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Many of mans greatest inventions have started like this. Just because we are not aware of a problem today, does not mean it is not there, will not come, or that

Many of mans greatest inventions have started like this. Just because we are not aware of a problem today, does not mean it is not there, will not come, or that it can be solved efficiently in other ways.

skohan 5y ago
Blockchain is quite old at this point by technology standards, no? In 2017 there was a ton of attention and funding going into the space - it's not as if there hasn't been the opportunity to do something interesting with blockchain.
- bhawks 5y ago
  The fine article and your comment both say crypto is 'old' tech. TFA points to iPhone's 2007 release date as if no one (even apple themselves had tried to crack the personal digital assistant before). Which is a laughable omission of history. The first PDA landed in the 80s. Apple started development in 87 on the newton and didn't have a product til 93. The iphone stands on the ashes of 2 decades of product and engineering iterations. The AI winter lasted from 80s until the 2010s. Technology takes time and innovation is a discrete not continuous function. If we all gave up after 10 years we would be sitting in caves and probably not even planting seeds. TFA is full of blustery arguments to say that crypto is a worthless dead end and should be banned deserves more reasoned arguments. Toning down the emotional levels might be a good first step.
  - skohan 5y ago
    I don't think you should conflate my comment with the TFA article. I didn't write it, and I have no interest in defending it's points. But I don't totally understand your comparison of early PDA's to the current state of cryptocurrency. Palm pilots were a successful product in their day. Blackberries were hugely successful. It's not as if the iPhone was the first example of value being created in this space. As far as blockchain, from what I can tell, the only value its creating so far is for drug dealers, those executing ransomware attacks, and people running cryptocurrency exchanges. I'm not ruling out the idea that someone will find an interesting use-case for cryptocurrency in the future. But what seems a bit strange to me is that cryptocurrency advocates seem to want us all to give a ton of attention and investment towards this space which so far has produced nothing of value. It seems to me that the rational standpoint will be to ignore it until someone can actually demonstrate the "potential" which has been promised for so many years now.
mdoms 5y ago
Can you name such a technology that existed for well over a decade before any real use cases were found?
- creshal 5y ago
  LASER, back when it was still written in all caps. It was called "the most useless invention of the century" for a while, and it took close to a decade to figure a use for it. But I think the whole discussion is missing the point. Blockchain is mostly not trying to be a solution to engineering problems, but societal, "how do we do X without a trustworthy party involved". We already know how to do any given X with someone trustworthy involved. And, fundamentally, that's how society works, no matter how much anarchists wish it didn't. It's almost always possible to agree to some party to be in charge, making blockchain mostly pointless, no matter how much money is poured in the technical details.
  - skohan 5y ago
    But this is a totally abstract argument. Can you point to a tangible example of blockchain being used to solve a real societal problem, in a way which is competitive with other, more conventional solutions?
    - neolog 5y ago
      The "Git" application is a blockchain for decentralized management of the Linux kernel source code. The "Bitcoin" application is a tool useful for buying and selling recreational drugs without exposure to the physical risk posed by cash transactions. Edit: That is, the physical/financial risk posed to you by the other party or third-party robbers. Legal risk is probably also reduced: law-enforcement deanonymization attacks seem much less frequent than busting people with drugs on the street. Blockchain-based markets in general enable transactions without revealing personally identifying information to the counterparty or platform while circumventing regulatory restrictions on conventional transactions.
      - deleted 5y ago

skohan 5y ago

Blockchain is quite old at this point by technology standards, no? In 2017 there was a ton of attention and funding going into the space - it's not as if there hasn't been the opportunity to do something interesting with blockchain.

bhawks 5y ago
The fine article and your comment both say crypto is 'old' tech. TFA points to iPhone's 2007 release date as if no one (even apple themselves had tried to crack the personal digital assistant before). Which is a laughable omission of history. The first PDA landed in the 80s. Apple started development in 87 on the newton and didn't have a product til 93. The iphone stands on the ashes of 2 decades of product and engineering iterations. The AI winter lasted from 80s until the 2010s. Technology takes time and innovation is a discrete not continuous function. If we all gave up after 10 years we would be sitting in caves and probably not even planting seeds. TFA is full of blustery arguments to say that crypto is a worthless dead end and should be banned deserves more reasoned arguments. Toning down the emotional levels might be a good first step.
- skohan 5y ago
  I don't think you should conflate my comment with the TFA article. I didn't write it, and I have no interest in defending it's points. But I don't totally understand your comparison of early PDA's to the current state of cryptocurrency. Palm pilots were a successful product in their day. Blackberries were hugely successful. It's not as if the iPhone was the first example of value being created in this space. As far as blockchain, from what I can tell, the only value its creating so far is for drug dealers, those executing ransomware attacks, and people running cryptocurrency exchanges. I'm not ruling out the idea that someone will find an interesting use-case for cryptocurrency in the future. But what seems a bit strange to me is that cryptocurrency advocates seem to want us all to give a ton of attention and investment towards this space which so far has produced nothing of value. It seems to me that the rational standpoint will be to ignore it until someone can actually demonstrate the "potential" which has been promised for so many years now.

mdoms 5y ago

Can you name such a technology that existed for well over a decade before any real use cases were found?

creshal 5y ago
LASER, back when it was still written in all caps. It was called "the most useless invention of the century" for a while, and it took close to a decade to figure a use for it. But I think the whole discussion is missing the point. Blockchain is mostly not trying to be a solution to engineering problems, but societal, "how do we do X without a trustworthy party involved". We already know how to do any given X with someone trustworthy involved. And, fundamentally, that's how society works, no matter how much anarchists wish it didn't. It's almost always possible to agree to some party to be in charge, making blockchain mostly pointless, no matter how much money is poured in the technical details.
- skohan 5y ago
  But this is a totally abstract argument. Can you point to a tangible example of blockchain being used to solve a real societal problem, in a way which is competitive with other, more conventional solutions?
  - neolog 5y ago
    The "Git" application is a blockchain for decentralized management of the Linux kernel source code. The "Bitcoin" application is a tool useful for buying and selling recreational drugs without exposure to the physical risk posed by cash transactions. Edit: That is, the physical/financial risk posed to you by the other party or third-party robbers. Legal risk is probably also reduced: law-enforcement deanonymization attacks seem much less frequent than busting people with drugs on the street. Blockchain-based markets in general enable transactions without revealing personally identifying information to the counterparty or platform while circumventing regulatory restrictions on conventional transactions.
    - deleted 5y ago