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>This is my basic argument: blockchain does nothing to solve any existing problem with financial (or other) systems. Those problems are inherently economic and

>This is my basic argument: blockchain does nothing to solve any existing problem with financial (or other) systems. Those problems are inherently economic and political, and have nothing to do with technology. >And, more importantly, technology can’t solve economic and political problems This is such an important sentence that is bear repeating ad infinitum. For completeness: if you do have a technological solution to an economic and politcal problem, you have created a new political problem (for yourself): getting everyone to use and understand your solution.

tim333 4y ago
>technology can’t solve economic ... problems It certainly can. Maybe not blockchain but the old problems of lacking food etc in the west have largely been fixed by technology like tractors and fertilizers and we have obesity now.
Synaesthesia 4y ago
Yanis Varoufakis elucidated it pretty well recently: Crypto won't form a revolution because we haven't changed our own institutions, our relationships and so on. That is what changes in a revolution. In other words we still have the boss-employee wage relationship, the role within a corporation and so on, completely unchanged.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago
  There’s an important discussion to be had around this: revolutions take inspiration, which only comes after people see that things can be better. You can argue that crypto won’t form a revolution because we still support and value trusted third parties, but using decentralized assets on a blockchain may be what inspires people to change those institutions and relationships. Sadly, many of the “get rich quick” scams we see getting deployed on blockchains won’t help build the public’s confidence in changing our current system, but there’s still time.
  - hnthrow1010 4y ago
    Using a blockchain is literally trusting a third party. Blockchains require third party miners/validators to run the chain. The idea that blockchains will change anything about this is a pipe dream. The design of them simply makes it impossible for everyone to "be their own trusted third party", whatever that is supposed to look like. Ironically, the most feasible way to really go "off the grid" is still probably to hide large amounts of valuable commodities (i.e. gold, platinum, etc) inside your home. In the words of that grug brain developer from yesterday, you go back to collecting shiny rocks. But I really doubt cryptocurrency is going to encourage people to do that, it's bad for many obvious reasons.
    - PretzelPirate 4y ago
      > Using a blockchain is literally trusting a third party. Blockchains require third party miners/validators to run the chain. I disagree. I have to trust that at least 51% of validators (though smaller in other cases) are honest. That’s in no way that same as trusting that a traditional third party is honest. In some blockchain systems, you only have to trust that there is a single honest participant in the network. You can even participate in these networks to reduce the amount of trust you have to have in any part of the system. These are very different trust assumptions to what we have today with large, centralized institutions.
      - hnthrow1010 4y ago
        >I have to trust that at least 51% of validators are honest Those 51% are third parties. Full stop. There is no difference. You don't control them, they are not you, they are not your friends. They're third parties. You can argue why you trust them more than "centralized institutions" but that doesn't make them not third parties. And this of course is assuming that the validators aren't centralized and will never become centralized, which there is no guarantee that it won't happen or has not already happened. I am not making this up either, this is a design parameter of the system; the fallacious premise of blockchains appears to readily assume that miners/validators will become greedy and hostile but also seems to trust them not to centralize and attack the network, for some reason that has not held up in practice.
oppositelock 4y ago
Maybe this ugly, complicated, expensive workaround to a political/economic problem is the best shot we have at addressing this problem at all, since the political process isn't working, only doubling down on stupidity.
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  I would argue that cryptocurrency is tripling/quadrupling/quintupling down on stupidity, it's obvious from taking a single look at the ecosystem that nothing works. It's overloaded with scams, it's not actually decentralized or fair, and the main people pumping it up are VCs and other billionaires. The valuations are just random, there are no real profits anywhere to be found. Proof of work is essentially a lottery that you win by wasting the most energy that you possibly can, and proof of stake is literally just a lottery. Is this really the best that people think we can come up with to solve our financial woes? Cryptographically secure lotteries? I'm just stunned at how many cryptographers are willing to go along with this fraud. Edit: I forgot to mention the colossal stupidity of NFTs. I mean, seriously, it's VCs selling facebook profile pictures with million dollar price tags and pitching it as some kind of artist's revolution. The community mocks you for having "right clicker mentality" if you don't buy into the scheme.
  - baby 4y ago
    > It's overloaded with scams I always find that this argument doesn't stand because we're talking about money and money always involve scams, fraud, etc. Look at the current financial system. Do you think there are more scams happening in crypto than the current system? If so then you're brainwashed. If anything, cryptocurrencies have brought much more transparency to what's happening in financial markets.
    - hnthrow1010 4y ago
      "Transparency" does nothing when the scammers are so emboldened they commit fraud in broad daylight because they know the regulators aren't paying attention and they can make off with the money faster than you can analyze the data. >Do you think there are more scams happening in crypto than the current system? Yes, absolutely. Pretty much everything I've seen in crypto is a scam or fraud. The tokens have no value and the whole thing is about pumping them up and dumping them on someone. I have yet to see any blockchain company that actually delivers a useful product that can't be made cheaper and more efficiently in tradfi. The "financial innovations" coming out of defi are all either blatant fraud, ponzi schemes, or are ideas that are known for decades/centuries to be so risky and stupid that no functioning market would allow you to do them. >If so then you're brainwashed. Less of this please.
