Or they address it in a blindingly stupid way: How do we deal with records that are incorrect, incomplete, or stale? Blockchain maximalists: treat it as authoritative forever without a mechanism for correction!
The only thing you lose that way is plausible deniability. It becomes impossible to erase from history the fact that a record was incorrect at some previous point in time.
I don't care about the naivety of the proponents and detractors of crypto; but I do worry about their utter lack of imagination.
No, there's more going on there than just how to use an append-only database.
To append corrections in most cases you need a process to append that correction that's mostly implemented off chain and involves some kind of authority with the ability to override mistakes, and that directly contradicts the ideological assumptions that are baked into most blockchains and are constantly chanted by blockchain enthusiasts.
So either you have a blockchain where corrections are impossible in many necessary circumstances or you have a blockchain that doesn't bring any new valuable capabilities to the table.
> The only thing you lose that way is plausible deniability. It becomes impossible to erase from history the fact that a record was incorrect at some previous point in time.
And that doesn't solving any problem people actually have (e.g. the we don't have problems county recorder forging records to steal people's homes).
Which can itself be implemented on-chain, using atomic primitives, and become subject to the same transparency and correctness guarantees.
>some kind of authority
Which is a performance hack for cases where formal correctness is too expensive, such as paper-based bureaucracies, or impossible a priori, such as totalitarian dictatures.
>we don't have problems county recorder forging records to steal people's homes
You don't. Well, lucky you.
>any problem people actually have
What about wealth inequality?
Not that long ago, in a time when people were supposed to be Too Civilized To Be Doing That Sort Of Thing Any More, my family's property happened to be forcibly nationalized by a totalitarian invasion. Have you lived through the arduous and fraud-ridden process of restitution of nationalized property half a century afterwards, after most records were destroyed? Your people probably weren't out on the streets, starving, when the banks screwed up, either... except maybe for that 2008 thing where some jerks offloaded to some other jerks some formally incorrect financial instruments that also happened to contain 10 million people's houses in them?
I'm really glad that you like the world that you live in. It was made so nice for you because some centuries ago some people rolled in and stole a whole bleedin' continent. The rest of us are left to make do with the scraps of that and we could sure use a fairer distribution of those. Beats eating the rich, any day
> Which is a performance hack for cases where formal correctness is too expensive, such as paper-based bureaucracies, or impossible a priori, such as totalitarian dictatures.
No, it's a solution things like "I sent my money to the wrong guy" and "this transaction was technically correct but the result of fraud by one party."
>> we don't have problems county recorder forging records to steal people's homes
> You don't. Well, lucky you.
If you have a problem with that, then do share the details.
> Not that long ago ... my family's property happened to be forcibly nationalized by a totalitarian invasion. Have you lived through the arduous and fraud-ridden process of restitution of nationalized property half a century afterwards, after most records were destroyed?
Assuming your story is true, how is that much of a selling point for blockchain-all-the-things? It's pretty speculative and unlikely that a blockchain would even help at all in that scenario (e.g. the invaders are likely to care as little about a blockchain as they did the the paper records, digital records are fragile when unmaintained, the invaders may not ever be driven out, and if they are there may not be a restitution process). In the unlikely event that they do help, I'd likely only benefit distant descendants that may never have even met their wronged ancestor.
> I'm really glad that you like the world that you live in.
I never said that. What I will say is I'm pretty sure blockchains fail at being a solution to most if not all the problems they purport to solve.
These things happen. I'll tell you this much - debit card got skimmed last year on a trip to Western Europe, nobody gave me my money back either. I guess the current model of resolving them is perceived as working convincingly enough for the general public to overlook its externalities (which reach as far as police brutality, economic disempowerment, and mass media-driven global cognitive collapse, and yes, I'm blaming the entrenched financial system for that.)
>If you have a problem with that, then do share the details.
It's a matter of threat model, and of affordances. There are failed states in the world today where it is commonplace to bribe officials to commit fraud, including stealing people's homes. For those people it makes a lot of sense to keep their assets away from the state-favored banking system - at least liquid ones because that's what's technologically available to them today.
>Assuming your story is true
Even if it wasn't. (It is.)
>the invaders are likely to care as little about a blockchain as they did the the paper records, digital records are fragile when unmaintained
Geographical decentralization and distribution of responsibility among multiple independent interested parties solves that
>the invaders may not ever be driven out, and if they are there may not be a restitution process). In the unlikely event that they do help, I'd likely only benefit distant descendants that may never have even met their wronged ancestor.
That's a matter of offline consensus. Blockchain can enable oppressed communities to maintain internal organization, and increase the overall independence of their members.
>blockchains fail at being a solution to most if not all the problems they purport to solve.
That much is true, and while the dominant discourse is that of crypto bros are hyped about on gains and driving lambos on the moon, everyone will keep overlooking the capabilities of distributed consensus tech in favor of the novelty value of magic internet money, smart people who know what to do with the stuff will do other things, and the whole thing will collapse on itself. Just one self-fulfilling prophecy among so many...
You write to the blockchain that there are 2 ice cubes on your desk. The ice cubes melt and evaporate, as ice cubes do. The blockchain says there are 2 ice cubes on your desk, so that must be truth forever and ever!
FTFY
Or, in other words: you're confusing the map for the territory, therefore everyone else must also be confusing the map for the territory.