Blockchains Are a Bad Idea (James Mickens)

From the Digital Initiative's Future Assembly on April 6, 2018, James Mickens (Harvard SEAS) presents "Blockchains Are a Bad Idea: More Specifically, Blockchains Are a Very Bad Idea."
For more information about the Digital Initiative, check out: digital.hbs.edu

[@jacobrachiele4991]

"Much like everything in life, her dream becomes a nightmare". I laughed, then laughed even harder that no one in the audience laughed.

[@cselph]

This video was way ahead of its time

[@KilgoreTroutAsf]

As a rule of thumb, it is a good idea to know more than just one technology topic or programming technique. No, you can't run the firmware of your garage door on the blockchain, Jerry.

[@NoahSpurrier]

Finally, someone with a little perspective.

[@andrewjalen8727]

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[@camilobowie3991]

@Andrew Jalen instablaster ;)

[@andrewjalen8727]

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[@andrewjalen8727]

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[@camilobowie3991]

@Andrew Jalen happy to help :D

[@rarindam]

Exactly my thoughts.....go and tell the people not to trust the govt, the banks, the courts, etc.....tell them to trust unknown entities with blockchain based records...

[@RadiofreeukOrg]

You trust the government, banks and courts? That's funny because they are the ones using tech that the author slags off as untrustworthy in another of his videos. kzbin.info/www/bejne/l5uqiWqlmaZrbc0 Its best if you aren't obliged to trust anyone. Distributed blockchain is the fist step into new models that allow this. There is no point in just swapping a single use app's data layer from SQL to blockchain... the models are different. Existing apps/architectures are about to become redundant.

[@anandchowdhury9262]

its not a single unknown entity that you are trusting, its a consensus of millions of entities, the degree of trust is actually higher..the whole concept of decentralisation is based on this.

[@hangguy209]

Yep. The Banks at least compensate fraudulent transactions. Blockchains and miners don't. Good luck disputing a transaction you didn't make with crypto!

[@lottery248]

to really make people think blockchain isn't a better choice, first you need a government which is not corrupted.

[@normanpsycho9627]

​@@lottery248i know this is a year old, but to answer to your question, yes the state or banks aren't trustworthy, but how are blockchains any better, the main concept is complicating a process without making it better, the idea of descentralized banks isn't a good idea, cause like others mention, you can legally sue for compensation, and unless your country is in crisis, you will most likely receive a settlement, while the cryptocurrency and other types of coin that aren't attached to the market don't have regulations, it makes it no more different than pure capitalism, which genuinelly leads to market crash and just an unsafe option

[@reddragdiva]

nice one! Isn't that last slide more or less describing an elaboration on git, though?

[@EthanTrewhitt]

Agreed. Now we need to come up with a marketing word for what Git is so that every company wants to do everything with it. Git is a directed acyclic graph with hash pointers. HashDAG! If you're not using HashDAG to store your medical records, what kind of voodoo doctor are you?!

[@reddragdiva]

I've long recommended this to companies: SUIT: "We need to blockchain our blockchains, *immediately!*" DEV: "We've been using, uh, *blockchain-related technologies* a lot already!" (i.e. they keep their code in git)

[@christophermcclellan8730]

The only thing that separates git from a blockchain is git DAGs are mutable. Remove history rewriting from git & force every commit to be cryptographically signed and BAM you’ve got a blockchain.

[@SuperSmashDolls]

@@christophermcclellan8730 Git already allows commit signing. Furthermore, commit IDs are hashes, so just knowing a single commit ID is enough to give you immutable history. When you change history in Git, it changes the commit ID, which is why when you push your modified history people still have to merge in the original version of the history back or explicitly modify their repo in the same way.

[@usun_current5786]

@@SuperSmashDolls it's still possible to change git server configs to allow permanent deletion of old commit with a given hash from history, I did it myself when accidentally pushed private data into sourceforge some time ago.

