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My skepticism about e.g. AI and blockchain is not definitive or final, and the goal is not to end the conversation. To the contrary, for me this is a (possibly

My skepticism about e.g. AI and blockchain is not definitive or final, and the goal is not to end the conversation. To the contrary, for me this is a (possibly very deficient) style of reasoning about the world. You are excited about technology X, can I express my skepticism in a sufficiently annoying way to prod you into helping me understand some insight about technology X which disproves my hypothesis that technology X is a technology in search of a problem? For example, I don't see an important problem which is solved by blockchain in a way that's superior to other solutions, when taking into account their respective advantages and drawbacks. Just don't see it. For example, I want to have a centralized authority which can override fraud or a mistake in a financial transaction. I want laws to apply, I want them to be written by elected humans. I'm not even sold on the value of any kind of electronic voting in general elections, since trust in the process is so vital here that in my mind the horrible inefficiencies of pen and paper and a bunch of humans manually tallying up votes in a thousand school gyms until 11 pm is actually quite okay. I'll pay for that with my taxes, no problem. Now you add blockchain into the mix, and I don't know what problem it solves that does not have superior alternative solutions. And so on. But I'm gonna stay open minded. Technology X might one day find the perfect problem to solve, or I might realize I was stupidly wrong about technology X for some time.

EGreg 4y ago
For now, I would simply ask that you go through the many applications here and tell me if you see smart contracts being very useful for collectively managaing high-value decisions and capital after reading: https://intercoin.org/applications https://intercoin.org/applications
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Can you instead point out the one (strongest, best) application for which the case of using blockchain solves a big problem in a way that's better than existing alternatives, given all their respective advantages and drawbacks? I'm lazy, you see. Conveniently forgot to mention that.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Sure. How about the one where: 1. Communities around the world issue their own currencies independent of the dollar (believe it or not, this is as important for financial stability as not just relying on Facebook’s server farms in California) 2. They give their members a UBI in the local currency that they can only spend locally 3. The amount of daily UBI to give out is determined by the vendors in the community voting on it (monetary policy) 4. Have each vendor tagged with “food”, “clothing” etc. and apply taxes to make negative externalities more costly and withdraw money from the economy (fiscal policy) 5. Calculate statistics on how money flows locally in the smart economy and have economists make recommendations about the fiscal and monetary policies, while the population continuously gets to adjust them up and down based on these recommendations 6. Hooking up all such communities to a decentralized exchange called Intercoin, where the central currency is only held by real KYCed communities and isn’t easily susceptible to pumps and dumps by speculators and banks like Goldman Sachs, and also encourages recurring and sustainable value exchanges between communities 7. Allowing tourists to buy the local currency, and allowing individuals around the world to donate to the community and see stats how the money is being used More info here for instance: https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf If this is too vague here is a concrete example: https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees/2688 https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees/2688
    - tremon 4y ago
      What problem does this one solve, and how does it solve it? To me, this just looks like how a normal currency works, "but on a computer". Is the (claimed) advantage that you can narrow the scope of a currency? I just don't see the benefits in doing so.
      - EGreg 4y ago
        Well, that sounds exactly like what people said about all the other technologies that were "on a computer". Watch this exchange, for instance, between Bill Gates and David Letterman... about "this internet thing" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgODUgHeT5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgODUgHeT5Y Or the Today show wondering what the point is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg Technology empowers individuals and smaller communities. That's what it does throughout history. Personal computers. Personal printers. Now you can send email instead of relying on a centralized post office. VOIP disrupted Ma Bell monopolies in our lifetimes, instead of $3 a minute phone calls you can now do full videoonferencing for free. The Web instead of gatekeepers at radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. In all of those cases, you could question why "on a computer" matters. Who needs email when there are phonecalls? Who needs the Web anyway when there is email? Who needs online dating sites when there are matchmakers? Nathan Myrhvold at Microsoft told people at Excite that "search is not a business". Economist Paul Krugman wrote that by 2005, it would become clear that the Internet's effect on the economy is no greater than the fax machine's. Well, these smart contracts are programmable, and you program against one widespread platform, like JVM or in this case EVM. That's a huge benefit. You can have programmable money, programmable elections, without having to deal with thousands of APIs, or as you are saying "normal" physical currency. Governments in fact also want to phase out cash, and even bank credit, and create centrally controlled "CBDCs" so your "normal" money is also under attack by your governments. China and USA and Canada have already done it and they'd love to be able to freeze people's accounts, restrict them from getting on trains, etc. It may be preferable to incarcerating them later on for years, as we do in the USA.
- nradov 4y ago
  I read the list of applications. All of them seem pointless, or at least inferior to what we already have. Obviously the people writing these lists are unclear on the basics and probably haven't even read the NIST blockchain technology overview. https://www.nist.gov/publications/blockchain-technology-overview https://www.nist.gov/publications/blockchain-technology-over...
  - EGreg 4y ago
    Why does it seem pointless? What they all have in common is cutting out an inefficient rentseeking middleman that people have been forced to trust. Yes that includes FTX, Binance, Coinbase and governments. Here is an example… how would you do this internationally without crypto? https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees
    - nradov 4y ago
      It's a stupid idea. There are plenty of good charities already helping refugees. You can just donate cash to them. Using cryptocurrency just complicates things without adding any value or solving any real problems.
      - EGreg 4y ago
        Sorry, but no. You don’t seem to be very knowledgeable about what these charities actually get done and their efficiency. The real problems are making global payments directly to the people on the ground without waste and having confidence in how they are spent. This works with the existing infrastructure in every city — similarly to point-of-sale machines that VISA and Mastercard did a lot of work to set up over decades. Back then you would be asking why the world needs credit cards and payment systems when there were perfectly good cash based systems and charities on the ground. Anyway, the vendors sell food, the person shows up and buys the food. We know how the money was spent. The people help people. To try to show you by analogy… it is as if people said that there should be a decentralized and uncensorable network for uploading videos taken by people’s own dashcams, phones, etc. of rockets hitting buildings, detention campa etc. But you’d keep saying that the Associated Press and the current centralized media is perfectly adequate and reports everything we need to know, and if people wanted they could upload their videos to Telegram or some other adhoc solution that isnt designed like the news agencies. Why decentralize anything? Because the people DON’T get a good system otherwise

