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> But we do need rules like if I give you money for something and then you tell me to get lost... That would be "larceny", and there are lots of rules prohibit

> But we do need rules like if I give you money for something and then you tell me to get lost... That would be "larceny", and there are lots of rules prohibiting it & court systems to recoup damages. Credit card companies (for example) are just a more-rapid arbitration mechanism.

davidw 5y ago
That's part of the point of the article. Those rules are not some kind of distributed system. They are centralized.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  that's half true. every actor in the system has its own ledger and they reconcile transactions at a given point in time. you don't need to know what others are doing or who they are. your bank authorize your transactions and then some other bank receives the order to deposit the money on another account they control. in this sense banking is more decentralized than "one true ledger to rule them all"
  - davidw 5y ago
    I was referring to 'larceny' in my comment as being a centralized rule.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  Although in reality enforcement can be selective and vary by jurisdiction so it’s also decentralised in implementation.
  - bduerst 5y ago
    True, but it doesn't make sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater. From what I've seen being argued about proponents of defi (or smart contracts) is they operate on the premise that the centralized authority is the bad actor. While this is true in some cases, it's not all cases, and despite it's flaws there is still a need for centralized authorities to arbitrate.
    - int_19h 5y ago
      The issue with centralized authorities that has to be mitigated somehow is that, once they appear, they tend to accummulate more and more power, and inevitably become a bad actor eventually, even if originally they weren't intending to. A decentralized approach to this is to have the hierarchy of authority organized bottom-up rather than top-down. The hierarchy can then be toppled by "pulling the rug" at the bottom-most layer when it becomes abusive. OTOH centralized hierarchies tend to fight this by promoting principles such as "democratic centralism" (where all decision making has to flow up before it flows back down, allowing to control it at the top).
      - Jensson 5y ago
        > The issue with centralized authorities that has to be mitigated somehow is that, once they appear, they tend to accumulate more and more power, and inevitably become a bad actor eventually, even if originally they weren't intending to. Which is why we have a democracy so that rulers don't have to worry about getting killed in a rebellion and people can choose a new ruler when corruption gets bad enough. This of course means that corruption tends towards the highest people can tolerate. So if you see corrupt politicians it is because people tolerate it, if they wanted they could vote them out but people as a group don't care enough to actually do the work necessary to do so. However if corruption grew large enough as you fear then people would start caring and things would change rather quickly.
        int_19h 5y ago
        What we actually have is representative democracy, where the choice is often nominal, and leaders generally come from the same class in practice (and represent the interests of that class). So the fact that people don't "vote them out" is not an indication that they don't care enough - they might care but not have the choice that would reflect it. It is also susceptible to "don't let the other guy win!" type of propaganda, especially in FPTP electoral systems like the American one. So long as you can find enough emotional wedge issues to ensure that your base will never even contemplate voting for "the other", you can basically do whatever the hell you want.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  One person can hit another person over the head without any centralized authority being involved. So I don't think your claim is correct at all. Assuming if somebody breaks an agreement, you just hit them over the head with a stick.
  - watwut 5y ago
    >Assuming if somebody breaks an agreement, you just hit them over the head with a stick. If this is possible, then it is equally possible to just hit anyone you please with stick so that they are forced to do what you want. Which means, the most violent eager person gets to rule. Which is what people who prefer court system don't want.
    - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
      If you just hit people with sticks, they are bound to hit back. I don't understand your example.
      - Ensorceled 5y ago
        I know several people that it would be VERY unwise for almost anyone to attempt to hit them with sticks. Do they get to do larceny as much as they want in this system?
        virgildotcodes 5y ago
        No, because in this perfectly rational world a bunch of weaker humans would inevitably band together to overcome the stronger stick man. This is exactly how things would go, which is why in human history warlords have never been a thing, and violent, oppressive men have never built empires.
        catlikesshrimp 5y ago
        Except there are still warlords, and drug cartels. And police beating black fellows more often than the average. https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africas-top-10-dictators-and-warlords-body-count-included/ https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africas-top-10-dictator... You need commanders for war. Weaker humans usually sit through decimation until the guards come for them. Then they squeal for help. It is also rational. Consider that if you stand agaisnt the stronger enemy, the enemy might come back later with reinforcements and kill you. Edit: I remembered what the Bible says happened to jews. The egyptians killed the jew children to keep the population in check, before exodus. And shortly after Jesus was born, Herod probably did the same.
