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balajis
@balajis.eth
Outstanding piece by @0xstark.eth, one of the best I’ve read this year. https://stark.mirror.xyz/n2UpRqwdf7yjuiPKVICPpGoUNeDhlWxGqjulrlpyYi0
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balajis
@balajis.eth
Some thoughts. First, what he calls “programmable hardness” I’ve called “programmable scarcity”, as distinct from “programmable information.” That is, the internet lets you *copy* digital objects easily, but blockchains let you also *transfer* them — by using cryptography to create digital scarcity.
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balajis
@balajis.eth
However, “programmable hardness” may be a better phrase. It combines several concepts under one umbrella: - financially hard, as in hard money - computationally hard, as in NP-hard - legally hard, as in hard commitment - practically hard, as in hard to fake And the visual is “physically hard” as in gold.
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balajis
@balajis.eth
Programmable hardness is a generalization of the hard money that is Bitcoin. It pulls in many adjacent words: - scarcity - difficulty - constraint - commitment - immutable - uncensorable - fixed - permanent - archival - reliable - constant - dependable - trustworthy - transparent - provable - verifiable
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@balajis.eth
His word “cast” is also well chosen, as it relates the physical aspect of hardness to the temporal aspect of future reliability. - trust the forecast - cast it in stone - and cast that stone into the future Also, cast as in “cast a vote” (a binding commitment) and “cast a shadow” (a line extending out).
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@balajis.eth
Lol, and also “cast” as in Farcaster!! 🤪 I didn’t even realize that till just now. @dwr.eth did you pick the name with that connotation? Farcaster: cast a commitment far into the future, like the blockchain.
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balajis
@balajis.eth
His analogy between information theory and cryptographic hardness is also excellent. Of course many have written on this topic, but quantifying the computational *and* financial cost of falsifying something may become as important as calculating how many bits it has. “Hards” as the new bits?
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balajis
@balajis.eth
Finally, the relationship between physical hardness (atoms), social hardness (institutions), and digital hardness (blockchains) is something I’ve also thought about. Technology reduces scarcity, which means more food. But in doing so it also often erodes institutional certainty, which means more fights.
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balajis
@balajis.eth
One answer is to use the hardness of math (cryptography) to restore the hardness of social institutions with blockchains. I talked about this in the network state book from a different angle, in terms of technical vs political truths. https://thenetworkstate.com/political-power-and-technological-truth
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Kiran Pathakota
@kpats
Fantastic article but it felt like the three words chosen are at different hardness levels. Atoms -> Physics Bits -> Blockchain People -> Institutions
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