The Ethereum Paradox

[TPTB_need_war]

Dapp Koolaid:

Re: Arcade City Uses Ethereum to Decentralize Taxi, Delivery and Roadside Assistance

http://allcoinsnews.com/2016/03/14/arcade-city-uses-ethereum-to-decentralize-taxi-delivery-and-roadside-assistance-services-and-launches-mobile-app/

There is no way for a smart contract to form an objective consensus about events that occur external to a block chain.

All voting is a power vacuum that fails due to the Iron Law of Political Economics.

This press release is bullshit with no adoption and is merely to sell more ETH tokens to fools.

Augur and Slock.it and 99% of the apps/contracts announced for Ethereum are so flawed they can never work.

Furthermore, ArcadeCity does not use ETH for payment. Cash, credit card, debit, and Paypal are accepted.

The Ethereum integration is primarily to sell tokens to drivers, i.e. a way to do public offering (let's hope they comply with SEC regulations):

Arcade City will use Ethereum to issue ‘crypto-equity’ to drivers, allowing them to own up to 100% of the company by 2020.

It has nothing to do with using Ethereum to enable some new technology that improves upon Uber. It is about governance and creating a copycoin P&D in the Uber space.

More information:

http://cointelegraph.com/news/arcade-city-decentralized-blockchain-based-answer-to-ubera

They could use a block chain for drivers to sign a record of the price they are offering, and for riders to sign records giving reviews of the drivers, i.e. a decentralized database that verifies the signers so that reputation can't be faked.

But reputation can be Sybil attacked, unless a resource must be consumed in order to establish a reputation.

Payments from riders to drivers on the block chain would not be a consumed resource, because drivers could pay themselves from fake rider accounts. Proof-of-stake does not consume a resource and thus it has attack vectors.

The solution is for riders to form a Web of Trust, where they trust friends and friends-of-friends and this reputation is the only reputation they trust.

But none of this needs atomic Smart Contracts. All we need is a way to sign hashes on the block chain and keep the data on a DHT. Which is I think the correct design for a 2.0 block chain.

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[Spoetnik]

@banano

community size is worth more than tech

Doge coin ? ahahhahahha

It was left for dead by the so called "Community" as i predicted it would long ago.
Hell the Doge dev guy even posted a message saying he quit the coin..
Because the community failed to support Doge coin.

Please less verbal diarrhea for the sole purpose of defending ETH
And go back to your main account chicken shit.

All of you cowardly little bullshiting greedy shills are *NOT* Noobs that just showed up.
You are bunch of older users here who are trying hard to hide so you can scam on with ETH.
Case in point, user "tokeweed"
I had caught him a bunch of times defending ETH around here then he simply vanished
..as these other new accounts popped up (talking like they know more than us who have been doing this for years)

Shit spinning cowards don't get any cred sorry.
Want some ? put your neck on the line and grow some balls and act like an adult.

The only reason many of you ETH spammers are hiding is because you know what your doing is wrong
..and you KNOW damn well it's going to turn out bad in the end.
People HIDE for a reason !

[TPTB_need_war]

This coin has a 15 second conf time bitocin is 600... just that alone their is a 40x increase in network capacity

Hey technological idiot. Please stop writing about things you do not understand. Because some n00bs might believe you.

Decreasing the block period, does nothing to decrease the propagation delay for any particular block size. Since the orphan rate is function of both propagation delay and block period, it is wash in terms of one must use smaller block sizes at lower block periods, in order to have the same resistance to centralization of mining (due to the economies-of-scale around winning your own blocks more often, thus avoiding the lost hashrate on orphans and waiting for propagation).

[TPTB_need_war]

...

Btw, proof-of-stake will never scale out user adoption, because it is a vested interest paradigm, and thus will be destroyed by its stake holders. No stake holder (in any context or business model) allows a competitor to profit. Only permissionless, decentralized systems scale.

[angaper]

Actually all this alternate economy based on cryptocurrencies involves a great paradox, because we are trying to look for a better financial stability to solve the current economic chaos, when it is well known that emerging technologies tend to be rapidly displaced.

