor 8y ago
  Thats where web of trust comes in and empowers us, the engineers, compared to the past. Let's say my relative is having an issue with her mortgage, something that should be fairly straightforward to codeify in a smart contract. In the past, I'd have to shrug my shoulders and help her with a human communication problem. In the future I might be able to actually inspect the code of her mortgage. This allows me to assert my understanding about how it works. I can say, I know it's correct or I know it's incorrect. This is in contrast to modern day where it's much harder for me to understand, therefore I would likely shrug my shoulders and say, I don't know, you'll have to contact an expert. It's similar to another example. I moved my mom over to use Linux as her operating system. I now know, for a fact, that her system is secure and updated. I trust the distribution to audit and package software safely, therefore my stress levels are much much lower and I barely get technical support questions from my mother, compared to before. Smart contracts enable this same level of trust to develop for complex protocols between people & computers, like mortgages, insurance, DNS, software package building and distibution systems. It allows for advances levels of trust to develop in the system itself, and as an engineer I can now transmit that trust through my web of relationships which is how it reach and benefit non technical users. In a way, it allows for engineers to take more responsibility for the systems we live within, versus today where you have to pay me to give a shit and I try to take as little responsibility for the systems I support because I know they are fucked up and broken and I don't want to be the one on the hook when someone gets hurt by the system I and responsible for.

aeternus 8y ago

Trust in, and disagreements over monetary policy may actually be at the root of many of the problems you outline. The euro crisis was likely a significant contributing factor to Brexit. The US bailouts of 2008 are still are source of political contention. Yes Ethereum forked, but that actually gives users a choice, and still does. Some people who disagree with the choice to step in can still run and transact using Ethereum Classic. With both Bitcoin & Ethereum, market forces seem to be doing a decent job of maintaining consensus.