Altair said:
axj said:
What is blockchain/DAG/Distributed Consensus technologies?
Yes, please describe it in simple terms. Why do see in it "a real chance of contributing to the freeing of humanity from our existing psychopathic power structure"?
Both blockchain and DAGs are just a form of distributed consensus technologies. What that means is that it allows the network to come to 'agreement' without there being any centralized or singular decision maker.
This technology may have that potential because it allows us to replace entire social and technical infrastructures instantly. Say banking goes down tomorrow; Bitcoin or any decent cryptocurrency can replace it. Say SWIFT goes down tomorrow. Bitcoin can replace it relatively easily. And Bitcoin is arguably one of the more primitive cryptocurrencies at this point.
The value is in replacing social and business infrastructure and by doing so shift the balance of power. This goes beyond money, into digital identity, automating production, and opening governance. A direct democracy Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) could be set up within a few weeks. How long does it take to create an effective voting infrastrucutre? Months or years at the least.
All computer technologies are based on mathematic, programing languages and sometimes on patented solutions. This means you cannot create your own technology. You are reliable on people who have knowledge how to program those machines. A lot of electronic devices have backdoors and are vulnerable to hackers.
This applies to any specialized labor. And yes, you can't stop potential hacks. That's a core feature of information technologies that won't go away.
Have you watched the TV series Mr Robot?
When the huge corporation that owns the world (E-corp) gets hacked and all financial data is encrypted permanently, they bring out their own centralised cryptocurrency 'E-coin', to counter the rise of bitcoin and other alternative methods. I think something like this is close to what will happen in reality. There are already coins coming out where the ledger is basically editable, not technically blockchain technologies.
It's an interesting question given the recent failures and slip-ups of the PTB, but I'm not so hopeful right now.
I have not, though Mr. Robot has been highly recommended to me.
On the editable ledger thing, the blockchain community generally regards this as silly, because there's no difference between an editable ledger and a shared database. Sure it's not centralized, but who cares about the tech if it can be rewritten at will? Then it's no different than existing tools, or only marginally different. But I certainly think that some states will attempt to build their digital currencies in this way.
I can't find the article at the moment, but big banks have already begun working on an alternative to Bitcoin.
As with all technologies, it's certainly possible that blockchains are the "next big thing". But historically, all such "next big things" have been either co-opted or twisted such that a small number of people benefit, and the masses generally do not. So, I'm not really holding my breath on that front.
There is also the problem that we often look for solutions in things like technology, while ignoring those solutions to the problems within ourselves. IOW, if people don't change, nothing else will either.
And then there is the, "how is it used?" question. A gun can be used to defend oneself from invading Nazi hordes... or to commit murder in cold blood. The gun itself is not the point. How it's used counts more, and being wise enough and knowledgeable enough to avoid needing to use it in the first place is even better.
That may not seem like a very good analogy, but economic tools and methods are used very often as WMDs, effectively.
Most of the world's major banks now have blockchain divisions, or are working on their own blockchain related projects. I'm not particularly worried about them though, as whenever they get close to making something their blockchain division leaves the business and forms their own startups. The major banks simply lack the agility of the cryptocurrency world, where projects are done in months and not years.
That being said, my major question here is about this very issue. Co-opting is certainly going to happen. But can participants, on the balance, prevent that co-opting from occurring?
I definitely agree on the people problem thing as well. Fundamentally, technology doesn't change society. But people don't either. To create social changes, it seems to me the thing to do is to get the ball rolling, to start a trend. Technology can be a means for that (how the internet gave rise to the alternative media) and shifting attitudes resulting from new impressions (how bitcoin has changed users attitudes towards banks, by making themselves their OWN banks).
That's the core question, I think. Are distributed consensus and networking technologies worth investing time into, in terms of contributions to a new world? I think so, the evidence seems to point in that direction. But the Cs might have a useful contribution to make, given their focus on 'networking'.
Or maybe not.
PS. All this decentralized tech is much bigger than banking. It's voting. It's governance. It's the economy. It's research. It's production. It's law. It's contracts, it's automation, it's privacy, it's messaging. The list goes on, and more use case examples are being developed every quarter. The money stuff was just the start and arguably not the most important, except insofar as a tool of social organization.
