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Arguably, identity is the only application for which blockchains are the most suitable for the reason that identity itself is the artifact of a consensus. I'll

Arguably, identity is the only application for which blockchains are the most suitable for the reason that identity itself is the artifact of a consensus. I'll share the argument here in case you haven't read this particular driver for it yet, and it needs scrutiny. The reasoning goes that in govt, you have licenses and birth certificates, SINs and ID cards, and depending on the legal regime, there are limitations for the legal uses of each of those. Banks could theoretically offer ID because they have more information about you, but then they take on risk and liability in its usages. Second, each transaction that requires identity only needs a certain level of assurance, and what these orgs have agreed to is they will contribute their user identity attributes to a blockchain to support an identifying consensus without holding any risk or having any responsibility for the usage, while providing a high degree of institutional assurance that their contribution is verified and supported by KYC, pattern of life, anti-fraud etc. In this case, identity is an epiphenomenal artifact of the consensus. Where I might agree is that I don't think strong identity itself is valuable, it in fact destroys value, and the consensus just implements the impunity and social anti-pattern of a one-way committee decision - and I think it's an imposition that doesn't help anyone except make them more exposed to remote enforcement of fines and petty policies. e.g. Yay, now you can get parking tickets in foreign countries, and all the use cases are variations of that. However, if you want recourse and sanctions of individuals that are portable without integrating with central national identity schemes, a blockchain is the way to do that. That's the most succinct version I think there is. The irony may be that civil liberties may be the strongest argument against blockchains because they are the cryptological implementation of a committee or star chamber when their consensus represents a monopoly or "radical monopoly."

thadt 4y ago
The problem is that 'identity' is context specific. You're right that it is an artifact of consensus - but it is actually consensus in different groups for different reasons and at different points in time. An interesting study on identity is the (book/play/film) Les Misérables. At various points in the story, the protagonist is a prisoner (#24601), a Frenchman (Jean Valjean), a factory owner (Monsieur Madeleine), and a community leader (Monsieur le Maire). The main antagonist in the story, Javert, is so strongly biased in his rigid system of classifying people, that he is unable to accept Valjean's identity as anything other than a criminal - prisoner 24601. The internal dissonance this creates when Valjean continues to defy this categorization eventually results in Javert's demise. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist's identity _is_ prisoner 24601. At the end of the story, it is not. Identity changes with time, context and circumstances, and how that identity is asserted will also vary from group to group.

thadt 4y ago

The problem is that 'identity' is context specific. You're right that it is an artifact of consensus - but it is actually consensus in different groups for different reasons and at different points in time. An interesting study on identity is the (book/play/film) Les Misérables. At various points in the story, the protagonist is a prisoner (#24601), a Frenchman (Jean Valjean), a factory owner (Monsieur Madeleine), and a community leader (Monsieur le Maire). The main antagonist in the story, Javert, is so strongly biased in his rigid system of classifying people, that he is unable to accept Valjean's identity as anything other than a criminal - prisoner 24601. The internal dissonance this creates when Valjean continues to defy this categorization eventually results in Javert's demise. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist's identity _is_ prisoner 24601. At the end of the story, it is not. Identity changes with time, context and circumstances, and how that identity is asserted will also vary from group to group.