EGreg 4y ago

For now, I would simply ask that you go through the many applications here and tell me if you see smart contracts being very useful for collectively managaing high-value decisions and capital after reading: https://intercoin.org/applications https://intercoin.org/applications

kspacewalk2 4y ago
Can you instead point out the one (strongest, best) application for which the case of using blockchain solves a big problem in a way that's better than existing alternatives, given all their respective advantages and drawbacks? I'm lazy, you see. Conveniently forgot to mention that.
- EGreg 4y ago
  Sure. How about the one where: 1. Communities around the world issue their own currencies independent of the dollar (believe it or not, this is as important for financial stability as not just relying on Facebook’s server farms in California) 2. They give their members a UBI in the local currency that they can only spend locally 3. The amount of daily UBI to give out is determined by the vendors in the community voting on it (monetary policy) 4. Have each vendor tagged with “food”, “clothing” etc. and apply taxes to make negative externalities more costly and withdraw money from the economy (fiscal policy) 5. Calculate statistics on how money flows locally in the smart economy and have economists make recommendations about the fiscal and monetary policies, while the population continuously gets to adjust them up and down based on these recommendations 6. Hooking up all such communities to a decentralized exchange called Intercoin, where the central currency is only held by real KYCed communities and isn’t easily susceptible to pumps and dumps by speculators and banks like Goldman Sachs, and also encourages recurring and sustainable value exchanges between communities 7. Allowing tourists to buy the local currency, and allowing individuals around the world to donate to the community and see stats how the money is being used More info here for instance: https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf https://intercoin.org/communities.pdf If this is too vague here is a concrete example: https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees/2688 https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees/2688
  - tremon 4y ago
    What problem does this one solve, and how does it solve it? To me, this just looks like how a normal currency works, "but on a computer". Is the (claimed) advantage that you can narrow the scope of a currency? I just don't see the benefits in doing so.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      Well, that sounds exactly like what people said about all the other technologies that were "on a computer". Watch this exchange, for instance, between Bill Gates and David Letterman... about "this internet thing" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgODUgHeT5Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgODUgHeT5Y Or the Today show wondering what the point is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg Technology empowers individuals and smaller communities. That's what it does throughout history. Personal computers. Personal printers. Now you can send email instead of relying on a centralized post office. VOIP disrupted Ma Bell monopolies in our lifetimes, instead of $3 a minute phone calls you can now do full videoonferencing for free. The Web instead of gatekeepers at radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. In all of those cases, you could question why "on a computer" matters. Who needs email when there are phonecalls? Who needs the Web anyway when there is email? Who needs online dating sites when there are matchmakers? Nathan Myrhvold at Microsoft told people at Excite that "search is not a business". Economist Paul Krugman wrote that by 2005, it would become clear that the Internet's effect on the economy is no greater than the fax machine's. Well, these smart contracts are programmable, and you program against one widespread platform, like JVM or in this case EVM. That's a huge benefit. You can have programmable money, programmable elections, without having to deal with thousands of APIs, or as you are saying "normal" physical currency. Governments in fact also want to phase out cash, and even bank credit, and create centrally controlled "CBDCs" so your "normal" money is also under attack by your governments. China and USA and Canada have already done it and they'd love to be able to freeze people's accounts, restrict them from getting on trains, etc. It may be preferable to incarcerating them later on for years, as we do in the USA.
nradov 4y ago
I read the list of applications. All of them seem pointless, or at least inferior to what we already have. Obviously the people writing these lists are unclear on the basics and probably haven't even read the NIST blockchain technology overview. https://www.nist.gov/publications/blockchain-technology-overview https://www.nist.gov/publications/blockchain-technology-over...
- EGreg 4y ago
  Why does it seem pointless? What they all have in common is cutting out an inefficient rentseeking middleman that people have been forced to trust. Yes that includes FTX, Binance, Coinbase and governments. Here is an example… how would you do this internationally without crypto? https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees https://community.intercoin.app/t/fund-for-refugees
  - nradov 4y ago
    It's a stupid idea. There are plenty of good charities already helping refugees. You can just donate cash to them. Using cryptocurrency just complicates things without adding any value or solving any real problems.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      Sorry, but no. You don’t seem to be very knowledgeable about what these charities actually get done and their efficiency. The real problems are making global payments directly to the people on the ground without waste and having confidence in how they are spent. This works with the existing infrastructure in every city — similarly to point-of-sale machines that VISA and Mastercard did a lot of work to set up over decades. Back then you would be asking why the world needs credit cards and payment systems when there were perfectly good cash based systems and charities on the ground. Anyway, the vendors sell food, the person shows up and buys the food. We know how the money was spent. The people help people. To try to show you by analogy… it is as if people said that there should be a decentralized and uncensorable network for uploading videos taken by people’s own dashcams, phones, etc. of rockets hitting buildings, detention campa etc. But you’d keep saying that the Associated Press and the current centralized media is perfectly adequate and reports everything we need to know, and if people wanted they could upload their videos to Telegram or some other adhoc solution that isnt designed like the news agencies. Why decentralize anything? Because the people DON’T get a good system otherwise