etherael 4y ago
What if you think the only political problem worthy of resolution is politics itself? That is, the two wolves and a lamb voting on who is for dinner model expanded up to encompass 7 billion dumb apes. I would argue the only thing worth caring about is that they can't vote that you're for dinner. It doesn't matter how many other people are along for the ride or back happily engaging in the prior game. Getting people to change sides can't be a part of the problem by definition because if a political solution were actually possible then we would not be where we are. The only problem to solve is insulating yourself from the demonstrably awful global political process. And ledgers which that political process can't change are arguably an essential part of that solution. If states and the political process didn't exist and you had to actually pitch it as a business model to modern venture capitalists, it would be a near impossible task. So your customers are just some group of people inside the borders of some contiguous territory over which you exert direct military control? And you claim no duty to that group and despite a demonstrable failure in basically everything you do relative to the traditional form of execution, you demand a pricing model that amounts to some permutation of "tell us how much you made and spent this year, great now we want a cut of x out of it". And all your customers have to do to evade your business model is leave? And you only transact in tokens you continuously create out of thin air with the thinnest imaginable pretexts? And last century when this was tried it was the largest non natural cause of death? And your failure mode may provoke an extinction level event? Why would anybody actually participate in any of this for any reason other than they have no viable alternative whatsoever and thus you end up with a self selecting group of participants who consume more economic resources than they produce? Apple pie and baseball is not an acceptable answer. Isn't economic collapse basically inevitable? Oh that's where we are now back in the real world? Well that's inconvenient. Better get to building alternatives asap.
Balgair 4y ago
> For completeness: if you do have a technological solution to an economic and political problem, you have created a new political problem (for yourself): getting everyone to use and understand your solution. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, for example, fusion energy would solve a fair few of economic problems and would be a major part of the solution to the political problem of the climate crisis. I imagine there are a few other technological advances that would fit in like that too. Very far aside: fusion energy may be closer than we think : https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-future-of-fusion https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-f...
- treeman79 4y ago
  Edison learned this lesson early on. https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thomas-edison-invests-something-one-wants/ https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thomas-edison-in...
- jaredklewis 4y ago
  We already have technologies to solve the climate crisis, among them nuclear fission. We have the technology and experience to build safe and clean fission plants today, but we don't due to political and economic reasons. Politically, nuclear power is unpopular in most countries, including educated ones like the US and Germany. Economically, we do nothing to incentivize nuclear. Very few places have a meaningful carbon tax and (at least in the US) state laws regulate energy grids such that they provide price insurance to unstable energy sources, but prevent base load sources like nuclear from profiting when energy is scarce. Fusion solves none of these problems. If fusion technology were ready today, there would still be no political will or economic incentive to build fusion power plants. How do you reckon fusion would be a solution to the political problem of the climate crisis?
  - Balgair 4y ago
    As far as I understand fusion, it's pretty much like fission but without any of the nasty nuclear waste or other problems. Sure, tritium ain't the most fun, but it's half life is a lot less than what the ol' Fukushimas dump out. Also, I thought that when things go wrong with fusion plants you get, like, maybe some really hot stuff dumping into a special wall or something. I don't know, sounds not the most fun, but bearable. This is as opposed to fission, where if things go wrong you get a reason the Soviet Union fell apart. So, knowing that tiny amount, I figure that more countries and their voters are on board with fusion, more so than with fission. Meaning that those pesky political problems are lessened and therefore we can reap the economic benefits that both fusion and fission give. But all that's beside the original point that tech does influence things positively. I was just using my little tiny bit of knowledge and pulling fusion out of thin air as an example.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dorgo 4y ago
In the last century mathematics gained a new level of rigorousness and maturity. Technology is just a tool to suplement this trend. Same is happening in other disciplines today. Economics and politics won't be spared. Whether it will be crypto or some other idea doesn't matter. In the end there will be a formal framework for economy and politics verifiable by a computer.
whatisweb3 4y ago
> if you do have a technological solution to an economic and politcal problem, you have created a new political problem (for yourself): getting everyone to use and understand your solution Many of th problems crypto aims to solve are not only political and economic, but also technological. The technology in this case may end up being a driver for new political and economic systems. Similar thing happening with digital payments - like Apple Pay - that are overtaking cash and card swiping in many parts of the world primarily because of a tech innovation that allows for convenience, security, and privacy. Crypto stands to overtake some aspects of our economic activity in a similar way, regardless of what politicians ask for.
pickovven 4y ago
Technology can definitely solve some political problems, at least in a very narrow sense. If you don't believe this, ask yourself what happened after the printing press was invented, or the steam engine. That's not the same as saying technology will resolve social problems. And I personally think crypto is ridiculous. But knowing technology can completely reshape politics is still an important lesson.

