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This is really dumb sorry. Just one great big "waddabout" going on and on about problems OTHER tech has, and not addressing my question at all. I'll ask again.

This is really dumb sorry. Just one great big "waddabout" going on and on about problems OTHER tech has, and not addressing my question at all. I'll ask again. The University sends your medical degree to someone with the same surname as you by mistake and you get their basket weaving degree. They refuse to return it. What do you do? You go to the university, and they check their CENTRALISED MASTER RECORD, notice the mistake, and fix it. So. #1: Why do you need blockchain at all? #2: How can you have your blockchain system WITHOUT also having a centralised database somewhere? The answer, as always with blockchain, is "So I can sell you a token." Always.

csallen 5y ago
In your example, who cares if the university has a centralized master record of the degrees they choose to recognize? If they choose to tell everyone on earth that the degree they gave me was baloney or false or was revoked, that's their prerogative. If they choose to record coin NFTs and the blockchain aren't meant to prevent that. What NFTs guarantee is that the degree the school gave me is still mine. Without NFTs, they could not only revoke my degree, but also delete it from their database and leave me with no proof I graduated from there whatsoever, since I never really owned the degree as property. But with NFTs, no matter what they change or delete in their centralized database, my degree still exists as my property in my decentralized NFT wallet, and the school can't delete or take that back. Which is how property should work! In the real world, if my alma mater were to revoke my degree, they'd update their databases, but they wouldn't also come to my house, find my paper degree, and rip it up. Now this is obviously a contrived example, because the entire point of a degree is to say, "Look! <AuthorityX> thinks highly of me!" So of course if the authority changes their mind about that, then your degree is worthless whether you still own it or not. In a less contrived example, there might be property you own that's valuable regardless of the original owner's opinion of you or any records they keep in their database. For example, if you get a magical sword in World of WarCraft in NFT form, you now own that, and you can use it in other games that choose to recognize and represent that NFT. Even if you get in a fight with Blizzard's CEO, and he orders his minions to delete your account from their servers, you'll still have the NFT, and other games will still respect it. Whereas in a world without NFTs, the only way for other games to even know you had the sword would be to query Blizzard's servers, so you would be fucked in this scenario, because Blizzard would delete all records, because they owned the records, not you.
- TheProbes 5y ago
  That's your example? A sword in a video game? Honestly though, I guess it makes sense, because NFTs are arse for anything that has actual real life meaning. Even you, yourself, realised that halfway through your post. Yeah, no shit your degree is worthless if the university says it's worthless. So, on to video games. You think it would work that way huh? Your sword would still be worth something if Blizzard revoked it because you "own" it? You are making the mistake of thinking that whatever game you want to use the sword in wouldn't check with Blizzard to find out if you are a douchebag who has been banned or not, before they allowed you to use the sword for something in their game. They'd check, see that Blizzard has no record of it on their database, then decide that you'd either been banned or had stolen it, then block you. Btw: Even this won't happen. Read what an actual game developer says about it. https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-you-made-me-do-a-lot-of-people-have-asked-me-to-make-nft-games-and-i-wont-because-i-m-29c7cfdbbb79 https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-you-made-me-do-a-lot-o...
  - csallen 5y ago
    1. The NFT degree actually could still be useful for proving that you were accepted to the college and that you graduated. Not every entity cares if the college subsequently revoked your degree, and not every entity will check. 2. Other "real world" use cases abound, especially with intangibles. Degrees, certifications, licenses, tickets, contracts and invoices, perks, discounts, coupons, identifications, you name it. And these are just physical goods becoming NFTs, to say nothing of digital goods. Turning any good into an NFT adds it to a blockchain, which (a) enables ownership, (b) makes it part of a publicly accessible API that unlocks infinite creativity, (c) plugs it into a booming and a liquid market where owners can buy, sell, and trade their goods, and (d) guarantees its existence and accessibility for the long term. 3. I completely disagree with you that most games would check to see if Blizzard has marked you as a douchebag. Why would GameX care if a player broke some arbitrary rule that Blizzard has? They wouldn't. 4. The person who wrote that post barely even understands what an NFT is, and gets a whole bunch wrong. For example, they write that the concept of ownership of NFTs is "unenforceable," as if the blockchain needs some sort of enforcement. I'm not sure you want to get your predictions from somebody who doesn't understand the technology. There are plenty of smarter game developers working on NFT companies and writing much more intelligent posts.