[@dharminderrana835]

good project and good enplane regarding project

[@4ltd3l]

A respected Ph.D. with decades of industry experience is apparently wrong because he makes bitcoin fanboys mad. Lol keep HODLing that BTC you bought at 17K.

[@tombo3689]

of course we hodl. Like all the crashes before. See us again at 50k USD. bye

[@SteveMayne]

It seems to me that most people in the comments hear "Blockchain" and can immediately only think of cryptocurrency. James Mickens isn't really talking about Bitcoin / Ethereum / whatever, he's talking about companies unnecessarily re-implementing their own databases with blockchain.

[@tombo3689]

IBM hyperledger, Amazon AWS, SAP Leonardo..etc..etc... they all have to be idiots to go full blockchsin tech. Lol.

[@lutherschultz4725]

Tom Bo None of those companies actually use blockchain themselves, they only offer "blockchain" as a service for their customers due to the hype. The day those companies actually start using blockchain to power their own data is the day blockchains actually become useful.

[@tombo3689]

No. This private-centralized blockchains will have no future because they doesnt solve the trust issue. The future belongs to open networks. And blockchain tech is already useful - ask people in Venezuela, Greece, Italy, Argentina, Turkey etc.. Where Fiat money is nothing worth anymore and people understand that the whole money system is rigged and banks are able to take your money away within 1 day - all these people go in crypto. No government and no bank can take your crypto money away from you. A pretty useful tech, isnt it?

[@Badspot]

But what about the real killer apps - buying drugs and ransom ware?

[@neilog747]

The killer app is already here.

[@darkreaper300]

YT stuff but ransomware and no refunds if someone steals from my wallet. cryptocurrencies are and always were a bad idea.

[@matisscukurs5535]

@@darkreaper300 Step back and see the bigger picture. There's more than just your wallet.

[@darkreaper300]

@@matisscukurs5535 ok u missed my point compeletly buddy. the point is any wallet can be stolen that contains bitcoin actually bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been stolen before.

[@Mat-vb8er]

@@darkreaper300 My apologies. Just to let you know. Cryptocurrencies is built on top of blockchain technology. It all depends on the application that is built on top. The security of it and data flow before data is added to blockchain or world state. I would say that most likely it was a user error and private key got compromised. You also have to understand that the area of cryptocurrencies is relatively new so for it to advance it needs time, also applications running it need more time to make them more secure. I am just trying to say that you shouldn't deny a new technology as everything you use today once was a new technology.

[@Filipe8019]

The title alone made me laugh.

[@philipearakaki]

Well, you should stop laughing and start paying attention to the lecture than.

[@marcietownsend3635]

I like you, James Mickens. I might become your groupie but nothing that requires a restraining order.

[@EnergeticWaves]

I agree

[@JorgeStolfi]

What is the difference between his solution and the mirrored databases that banks have been using for decades?

[@ChrisShabsin]

That's where I thought he was leading with that myself.

[@ZetalZ]

A mirrored database can only demonstrate non-repudiation as long as you can demonstrate that an adversary was unable to modify data on all nodes. Signature chains on ledger data is tamper evident regardless of who has access to the database since signature invalidation would occur if anything is changed. It's easier to protect most private keys than it is to protect access to databases and assure their integrity (you can better assure your system administrator isn't playing games).

[@JorgeStolfi]

(1) Mirrored databases can use crypto hashes as Merkle links to check integrity (see gitHub). (2) even with Merkle links, any tail segment of a permissioned blockchain can be rebuilt from scratch at little cost, after tampering past records. The permission-granting entity can force all members to do so.

[@ZetalZ]

I just forgot to highlight the importance of ledger transparency. The combination of multiple key holders and a transparent ledger reduces the success of an undetected modification. It's also the reason why performing a force push after modification of the history of a git repo takes coordination from other users. It becomes apparent something broke between your copy and origin. Of course, this does nothing to protect someone from rolling back their additions at the end of a tail if they have the access. What can you do about that? Ensure that an x number of separate peers signs each block with their private keys along with a count of how many signatures they have performed on the chain. Then you have the option of requiring x number of people to act in bad faith to make modifications. Now you have built in witnesses.

