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Money laundering, speculation, pyramid schemes and pushing terrible ideas about ownership can be achieved without crunching a bunch of numbers to find low hashe

Money laundering, speculation, pyramid schemes and pushing terrible ideas about ownership can be achieved without crunching a bunch of numbers to find low hashes or whatever. The kind of video gaming that has you burning 300W with your GPU is hard to achieve in a different way. It is a weak argument though and I think it's frustrating how prominently people make it rather than the much more important "it's bad to propagate scarcity based ownership structures to a domain where scarcity need not exist".

theturtletalks 5y ago
This is the cost of decentralization (proving ownership through solving hashes). A central authority being the source of truth will be cheaper since only one entity needs to verify. Will the cost of proving ownership through decentralization ever be cheaper than 1 single authority doing it?
- hnbad 5y ago
  The question then becomes if "decentralization" in the sense that blockchains provide them currently is worth this cost.
  - theturtletalks 5y ago
    Exactly, but there is a cost to find out if "blockchain decentralization" is worth the cost. Right now, proving ownership through decentralization costs more than one single entity doing it. But if decentralization systems proliferate, then we can see if the extra cost of decentralization is worth it. In industries where this extra cost is not worth it, decentralization probably won't exist. In industries where one single authority has too much say and power, users will be willing to pay the cost of decentralization. Payments, in my opinion, is the best example since Mastercard and Visa have such a stronghold on how you can make or take payments online. In an industry like that, users will pay a premium.
    - thot_experiment 5y ago
      I don't think blockchains meaningfully decentralize anything, the state still has a monopoly on force and anything they enable can be achieved in other ways and ultimately is bounded by the same state. The important bit is the interface between society and blockchains, the actual properties of the blockchain tech are kinda irrelevant. Do you honestly think that Visa and Mastercard wanna prevent people from using their services to buy porn for example? They don't give a shit, they want money, the state, the people with the monopoly on force are the ones who create the circumstances that put that pressure on Visa and whoever else. If bitcoin mattered enough it would face the same fate (and I think it's clear that's the way it's headed). Crypto isn't somehow immune to the fact that we live in a society. Mainly blockchain tech just provides a vehicle to obfuscate financial machinations. Much of the value of blockchain tech comes from it's viability as a financial tool that's abreast of regulations to prevent abuse. Broadly it's a zero or negative sum game, the value comes from other people losing value. We shouldn't allow systems like that.
      - hnbad 5y ago
        I mean, theoretically a people could overthrow its government at any moment simply by virtue of outnumbering it. Even if the military technically outguns a militia consisting of every single citizen, they are usually fairly hesitant when ordered to shoot to kill their own people[0]. The dream of crypto libertarians isn't to eliminate the monopoly of violence but to get into the position of controlling it, or at least be exempt from it. A monopoly of violence doesn't work because it's a literal monopoly, it works because it is recognized and under capitalism the recognition is largely based on money. Crypto currencies can be regulated, sure, but the goal of web3 isn't simply to have thousands of coins to speculatively invest in. The long goal of web3 is to move all public records (and really all documents controlling ordinary people's lives) on-chain so that "smart contracts" on the chain can supersede actual law by automated enforcement. Having extreme wealth (and thus controlling a significant share of the consent) can still exempt you from the negative effects but if smart contracts can shape reality because all software obeys them, you can effectively write your own laws. [0]: A lot of US police training involves drawing explicit conceptual distinctions between LEOs (sheep dogs), civilians (sheep) and criminals (wolves), with civilians being potential criminals or "wolves in sheep's clothing" and being prone to "mistaking sheep dogs for wolves" because they're a bit dim. Military training on the other hand usually reserves this kind of in-group/out-group dehumanization for people from different countries (with drone strikes infamously counting unidentified casualties as presumed enemy combatants if they're "of fighting age").
hrhrhrhrhr 5y ago

theturtletalks 5y ago

This is the cost of decentralization (proving ownership through solving hashes). A central authority being the source of truth will be cheaper since only one entity needs to verify. Will the cost of proving ownership through decentralization ever be cheaper than 1 single authority doing it?

hnbad 5y ago
The question then becomes if "decentralization" in the sense that blockchains provide them currently is worth this cost.
- theturtletalks 5y ago
  Exactly, but there is a cost to find out if "blockchain decentralization" is worth the cost. Right now, proving ownership through decentralization costs more than one single entity doing it. But if decentralization systems proliferate, then we can see if the extra cost of decentralization is worth it. In industries where this extra cost is not worth it, decentralization probably won't exist. In industries where one single authority has too much say and power, users will be willing to pay the cost of decentralization. Payments, in my opinion, is the best example since Mastercard and Visa have such a stronghold on how you can make or take payments online. In an industry like that, users will pay a premium.
  - thot_experiment 5y ago
    I don't think blockchains meaningfully decentralize anything, the state still has a monopoly on force and anything they enable can be achieved in other ways and ultimately is bounded by the same state. The important bit is the interface between society and blockchains, the actual properties of the blockchain tech are kinda irrelevant. Do you honestly think that Visa and Mastercard wanna prevent people from using their services to buy porn for example? They don't give a shit, they want money, the state, the people with the monopoly on force are the ones who create the circumstances that put that pressure on Visa and whoever else. If bitcoin mattered enough it would face the same fate (and I think it's clear that's the way it's headed). Crypto isn't somehow immune to the fact that we live in a society. Mainly blockchain tech just provides a vehicle to obfuscate financial machinations. Much of the value of blockchain tech comes from it's viability as a financial tool that's abreast of regulations to prevent abuse. Broadly it's a zero or negative sum game, the value comes from other people losing value. We shouldn't allow systems like that.
    - hnbad 5y ago
      I mean, theoretically a people could overthrow its government at any moment simply by virtue of outnumbering it. Even if the military technically outguns a militia consisting of every single citizen, they are usually fairly hesitant when ordered to shoot to kill their own people[0]. The dream of crypto libertarians isn't to eliminate the monopoly of violence but to get into the position of controlling it, or at least be exempt from it. A monopoly of violence doesn't work because it's a literal monopoly, it works because it is recognized and under capitalism the recognition is largely based on money. Crypto currencies can be regulated, sure, but the goal of web3 isn't simply to have thousands of coins to speculatively invest in. The long goal of web3 is to move all public records (and really all documents controlling ordinary people's lives) on-chain so that "smart contracts" on the chain can supersede actual law by automated enforcement. Having extreme wealth (and thus controlling a significant share of the consent) can still exempt you from the negative effects but if smart contracts can shape reality because all software obeys them, you can effectively write your own laws. [0]: A lot of US police training involves drawing explicit conceptual distinctions between LEOs (sheep dogs), civilians (sheep) and criminals (wolves), with civilians being potential criminals or "wolves in sheep's clothing" and being prone to "mistaking sheep dogs for wolves" because they're a bit dim. Military training on the other hand usually reserves this kind of in-group/out-group dehumanization for people from different countries (with drone strikes infamously counting unidentified casualties as presumed enemy combatants if they're "of fighting age").

hrhrhrhrhr 5y ago