Franck LeroyJan 3, 2023

Exactly 14 years ago , Satoshi Nakamoto designed the most pathetic / inefficient system ever invented by humankind : the blockchain.

Today, it weights 60 000 tons, wastes constantly 10 gigawatts (more than Belgium or Chile) to process less than 7 transactions per second :

Less than a 33 bps modem from 1990.

This could be a joke if it didn't have such gigantic environmental impact, wasn't enabling billion dollars ransomware industry and was not crushing thousands of lives in the process.

Show threadKristoffer LawsonJan 3, 2023
@FranckLeroy it’s also the most immutable data store ever created. And one that isn’t controlled by anyone. I still find that fascinating.
Show threadAaron Winston SmithJan 4, 2023
@Setok @FranckLeroy BitTorrent was immutable as well
Show threadKristoffer LawsonJan 4, 2023
@aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy torrent sources can disappear, so you couldn’t, for instance, store a contract linked to a time there and be sure to be able to verify it later. And it doesn’t solve double spend.
Show threadAaron Winston SmithJan 4, 2023
@Setok torrent files disappear (?) when no one is sharing it, a blockchain is like a big torrent file where each node share the same file @FranckLeroy
Show threadKristoffer LawsonJan 4, 2023
@aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy I'm not sure if Torrent files support appending (essential to the blockchain). Double spend, as you point out, still tricky. I'd love for there to be a definitive better solution, but the Bitcoin blockchain is quite ingenuous.
Show threadAaron Winston SmithJan 4, 2023
@Setok yes I think it had become so famous just because it requires a lot of energy and hardware, and it likes to market agents. The unsolved question which can't be afforded by just signatures is that one need to know the very "last" and more recent version of the registry. However I think that in a distributed system it is just a non-sense, whithout some sort of central authority governing "time" @FranckLeroy
Show threadKristoffer Lawson
@aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy that’s the core argument really: do we just go with a central authority (as with fiat money), or do we go distributed. Personally I think there’s a beauty in the latter (hence Mastodon). Central authorities can be manipulated or have agendas, and the Internet is about decentralisation. But it’s not always easy.
Jan 4, 2023 at 12:18pmWeb
Show threadFranck LeroyJan 4, 2023

@Setok @aaronwinstonsmith

No, that's a different ideology.

Blockchain goes beyond decentralization and pretends to be "trustless" .

That's libertarian fanatism : noone can be trusted, no regulation is useful, full freddom, code is law, etc, .... Pure individualism = the rejection of any social construction other than contractual = pure market.

Fediverse on the other hand more like like anarchy : flattening / distributing the power, but still with trust on actors of good will ...

Show threadFranck LeroyJan 4, 2023
@Setok @aaronwinstonsmith ... there are still rules, control based on human moderation, ban of bad actors, etc.
Show threadKristoffer LawsonJan 4, 2023
@FranckLeroy @aaronwinstonsmith that’s a fair point. But then again can you really have a true decentralised financial system without also being trustless? I mean either you have big institutes with government trust, or you have a way to have a trustless network? If someone plays bad moderation, the worst that happens is someone gets annoyed. In a financial network you lose money…
Show threadFranck LeroyJan 4, 2023
@Setok @aaronwinstonsmith Of all the crypto projects I found, Duniter / G1 seem the only one with good values : based on web of trust and universal dividend :
https://duniter.org/
Duniter | Home

Duniter is a blockchain software powering the Ğ1 libre currency.

Show threadKristoffer LawsonJan 4, 2023
@FranckLeroy @aaronwinstonsmith will take a look, thanks
Show threadAaron Winston SmithJan 4, 2023
@Setok however please consider that cryotocurrency is a core concept for today blockchains just because transactions are very expensive and so miners need to be refunded @FranckLeroy
Show threadLisPiFeb 3

@FranckLeroy @Setok @aaronwinstonsmith > Fediverse on the other hand more like like anarchy : flattening / distributing the power, but still with trust on actors of good will ...

Only by sheer technicality that it's possible to self-host (with considerable accessibility/applicability issues).

In practice the way it forces hierarchy on most is not compatible with anarchism.

Show threadgrillchenFeb 3
@lispi314 @Setok @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy

honest question since im not well versed in anarchist theory.

but

>Only by sheer technicality that it's possible to self-host (with considerable accessibility/applicability issues).

isnt this always the case with anarchy? favoring the strong and able
Show threadLisPiFeb 3

@grillchen @Setok @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy I'm not sufficiently versed to answer that confidently.

But generally? No. Hierarchies favor abusers first and foremost.

A generally agreed upon rejection of coercion, oppression and hierarchy is actively detrimental to most such people.

How to handle personal limitations and cooperation with others without introducing informal or formal hierarchies, or other coercive power dynamics gets complicated.

The difficulties with the Fediverse and self-hosting are a direct result of its server-centric design (within a network built on statist & capitalist hierarchies and assumptions) which is itself preferred (in software systems in general) as a result of capitalist ideology and its desire for (centralized) control making that schema omnipresent and more obvious/typical to software designers. That is not to say that the designers of ActivityPub were malicious, but that they did not foresee the flaws of the system fully (and a redesign is impossible without effectively scrapping the current iteration).

:blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: :blobancap: :blobcattrans: (@[email protected])

@lispi314 Well let me put it this way, can you read the decision to build a "computing utility" as anything but political? General Electric alongside Bell Labs and MIT had a vested interest in tra...

Show threadgrillchenFeb 3
@lispi314 @Setok @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy mhh im very much in favor of smol instances, like less than 10 people. but hierarchies can also mean inclusion and social security. if the responsiblity at the top is taken seriously. like admins or a goverment which actually cares about their people, poor or healthy or young or old.

that said afaik p's idea of revolver was an alternative fediverse without servers, every account being an instance. no idea whats the current state of the project though
Show threadLisPiFeb 3

@grillchen @Setok @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy For a schema that isn't rooted in infrastructural privilege, something like a Secure ScuttleButt (I think it's message-based? It should be) would be a start (with an implementation not built in the nightmarish JavaScript ecosystem or something similarly nonsensical and dependent on omnipresent low-latency networking).

Obviously it wasn't designed for the kind of trust & task deference (moderation, etc) you mention, but it still provides a viable starting point for what an appropriate option might look like.

(A reified opt-in proxy/mailman/gateway role or suchlike could exist, for example.)

Show threadKristoffer LawsonFeb 3
@grillchen @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy @lispi314 probably worth taking a look at Nostr for a distributed non-instance based system.
Show threadLisPiFeb 3
@Setok @grillchen @aaronwinstonsmith @FranckLeroy Nostr wasn't properly distributed last time I looked at it.

The relay list was fixed at post creation, making the post's continued existence dependent on servers rather than being intrinsic.

This would be mitigated by the gossip feature relays were supposed to eventually implement. I haven't looked back at it since.