[@JorgeStolfi]

Maybe I am missing some detail. But if the peers are authorized by a central entity, that entity both can force them to rebuild the chain, and is the provider of the "official" chain tip that all users will trust. An external witness could save the old version of the chain, but how can it prove to others that it is the "legitimate" version of the chain, and that the one served by the central entity has been tampered with?

[@samarmarketing1310]

Nice video

[@TadhgRiordan]

He's saying that the ridiculous applications that have come about in the last while are ill suited, not that bitcoin is not a good fit for its purpose (censorship resistent store of value/payment system). I thought it was pretty easy to see that, the comment section says otherwise.

[@Zonno5]

A currency is a terrible fit for a blockchain except when buying drugs and paying ransom.

[@TadhgRiordan]

@@Zonno5 "blockchain" is only 1 part of a bigger picture. Projects that isolate it are scams, or misguided at best.

[@yeerkals]

Bitcoin and all crypto have proven not to be useful as an actual payment system. Cryptos are investments and for the next few decades thats all they will be

[@Kai-tn4yx]

@@yeerkals Non-productive investments, is important to add.

[@jbexta]

Are those laughs sound effects?

[@mwseqcom]

No those are real laughs ... I was in attendance. I like James even though he's wrong a Hell in this video about blockchain

[@Kate-dc6gl]

How many blocks does one blockchain has. I did one transaction and am receiving more than 30 blocks to verify transaction. since 3 days ago i still have not gotten my withdrawal payment . Any ideas guys plz help !

[@trycryptos1243]

Liked the presentation and how you have questioned the blockchain hegemony that it claims or the mass hysteria that its apostles are constantly trying to maintain.

[@blenderpanzi]

I mean, git is kind of a block chain with no mining and no smart contracts. At least when using commit signing.

[@KamaleshwarMorjal]

I also somehow thought of it that way, but git does require that users treat one upstream repo as a source of truth. I believe blockchains do not have that requirement? also, it's way too easy to mess up history in git upstream given you have all permissions.

[@blenderpanzi]

@@KamaleshwarMorjal Well, you don't have to treat a certain repo as the truth. The value is the code, so a git repo has actual value. Forks are not a problem with git (they are for crypto currencies). In git you can easily merge a fork. And choosing one fork over the other is not an economic problem, it's just a choice. I think why git actually works and doesn't need proof of work is because the code (and organizing the code) has actual value. Cryptocurrencies don't have real value, they just have whatever value people imagine they have, hence the high fluctuations. Even tulips had more real value.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@KamaleshwarMorjal git is decentralised, so no.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@blenderpanzi speculation is exactly the kind of volatility we needed in more industries /s

[@viinisaari]

@@blenderpanzi you can easily merge a fork if all involved parties agree.

[@Kgotso_Koete]

I am far from smart enough to understand any of these topics, but somehow James got me laughing.

[@startcrypto6216]

Can't see the wood from the tree.

[@E_Clip]

Not to mention, they are designed to be very inefficient, adding a new asic or a gpu/cpu to the network increases the difficulty but it doesn't reduce the time to create a new block. So much computing power and electricity is pumped into the network when a single cpu from 2 decades ago can do the job. rEvoLuTiOnArY tEcHnoLoGy

[@stevejobs5919]

thanks for this. I dont believe in absolutes so can you suggest a scenario where Blockchains are a good idea aside from drug trafficking :D

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

melting your gpu and acceleration of global warming

[@EngRawaz]

Chris Rock in another parallel universe.

