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A key feature of NFTs has completely broken / Web3 was supposed to make sure the original artist always got paid. Not so much anymore. (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Your comment seemed anti blockchain in general and so I was replying on that level not particularly about the contracts.

Your claims all make perfect sense if you think or current system is acceptable, with some billionaires and others that can't eat and police making sure it stays this way. The blockchain is about making the future better by enabling trustless transactions to occur without those things.

Current contracts are often held by corporarations and enforced by police. I'm a realistic person that believes climate scientists. I'm pretty sure if we have capitalism, corporations, and police (all things we need to enforce contracts) in 20 years it will be in a fascist, dystopian, ecological collapse context and I hope to not be around to experience it.

I'm much more interested in how to build a better world that doesn't need these authoritarian forces, and the blockchain is a technology useful in this endeavor. I don't claim that it is without flaw or can prevent crime.

immutable nature of the blockchain renders theft absolute, with no recourse

What recourse would be available in the dollar system that doesn't mean somebody isn't paying to make another whole? If someone stole my cash, or stole from my bank because I lost my ATM, who is making me whole at 0 cost?"

Also immutable doesn't mean not able to be modified, it just means you can't modify the past (lie about what happened). If you want to change something, it's a forward change, with past states still visible.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You’ve said a lot of words but you still haven’t explained how crypto actually solves these problems.

That's because it doesn't, it wasn't meant to. Crypto is not meant to be THE all-in-one solution that solves all of our problems. It solves a tiny subset of our problems, namely, how do we share a database without trusting each other. Other questions such as the enforcement of contracts is outside the scope of blockchain technology as it should be.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Right but again, that problem is not one that existed. The future is federation - communities working together based on trust, not finding novel ways to track who has & does not have resources.

Nice, agree, though I'm of the opinion that the transition time will be significant as culture adapts, and until then, blockchain could help, especially between groups.

It wastes a medium country’s worth of emissions every day just to count coins or write things down

This depends on the specific chain/coin. As I understand Eth just made or is in the midst of a change that makes energy use hardly a concern. It's not like the dollar doesn't take any energy. Think about all the bank computer DBs etc in massive global datacenters, branch offices, and the people that need to manage them, etc.

and it doesn’t get used to liberate people it gets used for scams.

Blockchain is a tool, nearly any tool can be used for cool things or shitty things. A database is fundamental type tool, and one that can run without need to trust others you don't know seems like it could be useful too. I'm anarchist but not under the impression that within my lifetime I would be able to trust someone on the other side of the world to not mess with a DB for profit (remember the transition time will be full of people who grew up in an exploitative world). I'm pretty sure the long-term anarchist future is like you said, federation, decentralization, etc. Within my group of 500 or so, sure, no need to track anything. Between groups, there may be some need. And enforcement would be along the lines of deciding not to work with those who demonstrate maliciousness.

btw, thanks for the civil intelligent conversation!

[+] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For instance, as things stand right now, countries have trade agreements between one another, and those agreements don’t work because of some outside police force, they work because those entities rely on one another. There is a level of trust, even though states are notoriously untrustworthy, they still know the level of trust is stable enough to make their currencies compatible and engage in trade.

Are you familiar with Beau of the Fifth Column? He speaks of international relations as akin to "a poker game where everyone is cheating". Trade agreements work by relying on each other and I agree there is some level of trust but I'm pretty sure they still use documentation (blockchain is a form of trustless documentation), there are still contracts and threats of force. Between nations you arguably have anarchism as there is no higher power (unless you consider the EU/NATO etc, but that's more like a group of anarcho-bullies).

Now, as for the idea that any tool can be used for good or ill, I would say that’s true of technology, but not tools

Not sure I understand the difference between tech and tools. I don't really think that ANY tool can be used for good or ill. I think that is true of most tools, but I see capitalism as a tool, but it's one that's only useful to a certain type of person and only useful to take advantage of others. I can see how you could see the blockchain the same way, especially based on it's historical use so far. But I don't think it's inherent in the blockchain tool like with capitalism. Blockchain to me is like money or any other tracking technology like a spreadsheet. Not things I want to see in my anarchist utopia (as money in any form facilitates resource hoarding) but things I see useful and 100% inherently evil for the time being.

Ultimately the only reason such a state would have an agreement with a federated bloc of anarchist communities would be because they benefited somehow. I would say in such a world the downfall of such states is inevitable, but maybe it’s the most peaceful way to manage such a transition. I

Interesting. I have an uncommon or unpopular opinion here. I think that if real and lasting anarchism is ever gonna happen, it's going to have to happen globally simultaneously to some degree (and I think it's in-progress now). Global powers will have to all be degrading. I just don't see major countries allowing a significant anarchist region to exist, especially one like the U.S. that has nuclear weapons and a massive military. The remnants of NATO aren't going to just tolerate what to them are a bunch of yahoos with the world's best weapons. Also, I think anarchism only really makes sense globally. If any state, especially any capitalist state remains, they will destroy the world and pull us down with them.

Ideally, you wouldn’t trade in single transactions with people on the other side of the world

Exactly, I see world trade as reduced, regularly eating a fruit that's ripe on the other side of the world just doesn't seem sustainable.