18 ms·

Vitalik Buterin Talks Georgism, Crypto, Voting Systems

65 points by geocon 4y ago

geocon 4y ago
Narratives has had some really interesting people on to discuss Georgism recently. Vitalik is very much in favor of it, looks like he was convinced by Lars Doucet's series on the topic at ACX. He's probably right in arguing that the real issue is the fact that it's a pretty hard sell in the places that need it most, since that is where landownership and rent-seeking is most entrenched. Can't say I agree about quadratic voting being superior to approval or range voting, though. Simplicity is a virtue in electoral systems, particularly in a relatively low-trust society like the US- and that's ignoring implementation.
- larsiusprime 4y ago
  As much as I’d be flattered if he was convinced by my piece, from what I can tell he’s been really into the idea for several years now; I think mostly what my series moved the needle for him on was countering the “land isn’t a big deal in the modern economy” objection.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- adastra22 4y ago
  Simplicity is not a virtue vitalik understands.
  - Sargos 4y ago
    Vitalik does indeed value simplicity and it's one of Ethereum's core design principles https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1477402772215586820?t=3kojVniHHI1987I-Mn3i6w&s=19 https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/147740277221558682...
    - adastra22 4y ago
      It may be stated as a core design principle, but it is not actually acted on. Ethereum is waaaaaay more complex than it needs to be in almost every aspect, and is pretty much the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to blockchain design. Simple, it is not.
- pyradius 4y ago
  So the quadratic voting issue seems kinda curious to me. It seems like the best mechanism is through the use of tokens. But, I also assume that the tokens would have to be categorized to some degree right? i.e. you wouldn't use the same tokens for electing people that you use on issues themselves. But if you start breaking the voting topics down, don't the categories become somewhat arbitrary? i.e. do you have "Elections" "Constitutional" "Budgetary" categories each with their own voting tokens? If you have budgetary concerns, is it better to vote "for" your preference than "against" a different preference? Is every budgetary matter up for public approval? I'm more interested in getting our revenue sources right (i.e. the public collection of land rent). Is the tyranny of the majority a major concern after that? It seems like the most viable projects should move forward by simply majority and the remainder can be returned as a citizen's dividend. Tyranny only exists when a decision creates a barrier to alternatives right? Perhaps someone can give an example where a spirited minority may want to use public funding for something that the majority does not want (or is less interested in) and that this spirited minority could not take their dividends to provide for themselves.
- fsckboy 4y ago
  The point about Georgism is that the total number of Bitcoins is fixed, so we are all entitled to some, even if we're late to the game?
colesantiago 4y ago
- dubswithus 4y ago
  > Ethereum are making lots of people lose millions (if not) billions of dollars annually. 1) No one is making anyone do anything. 2) This comment is more appropriate for /r/buttcoin than HN
  - colesantiago 4y ago
    - golergka 4y ago
      There's plenty of real world use cases. The fact that you insist that there are none says much more about you and amount effort you've spent on researching the topic that it does about crypto.
      - colesantiago 4y ago
        > There's plenty of real world use cases. Such as none? Since you have listed zero real world examples or usecases as usual.
    - dubswithus 4y ago
      > 3) And the above is not an argument or a refutation. It's not meant to be either. Vitalik is an intellectual. Tyler Cowen says he is one of the more interesting writers that he has come across. That's a big endorsement. But your comment is really not interesting at all and just a general rehash of an old debate. There are hundreds of other threads on HN that would be appropriate for your comment. It just isn't this one.
      - colesantiago 4y ago
        > Vitalik is an intellectual. Tyler Cowen says he is one of the more interesting writers that he has come across. That's a big endorsement. Appeal to authority isn't an argument either, I don't really care what Tyler Cowen says about Vitalik. The whole point of a blockchain like Ethereum is that it's supposed to be immutable, with Vitalik's own actions in his role in the DAO hack, he has proven that it isn't at all. So what is new about Ethereum except that we know that it really isn't an immutable blockchain. The Merge? Nothing will change even once complete which I would estimate in 2026 for merchants to use. Gas fees? Ethereum will always have this issue even after the merge. So Ethereum is useless, just like the entire crypto space.
