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> 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

> 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.

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.