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by roberrrrrrt 1653 days ago
Ok, but this isn’t purely a smart contract anymore. You’re describing a typical escrow (running on a blockchain, because ______) with human judges, conceptually identical to what goes on behind the scenes at EBay. What necessitates a blockchain here?
1 comments
throwaway405769 1653 days ago
No, it's running completely on smart contracts. You get the regular advantages of running on blockchain: permissionless and trustless access to finance.

You don't have to trust the escrow holder, you don't have to worry about getting banned from Ebay.

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roberrrrrrt 1653 days ago
> it's running completely on smart contracts

The human judges/arbitrators aren’t, and they’re what’s critical. The contract cannot be sensibly completed without their input.

So you have an escrow system where human judges need to supply critical information. I’m left having to trust the human judges, unsurprisingly. Running this basic escrow code on the blockchain means that I no longer have to trust the kind of basic escrow code that’s used in centralised escrows. My question now is whether the escrow code of centralised providers (if condition then funds.release()) is really so unreliable that I’ll get get tonnes of benefit using blockchain escrows. Whenever there’s controversy over escrows, it comes down to the arbitration, which as you admitted would still be performed by humans.

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throwaway405769 1653 days ago
> Running this basic escrow code on the blockchain means that I no longer have to trust the kind of basic escrow code that’s used in centralised escrows

Yes, it means that you will 100% know that the escrow website is not gambling your money away, that it won't out of the blue ask you to supply more documents when it finally comes the time for you to get paid, it means that the escrow won't get hacked and your PII won't be sold on darknet.

Smart contracts are just a simpler and more transparent way to deal with finance.

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peoplefromibiza 1652 days ago
> you will 100% know that the escrow website is not gambling your money away

no, you won't

> Smart contracts are just a simpler and more transparent way to deal with finance.

no, they aren't

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throwaway405769 1652 days ago
Cope.
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peoplefromibiza 1652 days ago
you're replacing trust (to handle with care) with blind faith.

who's the one looking for miracles here?

the only thing you can be "100% sure" is that we're all going to die.

the second one is that cults will try to convince other people that they are the only true cult.

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