[skyraider]

> Ethereum is providing a base layer protocol for apps that never go down, never fail, and are fully trusted.

Even if we were to grant that these claims are true, we still have to ask what classes of application benefit from slower, more expensive distributed systems. Blockchains solve only one problem, which is consensus formation on ontrusted networks. They do not solve politics, governance, downtime, and certainly not application failure.. these things all exist on blockchains.

Essentially none of the application ported from centralized systems to Ethereum or even Bitcoin actually face Byzantine consensus issues when deployed as centralized systems. Bitcoin can be used as a 24x7x365 global collateral and value transfer instrument - such a system would face consensus problems if implemented on top of traditional banking infrastructure. That's hugely valuable, but pretty much the only problem-solving application to date.

For things like asset ownership and transfer, any kind of voting, real estate, IPOs, etc, most people still have to deal with incredibly bad centralized systems, that would be amazing if rebuilt as centralized node.js apps that talk to a MySQL database. This stuff is low hanging fruit that's a huge pain for massive swathes of humanity. And despite the fact that no Palo Alto real estate broker is talking to the city's land deed system over unreliable networks, where enemy messengers might swoop in and assign your deed to the wrong buyer, there's this myth that we need distributed consensus for this and other problems best solved by... databases.

[simonsaidit]

>>Even if we were to grant that these claims are true, we still have to ask what classes of application benefit from slower, more expensive distributed systems

Nobody denies its slow, its a waste of resources, its buggy, its hyped. its a lot of things many early systems was. Its all challenges that people try to solve. What is interresting is if those things can be solved. And i dont understand Why so many dont see a benefit if we could one day build true decentralized systems... its not the distributed or avalibility thats important. Its not like goverments or companies always have the peoples best interrest when they make decissions.

[root_axis]

> Nobody denies its slow, its a waste of resources, its buggy, its hyped

A lot of people deny all of that, actually.

> slow

They say "there is no faster way to achieve distributed consensus".

> waste

They say "it's not wasteful because its securing the network".

> buggy

They say "unlike all other software systems, it's never been hacked!".

> hyped

They say "it's literally the greatest innovation since the internet"

> And i dont understand Why so many dont see a benefit if we could one day build true decentralized systems

I have no idea, I guess most engineers are just too jealous of early adopters getting rich to be willing to give cryptocurrency a chance. There are so many problems that can be solved right now with cryptocurrency if the community would just give cryptocurrency a fair shot instead of always trying to say that it doesn't solve any real problems.

Note: the previous paragraph is a satirical portrayal of a cryptocurrency enthusiast attempting to explain why the entire software community isn't hyped about cryptocurrency.

[simonsaidit]

Perhaps Im just a dreamer... but i believe in an open-source, decentralized, free information, patentless World... Where one day nobody can rewrite history, can force a monopoly down our throath, lock us in, be unaccoubtable for their actions, censor us or run us around like sheep. One day we stop shooting ourselves in the foot and pee our pants and stop being blind to the tech giants like they have our best interrest. A true decentralized system might be nesssary one day to avoid us being enslaved in democrazy

[root_axis]

> Perhaps Im just a dreamer... but i believe in an open-source, decentralized, free information, patentless World... Where one day nobody can rewrite history, can force a monopoly down our throath, lock us in, be unaccoubtable for their actions, censor us or run us around like sheep

> open-source

Blockchain software is an amazing example of open-source software, but blockchain is ultimately unimportant with respect to the entire open-source movement as whole.

> decentralized

Blockchains are decentralized, but they can't "decentralize the world" because they don't exist in the world so they necessarily require outsourcing any real world effects to untrustworthy humans who do not have to respect the state of the blockchain in the material world.

> free information

Not sure what this even means, but whatever market incentives exist that might keep information from "being free" will always exist, regardless of blockchains.

> patentless

The patent system is a political institution that will exist regardless of blockchains.

> nobody can rewrite history

As has been demonstrated many times, blockchain history can be trivially rewritten given the appropriate political influence of those who control the nodes. The DAO is a classic example of that.

> force a monopoly down our throath

Blockchains do absolutely nothing to stop this.

> be unaccoubtable for their actions

Blockchains do absolutely nothing to stop this.

> censor us or run us around like sheep.

A government can effortlessly censor you and doesn't really care if are able to flip some bits in an arbitrary digital ledger.

> One day we stop shooting ourselves in the foot and pee our pants and stop being blind to the tech giants like they have our best interrest

The cryptocurrency community does not have our best interest at heart.

> A true decentralized system might be nesssary one day to avoid us being enslaved in democrazy

This is the height of cryptocurrency delusion. I regret that I have to sound so dismissive but I think the monumental assertions you're putting forward are fundamentally disconnected from history and our current reality.

[simonsaidit]

What you Seem to ignore is that my aspiration is to fix the flaws and come up with a Better system and you Seem to focus on the past and currency Which is just a small part of the picture. Control of nodes is just a reference to some current implementation details. DAO was also just bugs exploited. Being able to alter the current State of the Ledger doesnt make it invisible that you did it, or prevents others from not agreeing with you.

Im thinking about civilations destroyed or Winners of war rewriting history, or powerfull companies and poltiticians covering up information that was already out there... eg recently we found out its easy to delete from waybackmachine. If you cannot Imagine we Can build true decentralized tamperproof systems or could ever have a neeed for one i suggest you study human history.

[spookthesunset]

> "Im thinking about civilations destroyed or Winners of war rewriting history, or powerfull companies and poltiticians covering up information that was already out there... "

None of these are engineering or technical problems. They are all extremely complex meatspace-based problems that get solved (if they are even solvable at all, or even actual problems) well outside of the realm of computer code.

Bitcoin and Satoshi's Glorious Blockchain is, was, and always will be a solution in search of a problem.

[root_axis]

> What you Seem to ignore is that my aspiration is to fix the flaws and come up with a Better system

Admirable goals but lots of us have aspirations. You need to demonstrate how your suggestions can actually help, and at this point, explaining it is not enough, you and your community need to stop talking about it and actually do something. No other software requires so much vocal defense.

[simonsaidit]

Yes because pow is all there is and Will ever be. Research have stagnated. The time is up and if we don’t show results now we never will.

[skyraider]

Even on decentralized networks like ethereum/bitcoin, it's possible for governments and companies to have a major impact on network direction. True economic decentralization is more likely to come from products like Stripe Atlas that give small players scaling and distribution tools that previously, only big corporations or well-resourced founding teams had access to.

[simonsaidit]

Sure goverments can affect etherum and bitcoin but they cant stop it globally and Im talking about the next generations build from the learnings of bitcoin and the likes. Its not just about money but information any kind that could benefit. Stripe is cool but just one area and its centralized and itself relies on payment networks like visa and mastercard, banks and other psp networks all the way to the POS.