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> intermediaries allow people to fix mistakes. And people make mistakes all the time. If intermediaries are optional, they are great. The problem is when they

> intermediaries allow people to fix mistakes. And people make mistakes all the time. If intermediaries are optional, they are great. The problem is when they are required, or when they are corrupt, or simply inefficient. Everything else you are writing shows the same privileged worldview that I see in those who hold strong anti-crypto ideas. You don't know how it is to not have reliable and robust institutions, so you don't understand why so many people want to work on a solution that disrupts them. > Each of these cases is not "we need a blockchain" but "it's good to have a signed, difficult-to-forge journal that can be inspected and verified". Yes, blockchain is not the end. It's the tool to have a "signed, difficult-to-forge journal that can be inspected and verified". But until you don't understand the importance of being able to do that without intermediaries, we will be talking past one another.

arcticbull 6y ago
It’s not fair to write off all criticisms of the blockchain as privilege. The issue isn’t privilege. The issue is that folks who don’t have access to financial services deserve access to financial services and blockchain doesn’t get them that. It gets them a “ruined fresco” [1] of that. A crap approximation if you squint, but if you zoom in all the details are wrong. Intermediaries are a massive optimization and solve a ton of problems. Pushing a world without them onto these disadvantaged folks, in a very real way, locks them into a second tier moving forward. [1] https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/2-photos13.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1236&h=820&crop=1 https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/2-phot...
- rglullis 6y ago
  > It’s not fair to write off all criticisms of the blockchain as privilege. Not all of them. Just the ones that compares the current implementation with some untenable ideal or with the status quo in the developing countries. Saying "I can send one million dollars or 20 dollars easily to anyone without blockchain" is no different than a "Let them have cake" to someone in Argentina who would like to work as a freelancer with European customers. Saying "blockchain is never going to compete with Visa" is a big fuck you to the small business owner in Rio who needs some rotating capital to their shop and the bank is offering "competitive rates" of 2%/month. > Pushing a world without them onto these disadvantaged folks. It has very little to do with "disadvantaged folks" or "not having access to financial services". It has more to do with enabling whatever-you-can-call "middle class" to be able to protect their wealth and to do their business without being harassed by corrupt government officials, or having their savings inflated away by government that can not/will not manage their finances and even to enable them to make business with foreign entities without getting ripped off by abusive/unfair taxes. > Intermediaries are a massive optimization and solve a ton of problems. No argument there. But again, the problem is when people don't have intermediaries they can rely on. If you show me any non-blockchain alternative where people are free to choose if they want intermediaries or not, then I will gladly support it. As everything in designing systems, there is no solution free of trade-offs. Forcing people to depend on institutions and to accept centralization is a clear trade-off between performance and robustness. Too much optimizing and not focus on robustness brings you to a system that is so inflexible that becomes dangerous. It works well until it doesn't. When it fails, it fails spectacularly.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > Saying "I can send one million dollars or 20 dollars easily to anyone without blockchain" is no different than a "Let them have cake" to someone in Argentina who would like to work as a freelancer with European customers. Again, that's not the point I'm making. Yes, perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good, but utterly insufficient shouldn't be the enemy of good either. Yes, some people are helped. No, substantially any more people cannot be helped because - and while you disregarded this criticism earlier - the system simply cannot and does not scale to any transaction quantity larger than that of a single Costco or a large flea market. btw, if someone's charging you 2% per month for a loan, that's likely because lending to you is incredibly risky. If someone's offering you a loan for less than that, they're in danger. > It has more to do with enabling whatever-you-can-call "middle class" to be able to protect their wealth and to do their business without being harassed by corrupt government officials, or having their savings inflated away by government that can not/will not manage their finances and even to enable them to make business with foreign entities without getting ripped off by abusive/unfair taxes. Blockchain doesn't stop any of that. It's not a way to protect your wealth if the value drops 40% in a month. In this month. That's not protection, that's juggling buzzsaws. In no small part because the same thing that allows it to be used in these rogue jurisdictions allows scammers and criminals to manipulate the ever loving crap out of it - I mean, Tether, for example, but that's just the latest example. It's impossible to actually price because you can't see through the murk. I've said this before, and I stand by it: if you have a government that cannot manage a currency, you have bigger problems than your currency. Once you sort out the government, the currency is no longer a problem. And even if you use crypto you are still subject to those same taxes. But strictly worse because you have to pay them in local units, but store your value in a wildly fluctuating store of value. I also reject the idea that "just do financial crime" is a solution to really any problem you may have. > If you show me any non-blockchain alternative where people are free to choose if they want intermediaries or not, then I will gladly support it. Good news! Can the entrepreneur in Rio or the freelancer in Argentina who wants to do business with Europeans not use TransferWise or open a TransferWise Borderless account in seconds? [1] It allows them to hold any of 55 currencies and send them to 70 countries - at mid-market rates, plus a small fee - including Brazil, Argentina, the US, Canada and Europe. Their rates are incredibly competitive. If you're upper-middle-class there's always HSBC Premier which will get you local bank accounts in 80 countries, with one-click transfers between them in Global View. [2] [1] https://transferwise.com/us/multi-currency-account/ https://transferwise.com/us/multi-currency-account/ [2] https://www.us.hsbc.com/premier/ https://www.us.hsbc.com/premier/

