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Probably much the same way you can see that crypto in its old generic sense could do these things, with the additional security of the applications running on a

Probably much the same way you can see that crypto in its old generic sense could do these things, with the additional security of the applications running on a blockchain, and the assurances about transaction integrity, censorship resistance, availability etc. You can have a cryptographically secure platform for whatever governance platform you like, but if it's running on a traditional centralised server infrastructure within a political jurisdiction, it's completely vulnerable to tampering of government agencies within that political jurisdiction. This is a well acknowledged issue referred to as "data sovereignty" with the limitation that the way to ensure it's handled is to pick a reliable jurisdiction. If we acknowledge that no jurisdiction is reliable, however, blockchains are the only choice.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
That seems a bit of an unwarranted leap and very hand-wavy. Why would blockchain be better than a decentralized, non-blockchain tech, hosted in multiple jurisdictions for transaction integrity, censorship resistance, availability and so on? And why is a blockchain a better alternative? If the blockchain assumptions fall (51% control) then it's game over. Even the founding fathers were a step ahead of that and trying to prevent tyranny of the majority (probably code for "the rich staying rich", but that makes it an even better analogy) It all feels a bit like wishful thinking to me.
- etherael 4y ago
  No matter where FAANG host their infrastructure, if a particular set of states want to tamper with, censor, or surveil that infrastructure, they will be able to do it. The legal structures and the ability to identify ultimate beneficiaries guarantees this for pretty much any legal corporate structure organised under a state. The only chance this has of not being true is a blockchain, the ultimate beneficiaries can't be identified, the infrastructure is not linked to a particular legal structure. There is no guarantee the state can identify the appropriate necks to apply the appropriate boots to. If an organisational unit is to exist that will destroy the state, at the moment the only candidate for its infrastructure is blockchain.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    It was you that claimed blockchain could improve the state, now you've switched to only blockchain can destroy it? And replace it with "an organisational unit" which is apparently, not a state/government/democracy? None of this sounds like a good idea, even in theory.
    - etherael 4y ago
      Monarchy was an improvement on despotism, maybe constitutional republics were an improvement on democracy, etc etc etc. The organisational units could be considered destroyed, or they could be considered reconstituted, the point is that the functions handled by the OUs in question went to another ostensibly more efficient instance thereof. This is much easier if the new OU does not rely on its underlying infrastructure from the old OU. Things should improve somewhat is a pretty hard ask for something that doesn't sound like a good idea, letalone in theory. Of course, it's an open question as to what the end result of all of this will actually be, and maybe it will indeed be the worst catastrophic case of making the largest cause of non natural death in the past century even worse, but you'll excuse me if I find that hard to believe and think clearing that particular hurdle ought to be pretty easy, especially because this would be a non violent form of revolution, and the only competition is war. In a world of weapons of mass destruction that's a horrendous problem space to be working with.
arcticbull 4y ago
You don't want a national system to be truly decentralized because if it is, adversaries can simply co-opt and control it. If you have to look out for that and roll off onto a different system (and have a mechanism to do so) then its by definition centralized and you can skip the whole blockchain chicanery. You can just throw up a tamper-evident log based system. [1] [1] https://transparency.dev https://transparency.dev

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

That seems a bit of an unwarranted leap and very hand-wavy. Why would blockchain be better than a decentralized, non-blockchain tech, hosted in multiple jurisdictions for transaction integrity, censorship resistance, availability and so on? And why is a blockchain a better alternative? If the blockchain assumptions fall (51% control) then it's game over. Even the founding fathers were a step ahead of that and trying to prevent tyranny of the majority (probably code for "the rich staying rich", but that makes it an even better analogy) It all feels a bit like wishful thinking to me.

etherael 4y ago
No matter where FAANG host their infrastructure, if a particular set of states want to tamper with, censor, or surveil that infrastructure, they will be able to do it. The legal structures and the ability to identify ultimate beneficiaries guarantees this for pretty much any legal corporate structure organised under a state. The only chance this has of not being true is a blockchain, the ultimate beneficiaries can't be identified, the infrastructure is not linked to a particular legal structure. There is no guarantee the state can identify the appropriate necks to apply the appropriate boots to. If an organisational unit is to exist that will destroy the state, at the moment the only candidate for its infrastructure is blockchain.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  It was you that claimed blockchain could improve the state, now you've switched to only blockchain can destroy it? And replace it with "an organisational unit" which is apparently, not a state/government/democracy? None of this sounds like a good idea, even in theory.
  - etherael 4y ago
    Monarchy was an improvement on despotism, maybe constitutional republics were an improvement on democracy, etc etc etc. The organisational units could be considered destroyed, or they could be considered reconstituted, the point is that the functions handled by the OUs in question went to another ostensibly more efficient instance thereof. This is much easier if the new OU does not rely on its underlying infrastructure from the old OU. Things should improve somewhat is a pretty hard ask for something that doesn't sound like a good idea, letalone in theory. Of course, it's an open question as to what the end result of all of this will actually be, and maybe it will indeed be the worst catastrophic case of making the largest cause of non natural death in the past century even worse, but you'll excuse me if I find that hard to believe and think clearing that particular hurdle ought to be pretty easy, especially because this would be a non violent form of revolution, and the only competition is war. In a world of weapons of mass destruction that's a horrendous problem space to be working with.

arcticbull 4y ago

You don't want a national system to be truly decentralized because if it is, adversaries can simply co-opt and control it. If you have to look out for that and roll off onto a different system (and have a mechanism to do so) then its by definition centralized and you can skip the whole blockchain chicanery. You can just throw up a tamper-evident log based system. [1] [1] https://transparency.dev https://transparency.dev