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In defense of Worldcoin, a scalable and decentralizing Proof-of-Personhood

4 points by johnsgresham 5y ago

sharemywin 5y ago
too creepy.
- quantified 5y ago
  It’ll be fun to hack the protocol and send your personhood to a frozen wallet, or the technical equivalent. Refutations of the criticisms are not that convincing. It takes a LOT of hardening to bulletproof protocols. VCs will only be on board if they can make outsize profits, maybe SA is unusual but the future behavior of any person is unknown. Certainly the other early adopters will be looking for pyramid angles just as with all other crypto. I would not at all be surprised to find more non-human bots than humans on it after a few years. Getting governments to buy into it is dystopian. We’d like to think that dystopias just spring from fiction writers, but less-dramatic dystopias spring up on all social arenas from the interests of various participants.
  - johnsgresham 5y ago
    No doubt that it could fail. Very very hard problem. It would be hard to know how many fake proofs are out there. I hope Worldcoin more clearly communicates that people should not treat this as a pyramid, and if people do, I can't blame Worldcoin. The line between a referral system for early adopters and a pyramid scheme can sometimes be tricky to define (ex. People were saying Tesla's referral system and stock hype was pyramid scheme-y). I still think Worldcoin has proposed the best solution for attempting to solve this problem. Perhaps their solution might have fake accounts, ~1-2% might be acceptable. Nonetheless, I'm hoping that others go after this problem by seeing Worldcoin try and tackle it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smt88 5y ago
The reports of fraud have already debunked the idea that WorldCoin can prove personhood. It is impossible to prove anything in the physical world using the digital world, both practically and theoretically. This is no exception.
- johnsgresham 5y ago
  I don't think the verdict is out yet. They have said they are in a testing phase. Early versions of hardware are typically very far from flawless. Interesting... "It is impossible to prove anything in the physical world using the digital world". What about proving that a bank account is yours? Would you consider login + 2-factor + social recovery an acceptable level of proof of ownership?

4 points by johnsgresham 5y ago

sharemywin 5y ago

too creepy.

quantified 5y ago
It’ll be fun to hack the protocol and send your personhood to a frozen wallet, or the technical equivalent. Refutations of the criticisms are not that convincing. It takes a LOT of hardening to bulletproof protocols. VCs will only be on board if they can make outsize profits, maybe SA is unusual but the future behavior of any person is unknown. Certainly the other early adopters will be looking for pyramid angles just as with all other crypto. I would not at all be surprised to find more non-human bots than humans on it after a few years. Getting governments to buy into it is dystopian. We’d like to think that dystopias just spring from fiction writers, but less-dramatic dystopias spring up on all social arenas from the interests of various participants.
- johnsgresham 5y ago
  No doubt that it could fail. Very very hard problem. It would be hard to know how many fake proofs are out there. I hope Worldcoin more clearly communicates that people should not treat this as a pyramid, and if people do, I can't blame Worldcoin. The line between a referral system for early adopters and a pyramid scheme can sometimes be tricky to define (ex. People were saying Tesla's referral system and stock hype was pyramid scheme-y). I still think Worldcoin has proposed the best solution for attempting to solve this problem. Perhaps their solution might have fake accounts, ~1-2% might be acceptable. Nonetheless, I'm hoping that others go after this problem by seeing Worldcoin try and tackle it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

smt88 5y ago

The reports of fraud have already debunked the idea that WorldCoin can prove personhood. It is impossible to prove anything in the physical world using the digital world, both practically and theoretically. This is no exception.

johnsgresham 5y ago
I don't think the verdict is out yet. They have said they are in a testing phase. Early versions of hardware are typically very far from flawless. Interesting... "It is impossible to prove anything in the physical world using the digital world". What about proving that a bank account is yours? Would you consider login + 2-factor + social recovery an acceptable level of proof of ownership?