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Isn't the "vote on remediation" basically a trial? Isn't the jury you mentioned basically just a jury? "modify the laws of the network" is basically an electi

Isn't the "vote on remediation" basically a trial? Isn't the jury you mentioned basically just a jury? "modify the laws of the network" is basically an election. It sounds like everything would be the same as it is now except in the case where everyone is honest and agree on the transaction which is a case that is somewhat simple in today's system. Why involve a blockchain in this at all? I'm all for efficiency in our systems and a lot of those systems would be better if more digitized but I don't get why people seem to think a blockchain magically solves some part of this.

karpierz 5y ago
It's mob rule. If the majority believes that the transaction should be reversed, it will be. There are no laws. There is no constitution. Worse yet, your vote is directly proportional to your wealth. Or you allow for Sybil attacks.
didibus 5y ago
The blockchain is just technology. It makes all this more convenient, and possibly scale better. But what people really argue for is that it makes the system much less prone to corruption and manipulation, because the system of tracking is much more resilient to being tempered with. For example, right now Joe Shmoe could fabricate a fake paper deed showing that his great grandma owned the Mona Lisa, and it is thus his. And then sue the French government saying they need to either buy it off him or return it to him. Now you'd need forensic experts and all to try and check the authenticity of that deed and all that. Now this is a bit of a stupid example obviously. What if the deed was real? Would the government still say well oh crap here you go? I guess that will depend on the French government and their laws. But say the laws of France were such that yes, it should indeed therefore be returned to Joe. Well with blockchain, the idea is that this wouldn't happen. First the "deed" would have never been lost, the ledger tells you who owns what, there'd be no confusion. Second, Joe (if he was lying), wouldn't be able to create a "fake" entry in the ledger as easily as maybe he can fabricate a deed. Now that's up for debate, but in theory a decentralized ledger need you to temper with all the nodes, so it's possibly much more difficult to scam with. And back to the example in the article, the Mona Lisa would be transfered from the government to Joe, there'd be a record of this. Now the question is no longer, is this record valid? We know this happened, the question becomes was this transaction initiated fradulently? Obviously the computer doesn't know why the transaction came to be, just that it for sure did, not tempered with, no fake claims, this did happen and we know exactly from where and to where, and exactly what was it that was transacted. Now you need people to investigate and asses if the transaction was fraudulent. Until there's a way for machines to with 100% accuracy read intent, this has to be handled by people. But in theory, a decentralized blockchain might make that process easier and more resilient to scams.
- acdha 5y ago
  > The blockchain is just technology. It makes all this more convenient, and possibly scale better. That’s an odd way to say “less convenient and slower”. Everything you described could be done faster, better, cheaper and in a distributed fashion using PKI – the important part is that a legal authority signed a particular document. The blockchain features aimed at working in environments where people don’t know or trust each other aren’t useful when the whole point is having a trusted third party verify claims.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Now this is a bit of a stupid example obviously. Obvously. For some reason, no one can come up with a real non-stupid example for blockchain that would work better than whatever we already have. > But say the laws of France were such that Let me give you an actual concrete example. Some time ago someone mentioned that someone decided to create a land registry in Afghanistan based on blockchain because reasons: https://unhabitat.org/un-habitat-oict-and-lto-network-release-first-open-source-urban-land-registry-solution-for-the https://unhabitat.org/un-habitat-oict-and-lto-network-releas... I came up with a very simple use case: - Ahmed is registered as the rightful owner of Kolula Pushta Road, 25, Kabul. - A month later Mohammad appears and is also registered as the rightful owner of that same place. - Half a year later Zahra, who has never even lived in Afghanistan, wins a court battle and is registered as the rightful owner of that same place. Questions: - Who is the rightful owner? - How does blockchain help here? To skip long discussions, all of the below are possible, and are not solved in any way, shape, or form by blockchain. - Ahmed is the rightful owner. Mohammad bribes local council which enters him as the rightful owner. Zahra is Ahmed's daughter, and has the money to chalenge this at court. - Both Ahmed and Mohammad bribed the local council to become the owners. Zahra inherited this place from a relative and had to win a court battle to prove that she is the rightful owner. - All of them bribed local councils and courts. - All of them are rightful owners, they sold or gifted the property to the next person. However, at one point local authorities intervened and didn't allow Mohammed to transfer the property to Zahra, and she had to go to court.
  - valarauko 5y ago
    I can't speak to the Afghanistan example, but I can see some advantages to a land registry on a blockchain, with the ensuing difficulties as well. For example, one of the places that had toyed with the idea of a blockchain land registry was the state of Andhra Pradesh in India: https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indian-blockchain-land-records-registry-andhra-pradesh/ https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indian-blockchain-land-record... As an illustrative example of the issues with the land registry in the region, a friend of mine wanted to settle some land he'd inherited in his village. He had the deed to several parcels of land owned by the family (registered in his deceased father's name, as the head of the family) in his possession, but it turned out an uncle who lived in the village had 'sold' possession of some parcels of land to somebody else. It took several trips (and bribes) to the district office to even be able to view the land records for the land - which had indeed been modified. Sure, with a legal battle he could have gotten it back, but it would take decades. How might the blockchain help here? Prevent modification of the land records without the express wishes of the deed holder. Court cases involving land are severely backlogged in India, on the scale of decades. I also agree that the blockchain would also create additional problems & burdens.
didibus 5y ago
I also want to give you another example. We know lots of people cheat taxes. Most of the time, they do so by hiding their money. If all money was a cryptocurrency, you could encode in the transaction rules that automatically on any transaction 10% is moved to the IRS wallet. Or you could have it that automatically at the tax due date, everyone's income for the year is talkies up and money from their wallet is transfered to the IRS. If you don't have enough money, an automatic dept could apply to you where 5% of all future income goes to payback what you owe. Etc. That's the fancy automated stuff. At a minimum, it means there's be a truthful trusted ledger of how much money everyone made and that would make it very very hard for someone to cheat and hide their money. So that's another example of how the tech could limit fraud in our system. It be the same system, but harder to cheat at, possibly easier to automate and scale.
- karpierz 5y ago
  > Most of the time, they do so by hiding their money. They hide their money, in legal way. Specifically by misclassification. For example, you claim that a residence is your primary residence for tax purposes, but don't live in it. Or they claim a tax deduction on an art piece that was overvalued. The issue isn't that the IRS can't collect money, the issue is that the tax code is complicated and cannot be automated. It requires interpretation, which is what lawyers do for a living. For the average low-income person, the IRS could automatically do their taxes, but they don't. Not for lack of technical ability, but because of lobbying, which I'm not sure how blockchain would address.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  But that's not about representing physical objects on a blockchain, which is what the article (and at least in my mind the discussion) is about. Keeping digital objects (like bitcoin) on a digital system is of course easier than keeping physical objects on a digital system but it also brings a whole load of it's own complexity. I also keep getting back to what does the blockchain actually give you here? Even in this example you need someone or something to have privileged access to the chain to handle things like bankruptcy, inheritance, seizure and so on. Your pitch is for applying programmable logic to money. That'd be great, but also extremely complex and I just don't get why the blockchain is needed.