arcticbull 6y ago

It’s not fair to write off all criticisms of the blockchain as privilege. The issue isn’t privilege. The issue is that folks who don’t have access to financial services deserve access to financial services and blockchain doesn’t get them that. It gets them a “ruined fresco” [1] of that. A crap approximation if you squint, but if you zoom in all the details are wrong. Intermediaries are a massive optimization and solve a ton of problems. Pushing a world without them onto these disadvantaged folks, in a very real way, locks them into a second tier moving forward. [1] https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/2-photos13.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1236&h=820&crop=1 https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/2-phot...

rglullis 6y ago
> It’s not fair to write off all criticisms of the blockchain as privilege. Not all of them. Just the ones that compares the current implementation with some untenable ideal or with the status quo in the developing countries. Saying "I can send one million dollars or 20 dollars easily to anyone without blockchain" is no different than a "Let them have cake" to someone in Argentina who would like to work as a freelancer with European customers. Saying "blockchain is never going to compete with Visa" is a big fuck you to the small business owner in Rio who needs some rotating capital to their shop and the bank is offering "competitive rates" of 2%/month. > Pushing a world without them onto these disadvantaged folks. It has very little to do with "disadvantaged folks" or "not having access to financial services". It has more to do with enabling whatever-you-can-call "middle class" to be able to protect their wealth and to do their business without being harassed by corrupt government officials, or having their savings inflated away by government that can not/will not manage their finances and even to enable them to make business with foreign entities without getting ripped off by abusive/unfair taxes. > Intermediaries are a massive optimization and solve a ton of problems. No argument there. But again, the problem is when people don't have intermediaries they can rely on. If you show me any non-blockchain alternative where people are free to choose if they want intermediaries or not, then I will gladly support it. As everything in designing systems, there is no solution free of trade-offs. Forcing people to depend on institutions and to accept centralization is a clear trade-off between performance and robustness. Too much optimizing and not focus on robustness brings you to a system that is so inflexible that becomes dangerous. It works well until it doesn't. When it fails, it fails spectacularly.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > Saying "I can send one million dollars or 20 dollars easily to anyone without blockchain" is no different than a "Let them have cake" to someone in Argentina who would like to work as a freelancer with European customers. Again, that's not the point I'm making. Yes, perfect shouldn't be the enemy of good, but utterly insufficient shouldn't be the enemy of good either. Yes, some people are helped. No, substantially any more people cannot be helped because - and while you disregarded this criticism earlier - the system simply cannot and does not scale to any transaction quantity larger than that of a single Costco or a large flea market. btw, if someone's charging you 2% per month for a loan, that's likely because lending to you is incredibly risky. If someone's offering you a loan for less than that, they're in danger. > It has more to do with enabling whatever-you-can-call "middle class" to be able to protect their wealth and to do their business without being harassed by corrupt government officials, or having their savings inflated away by government that can not/will not manage their finances and even to enable them to make business with foreign entities without getting ripped off by abusive/unfair taxes. Blockchain doesn't stop any of that. It's not a way to protect your wealth if the value drops 40% in a month. In this month. That's not protection, that's juggling buzzsaws. In no small part because the same thing that allows it to be used in these rogue jurisdictions allows scammers and criminals to manipulate the ever loving crap out of it - I mean, Tether, for example, but that's just the latest example. It's impossible to actually price because you can't see through the murk. I've said this before, and I stand by it: if you have a government that cannot manage a currency, you have bigger problems than your currency. Once you sort out the government, the currency is no longer a problem. And even if you use crypto you are still subject to those same taxes. But strictly worse because you have to pay them in local units, but store your value in a wildly fluctuating store of value. I also reject the idea that "just do financial crime" is a solution to really any problem you may have. > If you show me any non-blockchain alternative where people are free to choose if they want intermediaries or not, then I will gladly support it. Good news! Can the entrepreneur in Rio or the freelancer in Argentina who wants to do business with Europeans not use TransferWise or open a TransferWise Borderless account in seconds? [1] It allows them to hold any of 55 currencies and send them to 70 countries - at mid-market rates, plus a small fee - including Brazil, Argentina, the US, Canada and Europe. Their rates are incredibly competitive. If you're upper-middle-class there's always HSBC Premier which will get you local bank accounts in 80 countries, with one-click transfers between them in Global View. [2] [1] https://transferwise.com/us/multi-currency-account/ https://transferwise.com/us/multi-currency-account/ [2] https://www.us.hsbc.com/premier/ https://www.us.hsbc.com/premier/