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Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. I like the aspects of decentralisation that help you preserve democracy, but beyond that it’

Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. I like the aspects of decentralisation that help you preserve democracy, but beyond that it’s not necessary to replace every single aspect of a functioning democracy with a cryptographic commitment scheme. It would be worse if you did. That vision of society sounds terrible. (I can’t comment on this without noting that of all the interpretations of the name web3 I’ve seen so far, “a cryptographic commitment scheme” is the least novel idea, and the least to do with “the web” or anything related to it that I have seen. There is simply no way that is what web3 means. The author is describing smart contracts, and if that’s what it is, it is intellectually dishonest to be promoting “web3” as a new idea when smart contracts have been around for years and have had very little impact on society due to fundamental limitations like “not being capable of adjudication by a court, which is actually desirable and basically non-negotiable for 99% of people and corporations alike”. Talk about whether attempting to put better UX in front of them (a much more plausible definition of web3) is capable of remedying the basic flaws. Otherwise talking about it like this is a dishonest attempt to skirt around the debate that’s largely been had already, much like Facebook rebranding itself just as the PR heat got too much.)

derefr 5y ago
> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. That’s nice when you and your counterparty are part of the same democracy, or potentially allied ones. But how do you enforce contracts when your government and their government are at war? (The governments say “you shouldn’t; they’re the enemy.” Well, screw the governments, I want to make positive-sum trades in the hopes of increasing global GDP and ratcheting us up out of the need for wars over unevenly-distributed scarce resources in the first place.) All the speculative value of cryptocurrencies is based on their utility in making and fulfilling the terms of contracts, when a government or governments don’t want to — or fundamentally aren’t able to — grant that contract any legal enforceability. And much of the rest of the value derives from the ability of Proof-of-Work mining to be used to convert local export-controlled assets into exportable digital assets. (The whole reason PoW has stuck around as long as it has is that capital flight in China still needs it for a few years yet.)
- cormacrelf 5y ago
  If that’s what you want web3 for, I’m actually quite happy for you to record your treachery on a public ledger. There is a reason the government doesn’t want you to do it, and that’s that sanctions are one of the only reasonable deterrents to war that we have. I can’t believe you would advocate for interfering with that on a public forum, in 2021 when western democracies are already struggling to make economic sanctions hurt because the autocrats are all in cahoots. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-autocrats-are-winning/620526/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-aut...
  - derefr 5y ago
    You’re assuming I’m talking about selling things to North Korea, or arms dealing, or something; but in the multilateral case, I’m actually talking about enabling trade in situations where arbitration of otherwise-legal contracts is impractical due to enforcement of contracts requiring ongoing positive relations (e.g. for mutual extradition) which have lapsed, or requiring the crossing of a DMZ — leaving parties on either side in a legal “state of nature”, free to screw one-another over with no consequences. There were no economic sanctions imposed between East and West Germany; but making a contract with someone on the other side of the wall was still impractical, due to lack of diplomatic relations. Smart contracts solve that problem. Other angles on this: the regular financial system in the Western world doesn’t let anyone transfer fiat currency to countries like Nigeria “for your protection”, even if you’re literally trying to run payroll for the registered employees of your Nigerian subsidiary company. (In other words, a de-facto trade embargo, but not a legal one, and not one to do with a any war.) The only good way to do that payroll at this point is to send them crypto.
    - cormacrelf 5y ago
      I updated my comment to clarify. You did say enemy.
    - dTal 5y ago
      But your argument also justifies selling arms to North Korea. After all, it's a positive-sum transaction that increases global GDP? The flaw is that a transaction isn't positive-sum just because you and your trade partner are both happy. Your transaction may well incur negative externalities that outweigh the total profit enjoyed by you and your partner. For example, the world is much worse off if you sell a button-that-destroys-America to North Korea, even though you and North Korea are both pleased at the arrangement. I don't want to put activity out of the reach of governments. Governments are the organ by which we decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior. If our governments are behaving unreasonably, the solution is to fix them, not to pursue anarchy.
d1lanka 5y ago
> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. Democracy is just two wolves and a lamb deciding on what's for dinner.

derefr 5y ago

> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. That’s nice when you and your counterparty are part of the same democracy, or potentially allied ones. But how do you enforce contracts when your government and their government are at war? (The governments say “you shouldn’t; they’re the enemy.” Well, screw the governments, I want to make positive-sum trades in the hopes of increasing global GDP and ratcheting us up out of the need for wars over unevenly-distributed scarce resources in the first place.) All the speculative value of cryptocurrencies is based on their utility in making and fulfilling the terms of contracts, when a government or governments don’t want to — or fundamentally aren’t able to — grant that contract any legal enforceability. And much of the rest of the value derives from the ability of Proof-of-Work mining to be used to convert local export-controlled assets into exportable digital assets. (The whole reason PoW has stuck around as long as it has is that capital flight in China still needs it for a few years yet.)

cormacrelf 5y ago
If that’s what you want web3 for, I’m actually quite happy for you to record your treachery on a public ledger. There is a reason the government doesn’t want you to do it, and that’s that sanctions are one of the only reasonable deterrents to war that we have. I can’t believe you would advocate for interfering with that on a public forum, in 2021 when western democracies are already struggling to make economic sanctions hurt because the autocrats are all in cahoots. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-autocrats-are-winning/620526/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-aut...
- derefr 5y ago
  You’re assuming I’m talking about selling things to North Korea, or arms dealing, or something; but in the multilateral case, I’m actually talking about enabling trade in situations where arbitration of otherwise-legal contracts is impractical due to enforcement of contracts requiring ongoing positive relations (e.g. for mutual extradition) which have lapsed, or requiring the crossing of a DMZ — leaving parties on either side in a legal “state of nature”, free to screw one-another over with no consequences. There were no economic sanctions imposed between East and West Germany; but making a contract with someone on the other side of the wall was still impractical, due to lack of diplomatic relations. Smart contracts solve that problem. Other angles on this: the regular financial system in the Western world doesn’t let anyone transfer fiat currency to countries like Nigeria “for your protection”, even if you’re literally trying to run payroll for the registered employees of your Nigerian subsidiary company. (In other words, a de-facto trade embargo, but not a legal one, and not one to do with a any war.) The only good way to do that payroll at this point is to send them crypto.
  - cormacrelf 5y ago
    I updated my comment to clarify. You did say enemy.
  - dTal 5y ago
    But your argument also justifies selling arms to North Korea. After all, it's a positive-sum transaction that increases global GDP? The flaw is that a transaction isn't positive-sum just because you and your trade partner are both happy. Your transaction may well incur negative externalities that outweigh the total profit enjoyed by you and your partner. For example, the world is much worse off if you sell a button-that-destroys-America to North Korea, even though you and North Korea are both pleased at the arrangement. I don't want to put activity out of the reach of governments. Governments are the organ by which we decide what is and isn't acceptable behavior. If our governments are behaving unreasonably, the solution is to fix them, not to pursue anarchy.

d1lanka 5y ago

> Democracy solves the Byzantine agreement problem just fine already. Democracy is just two wolves and a lamb deciding on what's for dinner.