[@dragon9372]

Lol bro all I can picture is Marty the zebra

[@jimcuddy7407]

he's got one point is that bitcoin has been centralized by miners like oligarchy that's why there are other crypto that might replace coffee shop payment

[@davidsparks1181]

That statement makes no sense

[@shaneskull820]

Put your faith in the legal system, US gov, and corporations like Visa .... ummm no thanks. I'll take a slower automated version of existing systems that eliminate the middle man any day. Blockchain tech will improve at a much faster rate than the government or Visa.

[@philipearakaki]

They have no legitimacy, nobody gives a shit about the information that's in the blockchain because there's no guarantee of autenticity of that information to begin with, you can put anything on the block chain and there's no way to verify its autenticity, hence, we need centalized systems for decision making.

[@juniorcoder6988]

@@philipearakaki you are on all of the replies, I think u are hater 😁

[@--Nath--]

So how's this comment looking 4 years on?

[@tinashekadiki3978]

I suggest the Professor should take a look at the hyperledger project esp. the hyperledger fabric projects it counters most of the problems that he is mentioning.

[@OliverSalzburg]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but Hyperledger is being discussed in this talk

[@fallinginthed33p]

@@OliverSalzburg Hyperledger is toast. IBM downsized most of its blockchain division recently, so even enterprise blockchain solutions don't really work.

[@--Nath--]

I suggest anyone looking at hyperledger look at a database instead and give the money, time and effort saved as a bonus.

[@80amnesia]

not everyone in the crypto space said that blockchain should be used in every application, nice effort but still... thumbs down

[@wuliwong]

Agreed. This talk was some serious hyperbole.

[@jjk2639]

His idea of a 'better blockchain' is not new, is it. Tendermint(started 2015 or earlier), just as an example, does pretty much that. And eliminating 'smart contracts' from that proposal is not a genius idea, because blockchain in it's simplest form does not even contain them..

[@darkreaper300]

blockchains aren't new either they were invented for private servers long ago and now their open to the public. blockchains are just a horrible idea for most things if not anything.

[@jjk2639]

@@darkreaper300 Fair, it does have some use cases though - the hype just lead people to use it where they definitly shouldn't, which led to so many people shaking their heads at it

[@hiltonhowell3098]

IBC is the future

[@Dee-bg5qy]

This is a good video, though I would suggest changing the title to "Why Proof Of Work is a bad idea". This isnt a blockchain issue as a whole, but rather a POW problem which both Bitcoin and Ethereum use to produce their blocks. Delegated Proof Of Stake blockchains like EOS addresses and solves many of the problems in this video and another DPOS blockchain, Worbli addresses pretty much all of these problems.

[@C..404]

Your POW logic sits upon POS logic of

[@Dee-bg5qy]

@@C..404 "3 years later" in my spongebob voice. 😂👍🏾😉

[@cyan_2169]

Proof of stake and delegated POS is incredibly susceptible to rich bad actors taking over and scamming users of any given POS coin. The smaller the market cap of a POS coin, the more susceptible it is.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

you're still setting the world on fire for funsies. spare us the crypto propaganda please

[@facepalmjesus1608]

The ''anonimity problem'' will be solved when all these new techs will be mass adopted. Remember the cell phone anonimity at 90's? Remember the internet anonimity at 2000's? anonimity problem solved

[@kevinsingh811]

_anonymity_ ,even

[@RRM1000]

You should rename this to "Blockchains are a bad idea in most cases". Your lecture constantly used the terms "most" and "almost all". In most cases, almost all cases, blockchains are a bad idea. But in some very important cases, blockchains will provide a much more transparent and fair way to transfer value. Click bait

[@philipearakaki]

A technology usefulness is not defined by it's exceptions, if something is situationally useful just because some ideological mumbo jumbo, might as well call it pointless.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

okay, name one case it's useful.

[@RRM1000]

@@user-lb1ib8rz4h Giving ownership to content creators. Bypassing greedy middlemen, such as KZbin, who take an unfair cut of content creators earnings. Honestly, if you still believe blockchain is useless then there is no hope for you.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@RRM1000 lmao imagine spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to earn a few pennies. enjoy your speculative "currency"

[@earnthis1]

Blockchain = bad solution for a tiny problem.