csallen 5y ago

In your example, who cares if the university has a centralized master record of the degrees they choose to recognize? If they choose to tell everyone on earth that the degree they gave me was baloney or false or was revoked, that's their prerogative. If they choose to record coin NFTs and the blockchain aren't meant to prevent that. What NFTs guarantee is that the degree the school gave me is still mine. Without NFTs, they could not only revoke my degree, but also delete it from their database and leave me with no proof I graduated from there whatsoever, since I never really owned the degree as property. But with NFTs, no matter what they change or delete in their centralized database, my degree still exists as my property in my decentralized NFT wallet, and the school can't delete or take that back. Which is how property should work! In the real world, if my alma mater were to revoke my degree, they'd update their databases, but they wouldn't also come to my house, find my paper degree, and rip it up. Now this is obviously a contrived example, because the entire point of a degree is to say, "Look! <AuthorityX> thinks highly of me!" So of course if the authority changes their mind about that, then your degree is worthless whether you still own it or not. In a less contrived example, there might be property you own that's valuable regardless of the original owner's opinion of you or any records they keep in their database. For example, if you get a magical sword in World of WarCraft in NFT form, you now own that, and you can use it in other games that choose to recognize and represent that NFT. Even if you get in a fight with Blizzard's CEO, and he orders his minions to delete your account from their servers, you'll still have the NFT, and other games will still respect it. Whereas in a world without NFTs, the only way for other games to even know you had the sword would be to query Blizzard's servers, so you would be fucked in this scenario, because Blizzard would delete all records, because they owned the records, not you.

TheProbes 5y ago
That's your example? A sword in a video game? Honestly though, I guess it makes sense, because NFTs are arse for anything that has actual real life meaning. Even you, yourself, realised that halfway through your post. Yeah, no shit your degree is worthless if the university says it's worthless. So, on to video games. You think it would work that way huh? Your sword would still be worth something if Blizzard revoked it because you "own" it? You are making the mistake of thinking that whatever game you want to use the sword in wouldn't check with Blizzard to find out if you are a douchebag who has been banned or not, before they allowed you to use the sword for something in their game. They'd check, see that Blizzard has no record of it on their database, then decide that you'd either been banned or had stolen it, then block you. Btw: Even this won't happen. Read what an actual game developer says about it. https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-you-made-me-do-a-lot-of-people-have-asked-me-to-make-nft-games-and-i-wont-because-i-m-29c7cfdbbb79 https://docseuss.medium.com/look-what-you-made-me-do-a-lot-o...
- csallen 5y ago
  1. The NFT degree actually could still be useful for proving that you were accepted to the college and that you graduated. Not every entity cares if the college subsequently revoked your degree, and not every entity will check. 2. Other "real world" use cases abound, especially with intangibles. Degrees, certifications, licenses, tickets, contracts and invoices, perks, discounts, coupons, identifications, you name it. And these are just physical goods becoming NFTs, to say nothing of digital goods. Turning any good into an NFT adds it to a blockchain, which (a) enables ownership, (b) makes it part of a publicly accessible API that unlocks infinite creativity, (c) plugs it into a booming and a liquid market where owners can buy, sell, and trade their goods, and (d) guarantees its existence and accessibility for the long term. 3. I completely disagree with you that most games would check to see if Blizzard has marked you as a douchebag. Why would GameX care if a player broke some arbitrary rule that Blizzard has? They wouldn't. 4. The person who wrote that post barely even understands what an NFT is, and gets a whole bunch wrong. For example, they write that the concept of ownership of NFTs is "unenforceable," as if the blockchain needs some sort of enforcement. I'm not sure you want to get your predictions from somebody who doesn't understand the technology. There are plenty of smarter game developers working on NFT companies and writing much more intelligent posts.