Investing in any altcoin means to make a big bet for a future that may never come.

[StinkyLover]

The perfect piece of technology will not ever exist. Not in this industry, or any other industry. Forget the ETH Paradox, This is the paradox of being a technologist. All you can do is aim for perfection. You will never achieve it.

The perfect decentralized crypto will never exist simply because it is not possible to create perfect technology. Humans will always use what is available at any given moment in time, and make the best use of what they are presented with.

Stone Age, Iron Age, Internet, Blockchain. PC's, Macs, UNIX, (or any computing item you care to mention) is only a process of moving forward with available tech until something better comes along to replace it.

ETH will be made to work within the confines of what is possible within the scope of it's blockchain restrictions. Anyone who thinks that ETH does not, or will not work is fooling themself, and just as the death of DOGE (predicted by the same type of people back in 2014) never came to pass, so it will be with all these 'ETH doesn't work' threads.

Get it out of your systems now. Nobody is listening. The industry moves forward, as ever.

[TPTB_need_war]

The perfect piece of technology will not ever exist.

The internet isn't perfect but it scaled to billions.

Ethereum won't work for anything that will scale to more then a few users. And smart contracts are nonsense that has no use cases. Slock and Augur won't work AT ALL.

Yeah no perfection, but don't invest in rocks. They are pretty much useless.

[r0ach]

The perfect piece of technology will not ever exist. Not in this industry, or any other industry. Forget the ETH Paradox, This is the paradox of being a technologist. All you can do is aim for perfection. You will never achieve it.

The perfect decentralized crypto will never exist simply because it is not possible to create perfect technology. Humans will always use what is available at any given moment in time, and make the best use of what they are presented with.

Stone Age, Iron Age, Internet, Blockchain. PC's, Macs, UNIX, (or any computing item you care to mention) is only a process of moving forward with available tech until something better comes along to replace it.

ETH will be made to work within the confines of what is possible within the scope of it's blockchain restrictions. Anyone who thinks that ETH does not, or will not work is fooling themself, and just as the death of DOGE (predicted by the same type of people back in 2014) never came to pass, so it will be with all these 'ETH doesn't work' threads.

Get it out of your systems now. Nobody is listening. The industry moves forward, as ever.

Nice try Eth pumper, but the coin has no fundamentals due to the reasons we've been over in this thread for hours.  The market can remain irrational for a long period of time, but it's eventually going to implode back to those fundamentals.  The Eth pump was just an attack on Bitcoin in the first place.

[smooth]

Investing in any altcoin cryptocurrency means to make a big bet for a future that may never come.

FTFY

[StinkyLover]

The perfect piece of technology will not ever exist. Not in this industry, or any other industry. Forget the ETH Paradox, This is the paradox of being a technologist. All you can do is aim for perfection. You will never achieve it.

The perfect decentralized crypto will never exist simply because it is not possible to create perfect technology. Humans will always use what is available at any given moment in time, and make the best use of what they are presented with.

Stone Age, Iron Age, Internet, Blockchain. PC's, Macs, UNIX, (or any computing item you care to mention) is only a process of moving forward with available tech until something better comes along to replace it.

ETH will be made to work within the confines of what is possible within the scope of it's blockchain restrictions. Anyone who thinks that ETH does not, or will not work is fooling themself, and just as the death of DOGE (predicted by the same type of people back in 2014) never came to pass, so it will be with all these 'ETH doesn't work' threads.

Get it out of your systems now. Nobody is listening. The industry moves forward, as ever.

Nice try Eth pumper, but the coin has no fundamentals due to the reasons we've been over in this thread for hours.  The market can remain irrational for a long period of time, but it's eventually going to implode back to those fundamentals.  The Eth pump was just an attack on Bitcoin in the first place.

Are you really going to resort to calling me an ETH pumper?? Next I'll be trying to drive the market down to get 'cheap ETH', yes? This board is so full of tired soundbites. Can you come up with some new ones please.

Like I said, I heard it all before with DOGE. Thread upon thread discussing and predicting DOGE's most definite and expected death, about it dropping like a stone, about the market eventually coming to it's senses, and how it will return to the shitcoin abyss from whence it did birth.