EGreg 4y ago
How does one get in touch with @VitalikButerin? How does one invite him to a podcast? I have interviewed Noam Chomsky and other political commentators, Sara Hanks from the SEC and other former regulators, Thomas Greco and other community currency economists (and by the way, we explicitly discussed Henry George and Progress and Poverty etc.) But when I spoke to Vitalik’s dad he explicitly said Vitalik asked him not to share any links with him and make no introductions. Vitalik prefers to discover stuff on his own. So how does he get on these podcasts? Everything Vitalik talks about, we have BUILT using his platform EVM (https://intercoin.org/applications https://intercoin.org/applications) and are now moving past it and blockchains, eg to build the Intercloud. The other week I spoke with Dyne about anonymous group signatures because we need them for voting, UBI and other applications where each person has to have exactly one account. I’ve spoken directly to the former and current CTOs of Ripple, the entire teams behind MaidSAFE, Cardano, and much more. Vitalik is the only one I was never able to get in touch with. He and his dad always talks about how the crypto space should build the kinds of things WE HAVE BUILT over the last 4 years. I know on HN some people just downvote anything related to crypto. But look at the link above — everything is open sourced and documented and being audited and we have a show explaining how it works. What is wrong with that? What is bad? There needs to be more POSITIVITY and COLLABORATION helping each other, rather than all this competition and shitting on each other. The end game should be open source software that helps communities of people self organize and get things done. We won’t achieve it if we keep being so divided and bickering, we’ll just live in an increasingly centrally planned world, with CBDCs and Big Tech mediating and controlling ALL OUR INTERACTIONS AND TRANSACTIONS. I am surprised that “Hacker News” is often so much in favor of the Web2 status quo of VC-funded Wall st-funded Big Tech, with their centralized server farms. Shouldn’t we be supporting hacking on new things? To the perennial silent downvoters: use your words, say something. Because as we get chat bot AI and Apple Glass and then Neuralink, everything is going to be more immersive and you’ll spend more time in these metaverses, the question of corporate control of the metaverses vs open source software will become ever more important. Do we want to be the Borg or do we want to be free?
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Vitalik has been selling the same dream for a decade now, and even though crypto is booming it still feels like we're no closer to realizing the goals of Ethereum or the virtues of a digital currency. Having listened to this guy rant about the Next Big Thing since high school, I'm pretty jaded by his opinion.
gafferongames 4y ago
- jrsj 4y ago
  this isn’t an appropriate place to flame an entire technology just because its been mentioned
  - gafferongames 4y ago
    Blockchain isn't a technology. It's a scam.
    - fredoliveira 4y ago
      Well, not so fast. Blockchain is a technology. You are clearly against some of the _applications_ built on top of the blockchain — and I would agree with you that many of them (albeit hopefully not all of them) are scams. You shouldn't generalize, though. The blockchain still has merits as a concept, and the idea of distributed ledgers does make sense in some applications — just not as many as we're trying to round peg-square-hole into it.
      - gafferongames 4y ago
        > The blockchain still has merits as a concept Please list these merits.
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I think the central idea of a distributed non-permissioned database with a zero trust consensus mechanism, particularly one where transaction cannot be blocked or censored is a pretty useful thing. At it's heart, that's what cryptocurrency is all about. It also happens to be rife with scams, mania, wildly non-useful projects, and all the rest. Just because it has terrible parts doesn't mean the underlying idea isn't useful.
  - 4y ago
Taikonerd 4y ago
Maybe someone more familiar with Vitalik Buterin can fill me in here... Vitalik mentions that he's interested in both approval voting and quadratic voting. He seems to say that quadratic voting is exciting because it's "more optimal" in a certain sense, compared with score voting. But Will Jarvis highlights the tension between optimal vs easy-to-understand: Jarvis: "And is there [...] a trade off [...] between a system that’s more optimal, but it’s harder to explain and kind of illegible to people to one that’s easy to explain, and somewhat easier to implement." Is the implication that Buterin likes quadratic voting more in principle, but he supports approval voting because it's easier to explain and implement? I wish they'd spent more time on this section!

