sjinko
commented
2 years ago A central 'problem' that Nakamoto tries to solve with the Bitcoin in the “problem of trust”. In a sense, we, as human do not like to rely on trust, because it entails a risk that the outcome of this trust might be disadvantageous to us. Trust requires placing part of our agency into somebody or something else. The sharing of agency also means that we agree that someone else’s agency might take over the course of action.
- [ ] See what O. Curry had written about trust
For Nakamoto, by relying on third parties institutions, we give them large part of power, just like trusting the state gives them a large part of our individual agency.
The Bitcoin is a good example of how we have transfered the trust from human-ran institutions to a sociotechnical system. But some aspect of this systems, as shown by the 51%+ problem, also rely on the trust in humans. In anycase, we the same amount of trust is needed, but it is simply transfered.
I already written about this problem in relation to the current sanitary crisis, and how it forced us to bound the trust in governments, scientists and tech companies all together.
The relationship between power and trust can be exemplified by the quote on US bills “In God We Trust”.
- [ ] Find references on the notion of trust
Another conceptual difference between the application of the blockchain to Bitcoin and to the production of knowledge stems from the problem Nakamoto is trying to address. In their paper, Nakamoto states first-hand that the problem he is trying to solve with Bitcoin is twofold. At the core of the problem stands the issue of double-spending. Because double-spending poses a threat to the digital transactional economy, Nakamoto argues that we delegate responsibility of blocking this possibility to financial institutions, so-called third parties. For Nakamoto, the blockchain principle behind Bitcoin is a substitute to the third-party solution by allowing two-party transactions without the need for a third party.
In fact, there is a third party involved even in Bitcoin transaction, the community of miners. Pools of miners act as a third party by providing the proof-of-work required by the system's architecture to validate the transaction. The main difference is that the implication of the third party does not revolve around trust (which it actually does like we see in the 51%+ limitations of the pooling system), but mostly around computational limitations. What secures the system is our "trust" in that the proof-of-work is, as its name indicates, a difficult task to accomplish, and a task that can be accomplished by several antagonist actors, the mining pools. In addition, our trust in that one actor does not have the necessary computational power, is asked necessary for the system to function.
This displacement of trust, from state-approved institutions that are the banks, to a common knowledge-based trust, could be seen as a positive thing-in-itself. It does not mean, however, that the system cannot be cheated, and our trust deceived, but that the ontology of trust has changed, making it stronger in certain regards and weaker in others.
Originally posted by @sjinko in https://github.com/sjinko/purcel/issues/3#issuecomment-986098377