tim333 4y ago

>technology can’t solve economic ... problems It certainly can. Maybe not blockchain but the old problems of lacking food etc in the west have largely been fixed by technology like tractors and fertilizers and we have obesity now.

Synaesthesia 4y ago

Yanis Varoufakis elucidated it pretty well recently: Crypto won't form a revolution because we haven't changed our own institutions, our relationships and so on. That is what changes in a revolution. In other words we still have the boss-employee wage relationship, the role within a corporation and so on, completely unchanged.

PretzelPirate 4y ago
There’s an important discussion to be had around this: revolutions take inspiration, which only comes after people see that things can be better. You can argue that crypto won’t form a revolution because we still support and value trusted third parties, but using decentralized assets on a blockchain may be what inspires people to change those institutions and relationships. Sadly, many of the “get rich quick” scams we see getting deployed on blockchains won’t help build the public’s confidence in changing our current system, but there’s still time.
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  Using a blockchain is literally trusting a third party. Blockchains require third party miners/validators to run the chain. The idea that blockchains will change anything about this is a pipe dream. The design of them simply makes it impossible for everyone to "be their own trusted third party", whatever that is supposed to look like. Ironically, the most feasible way to really go "off the grid" is still probably to hide large amounts of valuable commodities (i.e. gold, platinum, etc) inside your home. In the words of that grug brain developer from yesterday, you go back to collecting shiny rocks. But I really doubt cryptocurrency is going to encourage people to do that, it's bad for many obvious reasons.
  - PretzelPirate 4y ago
    > Using a blockchain is literally trusting a third party. Blockchains require third party miners/validators to run the chain. I disagree. I have to trust that at least 51% of validators (though smaller in other cases) are honest. That’s in no way that same as trusting that a traditional third party is honest. In some blockchain systems, you only have to trust that there is a single honest participant in the network. You can even participate in these networks to reduce the amount of trust you have to have in any part of the system. These are very different trust assumptions to what we have today with large, centralized institutions.
    - hnthrow1010 4y ago
      >I have to trust that at least 51% of validators are honest Those 51% are third parties. Full stop. There is no difference. You don't control them, they are not you, they are not your friends. They're third parties. You can argue why you trust them more than "centralized institutions" but that doesn't make them not third parties. And this of course is assuming that the validators aren't centralized and will never become centralized, which there is no guarantee that it won't happen or has not already happened. I am not making this up either, this is a design parameter of the system; the fallacious premise of blockchains appears to readily assume that miners/validators will become greedy and hostile but also seems to trust them not to centralize and attack the network, for some reason that has not held up in practice.

