[ulzeraj]

> The idea to get rid of having to trust centralized organizations might sound tempting, but it doesn’t work: Blockchains don’t get rid of “trust”, they just change, who has to be trusted.

> More precisely: The trust in institutions controlled by humans and bound by established laws and rules is instead replaced — by unconditional trust in the infallibility of code (“in code we trust” is a popular phrase in the scene). As code is written by humans, it’s seldom actually infallible.

> But even if all code was without mistakes, blockchains can’t do anything against threats like scams, fraud, hacking of devices with keys for the blochain or just plain old typos in a coin transfer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

"The perfect solution fallacy is a related informal fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a perfect solution exists or that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented"

[Eisfunke]

As explained in the text: the point isn't that these problems aren't solved by blockchain, they're amplified. E.g.: scams existed without blockchain, but now they're forever and permanently engraved into the blockchain. Code was always flawed, but now a bug isn't just a bug, it's a bug in a smart contract with potentially disastrous consequences that can never be properly fixed.

[cloutchaser]

This is almost a political argument. Because it's the same argument about free speech.

In the end, you either believe in the individual's choice, and individuals will do really stupid and bad stuff, and they will also fall for scams, but do you give the individual freedom of choice to fall for scams and speak freely?

This is a high risk option, perhaps. But it is also likely to be most effective at delivering progress to humanity, considering the difference between innovation over the last 200 years, has it happened in places with more freedom or less?

On the other hand, you have the crowd obsessed with control, obsessed with how the idiot needs to be protected from their own stupidity, and the crowd needs to be protected from the speech of the idiot. But somehow when you control things, in the end they start being used by those in power to cement their power, and suddenly you have less freedom, less creativity, and more suffering. But it's nice for some, because everything is under control.

Make your choice which side you are on.

[nicbou]

> But it is also likely to be most effective at delivering progress to humanity

How so? So far, crypto seems to amplify its worst trait: greed. It takes its destructive properties to new levels.

> you have the crowd obsessed with control

These controls are there for a reason. Controls create trust, and trust removes friction. Creating a stable currency and protecting people's money from scammers has nothing to do with censoring speech. It's a false equivalence.

> you have less freedom, less creativity, and more suffering

You also get this in an environment where the slightest mishap can irreversibly empty your savings account.

> used by those in power to cement their power

That's a problem with capital, not the currency with which it's expressed.

[cloutchaser]

Every innovation has had this pattern of behaviour. Steam railways, dotcom bubble etc.

Part of new technology is many scammers entering it and exploiting the situation. Of course in many cases this isn't actually planned scamming, just taking risks in a new market and losing money.

What most here in this thread are basically arguing is blockchain is evil and shouldn't exist. Well, then neither should the internet or steam railways. It's shows a complete lack of understanding of human behaviour and history.

Really sad to see from the HN crowd. They are falling for the narrative built by people threatened by crypto, which is basically the people in power currently. Of course these are also the people against free speech. It's not an accident this is happening.

[nicbou]

There's nothing about railways or the dot com bubble that facilitate scams. New frontiers attract greedy people. Greedy people attract scammers.

However these eventually become regulated. Lawlessness was a bug that was progressively fixed. In the case of crypto, it's a feature.

> Of course these are also the people against free speech

Leave those strawmen alone. Be the HN user you want HN to have.

[tsimionescu]

> But it is also likely to be most effective at delivering progress to humanity, considering the difference between innovation over the last 200 years, has it happened in places with more freedom or less?

It has happened in places with just enough freedom. The Wild West wasn't exactly known for its great pace of technological innovation. On the other hand, China today is a major innovator (e.g. in solar tech), and it is a much less free country than, say, Indonesia, which is not nearly as innovative.

In particular, legislation and enforcement against fraud are extremely necessary for a functioning system. Fraud directly keeps resources away from innovators (since people who thought they were investing into/buying an innovative solution are giving money to a fraudster instead); and it also indirectly dis-incentivizes belief in innovation, as someone who has been burned by a fraudster will be less inclined to believe the next innovator.

[andrepd]

You're making the fallacy of conflating two unrelated concepts and drawing conclusions from that.

