Bullcrap.

Why? Any written contract can be reviewed and understood by a person. These contracts can be enforced by the use of the existing institutions.

Where as something something tokens offering:

- Contracts are written in an esotheric programming language that pretends to reflect a real-world contract

- These contracts are unenforceable

- And they still depend on some entity somewhere to enter correct info into the system.

All that can be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech.

I think this sort of gets at something that makes me uneasy about the "there are no use cases" criticism. People seem to want to see use cases tackled that were impossible before this technology came onto the scene. But that doesn't seem like the right standard to me. We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech" with respect to faxing vs. emailing, and yet email is still better.

I don't know if this ILO thing is useful at all, but it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful. If you could have eliminated those same inefficiencies using a database and a normal company running services on top of it, that's interesting, and the question is whether there is some competitive advantage to implementing it this way instead of that way.

Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be, but it is not obvious enough that there is an advantage to make me certain. But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take.

All use cases are going to be in the form "you can do X, but now in a decentralized way" because at the end of the day, it's just code running in a virtual machine while some startup could've run similar code on a machine in AWS. Many people do not see any value in decentralization and think traditional (centralized) solutions are fine or better (I'm not saying they are right or wrong). But this is why critics will never see any use cases as valid, because they fundamentally disagree that the thing blockchains do (decentralized coordination) is valuable.

> But this is why critics will never see any use cases as valid, because they fundamentally disagree that the thing blockchains do (decentralized coordination) is valuable.

No. We don't "fundamentally disagree". We're looking at proposed "solutions" and immediately see the vast disconnect between what they claim to do/solve/improve and what they actually do/solve/improve.

Any questions and criticism of these claims and solutions is immediately dismissed because these are unquestionable magical solutions beyond any reproach.

And proponents of these things can't even show how and why they are better beyond "because crypto", "because decentralised", "because blockchain", as if this explains things and makes thing automatically better. No, they don't.

> Any questions and criticism of these claims and solutions is immediately dismissed because these are unquestionable magical solutions beyond any reproach.

Do you have an example of this happening in this thread? Because I don't think this is the case on HN generally.

> And proponents of these things can't even show how and why they are better beyond [...] "because decentralised" [...] as if this explains things and makes thing automatically better. No, they don't.

You seem to be agreeing with my point about how the value of a decentralized solution is a fundamental disagreement.

> Do you have an example of this happening in this thread?

This thread doesn't say this outright, but these basically says the same thing:

- "We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said..."

- "I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take."

> You seem to be agreeing with my point about how the value of a decentralized solution is a fundamental disagreement.

No, I don't agree. Your original quote is:

"But this is why critics will never see any use cases as valid, because they fundamentally disagree that the thing blockchains do (decentralized coordination) is valuable."

Critics do not disagree that decentralized coordination is valuable. Decentralized coordination is an interesting and complex topic.

We will never see any use cases as valid because none of the provided use cases are valid because of either or both of these:

- a staggering amount of issues introduced by using blockchains. Because the people proposing blockchains have little to no understanding of what the real world needs

- solutions already exist that provide the same thing faster, better, and with significantly more guarantees than any blockchain solution. First and foremost because none of the moving parts in the solution actually have a need for a blockchain

All this has nothing to do with the "value of distributed coordination". Blockchain is a distributed append-only ledger. Give me a use-case for that, and I, as a critic, will say: yup, a valid use case. If you're saying "yes, litigation funding needs blockchain because crypto and decentralized", I will come at you with criticism, and will ask you to prove that bringing blockchain into the equation actually improves things or solves any significant number of issues.

What solution already existed for transferring money across distance without a trusted 3rd party?

If we go down this line of arguing we will end up with one or more of

- It's actually a good thing for a central bank to control the money supply

- We should be able to censor/reverse certain transactions

- Ordinary people don't actually care about those things

proving my point that if you don't value decentralization then you will think that existing solutions that don't have it are better.

> What solution already existed for transferring money across distance without a trusted 3rd party?

This is a solution in search of a problem.

> If we go down this line of arguing we will end up with one or more of

Yes. Yes we do. And for a good reason. And no, not just those, though I see why you would only chose those.

And yes, "ordinary people" do care about these things when it comes to reverting transactions, enforcing contracts, guaranteeing safety of funds etc. etc.

> proving my point that if you don't value decentralization

When you select your own questions that you assign to your opponent, it's so easy to win an argument, doesn't it?