karpierz 5y ago

It's mob rule. If the majority believes that the transaction should be reversed, it will be. There are no laws. There is no constitution. Worse yet, your vote is directly proportional to your wealth. Or you allow for Sybil attacks.

didibus 5y ago

The blockchain is just technology. It makes all this more convenient, and possibly scale better. But what people really argue for is that it makes the system much less prone to corruption and manipulation, because the system of tracking is much more resilient to being tempered with. For example, right now Joe Shmoe could fabricate a fake paper deed showing that his great grandma owned the Mona Lisa, and it is thus his. And then sue the French government saying they need to either buy it off him or return it to him. Now you'd need forensic experts and all to try and check the authenticity of that deed and all that. Now this is a bit of a stupid example obviously. What if the deed was real? Would the government still say well oh crap here you go? I guess that will depend on the French government and their laws. But say the laws of France were such that yes, it should indeed therefore be returned to Joe. Well with blockchain, the idea is that this wouldn't happen. First the "deed" would have never been lost, the ledger tells you who owns what, there'd be no confusion. Second, Joe (if he was lying), wouldn't be able to create a "fake" entry in the ledger as easily as maybe he can fabricate a deed. Now that's up for debate, but in theory a decentralized ledger need you to temper with all the nodes, so it's possibly much more difficult to scam with. And back to the example in the article, the Mona Lisa would be transfered from the government to Joe, there'd be a record of this. Now the question is no longer, is this record valid? We know this happened, the question becomes was this transaction initiated fradulently? Obviously the computer doesn't know why the transaction came to be, just that it for sure did, not tempered with, no fake claims, this did happen and we know exactly from where and to where, and exactly what was it that was transacted. Now you need people to investigate and asses if the transaction was fraudulent. Until there's a way for machines to with 100% accuracy read intent, this has to be handled by people. But in theory, a decentralized blockchain might make that process easier and more resilient to scams.

