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I feel like I’m going insane you’re literally just quoting Scifi bull shit. This is money we’re talking about.

kmeisthax 4y ago
To be fair, most cryptocurrency is nonsense sci-fi bullshit. I hesitate to even call it money. Ok, let me try ELI5ing it. Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what. Everyone trusts the lists. But what if someone decide to change the list so that it says they own someone else's stuff? Proof of Stake says that if someone wants to change the list - say, if someone traded something on the list to someone else - the page they add to the list also has to have some of their money taped to it. If that change turned out to be fraudulent, someone else can tattle on them, and then that someone gets the money taped to the list instead. So if you want to make sure you're reading from a not-fraudulent list, just check for the money taped to the page. This all continues fine for a while. There's a bunch of people who maintain the list, all of whom have their own money taped to different pages of it. One day, someone tries adding a fake transaction to the list. You, of course, notice it and tattle on them. Except in order to claim the funds taped to the list, someone else has to... add a note to the list saying you own them. And there's no reason why they can't just write down that they tattled instead of you, because the only proof that you were the one who tattled is getting it onto the list that you have to tape money to in order to add to. So the only people who have a reason to make sure the list is valid are the same people who are updating the list in the first place. Everyone else can tattle but they don't get paid for doing so, which was the the thing keeping the system secure.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  > Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what. As an interesting aside, this is essentially how the economy of the Yap islands in Micronesia worked until the 20th century, with large stones from another island changing 'ownership', while being left in place (because it was too hard to move them)[1]. Except it was an oral history instead of a published list! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
  - pyinstallwoes 4y ago
    Oral history seems particularly robust in its ability to maintain consistency over time. There is an inherent weakness to publishing where authorship is corruptible and short circuits the durability of time spread across regions that maintain a consistent oral history. It reminds me of the technique to remembering a book where you read one word at a time and repeat it out loud, repeating each segment + 1 in a loop. It’s quite trivial to remember every single word when doing that.

To be fair, most cryptocurrency is nonsense sci-fi bullshit. I hesitate to even call it money. Ok, let me try ELI5ing it. Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what. Everyone trusts the lists. But what if someone decide to change the list so that it says they own someone else's stuff? Proof of Stake says that if someone wants to change the list - say, if someone traded something on the list to someone else - the page they add to the list also has to have some of their money taped to it. If that change turned out to be fraudulent, someone else can tattle on them, and then that someone gets the money taped to the list instead. So if you want to make sure you're reading from a not-fraudulent list, just check for the money taped to the page. This all continues fine for a while. There's a bunch of people who maintain the list, all of whom have their own money taped to different pages of it. One day, someone tries adding a fake transaction to the list. You, of course, notice it and tattle on them. Except in order to claim the funds taped to the list, someone else has to... add a note to the list saying you own them. And there's no reason why they can't just write down that they tattled instead of you, because the only proof that you were the one who tattled is getting it onto the list that you have to tape money to in order to add to. So the only people who have a reason to make sure the list is valid are the same people who are updating the list in the first place. Everyone else can tattle but they don't get paid for doing so, which was the the thing keeping the system secure.

pcthrowaway 4y ago
> Let's say we have an economy where, in order to determine who owns what, people literally just make and publish a list of who owns what. As an interesting aside, this is essentially how the economy of the Yap islands in Micronesia worked until the 20th century, with large stones from another island changing 'ownership', while being left in place (because it was too hard to move them)[1]. Except it was an oral history instead of a published list! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  Oral history seems particularly robust in its ability to maintain consistency over time. There is an inherent weakness to publishing where authorship is corruptible and short circuits the durability of time spread across regions that maintain a consistent oral history. It reminds me of the technique to remembering a book where you read one word at a time and repeat it out loud, repeating each segment + 1 in a loop. It’s quite trivial to remember every single word when doing that.