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   Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:27 JST Sally Strange

   Reading about bitcoin and blockchain. Much of the interest and/or hype around blockchain involves what its advocates call "trustless" systems. Here's how "Ukezi Ebenezer" (sounds like a nom de plume, but who knows) explained it:

   "A trustless system is a system that does not rely on actors to behave in a certain way for the intended result to occur. The system executes the action without relying on humans to do so. There is no intermediary party, like a bank or broker, moderating the event. You don’t have to worry if the person you’re interacting with can be trusted. The system creates trust for you."

   Honestly this sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. No intermediary, no humans involved, means nobody who can explain it, nobody who can fix it, nobody to whom people can appeal when things go wrong.

   And they're not actually talking about eliminating trust. They're talking about distributing trust. Making it so that, instead of trusting one or two bankers, you're trusting in thousands, maybe millions of other people to use the system rationally and spot errors when they occur.

   The techbro obsession with eliminating humans is not good. You can't actually eliminate humans. Someone still has to service and maintain the system. It's foolishness for humans to try to eliminate humans from any system that's built for humans to use.

   No wonder they have weird fantasies about uploading themselves to the mainframe.

   https://medium.com/@Ukeziebenezer/unlocking-societal-benefits-the-shift-from-trust-to-trustless-in-finance-505e3309d524

   • Embed this notice
     healyn (healyn@normal.style)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:20 JST healyn

     in reply to

     • safonas {~*~}

     @SallyStrange @safonas I'm sold. I want voting systems to be run by the people behind crypto, an industry that is impervious to fraud

   • Embed this notice
     Sally Strange (sallystrange@eldritch.cafe)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:22 JST Sally Strange

     in reply to

     • healyn
     • safonas {~*~}

     @safonas @healyn We don't need to allow every technology to prove itself useful. That would be an immense waste of resources. We can and should use discernment.

     It's clear that blockchain technology has useful applications. My specific critique here is that the term "trustless" is false and negatively misleads people into thinking lack of trust is possible or desirable.

     Rocketman repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     safonas {~*~} (safonas@vkl.world)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:23 JST safonas {~*~}

     in reply to

     • healyn

     @healyn @SallyStrange oh, and don't forget the voting systems - each vote would be immutably recorded, and voters could verify their vote was counted correctly without revealing their choice. Without intermediaries, in a public database, backed by solid math (it used to be respected.
     But, as with every new technology, we need to allow it to prove itself useful. I'm just saying there's nothing inherently wrong with any of the innovations, it's the people who use and abuse it.

   • Embed this notice
     safonas {~*~} (safonas@vkl.world)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:24 JST safonas {~*~}

     in reply to

     • healyn

     @healyn @SallyStrange Escrow without 3rd parties and free instant international transfers - out of the top of my head. Crypto is the first, but not the only or the best application of blockchain technology there is. My bets are in:
     - supply chain management: track any product's entire journey and ensure authenticity
     - digital identity management: share only what you want, like for age verification
     - all kind of registries, (think land registry): permanent, tamper-proof records of ownership

   • Embed this notice
     healyn (healyn@normal.style)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:25 JST healyn

     in reply to

     • safonas {~*~}

     @safonas @SallyStrange what is the use case for crypto as an actual currency, aside from crime? Should be easy to explain in a couple sentences

     For instance, I can explain the use case for a $100 bill: "It's backed by the most powerful government that has ever existed"

     That was eleven words. Easy

   • Embed this notice
     safonas {~*~} (safonas@vkl.world)'s status on Saturday, 04-Jan-2025 08:00:26 JST safonas {~*~}

     in reply to

     @SallyStrange I won't say it's the obsession to eliminate humans, it's just the way technology works. No one lights up streetlights by hand, asks operators to place an international call or makes paperclips by hand. We're automating tasks away since it's more reliable, cheap and fast.
     Personally, I would vote to automate banking and finance folks away over and over again. And politicians are next in line.