65 points by geocon 4y ago

Narratives has had some really interesting people on to discuss Georgism recently. Vitalik is very much in favor of it, looks like he was convinced by Lars Doucet's series on the topic at ACX. He's probably right in arguing that the real issue is the fact that it's a pretty hard sell in the places that need it most, since that is where landownership and rent-seeking is most entrenched. Can't say I agree about quadratic voting being superior to approval or range voting, though. Simplicity is a virtue in electoral systems, particularly in a relatively low-trust society like the US- and that's ignoring implementation.

larsiusprime 4y ago
As much as I’d be flattered if he was convinced by my piece, from what I can tell he’s been really into the idea for several years now; I think mostly what my series moved the needle for him on was countering the “land isn’t a big deal in the modern economy” objection.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
adastra22 4y ago
Simplicity is not a virtue vitalik understands.
- Sargos 4y ago
  Vitalik does indeed value simplicity and it's one of Ethereum's core design principles https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1477402772215586820?t=3kojVniHHI1987I-Mn3i6w&s=19 https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/147740277221558682...
  - adastra22 4y ago
    It may be stated as a core design principle, but it is not actually acted on. Ethereum is waaaaaay more complex than it needs to be in almost every aspect, and is pretty much the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to blockchain design. Simple, it is not.
pyradius 4y ago
So the quadratic voting issue seems kinda curious to me. It seems like the best mechanism is through the use of tokens. But, I also assume that the tokens would have to be categorized to some degree right? i.e. you wouldn't use the same tokens for electing people that you use on issues themselves. But if you start breaking the voting topics down, don't the categories become somewhat arbitrary? i.e. do you have "Elections" "Constitutional" "Budgetary" categories each with their own voting tokens? If you have budgetary concerns, is it better to vote "for" your preference than "against" a different preference? Is every budgetary matter up for public approval? I'm more interested in getting our revenue sources right (i.e. the public collection of land rent). Is the tyranny of the majority a major concern after that? It seems like the most viable projects should move forward by simply majority and the remainder can be returned as a citizen's dividend. Tyranny only exists when a decision creates a barrier to alternatives right? Perhaps someone can give an example where a spirited minority may want to use public funding for something that the majority does not want (or is less interested in) and that this spirited minority could not take their dividends to provide for themselves.
fsckboy 4y ago
The point about Georgism is that the total number of Bitcoins is fixed, so we are all entitled to some, even if we're late to the game?

colesantiago 4y ago

dubswithus 4y ago
> Ethereum are making lots of people lose millions (if not) billions of dollars annually. 1) No one is making anyone do anything. 2) This comment is more appropriate for /r/buttcoin than HN
- colesantiago 4y ago
  - golergka 4y ago
    There's plenty of real world use cases. The fact that you insist that there are none says much more about you and amount effort you've spent on researching the topic that it does about crypto.
    - colesantiago 4y ago
      > There's plenty of real world use cases. Such as none? Since you have listed zero real world examples or usecases as usual.
  - dubswithus 4y ago
    > 3) And the above is not an argument or a refutation. It's not meant to be either. Vitalik is an intellectual. Tyler Cowen says he is one of the more interesting writers that he has come across. That's a big endorsement. But your comment is really not interesting at all and just a general rehash of an old debate. There are hundreds of other threads on HN that would be appropriate for your comment. It just isn't this one.
    - colesantiago 4y ago
      > Vitalik is an intellectual. Tyler Cowen says he is one of the more interesting writers that he has come across. That's a big endorsement. Appeal to authority isn't an argument either, I don't really care what Tyler Cowen says about Vitalik. The whole point of a blockchain like Ethereum is that it's supposed to be immutable, with Vitalik's own actions in his role in the DAO hack, he has proven that it isn't at all. So what is new about Ethereum except that we know that it really isn't an immutable blockchain. The Merge? Nothing will change even once complete which I would estimate in 2026 for merchants to use. Gas fees? Ethereum will always have this issue even after the merge. So Ethereum is useless, just like the entire crypto space.

