polynya pfp
polynya
@polynya
Though well-written and inspirational, I believe this post fundamentally misunderstands Ethereum and blockchains. Ethereum's distinctive property is objective, strict global consensus, and absolutely nothing else. It's great for usecases that require strict global consensus, but it's impossible for everything else, because Ethereum cannot parse any subjectivity or rough consensus at all. As such, while money, contracts, governance, identity, law are presented as examples, Ethereum can only parse very, very limited forms of the above, where it's objective. In some cases, like governance or law, it's almost entirely subjective with negligible scope for Ethereum to help. 99.99% of economics, institutions and the like are deeply human and subjective, which Ethereum or blockchains in general cannot interpret at all. Indeed, we've seen many a times how forcing subjectivity into objective code has led to many disastrous outcomes in crypto. (Contd...)
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polynya pfp
polynya
@polynya
To be clear, Ethereum is extremely valuable in usecases where strict global consensus is required - autonomous store-of-value, "dumb" contracts like basic DeFi, objective identity registries, but it's also important to understand this so that we can focus on these usecases where it makes a difference, and not waste time where it cannot. We have wasted billions of dollars and countless person-hours on these diversions because of a poor understanding of strict global consensus.
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Sylve pfp
Sylve
@sylve
How do you picture dumb contracts interacting with the valuable subjective world? I believe zk-ifying oracles is one way to do it, i wonder if you're looking at anything else
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Ben Basche pfp
Ben Basche
@basche42
Hmmm
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Josh | The Blockchain Socialist pfp
Josh | The Blockchain Socialist
@tbsocialist
I don't understand how you can complain about the scams in crypto and say that crypto is largely only useful for defi at the same time and not see the connection?
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a1z2 đź’« pfp
a1z2 đź’«
@a1z2
Can you provide a few concrete examples of what Ethereum can’t do and people shouldn’t focus on?
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madlog↑c pfp
madlog↑c
@madlog1c.eth
are you counting L2s as part of ethereum or are your statements only true for mainnet? is there a current state vs future state debate to be had on this, or are you saying these limitations are forever and always?
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