[cloutchaser]

I've laid out how they are linked. Please debate my points rather than saying it's a fallacy, which adds nothing to the conversation and is basically an ad hominem attack like this (see, I can use these debating words too!)

[thriftwy]

I'm not sure why smart contracts don't come with signature (or just an address) - this way they can be updated by authorizing party but nobody else. By a transaction involving a contractcoin perhaps.

You surely can't expect to author perfect code and set it in stone.

[Grustaf]

If it's immutable, it only needs to be audited once.

[thriftwy]

Have you ever written any code?

[Grustaf]

Yes, 10 hours a day, I work at a FAANG.

Just pointing out the advantage. Clearly there are also disadvantages, and most people think the latter dwarf the former. I just want an honest and nuanced discussion.

[Grustaf]

This is not necessarily a flaw in the technology, it's just one way in which it differs from what we are used to.

I think most coiners, who skew strongly libertarian, would argue that it's up to you to make sure your smart contracts work.

[dmitriid]

> I think most coiners, who skew strongly libertarian, would argue that it's up to you to make sure your smart contracts work.

Ah yes, it's up to the user to review and debug code written in an esoteric programming language to make sure that it works... When even creators of said contracts can't find bugs in their code and fall prey to mistakes (sometimes after multiple audits)

[ulzeraj]

That's correct. Smart contracts are absolutely bleeding edge features that work on top of an Ethereum-like chain which by itself doesn't mind advancing the roadmap even if something breaks. People should be advised about that before participating in smart contracts, which unfortunately doesn't always happen due to greed and hype.

It doesn't mean however that we should just throw everything blockchain cryptocurrency related into the same sack and say its nonsense.

[Grustaf]

Yes exactly.

[dmitriid]

"This is not necessarily a flaw in technology".

When is the last time you needed to debug the contract when you buy coffee?

[Grustaf]

Why would you need to involve a smart contract to buy coffee?

[stkdump]

The blockchain is relying on the perfect solution fallacy. It tries to solve a problem that is mostly theoretical, does a very incomplete job and creates bigger problems than it is ever able to solve. The 'redeeming' factor is that on the way it makes some people rich.

[MauranKilom]

Not sure if that fallacy applies, given that we have found ways to combat scams, fraud, etc. with the existing solutions (which are also not perfect, but at least make an attempt to cater to the fallibility of humans). In that regard, blockchain is a step backwards.

Whether "do not require trust in a centralized authority" (with caveats regarding the protocol itself set aside) is more important than "useful for humans conducting human business" (without extra layers that re-introduce centralized authority) is up to everyone to decide themselves.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

The post points out several shortcomings of a system that is objectively worse in almost every aspect than the existing alternatives.

Calling this a Nirvana fallacy borders on bad faith.

[andrewclunn]

If they argued that Blockchain is not mature, and so (from a personal cost benefit analysis) is inferior to centralized systems, they would be on point. There is a difference between straight up pseudo science and novel developments. Conflating the two is nothing new.

[HeckFeck]

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

[onion2k]

Terrible is also the enemy of good.

[HeckFeck]

Yep. That would be the legacy (predatory, inflationary) financial system.

[FabHK]

As opposed to Bitcoin, whose money supply grows with over 1.7% a year currently, giving miners around $50m a day to burn coal with.

[HeckFeck]

Limited and deflationary currency is a good thing, because it limits power and disincentivises impulsive decisions.

An umlimited supply of currency like that underpinning our current financial system is hugely predatory and benefits only those in power and those closest to them.

Fiat incentivises huge environemntal destruction, you can just print more money and allocate it to those closest to you, who are inventivised to spend it as quickly as possible because it is always losing value. This encourages short term thinking and quick turnarounds, which results in mass produced crap that is horrible for the environment, or long drawn out wars that are even worse for it. At the bottom of the pyramid, rampant consumerism is caused by this same reason.

A rational, limited digital currency is a miracle. It will incentivise the opposite. Because you can't just "print more" and watch its value halve over your lifetime, you'll be much more careful in how it is spent. Look at how many shoddy products there are now, and how much consumer habits have changed since currencies moved off the gold standard. I loathe having my finances tied up in such a mess. We have a chance to right this wrong with all the benefits of an open and distributed system. That's the promise of BTC.