[@Leo-uy4qv]

This guy miss understood the big picture Each participant, partially broadcast part of the block from the Merkel tree , that's all that needs to be broadcast , validation as POW , proof of work Trust between piers is non existant(2 people exchanging ), identity it's not needed , trust is employ in the blockchain techonoly model to resolve transaction = encryption + inmutability + validation

[@philipearakaki]

You said absolutely nothing, he specifically addressed the point that yes, actually, identity is needed because every information in the database should be able to be traced back to a real work transaction, if you are unable to do that then your technology is moronic by definition. If nobody has trust, than everybody has trust, trust is an exclusive relation, not an inclusive one.

[@earnthis1]

blockchain = solutions for already solved problems, but making simple problems even worse.

[@carlinmadridynadamas]

I was so ready to become convinced but... essentially, he said crypto is architected in a way that's really weird if you are used to a world with strong central authorities (legal systems, financial systems, central IT processors). So, we don't need crypto because we have trustworthy central authorities. And / but, he missed features of crypto that are also important (e.g., developers can solve the bootstrap problem by raising money to build new technology). The deeper question is how you create trust in any system. One answer is government / law, which works well in countries with trustworthy central authorities. Another is private central authorities that may be more trustworthy for certain things: GitHub, Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook. And yet IF you can create trust within computational networks that facilitate payments, information exchange, etc., then that is a massive advantage in a world where even ostensibly well-meaning central authorities can be hacked (Experian) or manipulated (Facebook). The application layer is undeveloped today, but my hypothesis is that we can't imagine the apps that will come out of the crypto ecosystem yet, just like we couldn't imagine Amazon when HTTP first came along (or at least we couldn't imagine the "creative destruction" it would unleash over time). So, I suspect this video may become embarrassing to the author down the road, compelling at it may seem today, but he makes helpful points and he is good to put a strong set of hypotheses on the table. It reminds me of a newspaper owner or a taxi medallion owner saying earlier that new technology is unnecessary given the scale, regulation, and ubiquity of current solutions. Then, Google and Uber pretty much obliterated the value of a newspaper press or a taxi medallion. Time will tell.

[@ZetalZ]

You must be trying to say something other than what you typed. By "crypto," I can only assume you meant "cryptocurrency" not "cryptography" as it normally means. If you meant currency, then I still side with him. Most applications don't need mining or busy work because trust is established in the real world. In fact, that busy work equates to wasted money in the form of resources and time. If you meant cryptography, then I have no clue where you thought he said removing cryptography was the key. Using proven, efficient hashing and encryption (aka signing) algorithms (all asymmetric cryptography) is still a major staple of trust especially when combined with a third-party and identity. I hope that's not you meant because it either shows you commented without watching the whole lecture or you're really missing something. Step back a little, and you'll notice that the trust issues that can't be simply solved with real-world consequences really fall down to quorums. Someone who performs half of all transactions essentially takes over in cryptocurrency. It's the same for things like clustering or Web of Trust: Things that have faced issues similar issues. It's not magically solved with busy work. When it comes down to it, you don't need busy work for a ledger. In fact, you don't even need to have decentralization for a ledger but it doesn't take much to add that without busy work as he notes. Lastly, you don't need incentives for most business needs to perform ledger work. So even if you meant currency, I'm not going to need to hand out currency to participants when they're all my servers, my known peers in an industry, or even random people wanting to leverage my service that requires ledger participation. Well maintained torrent trackers show that point.

[@HazeAnderson]

"So, we don't need crypto because we have trustworthy central authorities." And he probably works for them! 😂 They are running scared!

[@carlm7094]

@@ZetalZ I'm so tired of people saying crypto is a waste of electricity. How much of our are used to print money, transport money in armor cars, and protect it steel concrete banks?