It's still in the top ten.

[StinkyLover]

The perfect piece of technology will not ever exist.

The internet isn't perfect but it scaled to billions.

Ethereum won't work for anything that will scale to more then a few users. And smart contracts are nonsense that has no use cases. Slock and Augur won't work AT ALL.

Yeah no perfection, but don't invest in rocks. They are pretty much useless.

Won't work AT ALL??

Will you eat your words if they do?

[TPTB_need_war]

Won't work AT ALL??

It was explained upthread. Helps if you know how to read.

[StinkyLover]

Won't work AT ALL??

It was explained upthread. Helps if you know how to read.

I'm illiterate. So you've concluded that those projects will be abandoned before release as there's no way to get them to work? Or are you and others not prepared to sign your name to that conclusion?

[TPTB_need_war]

So you've concluded that those projects will be abandoned before release as there's no way to get them to work?

I am guessing they will release them but they will be plagued by non-adoption and to the extent their is significant ETH in play, they will be attacked either to steal ETH or short ETH and crash the ETH price.

I am expecting a centralized clusterfuck (much more dire than Bitcoin's current scalepocalypse) originally marketed as decentralized nirvana.

Of course it is also possible it could unravel before that and they abandon with their tail between their legs, but I doubt this because one assumes they raised more $millions in the recent pump.

The chance of them solving the underlying insoluble fundamental flaws is nil. There is no way to do sharding of smart contracts without breaking the Nash equilibrium that creates a majority consensus instead of many competing forks. There is no way to arrive at consensus of off-chain events without delegating consensus to trusted centralized entities. It is a huge clusterfuck that Vitalik weaved.

BTW - Here is a link that confirms "A rumor has been circulated recently that VB almost came to work for Ripple"
https://youtu.be/fbEtivJIfIU?t=11m7s

Listening forward to the end of the 15th minute, will if you are solid senior level software engineer with a strong economics expertise, start to make you realize that Vitalik is an unrealistic dreamer who doesn't think out the real world insolubility of his childish fantasies.

Listening forward to the end of the 15th minute, will if you are solid senior level software engineer with a strong economics expertise, start to make you realize that Vitalik is an unrealistic dreamer who doesn't think out the real world insolubility of his childish fantasies.

Maybe you are too logical... What is an unrealistic dreamer?

“Imagination is more important than knowledge...

I am extremely creative (did you not look at CoolPage.com or Corel Painter on which I created or worked on as a programmer and graphic artist). How about my essays[1]. How about the print ads I did for WordUp which I also programmed. The difference is I am a realistic dreamer with a realistic plan who has proven I make products that end up used by millions. Vitalik lacks the realistic grounding (and no experience!) to choose viable goals and implement them effectively. What a horrible destruction of a math nerd to allow him to enter this fantasy world where he can sell childish, unrealistic fantasy technobabble to gullible speculator n00bs.

[1]	http://unheresy.com/ https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.0 http://web.archive.org/web/20140225115821/http://www.coolpagehelp.com/index.html?row2col2=developer.html

[...]

[razen489]

my worry is the same like btc, there needs to be fast adoption and application or else the price will whiter back down
The price is still seeing point above what i think it should be https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/ethereum/usd

[Zer0Sum]

There is no way to do sharding of smart contracts without breaking the Nash equilibrium that creates a majority consensus instead of many competing forks.

Hi, Shelby!  

Considering that you have spoken kindly of Lucius Gregory Meredith (publicly) and have recognized him as a competent academic, I am having difficulty accepting that his comments on this issue are based on false pretenses.

Personally, I believe this is the only issue worth discussing further in this thread.  Meaning, discussing potential solutions (if any) and whether it is feasible for them to modify their plans (if they don't hold) in a satisfactory way or not.

Too bad there aren't any posts coming from qualified members of the other side to keep the conversation going...  

You don't build something worth $1 billion... by arguing with angry keyboard jockeys that have built nothing.