EGreg 4y ago

How does one get in touch with @VitalikButerin? How does one invite him to a podcast? I have interviewed Noam Chomsky and other political commentators, Sara Hanks from the SEC and other former regulators, Thomas Greco and other community currency economists (and by the way, we explicitly discussed Henry George and Progress and Poverty etc.) But when I spoke to Vitalik’s dad he explicitly said Vitalik asked him not to share any links with him and make no introductions. Vitalik prefers to discover stuff on his own. So how does he get on these podcasts? Everything Vitalik talks about, we have BUILT using his platform EVM (https://intercoin.org/applications https://intercoin.org/applications) and are now moving past it and blockchains, eg to build the Intercloud. The other week I spoke with Dyne about anonymous group signatures because we need them for voting, UBI and other applications where each person has to have exactly one account. I’ve spoken directly to the former and current CTOs of Ripple, the entire teams behind MaidSAFE, Cardano, and much more. Vitalik is the only one I was never able to get in touch with. He and his dad always talks about how the crypto space should build the kinds of things WE HAVE BUILT over the last 4 years. I know on HN some people just downvote anything related to crypto. But look at the link above — everything is open sourced and documented and being audited and we have a show explaining how it works. What is wrong with that? What is bad? There needs to be more POSITIVITY and COLLABORATION helping each other, rather than all this competition and shitting on each other. The end game should be open source software that helps communities of people self organize and get things done. We won’t achieve it if we keep being so divided and bickering, we’ll just live in an increasingly centrally planned world, with CBDCs and Big Tech mediating and controlling ALL OUR INTERACTIONS AND TRANSACTIONS. I am surprised that “Hacker News” is often so much in favor of the Web2 status quo of VC-funded Wall st-funded Big Tech, with their centralized server farms. Shouldn’t we be supporting hacking on new things? To the perennial silent downvoters: use your words, say something. Because as we get chat bot AI and Apple Glass and then Neuralink, everything is going to be more immersive and you’ll spend more time in these metaverses, the question of corporate control of the metaverses vs open source software will become ever more important. Do we want to be the Borg or do we want to be free?

smoldesu 4y ago
Vitalik has been selling the same dream for a decade now, and even though crypto is booming it still feels like we're no closer to realizing the goals of Ethereum or the virtues of a digital currency. Having listened to this guy rant about the Next Big Thing since high school, I'm pretty jaded by his opinion.

gafferongames 4y ago

jrsj 4y ago
this isn’t an appropriate place to flame an entire technology just because its been mentioned
- gafferongames 4y ago
  Blockchain isn't a technology. It's a scam.
  - fredoliveira 4y ago
    Well, not so fast. Blockchain is a technology. You are clearly against some of the _applications_ built on top of the blockchain — and I would agree with you that many of them (albeit hopefully not all of them) are scams. You shouldn't generalize, though. The blockchain still has merits as a concept, and the idea of distributed ledgers does make sense in some applications — just not as many as we're trying to round peg-square-hole into it.
    - gafferongames 4y ago
      > The blockchain still has merits as a concept Please list these merits.
idiotsecant 4y ago
I think the central idea of a distributed non-permissioned database with a zero trust consensus mechanism, particularly one where transaction cannot be blocked or censored is a pretty useful thing. At it's heart, that's what cryptocurrency is all about. It also happens to be rife with scams, mania, wildly non-useful projects, and all the rest. Just because it has terrible parts doesn't mean the underlying idea isn't useful.
- 4y ago

Taikonerd 4y ago

Maybe someone more familiar with Vitalik Buterin can fill me in here... Vitalik mentions that he's interested in both approval voting and quadratic voting. He seems to say that quadratic voting is exciting because it's "more optimal" in a certain sense, compared with score voting. But Will Jarvis highlights the tension between optimal vs easy-to-understand: Jarvis: "And is there [...] a trade off [...] between a system that’s more optimal, but it’s harder to explain and kind of illegible to people to one that’s easy to explain, and somewhat easier to implement." Is the implication that Buterin likes quadratic voting more in principle, but he supports approval voting because it's easier to explain and implement? I wish they'd spent more time on this section!