[@ZetalZ]

@@carlm7094 You're missing my point and the point of the lecture. Bruteforcing (mining) was designed into cryptocurrency to create a solution to lack of trust of random participants. In a business environment, mining becomes unnecessary since you can establish trust using cryptography as originally intended (for integrity and identity). In that context, you're solving a problem in the least efficient way that also happens to cost way more money.

[@carlinmadridynadamas]

Yet there are all sorts of applications where no one will trust a business in general, but they could be convinced to trust a network if their data were secure. For example, I'd like to control my medical data and genome but have that data available to researchers and doctors to help me or society (and pay me if my data has value). I wouldn't want to just hand it over to Facebook/Amazon/Google/Experion/Etc. (both because they WILL be hacked and because of fairness re remuneration). So, I think what you may be ignoring is the plethora of applications (many of which we can't yet imagine) that could emerge if "trust" were as easy to access as storage and compute.

[@RippDrive]

Is this what passed for intellectual honesty in 2018? You really gave that straw-person heck though

[@jeffhampton7405]

It’s been 4 years and we’re no closer to finding an actual use case for blockchain. It’s just a maximally inefficient database that’s useless against the kinds of fraud that are pervasive and makes losses irretrievable.

[@RippDrive]

@@jeffhampton7405 I can understand how someone would think that if they weren't well familiar with the disaster that is the current monetary system.

[@jeffhampton7405]

@@RippDrive lol

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@RippDrive just because something is bad doesn't mean every solution is better. lmaooo. crypto is a failed solution and we're just watching it fail.

[@RippDrive]

@@user-lb1ib8rz4h failing up and to the right for 13 years so far.

[@loggovoitto5088]

Like everything else, nothing is perfect in this world including blockchain but imho relying on blockchain maybe better option than relying on Amazon staff who stays up late on night, cos though server can shutdown or go down, human has more tendency to make an error due to fatique, emotional issue, distraction and other things. The main reason you said, that blockchain blurs the id and you cant sue certain person because of it, i.ho that is the exact reason I want to use blockchain, i am not sure if you have experienced direct injustice system, where evidences can be fabricated, truth is a fact which belongs to the thicker wallet, and people can be sued based on someone's mood that day. So i guess we have different ideas on benefit of blockchain depends on our life experience. So for many, your opinion that blockchain is bad for some, but for others the very reasons you give are the reasons blockchain are good for us. 😊🙏

[@Ganesh-bv9og]

his arguements are like give out your data and privacy to big tech giants like GOOGLE and etc because you are just too afraid to check out real internet (TOR :p). how about you go and check out escrow transactions and related resources to secure your ecommerce on blockchain.

[@tombo3689]

Hmm... all the tech didnt solve corruption, manipulation and data surveillance. It didnt solve centralized monopol powerstructures, too. In fact, our tech and Internet created all this problems even more. Now its really time to do things much smarter and better in future: Time for blockchain.

[@dcfunhouse]

Time for ELASTOS

[@tombo3689]

DC Funhouse No ELA OS please. . We dont need another surveillance tool.

[@dcfunhouse]

but we do need a decentralized P2P carrier with DApps that do not connect directly to the internet but instead operate in a secure 'run time' environment, that prevents ddos and malware issues via DID verification on the blockchain.

[@tombo3689]

I like the internet how it is - since years. Never had a virus or maleware. I am using Kaspersky (paid). And i can stay annonymous if i want (VPN,Tor) and i am able to get a lot of free stuff on the Internet. With Ela all this is not possible anymore. Do you like to be monitored all the time and do you want to pay for most of the stuff that is free today in the future? The beginning of tyranny is to give away freedom for more security.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@tombo3689 "lmao tech is terrible so the answer is to just tech harder" oh boy, your comments aged like fine milk.

[@cryptoguy3196]

And that's how it was when money was initially started.

