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No, the basic problem is ownership rights over physical objects can't be enforced without coercive power, but blockchains and smart contracts can't use coercive

by lottin 5y ago

No, the basic problem is ownership rights over physical objects can't be enforced without coercive power, but blockchains and smart contracts can't use coercive power, therefore they would have to rely on an external entity to enforce such rights. But then the system is no longer "trustless", "permissionless", or "censorship-resistant", and therefore we have none of the supposed benefits of blockchains but we do have all of the inconveniences, which means at this point we're better off with a centrally-managed registry which at least is cost-effective.

ThomPete 5y ago
Blockchain governs the DIGITAL sphere and in there can actually enforce. People who are trying to combine crypto with physical assets are a shrinking number. Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish.
- lottin 5y ago
  Not at all, blockchains can't enforce intellectual property rights either. For example, how is a blockchain going to stop an individual from using unlicensed content on their website?
  - ThomPete 5y ago
    Thats not what is meant by it being enforcable. You are confusing things here. With enforcable, what is meant is anything that can be programmed into a contract and be executed will be executed (enforced). That can as an example be someone raising a million dollars for a crypto game by offering 10000 tokens for 100$ each. The million dollars are going to be unlocked in phases. 50k for proof of concept, 250k for alpha etc. Each phase have to be approved by the toke holders. If they dont agree that the proof of concept is good enough they can vote the unlocking down and there is nothing the game developers can do about that. That is what is meant by enforable.
    - lottin 5y ago
      We already know what "enforce" means. You said blockchains can enforce "digital" whatever that means. The only thing blockchains can "enforce" is that data are added to the chain according to some rules. There isn't any type of property right, digital or real, that can be enforced in this way.
      - ThomPete 5y ago
        I already explained what enforcement means in this context giving you a very concrete example. Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is. Instead of just repeating what you already said. I can't help you see something you don't want to see.
        lottin 5y ago
        > Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is. Because, quite honestly, I don't what your claim is. You're saying that a blockchain can "enforce DIGITAL" which is a meaningless sentence. Are you claiming that you can write a program and execute it on a blockchain? Sure. I can do the same on my computer. This is not an example of enforcing property rights, which was what we were talking about.
        ThomPete 5y ago
        I am not talking about property rights and I am not sure where you are getting that from. So maybe you were thinking of someone else.
        lottin 5y ago
        You replied to a comment where I argued that property rights cannot be enforced with blockchain technology. So, yeah, it's pretty obvious that we were talking about enforcement of property rights.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > Blockchain governs the DIGITAL sphere and in there can actually enforce. how? it's all based on cryptographic keys, if I stole the keys, how can blockchain block me, without someone intervening?
  - ThomPete 5y ago
