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I suspect we have different governments. I don't see mine doing anything remotely like that. I come from a place that still has toll booths so that toll booth

I suspect we have different governments. I don't see mine doing anything remotely like that. I come from a place that still has toll booths so that toll booth workers can keep their jobs. I have to take off my shoes before I can get on an airplane so that my government feels safer. I personally compute my government taxes, which only occasionally (if ever) get verified. That's how we fund the country. If I routinely saw the government creating new technology that improved the lives of citizens, I suspect I would share your opinion. It would be interesting to map "places interested in crypto" against "places that have low trust in their government" and what kind of overlap there is. The way I see technology in the US: First, the nerds get excited and start forming groups about it. Then, the business people figure out how to monetize it. Eventually, the government gets sold an overpriced enterprise solution. Then we do it all over again.

Nursie 4y ago
> I suspect we have different governments. I don't see mine doing anything remotely like that. Then why are they going to bring in a blockchain solution? It's got the exact same problem there as any other software solution would. That's my point here, making it a blockchain (or a database!) doesn't magically solve the root cause, it's just an implementation detail. If it even is a problem (a lot of other posters don't seem to think so), the problem isn't that the data storage medium isn't decentralised, or that there's too much trust in the system, it's the absolute ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks. Choosing blockchain + API vs DB + API here doesn't address that. The gains come from modernising the system, not the storage tech.
- yata69420 4y ago
  > Now instead of directly transacting at the very low-tech county property registrar I think you've overlooked this in the grandparent, because you've probably never had the experience of going to a low-tech county property registrar's office to pull a record. > it's the absolute ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks Of course, but so much of that bureaucracy is about being risk-adverse. I really do have to take my shoes off at the airport because somebody tried to wear explosive shoes once, about 20 years ago. So, yes it's the "ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks", but that doesn't really address what's going on. Our governments will easily adopt new technologies when they're simple. If minting officially signed records is as cheap and easy on-chain as it looks like it's going to be, it would be silly not to use the technology, even if you think government should have been the entity to build and maintain it. > Choosing blockchain + API vs DB + API here doesn't address that. This whole class of technology precisely addresses that. It removes the "who has to build and maintain this DB and keep access to it forever" step, which is pretty significant for important records. Literal teenagers can buy and sell pictures of apes easier than I can prove to a mortgage company that I own my residence. Something isn't right there, and I don't think it's the children and their fancy record keeping that's wrong. When the intern at a county clerk's office somewhere in the middle of the country says "hey boss, let's mint NFTs for these records, it costs about a penny each and I can set up the computer to do it as a summer project", that's about the threshold we need for widespread local government adoption.
  - codebje 4y ago
    What happens when someone loses the key to their house NFT?
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Minting an NFT is not simpler than adding a record to a relational database. It's pretty clear that technology itself isn't the roadblock. And if governments ordering security theatre at airports is relevant to their ability to administer property then I've got bad news for you about the track record of people working on building important stuff on blockchains. Difference is they have no need to be involved in property transactions whatsoever, whereas when it comes to enforcing property rights you're stuck with government being involved anyway.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    Your response is so full of gaping holes it's kinda crazy. I'm not sure I can even begin to address them. > I think you've overlooked this in the grandparent, because you've probably never had the experience of going to a low-tech county property registrar's office to pull a record. No, I haven't overlooked this at all, in fact it's bang on with what I'm trying to get you to understand - that pulling a record can be made faster with a better system, yes. But for some reason you're insisting that only a blockchain can fix that, which is just nonsense. > If minting officially signed records is as cheap and easy on-chain as it looks like it's going to be, it would be silly not to use the technology, even if you think government should have been the entity to build and maintain it. You're glossing over the massive effort to bring such a system into