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by teus 1948 days ago
This, a thousand times _this_!

I've worked in shipping for decades. There is no problem with BOLs magically changing with no traceability (which blockchain could solve, I guess, if that problem existed?). There is no problem with checking that the seal on a box at arrival is the same seal that was on the box when it departed.

The only viable purpose I've heard for blockchain is quasi-anonymous decentralized trust negotiation. This purpose doesn't match any real-world use case in shipping. A shipper doesn't want to ship product from an anonymous untrusted producer and no carrier wants to carry goods from an anonymous untrusted shipper.

Blockchain won't stop companies from misdeclaring hazardous (but otherwise legal) goods[1], it won't stop traffickers from misdeclaring illegal goods (or smuggling illegal goods among legal goods)[2], it won't stop trucks from running overweight[3], it won't stop ships from being misloaded[4]...

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Hyundai_Fortune

[2] https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9295962/cork-cocaine-valu...

[3] this sort of thing doesn't usually make the news so I don't have a link

[4] https://www.shippingandfreightresource.com/one-apus-containe...

1 comments

Trust is a lower energy state than distrust. I find it unlikely that society wants to incur the massive expensive of climbing that trust gradient for no benefit.

Any society that adopts trust will be able to compete very well against a society of no trust.

Thst is my conjecture at any rate.