    You are answering your own question by asking the wrong one. This is only a problem if it's in fact enforcable. There are many ways to solve the stealing among others multisig.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      you're not answering the question though. the only thing the system can do is ask more and more from their users, but there is no way to know if the transaction is good: if it looks good, it is good. so it can't enforce anything on its own. a CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent. There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself. Because the chain can't enforce anything. p.s. note that I wrote the keys (plural) not the key (singular) basically your answer is "have a multifactor authentication" but if that is broken by some malevolent actor, I can go to the police. There's not true fro Cryptos, if they are stolen they are lost. nothing you can do about it, except begging https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dv4a/hacked-cryptocurrency-platform-begs-hacker-to-please-return-dollar119-million https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dv4a/hacked-cryptocurrency...
      - ThomPete 5y ago
        I have answered it and again you are answering it ex. here: "A CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent. There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself." This is a feature NOT a bug. It comes with it's own consequences of course but that's exactly what makes it enforceable just like physics enforce its laws.
- mbesto 5y ago
  > Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish. The Winklevosses came up with an elaborate system to store and secure their own private keys. They cut up printouts of their private keys into pieces and then distributed them in envelopes to safe deposit boxes around the country, so if one envelope were stolen the thief would not have the entire key. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/technology/bitcoin-winklevoss-twins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/technology/bitcoin-winkle...
biztos 5y ago
What if they could have that power? Imagine something like Robocop hooked up to the EVM, if you put your RealID in the escrow contract and then the ubiquitous camera network is unable to verify that you honored the transaction, well then you have 15 seconds to comply…
- pjc50 5y ago
  I worry that this is the endgame; you say "distributed organisation", I say "autonomous cyberweapon". We're not that far from having a DAO that can bid on zero-days and use them against a list of targets of its choice. If a DAO can make POST requests it can launch exploits. A script kiddie without the kiddie.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Sure, but if you had a sufficiently powerful robot you could also circumvent traditional means of enforcing ownership and contracts.
darkFunction 5y ago
This is a strawman. The entire ecosystem does not have to be 100% decentralised. There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities. A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons.
- lottin 5y ago
  > There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities. No, there's no utility in that, if ultimately enforcement relies on an entity that needs to be trusted and can override the blockchain. > A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons. Centrally-managed registries are already in use and have been in use for a long time, they exist in every single country, and entire markets depends upon them, but somehow they "would never be suitable for obvious reasons"? They have already been shown to be suitable, what on earth are you talking about?
  - darkFunction 5y ago
    > what on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. A centralised implementation of this would clearly be a bad idea. If you don't see utility in this I don't know what to tell you.
    - lottin 5y ago
      > I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. What does that even mean? How is a global API going to support the enforcement of a rental agreement? Or of a bond indenture? Who is actually going to enforce the contract? And what is the role of a global API in that? And what do you mean value transfer between applications? You want to transfer "value" (like a bag of rice?) between computer programs??? None of that makes the slightest sense. Meaningless gibberish intended to fool gullible idiots into thinking that blockchains are some kind of disruptive technology that is going to turn everything upside down. Nonsense. It's a pump & dump scheme, and little else.