acdha 5y ago
> The blockchain is just technology. It makes all this more convenient, and possibly scale better. That’s an odd way to say “less convenient and slower”. Everything you described could be done faster, better, cheaper and in a distributed fashion using PKI – the important part is that a legal authority signed a particular document. The blockchain features aimed at working in environments where people don’t know or trust each other aren’t useful when the whole point is having a trusted third party verify claims.
dmitriid 5y ago
> Now this is a bit of a stupid example obviously. Obvously. For some reason, no one can come up with a real non-stupid example for blockchain that would work better than whatever we already have. > But say the laws of France were such that Let me give you an actual concrete example. Some time ago someone mentioned that someone decided to create a land registry in Afghanistan based on blockchain because reasons: https://unhabitat.org/un-habitat-oict-and-lto-network-release-first-open-source-urban-land-registry-solution-for-the https://unhabitat.org/un-habitat-oict-and-lto-network-releas... I came up with a very simple use case: - Ahmed is registered as the rightful owner of Kolula Pushta Road, 25, Kabul. - A month later Mohammad appears and is also registered as the rightful owner of that same place. - Half a year later Zahra, who has never even lived in Afghanistan, wins a court battle and is registered as the rightful owner of that same place. Questions: - Who is the rightful owner? - How does blockchain help here? To skip long discussions, all of the below are possible, and are not solved in any way, shape, or form by blockchain. - Ahmed is the rightful owner. Mohammad bribes local council which enters him as the rightful owner. Zahra is Ahmed's daughter, and has the money to chalenge this at court. - Both Ahmed and Mohammad bribed the local council to become the owners. Zahra inherited this place from a relative and had to win a court battle to prove that she is the rightful owner. - All of them bribed local councils and courts. - All of them are rightful owners, they sold or gifted the property to the next person. However, at one point local authorities intervened and didn't allow Mohammed to transfer the property to Zahra, and she had to go to court.
- valarauko 5y ago
  I can't speak to the Afghanistan example, but I can see some advantages to a land registry on a blockchain, with the ensuing difficulties as well. For example, one of the places that had toyed with the idea of a blockchain land registry was the state of Andhra Pradesh in India: https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indian-blockchain-land-records-registry-andhra-pradesh/ https://www.ledgerinsights.com/indian-blockchain-land-record... As an illustrative example of the issues with the land registry in the region, a friend of mine wanted to settle some land he'd inherited in his village. He had the deed to several parcels of land owned by the family (registered in his deceased father's name, as the head of the family) in his possession, but it turned out an uncle who lived in the village had 'sold' possession of some parcels of land to somebody else. It took several trips (and bribes) to the district office to even be able to view the land records for the land - which had indeed been modified. Sure, with a legal battle he could have gotten it back, but it would take decades. How might the blockchain help here? Prevent modification of the land records without the express wishes of the deed holder. Court cases involving land are severely backlogged in India, on the scale of decades. I also agree that the blockchain would also create additional problems & burdens.

didibus 5y ago

I also want to give you another example. We know lots of people cheat taxes. Most of the time, they do so by hiding their money. If all money was a cryptocurrency, you could encode in the transaction rules that automatically on any transaction 10% is moved to the IRS wallet. Or you could have it that automatically at the tax due date, everyone's income for the year is talkies up and money from their wallet is transfered to the IRS. If you don't have enough money, an automatic dept could apply to you where 5% of all future income goes to payback what you owe. Etc. That's the fancy automated stuff. At a minimum, it means there's be a truthful trusted ledger of how much money everyone made and that would make it very very hard for someone to cheat and hide their money. So that's another example of how the tech could limit fraud in our system. It be the same system, but harder to cheat at, possibly easier to automate and scale.

karpierz 5y ago
> Most of the time, they do so by hiding their money. They hide their money, in legal way. Specifically by misclassification. For example, you claim that a residence is your primary residence for tax purposes, but don't live in it. Or they claim a tax deduction on an art piece that was overvalued. The issue isn't that the IRS can't collect money, the issue is that the tax code is complicated and cannot be automated. It requires interpretation, which is what lawyers do for a living. For the average low-income person, the IRS could automatically do their taxes, but they don't. Not for lack of technical ability, but because of lobbying, which I'm not sure how blockchain would address.
SahAssar 5y ago
But that's not about representing physical objects on a blockchain, which is what the article (and at least in my mind the discussion) is about. Keeping digital objects (like bitcoin) on a digital system is of course easier than keeping physical objects on a digital system but it also brings a whole load of it's own complexity. I also keep getting back to what does the blockchain actually give you here? Even in this example you need someone or something to have privileged access to the chain to handle things like bankruptcy, inheritance, seizure and so on. Your pitch is for applying programmable logic to money. That'd be great, but also extremely complex and I just don't get why the blockchain is needed.