[alienesb]

There is no way to do sharding of smart contracts without breaking the Nash equilibrium that creates a majority consensus instead of many competing forks.

Hi, Shelby!  

Considering that you have spoken kindly of Lucius Gregory Meredith (publicly) and have recognized him as a competent academic, I am having difficulty accepting that his comments on this issue are based on false pretenses.

Personally, I believe this is the only issue worth discussing further in this thread.  Meaning, discussing potential solutions (if any) and whether it is feasible for them to modify their plans (if they don't hold) in a satisfactory way or not.

Too bad there aren't any posts coming from qualified members of the other side to keep the conversation going...  

You don't build something worth $1 billion... by arguing with angry keyboard jockeys that have built nothing.

There is quite a concerted effort by a few posters trying to bad-mouth ETH in any way they can. Just look at the multiple threads started by the OP for instance.

[Fuserleer]

You don't build something worth $1 billion... by arguing with angry keyboard jockeys that have built nothing.

I understand where you're coming from, but, as an Ethereum fanboy & Vitalik Buterin worshiper myself while shamefully disqualified on the
technicals (lololol), it is important for me to know whether qualified opponents of the current direction have reconsidered (at any level) or not.

There is quite a concerted effort by a few posters trying to bad-mouth ETH in any way they can. Just look at the multiple threads started by the OP for instance.

True.

The sharding solution they have proposed, whereby contracts can only interact in the same shard, will work just fine.  That of course brings with it usability issues, whereby a contract/account on shard 5 can't interact in any way with a contract/account on shard 10.

Enabling contracts to interact across shards is a different level of hard altogether, and I'm at the tipping point of accepting that it can't be achieved after looking at the problem myself for the past year or so.

As many know, eMunie has partitioning (our name for sharding) of transactions, and these partitions can interact with accounts in a different partition.   Great you might think, then just apply the same mechanics to contracts.  

Unfortunately its not that simple, as with transactions you are managing a single, known state (the balance) that is native to the system, so you are able to build functionality and algorithms that leverage those properties to enable cross partition/sharding interactions.  With a contract its much more complex, as a contract may have many states, all of which will have an unknown/indeterminable function, and be arbitrary in nature.  

If the states of a contract are arbitrary, the system can never know what all the states might be (because they are defined by the contract creator).  Nor can it know the rules that govern them due to the same reason (the rules too are arbitrary), thus there is no way to enforce consensus across shards.  Therein lies the root of the problem.

For this to be possible at all would require that the system knows, natively, all possible states for any contract that may ever exist, and the rules that govern those states....

[Fuserleer]

The sharding solution they have proposed, whereby contracts can only interact in the same shard, will work just fine.  That of course brings with it usability issues, whereby a contract/account on shard 5 can't interact in any way with a contract/account on shard 10.

Enabling contracts to interact across shards is a different level of hard altogether, and I'm at the tipping point of accepting that it can't be achieved after looking at the problem myself for the past year or so.

As many know, eMunie has partitioning (our name for sharding) of transactions, and these partitions can interact with accounts in a different partition.   Great you might think, then just apply the same mechanics to contracts.  

Unfortunately its not that simple, as with transactions you are managing a single, known state (the balance) that is native to the system, so you are able to build functionality and algorithms that leverage those properties to enable cross partition/sharding interactions.  With a contract its much more complex, as a contract may have many states, all of which will have an unknown/indeterminable function, and be arbitrary in nature.  

If the states of a contract are arbitrary, the system can never know what all the states might be (because they are defined by the contract creator).  Nor can it know the rules that govern them due to the same reason (the rules too are arbitrary), thus there is no way to enforce consensus across shards.  Therein lies the root of the problem.

For this to be possible at all would require that the system knows, natively, all possible states for any contract that may ever exist, and the rules that govern those states....

Thanks for keeping it simple for us peasants, Dan!  

Good Luck @ CoinFest & Can't wait for the upcoming eMunie open beta!!!  

No problem

Thanks, Coinfest is exciting!   Lots still left to do though!  I'll need a holiday after!

[mangox]

with next halving of BTC in 2016 you'll see what a good investement is BTC not ETH