[@LowKickMT]

no it was not. you have no idea about the history of money

[@papahlamidas]

What he doesn't say is that in order to be able to sue or go to in front of a Jury you have first to live somewhere where these thing are working and there are not rigged. Wtf is wrong with the Americans who want to sue everybody...?

[@hiltonhowell3098]

This didn't age well

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

this aged really well. rip blockchain

[@hiltonhowell3098]

@@user-lb1ib8rz4h no

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@hiltonhowell3098 yes ;)

[@tera6245]

wow..is that the best a Harvard Professor can do?..

[@benedictpolycarp]

am shocked by his perspectives too..

[@elliotu9268]

College is a joke in a lot of areas. Self education is the best education.

[@philipearakaki]

Well, what can you do? What's your rebutal to his points? Remember, no derranged idological discourse, only technical rebutals!

[@lulielawry]

blockchain does feed. teach.empower AI. that much is true. What will AI do with all this info> date> CONTROL???

[@HazeAnderson]

"What if I told you that Blockchains are a poor fit for most applications?" Well that's the point ... your apps are doomed. Game changer coming.

[@dorcohen3522]

How is it a game changer? Please elaborate and provide one use case which is a good fit for Ethereum chain that can't be handled by a distributed database which consensus protocol

[@elliotu9268]

@@dorcohen3522 Perhaps all the power gets shifted back into the individuals and not centralized companies that censor and cancel people for a start?

[@philipearakaki]

@@elliotu9268 This is just retarded. If you don't like a product, you are free to not use it, no power is being "shifted back to individuals" because by definition lone individuals have no power in a society, all societal power is based on influence, a bunch of retarded loners playing Jhon Galt with a subpar database is far from being "a game changer"

[@elliotu9268]

Instead of individuals, people is a better word. Go use and stake crypto before bashing it. Many fast cheap networks out there like avalanche or Fantom

[@gianni50725]

@@elliotu9268 Cool, but explain why blockchain is necessary for this. You can't. P2P used to be the name of the game in the 90s. Servers cropped up because they were far faster and scalable, and most people beyond computer nerds did not want to run their own server. Blockchain will end up the same way, and in some ways you can already see soft centralization happening. Using technology to "decentralize" things is like using lighter fluid to stop a fire.

[@sandile84]

Yeah! This guy must stick to using Amazon, and other centralized authorities for social and economic interactions. Crypto is not perfect, but a step in the right direction. Just because he has a PhD doesn't mean we should agree with him 100%. There's widespread inequality and poverty in the world, but PhD'd academics such as him haven't solved these problems.

[@bradwalker7025]

James worked in industry (Microsoft Research) before he became a professor. He really knows his shit.

[@dragon9372]

You make a good point Sir.

[@philipearakaki]

Why should PHDs solve those issues? That's not the point of academics, those issues were supposedly to be solved by Markets in liberal democracies. Sorry but DeFi is a retarded dream, any person that knows a little bit of economics knows that the whole point of having a state is to legitimize financial transactions, you can't descentralize finances, by definition. Throw away state and capitalism and you will see those issues magically disappear.

[@EnergeticWaves]

where you have dumb people you have poverty. 100%

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

"crypto miners solve wealth inequality" sure lmao lmk when that happens. oh wait, only rich corps can mine crypto in the first place, so the rich get richer...

[@camilojazzfernandes]

hahaha ... as i watch this (after consuming some C2H6O)_ i get a subtle, squirmy hint ... and it was "subtle" ... (and after watching some s#it comedy) ... and the canned laughter there appears to give it away ... hahaha (no that 'hahaha' isn't canned ... it's my natural hahaha)

[@DavidArulnathan]

I wonder...is this dude better than S.Nakamoto who invented BTC???....some can only talk!!....but cannot Build!

[@philipearakaki]

If you are a programmer and doesn't know who this guy is than you are terribly uninformed, this guy acomplished much more in CompSci than a hack scammer with a subpar database.

[@saurabhiim]

Dude, your the basic definition of blockchain is incorrect, it's secure distributed storage which is tamper proof. Brush up your fundas again.

