you can trust people all you want. take iou's, accept people at their word, etc -- the existence of trustless systems does nothing to negate this. for everyone you don't trust, you can use a blockchain.
> we should strive for a future where humans are not motivated to hurt other humans.
i don't even know what to say when people say things like this. we should strive for good will and cooperation, but we must be prepared for situations where there is none. this is like arguing against allowing people to put locks on doors. when you create situations where distrust is disallowed, defecting becomes the winning strategy.
Have you ever been in places where locking your bike is perceived as a slight sign of disrespect? It is for a good reason; you have basically just labeled all people there as possible thieves.
I am not arguing that we metaphorically and literally need to do away with locks right now, but that we can and should apply effort in the direction that makes them obsolete as preventative measures. I want to live in a place where I do not need them.
The existence of trustless systems does not make distrust mandatory, it is such systems becoming mandatory that bothers me, as well as the effort spent into developing more and more robust trustless systems—as opposed to trying to make those very systems obsolete by eliminating the underlying motivations that push people to exploit trust.
> Have you ever been in places where locking your bike is perceived as a slight sign of disrespect? It is for a good reason; you have basically just labeled all people there as possible thieves.
the internet is a single, collapsed point in space. your bike is accessible through this aleph, to all of the most skilled bike thieves in the world, forever. the internet might have been different in the past and may yet be different in the future, but if we are going to have a truly global universally-accessible network, we are going to need systems that are built for an adversarial environment.
Same logic applies no matter how many people there are. Instituting pervasive checks on everything and distrust by default is not different from failed attempts at communism as exemplified by USSR and China.
i genuinely cannot comprehend the logic behind this statement. nobody is forcing you to use these systems, so you seem to have some emotional discomfort with other people having the ability to protect themselves. what is your alternative? forced trust, dependence on third party authorities?
The general sentiment from blockchain enthusiasts I talked with is that conventional system is obsolete and must be superseded by what they’re building ASAP. If you are OK with blockchain and adjacent tech being a niche, then I don’t really have anything to object to (whatever floats your boat and all that).
> what is your alternative? forced trust, dependence on third party authorities?
No… I sort of spent a while describing it in my original comment.
> we should strive for a future where humans are not motivated to hurt other humans.
i don't even know what to say when people say things like this. we should strive for good will and cooperation, but we must be prepared for situations where there is none. this is like arguing against allowing people to put locks on doors. when you create situations where distrust is disallowed, defecting becomes the winning strategy.