A central database would be just a list of all the land and who owns it.
Says who? Why would it not be a list of who owned/owns that land and when they owned it?
Would you rather walk up to a grumpy person with a shotgun and demand that they move out while brandishing a printout of an SQLite database recently recovered after the ransomware attack at the county administrative building? Or with a deed with their spouse’s signature on it?
Yes, the document from the county administration would be much better, than some “magic” contract from the internet that may or may not be enforced by the county.
planish@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
If the county isn’t actually using the system you try to present evidence from, of course it will not work.
If you have a list of who owned the land and when, and you have evidence to support each transfer, then you have a log-structured or relatively blockchain-like database.
Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Why would the county not use their own system? What are you even talking about? You seem to simultaneously make arguments for and against blockchains.
planish@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
If the magic contract from the Internet is not actually likely to be enforced by the county, then the county is not actually using the magic Internet contract system. If the system were adopted by the county, then the official records from the system would be known to be enforceable.
I sound like I am for and against blockchain because I am. I don’t think you can stand up any existing blockchain system and start slapping government functions onto it and get a good result. People won’t understand it well enough or have sufficient resources to be true peers in the system, and if they did it wouldn’t scale very well.
But I do think that governmental systems can be improved by taking inspiration form blockchain technology and drawing on its underlying philosophical principles of accountability and consensus.