Comment by purerandomness | Hacker News Reader

Comment by purerandomness | Hacker News Reader

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> being able to authenticate the source of information/media will be very important

What would stop an actor with enough resources (Russia, China, USA) to put deepfakes onto the chain?

What would stop them from blackmailing service providers who act as gatekeepers / market platforms to put deepfakes into the chain?

Why would they even accept any single "Blockchain X" as the source of truth? Why wouldn't they just say "Oh that's the evil state Y, of course they're pretending that their fakes on their state-governed propaganda blockchain are authentical, whereas OUR blockchain tells the TRUTH!"

How would you correct honest mistakes on the chain? By a correction update? Then what would stop an evil actor (Taliban) who overturns the government, or takes over a giant corporation, from "correcting" an unpleasant truth, and rewriting history?

Once again, a social problem is attempted to be solved with technology. This never works.

> I think NFTs will settle down eventually and they'll be useful

What would be different, given some time, from now? What needs to change for NFTs to become useful?

> What would be different, given some time, from now? What needs to change for NFTs to become useful?

I think being able to identify and authenticate original works is a good idea that has practical uses. Practical in the same way as identifying originals in meatspace. I believe there's a ton of hype and bad actors (as usual in a new market), but suspect that'll eventually settle down. I don't see any issue with the idea of purchasing the Nyan cat original if we (society?) all agree that it as an original, same as a material painting.

Maybe NFTs are a misstep on the way to that, I don't know, and I don't care to be honest (I'm not invested in anything crypto related). There's at least a useful idea there.

> I think being able to identify and authenticate original works is a good idea that has practical uses

I agree. I don't agree that blockchain, or NFTs, can ever deliver on their promises to contribute to that matter, because of their nature. How do you think would the blockchain, or NFTs, help to identify and authenticate original works?

> I believe there's a ton of hype and bad actors (as usual in a new market)

Can you name an example of another market where this was the case - i.e. bad actors were the majority of actors, and then something (what?) happened that made the market unviable for scams?

> the idea of purchasing the Nyan cat original

What does the "original" .gif of the Nyan Cat do for you that my copy of it doesn't?

> same as a material painting

I see 2 purposes of the "original" in a material world: 1. speculation, 2. paying the original artist. Since 2. isn't possible for e.g. the Mona Lisa, what remains is that it's a pure speculation object. You could argue that experts could distinguish the orginal Mona Lisa from any copy, but that wouldn't work in the digital world, where my copy of the Nyan Cap .gif would gif just as your original would.

What is the problem statement here, and how would NFTs, or blockchain, contribute to a solution here?

NFTs are nothing but a scam and provide no intrinsic value (other than cover for money laundering).

I think that the way would be to use a permission-based, id-linked, reputation-maintaining mechanism. No PoW or PoS -- proof of self. It would have to be designed from the start to account for hostile manipulation. Easier said than done, of course.

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