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If I can't trust future humans to honor property rights, why can I trust them to honor property rights specified on the chain?

• Jetrel 5y ago
  We have a winner. :)
• anonporridge 5y ago
  You can't, at least not directly. You still need the local monopoly on violence to honor and respect your claim on the property. That's why I'm personally not super bullish on the use of NFTs for property rights at this point (unlike my confidence in the place of bitcoin as long term safe store of money). However, I could see it might be useful to at least make it obvious to the world when a centralized authority takes someone's property without their consent, and will force them to actually prove to the world why the seizure was justified. The important thing in this case, is that while they can seize the underlying property, they can't just transfer the ownership certificate (e.g. property title) arbitrarily. Any local authority that accumulates a lot of unjustified seizures will see investment into their realm dry up, as people with money realize the risk of seizure in their realm is too great to justify investing significant money. We already do that now to some degree, but mostly through social gossip because it can be hard to prove that it's happening unless the abuse is directly touching your social circles.
• Fnoord 5y ago
  Came here to say this, more or less. Software, technology, science. It stands on the shoulders of giants. If I use, say Ethereum, there's a whole lot of developers I need to trust. Even if one would use Qubes, Tails, or Whonix.
• Vetch 5y ago
  Generally, the concept of trust in poor countries is corrupted by centralized institutions, mostly as a means to redirect wealth. Rule of law is meager but in my experience, land rights are one of the few that maintain (as long as someone with power does not want what you have. There are few with both power and stupid greed enough that this is a very rare occurrence). Despite barely enforced laws, people are mostly good and largely follow rules. Human trafficking, armed robberies and kidnappings are a lot higher than in wealthier countries but it's still only a minority who succumb to that. It's mostly scams (including having a business but not paying employees) that a significant number participate in. With property, those that have less respect each other and those that have much more also have gated compounds and private security (among which we can count having police on call). It sounds weird but in disputes, even absent an actual justice system, a verifiable paper trail or record still carries a great deal of weight. Having suffered a lot from it, I think a lot about corruption. I've also read a fair few number of papers on the topic, from the sociological to the game theoretical. Lack of accountability and lack of transparency are major enablers. Public blockchains are of interest because of their (pseudonymous) transparency and virtually tamper-proof nature. Not a solution but of interest. A fully transparent and neutral system or layer of payment of last resort, where the powerful cannot forge records, for use where trust is non-existent would be useful.