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The promise of blockchain is to eventually remove lawyers and all middleman. It can be done already with existing tech. I can easily imagine a smart contract ma

The promise of blockchain is to eventually remove lawyers and all middleman. It can be done already with existing tech. I can easily imagine a smart contract managing property rights, another one managing mortgages, etc. And of course all that has a back door so a court order can rollback a transaction.

thinkmassive 5y ago
> And of course all that has a back door so a court order can rollback a transaction. …so you still need a lawyer and nothing has actually changed?
- kikimora 5y ago
  You got me, lawyers can stay :) But a bunch of clerks and middleman are out. Today the job of a middleman/clerk is to modify a centralized database in a regulated way. They got their licenses, exams, special education and so on. There is a government machinery behind every such database - agencies, controllers, educators, bookkeepers, etc. While you may be paying $4 for a notary signature you might be paying way more from your tax money to keep governing bodies running across the country. My point is statement that a centralized database is cheap because it is easy to modify simply ignores governance cost which might be huge.
cuteboy19 5y ago
if we are trusting courts to have backdoors, does it not completely negate the purpose of blockchains, i.e. trustlessness if you trust the court, why not just have them store everything on some mysql database and execute all the ""smart"" contracts as regular java code? blockchains are necessarily orders of magnitude worse in terms of performance. why do you want to use an extremely slow linked list based DB?
- kikimora 5y ago
  No, because courts can be elected by voting on the blockchain which gives society a way to control them. And voting on the chain (if implemented right) cannot be controlled that easily by a government. I’m all for the central database. To enter data into it the government will appoint an agency which in turn will appoint individuals after they pass exams or get their license. The said individuals will have to fill in regular reports that had to be somehow processed and analyzed. Also each such individual required to keep records in a safe manner, sometimes this means hiring a security and a compliance officer. At this point it is not clear if the cost of maintaining the agency and all that people is less than automating the agency of the blockchain.
  - cuteboy19 5y ago
    i dont know how to explain this to you but the only thing that blockchains replace are databases like mysql. if, for whatever reason you needed a security and a compliance officer, then you would still need them even if you switch to blockchains. if you needed to file reports using a centralized db, then you would still need them with blockchains. the only difference between centralized databases and blockchains is the property of trustlessness. everything else can be done much more efficiently by normal databases. if you dont need trustlessness then you dont need blockchains
    - kikimora 5y ago
      > i dont know how to explain this to you but the only thing that blockchains replace are databases like mysql. This is just one half. The other half is blockchain and smart contracts also replace all the people involved in controlling access to a central database. I can imagine a smart contract that would allow me to transfer ownership of my car to you and get paid in return. I cannot imagine an API to a central database that can do the same. One thing you can do to defeat my point is to show how such an API can be built.
jerf 5y ago
The reason why lawyers and middlemen are required is not because authority is too centralized into the relevant governing bodies. They're there for lots and lots of other reasons that blockchain can't help with.
- kikimora 5y ago
  The only reason why we have trusted middleman is because before bitcoin there was no scalable solution to Byzantine generals problem. Now we have it. Whenever this solution is better than having a central entity appointing middleman is remains to be seen. Blockchains can reduce number of middleman we have to deal with. The open question is at what cost.
- telxosser 5y ago
  Exactly. It is always the same naive and not well thought out argument for this stuff. As if laws and regulations just came about by a random process for no reason.

thinkmassive 5y ago

> And of course all that has a back door so a court order can rollback a transaction. …so you still need a lawyer and nothing has actually changed?

kikimora 5y ago
You got me, lawyers can stay :) But a bunch of clerks and middleman are out. Today the job of a middleman/clerk is to modify a centralized database in a regulated way. They got their licenses, exams, special education and so on. There is a government machinery behind every such database - agencies, controllers, educators, bookkeepers, etc. While you may be paying $4 for a notary signature you might be paying way more from your tax money to keep governing bodies running across the country. My point is statement that a centralized database is cheap because it is easy to modify simply ignores governance cost which might be huge.

cuteboy19 5y ago

if we are trusting courts to have backdoors, does it not completely negate the purpose of blockchains, i.e. trustlessness if you trust the court, why not just have them store everything on some mysql database and execute all the ""smart"" contracts as regular java code? blockchains are necessarily orders of magnitude worse in terms of performance. why do you want to use an extremely slow linked list based DB?

kikimora 5y ago
No, because courts can be elected by voting on the blockchain which gives society a way to control them. And voting on the chain (if implemented right) cannot be controlled that easily by a government. I’m all for the central database. To enter data into it the government will appoint an agency which in turn will appoint individuals after they pass exams or get their license. The said individuals will have to fill in regular reports that had to be somehow processed and analyzed. Also each such individual required to keep records in a safe manner, sometimes this means hiring a security and a compliance officer. At this point it is not clear if the cost of maintaining the agency and all that people is less than automating the agency of the blockchain.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  i dont know how to explain this to you but the only thing that blockchains replace are databases like mysql. if, for whatever reason you needed a security and a compliance officer, then you would still need them even if you switch to blockchains. if you needed to file reports using a centralized db, then you would still need them with blockchains. the only difference between centralized databases and blockchains is the property of trustlessness. everything else can be done much more efficiently by normal databases. if you dont need trustlessness then you dont need blockchains
  - kikimora 5y ago
    > i dont know how to explain this to you but the only thing that blockchains replace are databases like mysql. This is just one half. The other half is blockchain and smart contracts also replace all the people involved in controlling access to a central database. I can imagine a smart contract that would allow me to transfer ownership of my car to you and get paid in return. I cannot imagine an API to a central database that can do the same. One thing you can do to defeat my point is to show how such an API can be built.

jerf 5y ago

The reason why lawyers and middlemen are required is not because authority is too centralized into the relevant governing bodies. They're there for lots and lots of other reasons that blockchain can't help with.

kikimora 5y ago
The only reason why we have trusted middleman is because before bitcoin there was no scalable solution to Byzantine generals problem. Now we have it. Whenever this solution is better than having a central entity appointing middleman is remains to be seen. Blockchains can reduce number of middleman we have to deal with. The open question is at what cost.
telxosser 5y ago
Exactly. It is always the same naive and not well thought out argument for this stuff. As if laws and regulations just came about by a random process for no reason.