oppositelock 4y ago

Maybe this ugly, complicated, expensive workaround to a political/economic problem is the best shot we have at addressing this problem at all, since the political process isn't working, only doubling down on stupidity.

hnthrow1010 4y ago
I would argue that cryptocurrency is tripling/quadrupling/quintupling down on stupidity, it's obvious from taking a single look at the ecosystem that nothing works. It's overloaded with scams, it's not actually decentralized or fair, and the main people pumping it up are VCs and other billionaires. The valuations are just random, there are no real profits anywhere to be found. Proof of work is essentially a lottery that you win by wasting the most energy that you possibly can, and proof of stake is literally just a lottery. Is this really the best that people think we can come up with to solve our financial woes? Cryptographically secure lotteries? I'm just stunned at how many cryptographers are willing to go along with this fraud. Edit: I forgot to mention the colossal stupidity of NFTs. I mean, seriously, it's VCs selling facebook profile pictures with million dollar price tags and pitching it as some kind of artist's revolution. The community mocks you for having "right clicker mentality" if you don't buy into the scheme.
- baby 4y ago
  > It's overloaded with scams I always find that this argument doesn't stand because we're talking about money and money always involve scams, fraud, etc. Look at the current financial system. Do you think there are more scams happening in crypto than the current system? If so then you're brainwashed. If anything, cryptocurrencies have brought much more transparency to what's happening in financial markets.
  - hnthrow1010 4y ago
    "Transparency" does nothing when the scammers are so emboldened they commit fraud in broad daylight because they know the regulators aren't paying attention and they can make off with the money faster than you can analyze the data. >Do you think there are more scams happening in crypto than the current system? Yes, absolutely. Pretty much everything I've seen in crypto is a scam or fraud. The tokens have no value and the whole thing is about pumping them up and dumping them on someone. I have yet to see any blockchain company that actually delivers a useful product that can't be made cheaper and more efficiently in tradfi. The "financial innovations" coming out of defi are all either blatant fraud, ponzi schemes, or are ideas that are known for decades/centuries to be so risky and stupid that no functioning market would allow you to do them. >If so then you're brainwashed. Less of this please.

etherael 4y ago

What if you think the only political problem worthy of resolution is politics itself? That is, the two wolves and a lamb voting on who is for dinner model expanded up to encompass 7 billion dumb apes. I would argue the only thing worth caring about is that they can't vote that you're for dinner. It doesn't matter how many other people are along for the ride or back happily engaging in the prior game. Getting people to change sides can't be a part of the problem by definition because if a political solution were actually possible then we would not be where we are. The only problem to solve is insulating yourself from the demonstrably awful global political process. And ledgers which that political process can't change are arguably an essential part of that solution. If states and the political process didn't exist and you had to actually pitch it as a business model to modern venture capitalists, it would be a near impossible task. So your customers are just some group of people inside the borders of some contiguous territory over which you exert direct military control? And you claim no duty to that group and despite a demonstrable failure in basically everything you do relative to the traditional form of execution, you demand a pricing model that amounts to some permutation of "tell us how much you made and spent this year, great now we want a cut of x out of it". And all your customers have to do to evade your business model is leave? And you only transact in tokens you continuously create out of thin air with the thinnest imaginable pretexts? And last century when this was tried it was the largest non natural cause of death? And your failure mode may provoke an extinction level event? Why would anybody actually participate in any of this for any reason other than they have no viable alternative whatsoever and thus you end up with a self selecting group of participants who consume more economic resources than they produce? Apple pie and baseball is not an acceptable answer. Isn't economic collapse basically inevitable? Oh that's where we are now back in the real world? Well that's inconvenient. Better get to building alternatives asap.