place for the land registry in the first place, and reducing the entire problem to record signing. The signing of a record is the most trivial part of the problem. In a DB-driven centralised solution it would be actually free. So I'll repeat myself here - you're trying to address a bureaucratic issue with a data structure, you're choosing one data storage scheme over another as if that makes the difference, when the difference that leads to the speed gains in the proposal is legislative change and modernisation, not a specific storage scheme. > It removes the "who has to build and maintain this DB and keep access to it forever" step It does no such thing, as the data structures and smart contracts specific to land registration will still have to be created, and updated as needs change over time, the human-usable interfaces to those will still have to be created, probably involving API servers and web UIs in the exact same way as any other solution. Someone has to build all this. Someone has to run the infrastructure regardless, and those people will want paying somehow. The fact you can abstract some parts of it away through a blockchain doesn't remove the need for that payment, perhaps in the form of transaction fees, for instance, or rent seeking on these tokens you mentioned earlier. > Literal teenagers can buy and sell pictures of apes easier than I can prove to a mortgage company that I own my residence. Umm, so? I mean, Ape pictures are again, trivial, land registries are not, and the proof you want could be an entry in a land registry database just as easily as it could be an NFT. (As it could be for that ape picture, and as it usually more or less is anyway, due to centralisation of API-provision...) > When the intern at a county clerk's office somewhere in the middle of the country says "hey boss, let's mint NFTs for these records, it costs about a penny each and I can set up the computer to do it as a summer project", that's about the threshold we need for widespread local government adoption. And that intern is going to know how to implement all the smart contracts around property transfer correctly, taking into account all the legal regulations, edge cases, boundary definitions (and disputes), court system oversight and the million and one other things that are implicit in that proposition? Seriously? You genuinely think the hardest and most complicated part of transfer of property ownership is the bit where you need to sign a record? Because that's all you're talking about solving here, and even that isn't something a blockchain solution can do any more easily than any other solution. All of the benefits of moving to a blockchain that you list are possible, probably with lesser effort and lower complexity, using other systems. None of it is because of blockchains, all of it is process modernisation that you feel you can just gloss over because blockchain.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
This hatred for the government Americans have is frankly unhealthy. Besides replacing it with tech bros and crypto douchebags doesn't seem like much of an improvement.
- yata69420 4y ago
  Please don't confuse my criticism as hatred. Being critical of the government is a proud part of the American tradition. If anything (at the risk of sounding extra American), these threads remind me that the US is still the place to be if you want to build something different. There's a positive side to how the US works too. The few things we really commit to, like building our military, we really are the best at. Also, the lax regulation does let new technologies like driverless cars get tested on open roads. Hurray? I think so. Somewhere has to be the test-bed for new ideas. When they fail, they'll be expensive and stupid and maybe even stick around for a lot longer than they should (can we please, please, fix the shoes thing with the TSA?). But all together, we do a lot of cool stuff first that changes the world.
  - GTP 4y ago
    > If anything (at the risk of sounding extra American), these threads remind me that the US is still the place to be if you want to build something different. Interesting, because recently the USA exited Bloomberg's top 10 innovative countries, while if I remember correctly 7/10 where European countries [0]. Sorry guys, you can't stay on top forever. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-kor...
- roenxi 4y ago
  > This hatred for the government Americans have is frankly unhealthy. Governments, by design, are the most dangerous institution we have. In the 20th century they were a leading cause of death. Between the wars and communist policy a lot of people died. Fear of government is entirely sensible, we're more likely to be killed by a government than any serial killer. And we don't know what the big wars of the 21st century will look like, but we may be about to find out.
dale_glass 4y ago
If you don't have a government you can trust, the only solution is to fix the government first. Because without that, any database is irrelevant. You need something that's going to help you solve disputes and enforce contracts. If the government isn't competent or your enemy for arbitrary reasons, they'll just ignore any evidence you can point at and do whatever they want to anyway.

