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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Josh Stark pfp
Josh Stark
@js
A few thoughts: - Hardness is not about explaining blockchains, but really about explaining the category of things to which blockchains belong. It is just true that blockchains (ethereum), institutions (the fed), and atoms (gold) can all be used to create a money, and it bothers me that we haven't had a conceptually clear story for why that is the case. What do they share that enables them to be used for the same application? - "Strict global consensus" describes something true about blockchains, but i don't think it is sufficient for the above purpose. Based on how I understand you to define the term, I think "strict global consensus" is missing a notion of "confidence in the future". A blockchain that reaches strict global consensus once cannot be a foundation for money or conditional financial relationships. We must have justified confidence that it will keep reaching strict global consensus in the future, and that the rules it uses to do so won't materially change.
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polynya pfp
polynya
@polynya
If we consider from first principles, a user sending a transaction to a blockchain is trusting that a majority of few thousand computers will come to consensus on including their transaction, alongwith an ordered list of others. There's no guarantee or "confidence in the future" that the transaction will be included, and indeed, some transactions are not, and in some cases, consensus is not achieved. But looking at the history of the specific blockchain, the user can gauge some probability of the transaction being included in the future. Once the transaction is executed, it'll be forgotten after a period of time (~18 days for L2s today, X days for L1 after expiry mechanisms from The Purge is introduced). The objective parts of "governance" or "law" - basically, accounting, are the easy bits. I would have no problems at all if you mentioned that specifically, or some of the awesome things enabled by blockchains - ETH as a SoV, stablecoins, collateralized borrowing etc. We need to be more honest and precise.
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polynya pfp
polynya
@polynya
Finally, of course I'm being extra harsh because for too long too many people have made all sorts of grandiose claims about blockchains which are completely detached from reality. Your writing is much closer to the reality, of course, which is why it's a good place for me to critique. I don't think we need any great stories, just understand the few usecases where blockchains are uniquely good, thanks to strict global consensus, and continue better understanding them and improving them. Indeed, the Ethereum whitepaper did this well a decade ago, and I'd like to see more like that.
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eric siu 🐈 pfp
eric siu 🐈
@randomishwalk
you both may actually be in agreement. seems like a difference of magnitude and confidence intervals maybe
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polynya pfp
polynya
@polynya
Sure, we're all here to see ethereum thrive! But the magnitude and confidence, as you put it, is really important. It dictates what ethereum is good for, and where it is harmful. We've had so much toxic outcomes in crypto, we must do better. To say "governance" is inaccurate, however, to say "accounting in governance" - yes!
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eric siu 🐈 pfp
eric siu 🐈
@randomishwalk
fair enough! overpromising and under delivering is no bueno
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