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I will quote from an article I wrote in CoinDesk last year: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/03/12/in-defense-of-blockchain-voting/ https://www.coindesk.com/

by EGreg 5y ago

I will quote from an article I wrote in CoinDesk last year: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/03/12/in-defense-of-blockchain-voting/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/03/12/in-defense-of-block... For every technology we use today, there was a time it was laughably inadequate as a replacement for what came before. Code isn’t law, code is better than law. I wondered what I would have done 300 years agi before computers, and realized I’d probably be an architect or one of those lawmaker guys who wrote the Constitution. I mean think about it … you’re setting initial conditions, trying to think of edge cases, putting in Byzantine Consensus (checks and balances between branches of government, mutually distrusting parties checking election results etc.), but making it an Upgradeable smart contracts (process to do amendments etc.) Now CODE can do a lot more. In our applications for instance, you can: 1) Know the average amount spent on food or clothing by a citizen of a city 2) Vote on how much of food, clothing etc to simply subsidize by issuing more currency and airdropping it to the people (universal basic income) 3) Take a dot product between 1 and 2, and issue the universal basic income or stipend etc. and redistribute the wealth in the community according to the And best of all — it is entirely voluntary, thanks to smart contracts. No one has to accept your currency by fiat. But if they do, they’re helping to end food insecurity in your community. Just like that. No representative democracy and out of touch elites. Just the community taking care of its business and its vulnerable. Via a smart contract and decision making. And that is just ONE of the many applications that are possible. Intercoin has produced 10-15 applications that can all work together like LEGOs. Now we will be giving them to communities. Here are some more possibilities: https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf

fatbird 5y ago
You're right, you can do all that--until vested interests revert your blockchain because the current blockchain status quo isn't to their liking, at which point your belief that code is better than law is a lie, because it still comes down to powerful individuals deciding what benefits them instead of letting "deterministic" outcomes stand. It's not that people are laughing at it now; it's that it's already been proven to be a fraud, where the promise of an immutable blockchain is a grift to part suckers from their money.
hansonkd13 5y ago
All of 1/2/3 could be or gamed or hacked if not EXTREME measures are taken. As proven repeatedly by the hundreds millions in dollars in smart contract hacks and losses that have happened and continue to happen. People can’t trust the code to do what they want, because when you read it you might mistake a 0 or a O. You trust someone else or machine to audit the code tell you the code will do what you want. US court systems take into account the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Its a feature not a bug.
dmitriid 5y ago
> Just the community taking care of its business and its vulnerable. Until gas fees make it accessible only to the "out of touch elites"
- EGreg 5y ago
  "gas fees" are an abberation, the "world computer" is a glorified mainframe where you rent time. Smart contract can be done in completely different ways, with no bottlenecks. If you notice point 2 of https://intercoin.org/presentation.pdf https://intercoin.org/presentation.pdf .. I can send you the details if you're interested. I spent years speaking with the best teams around the world working on things beyond blockchain.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Ah. So you propose a centralized intermediary that everyone should trust. Gotcha.

by EGreg 5y ago

fatbird 5y ago

You're right, you can do all that--until vested interests revert your blockchain because the current blockchain status quo isn't to their liking, at which point your belief that code is better than law is a lie, because it still comes down to powerful individuals deciding what benefits them instead of letting "deterministic" outcomes stand. It's not that people are laughing at it now; it's that it's already been proven to be a fraud, where the promise of an immutable blockchain is a grift to part suckers from their money.

hansonkd13 5y ago

All of 1/2/3 could be or gamed or hacked if not EXTREME measures are taken. As proven repeatedly by the hundreds millions in dollars in smart contract hacks and losses that have happened and continue to happen. People can’t trust the code to do what they want, because when you read it you might mistake a 0 or a O. You trust someone else or machine to audit the code tell you the code will do what you want. US court systems take into account the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law. Its a feature not a bug.

dmitriid 5y ago

> Just the community taking care of its business and its vulnerable. Until gas fees make it accessible only to the "out of touch elites"

EGreg 5y ago
"gas fees" are an abberation, the "world computer" is a glorified mainframe where you rent time. Smart contract can be done in completely different ways, with no bottlenecks. If you notice point 2 of https://intercoin.org/presentation.pdf https://intercoin.org/presentation.pdf .. I can send you the details if you're interested. I spent years speaking with the best teams around the world working on things beyond blockchain.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  Ah. So you propose a centralized intermediary that everyone should trust. Gotcha.