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Criticisms like this are so strange to me. Blockchains are socially constructed tools. They aren't meant to be some absolute source of truth that can never be s
by darawk 5y ago
Criticisms like this are so strange to me. Blockchains are socially constructed tools. They aren't meant to be some absolute source of truth that can never be subverted by any social institution. They are meant to be a ledger that only updates in certain pre-determined conditions in certain pre-determined ways.
In the scenario described in the article, the French government can simply issue a new token and say it's the Mona Lisa's. As long as everyone else accepts this, there's no problem.
The point of the blockchain isn't to say that chain ownership is the ultimate and final source of truth, it's to say that you cannot secretly contravene that source of truth. If the French government wishes to issue a new Mona Lisa token, they must do so transparently and in view of the public.
They are forced to do so transparently because of the properties of the blockchain. It does not prevent anyone from changing the relation of chain entries to social institutions. It simply forces things that in the past could have occurred behind closed doors and without scrutiny into public view, and subject to public social censure.
This isn't just theoretical, either. This is exactly what happened with The DAO debacle early on in Ethereum. People didn't like what the blockchain said, so they simply changed it. But critically, they had to do so in public, and they had to do so in a way that was truly democratic. Democratic in the sense that nobody was forced to migrate to the new chain. Ethereum Classic is still operating today, and if you want to transact on it, nobody is stopping you. This is true voluntaryism and democracy in the purest sense.
- munificent 5y ago> They aren't meant to be some absolute source of truth that can never be subverted by any social institution. I'm fairly certain that would be news to many of its adherents. The bitcoin whitepaper begins with, "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." > As long as everyone else accepts this If you already have an efficiently functioning consensus system that can answer questions like this, what value does adding a blockchain have?
- darawk 5y ago> If you already have an efficiently functioning consensus system that can answer questions like this, what value does adding a blockchain have? It alters the political topology. I would analogize it to saying "What does social media do? I can already talk to my friends". Essentially it forces accountability and transparency to happen in ways that they were not guaranteed to in the past. If you have a corrupt government, often corruption happens in private, which makes it harder to regulate, and harder for the public to even be aware of. They may know generally that things are happening and assets are being expropriated, but they don't know which or when, and to who. Having a blockchain does not prevent the corruption from occurring in some mechanical sense, but it does force it to the social surface. I think this is a real benefit with important consequences. > I'm fairly certain that would be news to many of its adherents. The bitcoin whitepaper begins with, "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution." Ya, I think most people into blockchain/crypto get this wrong. You wouldn't even want an immutable, deterministic system that cannot be altered. Not only is it not what blockchain does, but it's a terrible idea. I think my take on its benefits is much better, and I wish people would adopt it.