For example, you and sanderjd completely skipped the three bullet points I provided as criticism. And it's no wonder you did. Because all you, and other crypto-peddlers, can talk about is "BIG BAD GOVERNMENT CONTROLS AND CENSORS THE MONEY", and have literally nothing to offer in terms of actual concrete arguments for the "solutions" you peddle.

Blockchains in their current form are 13 years this year. And these are still the only talking points you have.

I will not engage in this thread anymore, so don't bother to reply.

> And these are still the only talking points you have.

Dude, I'm not even trying to argue in favor of crypto in this thread. My point was critics will never be satisfied by proponents' arguments because they don't value the one thing blockchains do, which is arrest control from central parties. And here you are, saying it's a solution in search of a problem (i.e. it adds no value) and making arguments like

> reverting transactions, enforcing contracts, guaranteeing safety of funds etc. etc.

which is exactly what I said you would come back with. Because when you don't value decentralization, the lack of centralized control looks like nothing but downsides. Thank you for proving my point.

> don't bother to reply.

It's no bother :^)

So, your example of people saying the technology is "beyond reproach" is me saying "I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance"? Your proportions seem off.

> Your proportions seem off.

Do they?

Let's see how you and @jallen_dot_dev engaged with the criticisms I had in the form of a short list:

- "knee-jerk reaction"

- "it's like email vs. fax"

- "you disagree that distributed coordination is valuable"

Nope, my proportions are definitely not off. Even in the context of "litigation funding" any criticism is dismissed because blockchain. Even though it's on crypto-peddlers to prove that their "solutions" improve anything, not on the rest of the world to point out obvious flaws and problems.

But, no. If it's blockchain, it's immediately good, and perfect, and improves things. If you do't agree, it's a knee-jerk reaction of a person embracing fax against the glorious new email. Because anything blockchain is always revolutionary in all "it's just a metaphors".

I will not engage in this thread further.

Yes, your proportions are off, you're responding to uncertainty with absolutism. Neither of the people you have been discussing with in this thread are making an argument that blockchains are "immediately good". You are getting heated in a way that is out of step with the tenor of the responses to you. I would suggest considering whether your arguments would be more persuasive if they were presented more dispassionately.

> Any questions and criticism of these claims and solutions is immediately dismissed because these are unquestionable magical solutions beyond any reproach.

Whatever else is true about cryptocurrencies / blockchains, "beyond reproach" is not one of those things; I can't think of much in technology that I've seen come in for so much reproach. Which is fine, I agree with you that nothing should be beyond reproach, but it just isn't true that there is no healthy full throated pushback on these technologies.

> We had fax machines before we had email. You could have said that sending digital communications to one another could "be done and is being done by hundreds of companies without the use of bullshit tech"

No. No, I couldn't. The value of email was immediately evident and apparent. One of the major reasons fax survived for as long as it had is the lack of good/accepted digital signatures.

> and yet email is still better.

You said it yourself: email is better.

Is "run-esotheric-programming-language-on-worlds-most-innefecient-computer" better? While keeping literally every other part of the process either the same (litigation, proceding, money etc. are handled through the same old channels) or worse (everyone has to get onto this particular coin)

> it doesn't have to be brand new to be useful. If it eliminates some inefficiencies in some part of the process, that's useful.

Does it? Where's the proof it does? And "by eliminating some inefficiencies, how many new inefficiencies does it introduce"?

> Enough people think there is an advantage in implementing these things that require coordination using public blockchains to make me think there might be

No. Enough people are enamoured with the idea of getting rich quick that we are witnessing a never ending (for now) rat race to develop with and come up with justifications for the tech.

> But I don't think knee jerk dismissal is the right stance to take.

I literally provided reasons why this is bullshit. There's nothing knee-jerk about my reaction.

However, crypto-peddlers have the same knee-jerk reaction to any criticism: "crypto will magically solve all the issues because crypto" and "crypto is the next email/world-wide-web/fairy-pixel-dust/cure-for-cancer, you just have to believe it".

This really seems like an overreaction to what I said.

The email thing is a metaphor. The point it attempts to make is not about obviousness of superiority of a technology, but that not all new technologies are novel. Sometimes they do an existing thing in a different way.

I do think it is inaccurate to say that everyone interested in the space is just in it as a get rich quick scheme. There is a very unfortunate and distracting amount of hype and speculation, but lots of people are just trying to build stuff they (correctly or incorrectly) believe will be useful, just like I've seen people do during the mobile boom and the web boom before that.

I share your skepticism, but not your certainty.