- pjkundert 5y ago
  Larceny (small- or industrial-scale) can only exist if counterparties are kept ignorant of previous larceny on the part of the bad actor. It takes centralized systems to keep people ignorant. In good, decentralized systems which demand long-term public track records of agent behaviour, with decentralized memory of these records, malevolent behaviour by an agent would rapidly make that agent incapable of future larceny. Much of the disappointment with government and their three-letter agencies, is the growing belief (and mounting evidence) of long-term, wide-spread larceny, mischief and even evil on the part of government agents -- with the knowledge, support and protection of the government. It is critical to use systems that make bad behaviour impossible to hide. This requires centralized RULES (ie. widely agreed-upon standards of behaviour), but decentralized KNOWLEDGE (large numbers of random actors, confirming that behaviours meet the standards).
  - beckman466 5y ago
    > This requires centralized RULES (ie. widely agreed-upon standards of behaviour) yes, or even clearer: the rules for any holochain app are visible/public. whereas today we meet in Zuck's living room and he dictates what we can speak/do, using the holochain framework (an end-to-end, open source, P2P app framework) everyone holds a copy of the rules themselves and everyone does their own computing and storage. no more black-boxing of the rules/functions. no more straightjacketed client-server relationships. wanna set up an app with your friends where you can tweet with 500 characters instead of 240? holochain has you covered. the magic of holochain is it's inbuilt forking functionality which makes repurposing and remixing (evolving) any kind of networked app super easy. one more example to drive this home: "What I want is to see Uber’s technology become a protocol. Same with Airbnb, same with Postmates, same with other companies in the gig and sharing economies. Same with lots of other important technology companies, while we’re at it. Obviously this can’t happen overnight, but if the technology is useful enough to provide real value, then it’s too useful to be subjugated to the whims of profit forever. I would love to see these technology platforms either fully decentralised, or centralised in such a way that the entity running it is not-for-profit and, ideally, accountable to all stakeholders. The actual mechanisms for making this work are beyond the scope of this post, but I want to throw this idea out there and get people thinking about it, because it’s the only way of making the future work for all of us. I suspect — and feel free to call me naive, but I don’t think I’m wrong— that the majority of people working on Uber’s technology would prefer to build a system whose social impact they could be proud of. Based on my admittedly limited sample size of people I know in the tech industry, I feel like lots of people working at companies like Uber are there because they want to solve interesting technical challenges and deploy useful innovations in the world. I believe that if given the choice, most would prefer to build a system that makes the world a fairer and more equitable place. The problem is that this choice is, for the most part, withheld from them, and whatever individual intentions they may have are inevitably co-opted by the [current economic structure] in which they make their living. By working together to counteract these prevailing systematic forces, though, they may be able to open up a space in which to envision alternatives." -- Wendy Liu, https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-727b864756a4 https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-7...

davidw 5y ago

That's part of the point of the article. Those rules are not some kind of distributed system. They are centralized.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
that's half true. every actor in the system has its own ledger and they reconcile transactions at a given point in time. you don't need to know what others are doing or who they are. your bank authorize your transactions and then some other bank receives the order to deposit the money on another account they control. in this sense banking is more decentralized than "one true ledger to rule them all"
- davidw 5y ago
  I was referring to 'larceny' in my comment as being a centralized rule.
meheleventyone 5y ago
Although in reality enforcement can be selective and vary by jurisdiction so it’s also decentralised in implementation.
- bduerst 5y ago
  True, but it doesn't make sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater. From what I've seen being argued about proponents of defi (or smart contracts) is they operate on the premise that the centralized authority is the bad actor. While this is true in some cases, it's not all cases, and despite it's flaws there is still a need for centralized authorities to arbitrate.
  - int_19h 5y ago
    The issue with centralized authorities that has to be mitigated somehow is that, once they appear, they tend to accummulate more and more power, and inevitably become a bad actor eventually, even if originally they weren't intending to. A decentralized approach to this is to have the hierarchy of authority organized bottom-up rather than top-down. The hierarchy can then be toppled by "pulling the rug" at the bottom-most layer when it becomes abusive. OTOH centralized hierarchies tend to fight this by promoting principles such as "democratic centralism" (where all decision making has to flow up before it flows back down, allowing to control it at the top).
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > The issue with centralized authorities that has to be mitigated somehow is that, once they appear, they tend to accumulate more and more power, and inevitably become a bad actor eventually, even if originally they weren't intending to. Which is why we have a democracy so that rulers don't have to worry about getting killed in a rebellion and people can choose a new ruler when corruption gets bad enough. This of course means that corruption tends towards the highest people can tolerate. So if you see corrupt politicians it is because people tolerate it, if they wanted they could vote them out but people as a group don't care enough to actually do the work necessary to do so. However if corruption grew large enough as you fear then people would start caring and things would change rather quickly.