Nursie 4y ago

> I suspect we have different governments. I don't see mine doing anything remotely like that. Then why are they going to bring in a blockchain solution? It's got the exact same problem there as any other software solution would. That's my point here, making it a blockchain (or a database!) doesn't magically solve the root cause, it's just an implementation detail. If it even is a problem (a lot of other posters don't seem to think so), the problem isn't that the data storage medium isn't decentralised, or that there's too much trust in the system, it's the absolute ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks. Choosing blockchain + API vs DB + API here doesn't address that. The gains come from modernising the system, not the storage tech.

yata69420 4y ago
> Now instead of directly transacting at the very low-tech county property registrar I think you've overlooked this in the grandparent, because you've probably never had the experience of going to a low-tech county property registrar's office to pull a record. > it's the absolute ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks Of course, but so much of that bureaucracy is about being risk-adverse. I really do have to take my shoes off at the airport because somebody tried to wear explosive shoes once, about 20 years ago. So, yes it's the "ton of bureaucracy and paper-shuffling that takes several weeks", but that doesn't really address what's going on. Our governments will easily adopt new technologies when they're simple. If minting officially signed records is as cheap and easy on-chain as it looks like it's going to be, it would be silly not to use the technology, even if you think government should have been the entity to build and maintain it. > Choosing blockchain + API vs DB + API here doesn't address that. This whole class of technology precisely addresses that. It removes the "who has to build and maintain this DB and keep access to it forever" step, which is pretty significant for important records. Literal teenagers can buy and sell pictures of apes easier than I can prove to a mortgage company that I own my residence. Something isn't right there, and I don't think it's the children and their fancy record keeping that's wrong. When the intern at a county clerk's office somewhere in the middle of the country says "hey boss, let's mint NFTs for these records, it costs about a penny each and I can set up the computer to do it as a summer project", that's about the threshold we need for widespread local government adoption.
- codebje 4y ago
  What happens when someone loses the key to their house NFT?
- notahacker 4y ago
  Minting an NFT is not simpler than adding a record to a relational database. It's pretty clear that technology itself isn't the roadblock. And if governments ordering security theatre at airports is relevant to their ability to administer property then I've got bad news for you about the track record of people working on building important stuff on blockchains. Difference is they have no need to be involved in property transactions whatsoever, whereas when it comes to enforcing property rights you're stuck with government being involved anyway.
- Nursie 4y ago
  Your response is so full of gaping holes it's kinda crazy. I'm not sure I can even begin to address them. > I think you've overlooked this in the grandparent, because you've probably never had the experience of going to a low-tech county property registrar's office to pull a record. No, I haven't overlooked this at all, in fact it's bang on with what I'm trying to get you to understand - that pulling a record can be made faster with a better system, yes. But for some reason you're insisting that only a blockchain can fix that, which is just nonsense. > If minting officially signed records is as cheap and easy on-chain as it looks like it's going to be, it would be silly not to use the technology, even if you think government should have been the entity to build and maintain it. You're glossing over the massive effort to bring such a system into place for the land registry in the first place, and reducing the entire problem to record signing. The signing of a record is the most trivial part of the problem. In a DB-driven centralised solution it would be actually free. So I'll repeat myself here - you're trying to address a bureaucratic issue with a data structure, you're choosing one data storage scheme over another as if that makes the difference, when the difference that leads to the speed gains in the proposal is legislative change and modernisation, not a specific storage scheme. > It removes the "who has to build and maintain this DB and keep access to it forever" step It does no such thing, as the data structures and smart contracts specific to land registration will still have to be created, and updated as needs change over time, the human-usable interfaces to those will still have to be created, probably involving API servers and web UIs in the exact same way as any other solution. Someone has to build all this. Someone has to run the infrastructure regardless, and those people will want paying somehow. The fact you can abstract some parts of it away through a blockchain doesn't remove the need for that payment, perhaps in the form of transaction fees, for instance, or rent seeking on these tokens you mentioned earlier. > Literal teenagers can buy and sell pictures of apes easier than I can prove to a mortgage company that I own my residence. Umm, so? I mean, Ape pictures are again, trivial, land registries are not, and the proof you want could be an entry in a land registry database just as easily as it could be an NFT. (As it could be for that ape picture, and as it usually more or less is anyway, due to centralisation of API-provision...) > When the intern at a county clerk's office somewhere in the middle of the country says "hey boss, let's mint NFTs for these records, it costs about a penny each and I can set up the computer to do it as a summer project", that's about the threshold we need for widespread local government adoption. And that intern is going to know how to implement all the smart contracts around property transfer correctly, taking into account all the legal regulations, edge cases, boundary definitions (and disputes), court system oversight and the million and one other things that are implicit in that proposition? Seriously? You genuinely think the hardest and most complicated part of transfer of property ownership is the bit where you need to sign a record? Because that's all you're talking about solving here, and even that isn't something a blockchain solution can do any more easily than any other solution. All of the benefits of moving to a blockchain that you list are possible, probably with lesser effort and lower complexity, using other systems. None of it is because of blockchains, all of it is process modernisation that you feel you can just gloss over because blockchain.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

This hatred for the government Americans have is frankly unhealthy. Besides replacing it with tech bros and crypto douchebags doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

yata69420 4y ago
Please don't confuse my criticism as hatred. Being critical of the government is a proud part of the American tradition. If anything (at the risk of sounding extra American), these threads remind me that the US is still the place to be if you want to build something different. There's a positive side to how the US works too. The few things we really commit to, like building our military, we really are the best at. Also, the lax regulation does let new technologies like driverless cars get tested on open roads. Hurray? I think so. Somewhere has to be the test-bed for new ideas. When they fail, they'll be expensive and stupid and maybe even stick around for a lot longer than they should (can we please, please, fix the shoes thing with the TSA?). But all together, we do a lot of cool stuff first that changes the world.
- GTP 4y ago
  > If anything (at the risk of sounding extra American), these threads remind me that the US is still the place to be if you want to build something different. Interesting, because recently the USA exited Bloomberg's top 10 innovative countries, while if I remember correctly 7/10 where European countries [0]. Sorry guys, you can't stay on top forever. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-korea-leads-world-in-innovation-u-s-drops-out-of-top-10 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-03/south-kor...
roenxi 4y ago
> This hatred for the government Americans have is frankly unhealthy. Governments, by design, are the most dangerous institution we have. In the 20th century they were a leading cause of death. Between the wars and communist policy a lot of people died. Fear of government is entirely sensible, we're more likely to be killed by a government than any serial killer. And we don't know what the big wars of the 21st century will look like, but we may be about to find out.

dale_glass 4y ago

If you don't have a government you can trust, the only solution is to fix the government first. Because without that, any database is irrelevant. You need something that's going to help you solve disputes and enforce contracts. If the government isn't competent or your enemy for arbitrary reasons, they'll just ignore any evidence you can point at and do whatever they want to anyway.