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> But if the alternative to NFT's is the status quo, then you're choosing between a system where only the privileged get to set up artificial scarcity games (us

> But if the alternative to NFT's is the status quo, then you're choosing between a system where only the privileged get to set up artificial scarcity games (usually there are lawyers...) versus one where anyone can do so. It still sucks, but it sucks less. This doesn’t really follow. Why would NFTs be the only way to generate artificial scarcity when people have been doing it forever with one-off art, private experiences and concerts, and limited edition runs? NFTs seem like a step in the wrong direction: You still don’t have the original art or thing that the NFT supposedly represents. You just have a new blockchain entry that says “This NFT represents <thing>“ > As it stands it's not really clear why I should accept a dollar from a stranger--for all I know, they made that dollar by making the world worse. Why should I participate in a scheme that enables them to continue doing so? But with NFT's I can look at the circumstances of its minting and decide for myself whether that's the kind of thing I want to see more of. This doesn’t make any sense either. Why do you implicitly trust what people tell you about an NFT but not a dollar? There’s nothing magical about NFTs that solves the social problems you’re describing. An NFT is just a blockchain entry with associated cryptographic procedures for changing said blockchain entry. It doesn’t give you insight into the circumstances around it. You still have to take whatever people say at face value, just as you would with the dollar example. But with the NFT you have to pay a lot of money just to accept it. Money which goes to miners who are burning energy at a furious pace just to keep the NFT existing, in a system that becomes ever less efficient as more miners join. That’s probably not what people had in mind when it comes to making the world a better place.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
Without the ability to sue people who break the rules that create the artificial scarcity, how do you keep it scarce? And yeah, when it comes to NFT's for some random jpeg... That's pretty useless. But that's all that can be done with them right now because there's infrastructure available to connect the NFT with whatever supposedly valuable side-effect it's supposed to go with. That'll take time. But when it's ready, the side effects won't be some random jpeg, they'll be things that you can touch. It'll be obvious that continuing to support the people who do whatever-the-thing-is is a good idea, and that's why we'll value the associated token. > It doesn’t give you insight into the circumstances around it. You still have to take whatever people say at face value, That's the missing supporting infrastructure I'm talking about. If a bridge washes out because of a storm, and somebody repairs it and mints an NFT of the before/after photos, that's just an image. But with a supporting web of trust, complete with verifiers who inspect the bridge afterward and put "yeah that's a good job, and this is the only NFT for it" on the blockchain... now you've got something more.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  s/because there's infrastructure/because there's NO infrastructure/ # oops
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  The problem for the blockchain and by extension NFTs is that the transactions are only trustless for the things that can be known about by the chain. Which is a vanishingly small amount of information, basically the exchange of tokens. There is no way to link a token to something in the real world without bringing in trust of a third party. At which point you’re just replicating what we already have with more complexity and less protection. You can already donate to people doing good things across a whole spectrum of options and see tangible side effects. You don’t have to wait for NFTs to maybe grow infrastructure to allow this! You can literally build bridges, schools and all sorts of infrastructure for people around the globe right now!
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    I don't think we need things to be trustless. Most economic activity relies on trust of some sort. We can implement webs of trust on chain and incentivize trusted individuals to validate whatever relationships between the chain and the real world that the NFT's represent. The actual data that the algorithm knows about can be pretty small, just a string: > There was a pothole in the road at such-and-such time and place, and now there's not. Validated by users X, Y, Z Just little promises, and don't value the token if your don't trust the validator. The only kind of trust that's a problem here is custodial trust. A platform can never be more trustworthy than its least trustworthy admin. And yes, I know that I don't need a blockchain to do good things, but I do need a blockchain to retire on having done good things. And more importantly, to live in a world that's full of people doing the same. Centralized institutions become less trustworthy over time, so whatever work I put in to curry favor with whatever authority might reward me will be lost when that authority falls to corruption.
    - NoGravitas 5y ago
      > I don't think we need things to be trustless. If you don't need it trustless, then you don't need a blockchain.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

Without the ability to sue people who break the rules that create the artificial scarcity, how do you keep it scarce? And yeah, when it comes to NFT's for some random jpeg... That's pretty useless. But that's all that can be done with them right now because there's infrastructure available to connect the NFT with whatever supposedly valuable side-effect it's supposed to go with. That'll take time. But when it's ready, the side effects won't be some random jpeg, they'll be things that you can touch. It'll be obvious that continuing to support the people who do whatever-the-thing-is is a good idea, and that's why we'll value the associated token. > It doesn’t give you insight into the circumstances around it. You still have to take whatever people say at face value, That's the missing supporting infrastructure I'm talking about. If a bridge washes out because of a storm, and somebody repairs it and mints an NFT of the before/after photos, that's just an image. But with a supporting web of trust, complete with verifiers who inspect the bridge afterward and put "yeah that's a good job, and this is the only NFT for it" on the blockchain... now you've got something more.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
s/because there's infrastructure/because there's NO infrastructure/ # oops
meheleventyone 5y ago
The problem for the blockchain and by extension NFTs is that the transactions are only trustless for the things that can be known about by the chain. Which is a vanishingly small amount of information, basically the exchange of tokens. There is no way to link a token to something in the real world without bringing in trust of a third party. At which point you’re just replicating what we already have with more complexity and less protection. You can already donate to people doing good things across a whole spectrum of options and see tangible side effects. You don’t have to wait for NFTs to maybe grow infrastructure to allow this! You can literally build bridges, schools and all sorts of infrastructure for people around the globe right now!
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  I don't think we need things to be trustless. Most economic activity relies on trust of some sort. We can implement webs of trust on chain and incentivize trusted individuals to validate whatever relationships between the chain and the real world that the NFT's represent. The actual data that the algorithm knows about can be pretty small, just a string: > There was a pothole in the road at such-and-such time and place, and now there's not. Validated by users X, Y, Z Just little promises, and don't value the token if your don't trust the validator. The only kind of trust that's a problem here is custodial trust. A platform can never be more trustworthy than its least trustworthy admin. And yes, I know that I don't need a blockchain to do good things, but I do need a blockchain to retire on having done good things. And more importantly, to live in a world that's full of people doing the same. Centralized institutions become less trustworthy over time, so whatever work I put in to curry favor with whatever authority might reward me will be lost when that authority falls to corruption.
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    > I don't think we need things to be trustless. If you don't need it trustless, then you don't need a blockchain.