[@RadiofreeukOrg]

The pyramids were built without the blockchain, so the blockchain isn't needed? Bro, they were built with out 99% of the tools we use for conduction today... is everything created since the pyramids redundant in your mind? I think your real objection is that a lot of security stuff is redundant with blockchain... it makes a block of your knowledge/skill/experience redundant, and you feel threatened. Block chain and smart contracts commoditises huge parts of applications, networking and programming -- and destroys the concept of IP.

[@sophiainjoy8942]

What?! IBM Hyperledger is non-mining which is good?! WTF?!!! Who do you work for? That’s not a blockchain.

[@jeremytheonlyone]

James, your speaking corner is not a good idea either.

[@nilodossantosorlandi6751]

This aged poorly 🤣

[@philipearakaki]

Not really, tell me one real application for blockchains that it's not retardedly uneffective and actually practical.

[@EnergeticWaves]

crypto is a joke as a money.

[@ajplumlee6759]

Well this lecture aged poorly :)

[@GordonAitchJay]

How so?

[@Astohoriian]

@@GordonAitchJay Yeah, how so? Aged like wine in my book

[@devilorchard]

blockchain is 12yr old. no real adoptation

[@yeerkals]

How? Its still not used as a currency

[@SimonBuchanNz]

Not used as a currency outside of speculation and black markets, not used for any other project I'm aware of. The fad of blockchain hype has passed, possibly excluding the NFT scam that is just more faked speculation (haven't checked if that's technically blockchain) Seems pretty legit to me.

[@asmith6931]

This guy has completely missed the point and his mates' laughter is only there to lend 'truth' to his slim view. It does sound quite contrived and attacks a point where those who are less than educated in blockchain can feel convinced. Anyway, remember that most people thought the internet would not be very big when it first started.

[@yeerkals]

Ok give technical criticism and not vague criticism then

[@eddy-currents]

@@yeerkals Simply put he posits use cases in high trust environments and strawmans poorly implemented blockchain use cases for said environments, utilizing this juxtaposition to critize blockchain's resource inefficiency (which drives the primary value proposition of the infrastructure - high fault tolerance). It's equivalent to picking an extra sweet apple juice for a diabetic patient and utilizing that example to justify how apples are not good for everyone.

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@eddy-currents sure, let's accelerate global warming and enrich billionaires so you can feel like you didn't get scammed when you bought crypto.

[@eddy-currents]

@@user-lb1ib8rz4h Come back again when you don't only have strawmen

[@user-lb1ib8rz4h]

@@eddy-currents come back when you know about how blocks are calculated lmao

[@Leo-uy4qv]

Bitcoin it's a dying coin from the moment was invented , the commodity it's the blockchain technology and is here to stay , the big variable is eco-system , which platform can execute more computations per second with the lease amount of power consumption, even ethereum is very inefficient when it comes to that , but ethereum only pursue is smart contract. VISA can execute over 1600 transactions per second

[@elliotu9268]

Blockchains are a bad idea: Especially if you don't want to make money.

[@benzobox2308]

Obnoxious dude that completely misses the point of blockchain. Super close minded, short sighted points of views in this talk.

[@singularityawaits9298]

I hope this students have a mind of their own because his ideas are very narrow minded.

[@jamiefagan1323]

Dang! This guy is either just another example of a brainwashed academic who is completely out of touch with the real world or he is carrying out an agenda. I believe the later because even an academic could not be that stupid. I sure hope his audience was able to see through his BS/ignorance!

[@mwseqcom]

I was in attendance and James is carrying out an agenda and we saw through that. I like James but we don't agree ...

[@philipearakaki]

Very well them, why don't you provide technical criticism that doesn't rely on derranged idealism instead, i'm sure you should be very with aquainted with the technical side of those technologies if you think his criticism is so invalid.

[@lyonealfa]

I just can not listed to this silly speech