Comment by moksly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by moksly | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I worked in the public sector for decades and we did so many proof of concepts on block chains, exactly because successful consultants and university researchers (the sort of people we trust) tried to sell us various ideas.

It never stuck in my country, I think it did for a while in Sweden for their land ownership systems, but never here. It never stuck because it’s just a terribly inefficient database.

There is a use case for decentralised landownership, maybe not in a low corrupt country like Sweden, but I’m sure you can think of places where total transparency in land ownership and the transfer of land ownership would matter.

The problem blockchain doesn’t solve is that even with perfect transparency, your claim of ownership means nothing to the people with guns. Which means it doesn’t actually help you in countries that aren’t big like Sweden.

The same is true for all its use cases, including money. Because even money relies more on the established system more than any crypto fan will ever care to admit to themselves.

What problem does blockchain solve there? Land is expensive and not exchanged often, it wouldn't be a problem to require every operation to be submitted to a government agency, right?

You only need to have any widely trusted entity. A government entity is not always widely trusted, nor trustworthy everywhere globally.

I think that comes back to “the people with guns don’t have to care what the blockchain says” - and places without a widely trusted entity are likely to have the people with the guns.

If you don't have a system that enforces private ownership then who cares what a blockchain says?

Screenshots NFT

What, exactly, is the enforcement mechanism of NFT? Do they come with a military or police force to do violence against those who disagree with your Internet Claim Check?

That was sort of my point. I’m not English so maybe it got a little lost in my wording, but decentralised trust doesn’t work, exactly because you need a centralised force to back its integrity up, and if you have that, what use is the decentralisation?

Maybe if it wasn’t hopelessly energy inefficient you could utilise it to cut back on your bureaucratic processes and make your organisation leaner. That’s just not going to happen in politically lead organisations, at least not here, where it would be political suicide to replace workers with a technology that can easily be painted as destroying the climate. Even the most fanatical liberal (this is our right-wing mind you) would realise how poor of a political platform that would be in the current political climate.

Where I live, the land registry is trusted.

You need the authorities (the "people with guns") to be able to override whatever the blockchain says.

If you install a virus and someone steals your land token on the blockchain, should you lose the land? Most people and courts will say no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com