Balgair 4y ago

> For completeness: if you do have a technological solution to an economic and political problem, you have created a new political problem (for yourself): getting everyone to use and understand your solution. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, for example, fusion energy would solve a fair few of economic problems and would be a major part of the solution to the political problem of the climate crisis. I imagine there are a few other technological advances that would fit in like that too. Very far aside: fusion energy may be closer than we think : https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-future-of-fusion https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-f...

treeman79 4y ago
Edison learned this lesson early on. https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thomas-edison-invests-something-one-wants/ https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/thomas-edison-in...
jaredklewis 4y ago
We already have technologies to solve the climate crisis, among them nuclear fission. We have the technology and experience to build safe and clean fission plants today, but we don't due to political and economic reasons. Politically, nuclear power is unpopular in most countries, including educated ones like the US and Germany. Economically, we do nothing to incentivize nuclear. Very few places have a meaningful carbon tax and (at least in the US) state laws regulate energy grids such that they provide price insurance to unstable energy sources, but prevent base load sources like nuclear from profiting when energy is scarce. Fusion solves none of these problems. If fusion technology were ready today, there would still be no political will or economic incentive to build fusion power plants. How do you reckon fusion would be a solution to the political problem of the climate crisis?
- Balgair 4y ago
  As far as I understand fusion, it's pretty much like fission but without any of the nasty nuclear waste or other problems. Sure, tritium ain't the most fun, but it's half life is a lot less than what the ol' Fukushimas dump out. Also, I thought that when things go wrong with fusion plants you get, like, maybe some really hot stuff dumping into a special wall or something. I don't know, sounds not the most fun, but bearable. This is as opposed to fission, where if things go wrong you get a reason the Soviet Union fell apart. So, knowing that tiny amount, I figure that more countries and their voters are on board with fusion, more so than with fission. Meaning that those pesky political problems are lessened and therefore we can reap the economic benefits that both fusion and fission give. But all that's beside the original point that tech does influence things positively. I was just using my little tiny bit of knowledge and pulling fusion out of thin air as an example.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dorgo 4y ago

In the last century mathematics gained a new level of rigorousness and maturity. Technology is just a tool to suplement this trend. Same is happening in other disciplines today. Economics and politics won't be spared. Whether it will be crypto or some other idea doesn't matter. In the end there will be a formal framework for economy and politics verifiable by a computer.

whatisweb3 4y ago

> if you do have a technological solution to an economic and politcal problem, you have created a new political problem (for yourself): getting everyone to use and understand your solution Many of th problems crypto aims to solve are not only political and economic, but also technological. The technology in this case may end up being a driver for new political and economic systems. Similar thing happening with digital payments - like Apple Pay - that are overtaking cash and card swiping in many parts of the world primarily because of a tech innovation that allows for convenience, security, and privacy. Crypto stands to overtake some aspects of our economic activity in a similar way, regardless of what politicians ask for.

pickovven 4y ago

Technology can definitely solve some political problems, at least in a very narrow sense. If you don't believe this, ask yourself what happened after the printing press was invented, or the steam engine. That's not the same as saying technology will resolve social problems. And I personally think crypto is ridiculous. But knowing technology can completely reshape politics is still an important lesson.