by lottin 5y ago

ThomPete 5y ago

Blockchain governs the DIGITAL sphere and in there can actually enforce. People who are trying to combine crypto with physical assets are a shrinking number. Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish.

lottin 5y ago
Not at all, blockchains can't enforce intellectual property rights either. For example, how is a blockchain going to stop an individual from using unlicensed content on their website?
- ThomPete 5y ago
  Thats not what is meant by it being enforcable. You are confusing things here. With enforcable, what is meant is anything that can be programmed into a contract and be executed will be executed (enforced). That can as an example be someone raising a million dollars for a crypto game by offering 10000 tokens for 100$ each. The million dollars are going to be unlocked in phases. 50k for proof of concept, 250k for alpha etc. Each phase have to be approved by the toke holders. If they dont agree that the proof of concept is good enough they can vote the unlocking down and there is nothing the game developers can do about that. That is what is meant by enforable.
  - lottin 5y ago
    We already know what "enforce" means. You said blockchains can enforce "digital" whatever that means. The only thing blockchains can "enforce" is that data are added to the chain according to some rules. There isn't any type of property right, digital or real, that can be enforced in this way.
    - ThomPete 5y ago
      I already explained what enforcement means in this context giving you a very concrete example. Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is. Instead of just repeating what you already said. I can't help you see something you don't want to see.
      - lottin 5y ago
        > Why don't you show how that example is not what I claim it is. Because, quite honestly, I don't what your claim is. You're saying that a blockchain can "enforce DIGITAL" which is a meaningless sentence. Are you claiming that you can write a program and execute it on a blockchain? Sure. I can do the same on my computer. This is not an example of enforcing property rights, which was what we were talking about.
        ThomPete 5y ago
        I am not talking about property rights and I am not sure where you are getting that from. So maybe you were thinking of someone else.
        lottin 5y ago
        You replied to a comment where I argued that property rights cannot be enforced with blockchain technology. So, yeah, it's pretty obvious that we were talking about enforcement of property rights.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> Blockchain governs the DIGITAL sphere and in there can actually enforce. how? it's all based on cryptographic keys, if I stole the keys, how can blockchain block me, without someone intervening?
- ThomPete 5y ago
  You are answering your own question by asking the wrong one. This is only a problem if it's in fact enforcable. There are many ways to solve the stealing among others multisig.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    you're not answering the question though. the only thing the system can do is ask more and more from their users, but there is no way to know if the transaction is good: if it looks good, it is good. so it can't enforce anything on its own. a CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent. There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself. Because the chain can't enforce anything. p.s. note that I wrote the keys (plural) not the key (singular) basically your answer is "have a multifactor authentication" but if that is broken by some malevolent actor, I can go to the police. There's not true fro Cryptos, if they are stolen they are lost. nothing you can do about it, except begging https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dv4a/hacked-cryptocurrency-platform-begs-hacker-to-please-return-dollar119-million https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dv4a/hacked-cryptocurrency...
    - ThomPete 5y ago
      I have answered it and again you are answering it ex. here: "A CC payment can look good, but it can be reversed because there other other channels, outside of the CC circuit, to prove those transactions are to be considered fraudulent. There is no such mechanism in the crypto space, so basically they are good unless you have an issue that can't be solved by the chain itself." This is a feature NOT a bug. It comes with it's own consequences of course but that's exactly what makes it enforceable just like physics enforce its laws.
mbesto 5y ago
> Focus on digital and its absolutely enforcable, to an extent not even governments can accomplish. The Winklevosses came up with an elaborate system to store and secure their own private keys. They cut up printouts of their private keys into pieces and then distributed them in envelopes to safe deposit boxes around the country, so if one envelope were stolen the thief would not have the entire key. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/technology/bitcoin-winklevoss-twins.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/technology/bitcoin-winkle...

biztos 5y ago

What if they could have that power? Imagine something like Robocop hooked up to the EVM, if you put your RealID in the escrow contract and then the ubiquitous camera network is unable to verify that you honored the transaction, well then you have 15 seconds to comply…

pjc50 5y ago
I worry that this is the endgame; you say "distributed organisation", I say "autonomous cyberweapon". We're not that far from having a DAO that can bid on zero-days and use them against a list of targets of its choice. If a DAO can make POST requests it can launch exploits. A script kiddie without the kiddie.
tshaddox 5y ago
Sure, but if you had a sufficiently powerful robot you could also circumvent traditional means of enforcing ownership and contracts.

darkFunction 5y ago

This is a strawman. The entire ecosystem does not have to be 100% decentralised. There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities. A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons.

lottin 5y ago
> There is massive utility in a trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant contract layer connecting disparate centralised entities. No, there's no utility in that, if ultimately enforcement relies on an entity that needs to be trusted and can override the blockchain. > A centrally managed registry would never be suitable for this task for a multitude of obvious reasons. Centrally-managed registries are already in use and have been in use for a long time, they exist in every single country, and entire markets depends upon them, but somehow they "would never be suitable for obvious reasons"? They have already been shown to be suitable, what on earth are you talking about?
- darkFunction 5y ago
  > what on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. A centralised implementation of this would clearly be a bad idea. If you don't see utility in this I don't know what to tell you.
  - lottin 5y ago
    > I'm talking about a global, universal API layer supporting standardised contract enforcement and value transfer between applications. What does that even mean? How is a global API going to support the enforcement of a rental agreement? Or of a bond indenture? Who is actually going to enforce the contract? And what is the role of a global API in that? And what do you mean value transfer between applications? You want to transfer "value" (like a bag of rice?) between computer programs??? None of that makes the slightest sense. Meaningless gibberish intended to fool gullible idiots into thinking that blockchains are some kind of disruptive technology that is going to turn everything upside down. Nonsense. It's a pump & dump scheme, and little else.