      - int_19h 5y ago
        What we actually have is representative democracy, where the choice is often nominal, and leaders generally come from the same class in practice (and represent the interests of that class). So the fact that people don't "vote them out" is not an indication that they don't care enough - they might care but not have the choice that would reflect it. It is also susceptible to "don't let the other guy win!" type of propaganda, especially in FPTP electoral systems like the American one. So long as you can find enough emotional wedge issues to ensure that your base will never even contemplate voting for "the other", you can basically do whatever the hell you want.
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
One person can hit another person over the head without any centralized authority being involved. So I don't think your claim is correct at all. Assuming if somebody breaks an agreement, you just hit them over the head with a stick.
- watwut 5y ago
  >Assuming if somebody breaks an agreement, you just hit them over the head with a stick. If this is possible, then it is equally possible to just hit anyone you please with stick so that they are forced to do what you want. Which means, the most violent eager person gets to rule. Which is what people who prefer court system don't want.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    If you just hit people with sticks, they are bound to hit back. I don't understand your example.
    - Ensorceled 5y ago
      I know several people that it would be VERY unwise for almost anyone to attempt to hit them with sticks. Do they get to do larceny as much as they want in this system?
      - virgildotcodes 5y ago
        No, because in this perfectly rational world a bunch of weaker humans would inevitably band together to overcome the stronger stick man. This is exactly how things would go, which is why in human history warlords have never been a thing, and violent, oppressive men have never built empires.
        catlikesshrimp 5y ago
        Except there are still warlords, and drug cartels. And police beating black fellows more often than the average. https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africas-top-10-dictators-and-warlords-body-count-included/ https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/africas-top-10-dictator... You need commanders for war. Weaker humans usually sit through decimation until the guards come for them. Then they squeal for help. It is also rational. Consider that if you stand agaisnt the stronger enemy, the enemy might come back later with reinforcements and kill you. Edit: I remembered what the Bible says happened to jews. The egyptians killed the jew children to keep the population in check, before exodus. And shortly after Jesus was born, Herod probably did the same.
pjkundert 5y ago
Larceny (small- or industrial-scale) can only exist if counterparties are kept ignorant of previous larceny on the part of the bad actor. It takes centralized systems to keep people ignorant. In good, decentralized systems which demand long-term public track records of agent behaviour, with decentralized memory of these records, malevolent behaviour by an agent would rapidly make that agent incapable of future larceny. Much of the disappointment with government and their three-letter agencies, is the growing belief (and mounting evidence) of long-term, wide-spread larceny, mischief and even evil on the part of government agents -- with the knowledge, support and protection of the government. It is critical to use systems that make bad behaviour impossible to hide. This requires centralized RULES (ie. widely agreed-upon standards of behaviour), but decentralized KNOWLEDGE (large numbers of random actors, confirming that behaviours meet the standards).
- beckman466 5y ago
  > This requires centralized RULES (ie. widely agreed-upon standards of behaviour) yes, or even clearer: the rules for any holochain app are visible/public. whereas today we meet in Zuck's living room and he dictates what we can speak/do, using the holochain framework (an end-to-end, open source, P2P app framework) everyone holds a copy of the rules themselves and everyone does their own computing and storage. no more black-boxing of the rules/functions. no more straightjacketed client-server relationships. wanna set up an app with your friends where you can tweet with 500 characters instead of 240? holochain has you covered. the magic of holochain is it's inbuilt forking functionality which makes repurposing and remixing (evolving) any kind of networked app super easy. one more example to drive this home: "What I want is to see Uber’s technology become a protocol. Same with Airbnb, same with Postmates, same with other companies in the gig and sharing economies. Same with lots of other important technology companies, while we’re at it. Obviously this can’t happen overnight, but if the technology is useful enough to provide real value, then it’s too useful to be subjugated to the whims of profit forever. I would love to see these technology platforms either fully decentralised, or centralised in such a way that the entity running it is not-for-profit and, ideally, accountable to all stakeholders. The actual mechanisms for making this work are beyond the scope of this post, but I want to throw this idea out there and get people thinking about it, because it’s the only way of making the future work for all of us. I suspect — and feel free to call me naive, but I don’t think I’m wrong— that the majority of people working on Uber’s technology would prefer to build a system whose social impact they could be proud of. Based on my admittedly limited sample size of people I know in the tech industry, I feel like lots of people working at companies like Uber are there because they want to solve interesting technical challenges and deploy useful innovations in the world. I believe that if given the choice, most would prefer to build a system that makes the world a fairer and more equitable place. The problem is that this choice is, for the most part, withheld from them, and whatever individual intentions they may have are inevitably co-opted by the [current economic structure] in which they make their living. By working together to counteract these prevailing systematic forces, though, they may be able to open up a space in which to envision alternatives." -- Wendy Liu, https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-727b864756a4 https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-7...