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Thanks, this answers my main concerns. I guess that same level of validation applies also for the wallet software we download: we need to make sure the app come

Thanks, this answers my main concerns. I guess that same level of validation applies also for the wallet software we download: we need to make sure the app comes from a source that people have agreed upon, and that usually means applying some sort of general intuition on where to find stuff (googling, forums, reddit etc.). And as you mention, the same trust-game is applied to finding the right chain. But then, I wonder, if we're all anyway looking for the trustworthy data ourselves (based on general human intuition), why use blockchain at all? Why not just apply the same level of trust towards, say, a regular database? My thinking is that PoS makes it easier to trust because we'd only have to trust the beginning of the chain, and the rest is verified via the PoS math. Whereas with a normal database we'd have no real way of verifying it hasn't been tampered with? It does seem a bit scary though that so much money is going into a system where "you have to find the trustworthy data yourself based on your own social network".

bhaak 4y ago
> But then, I wonder, if we're all anyway looking for the trustworthy data ourselves (based on general human intuition), why use blockchain at all? Why not just apply the same level of trust towards, say, a regular database? You don't have the same level of transparency with a regular database. You can't look into the databases of Google or Facebook or of your bank and see what's going on. You have to trust them to some degree. From a high level view, any blockchain solution is less efficient than a centralized one. If you don't care about trust and transparency, a centralized solution will always be better. > It does seem a bit scary though that so much money is going into a system where "you have to find the trustworthy data yourself based on your own social network". The whole cryptocurrency thing is about reducing trusting third parties. But that adds burden on your part. With Bitcoin's POW you have to do less work for getting to the trust level you are comfortable with because we are pretty certain that no human can change physics. With POS, you need to compensate for the loss of the physical part.

bhaak 4y ago

> But then, I wonder, if we're all anyway looking for the trustworthy data ourselves (based on general human intuition), why use blockchain at all? Why not just apply the same level of trust towards, say, a regular database? You don't have the same level of transparency with a regular database. You can't look into the databases of Google or Facebook or of your bank and see what's going on. You have to trust them to some degree. From a high level view, any blockchain solution is less efficient than a centralized one. If you don't care about trust and transparency, a centralized solution will always be better. > It does seem a bit scary though that so much money is going into a system where "you have to find the trustworthy data yourself based on your own social network". The whole cryptocurrency thing is about reducing trusting third parties. But that adds burden on your part. With Bitcoin's POW you have to do less work for getting to the trust level you are comfortable with because we are pretty certain that no human can change physics. With POS, you need to compensate for the loss of the physical part.