Please don’t auto downvote before reading.
A little bit ago some asked a question about why the hate of the blockchain, and that got me thinking if there even was a legitimate use case where the blockchain would be beneficial, but I couldn’t think of one outside maybe some sort of decentralized bank, but before I knew I was thinking it would instantly turn into some crypto scheme and strapped it, because crypto currencies are a scam on every level – and no they aren’t private or secret as some think either.
So I wanted to ask the community. Instead of using the blockchain for crypto, is there a better use where the blockchain could benefit society?
It’s not even good as a bank. On the other thread you mentioned I commented that blockchain is an immutable ledger visible to everyone. That is a nightmare for privacy reasons.
Audit logs is genuinely the only application I see it may be good for, but we have other systems that have a smaller environmental and technical impact making them a better fit than blockchain.
I remember exploring how it could be a way to secure digital Democratic elections. Any thoughts on this?
Forever immutably recording who voted what, I really can’t see a way for that to go wrong
“who” in your sentence doesn’t necessarily need to identify an individual depending on implementation.
What’s so scary about that? While the reason seems obvious, I ask because if you know what sort of sophisticated voter identification models the parties have right now, they can easily ascertain your voting history with 90%+ accuracy and predict fairly well who you’ll vote for in the future anyway.
I was just thinking of this recently but if Trump utilized his immunity to the fullest extent and we descend into Kristallnacht territory, these voter models would be how they began purging, “the enemy from within.”
So given we already are at that point, then maybe the benefits of such a ledger could outweigh the cons.
You don’t fight fascism by accepting that it’s already here and opening the door further.
Ironically, you’re accepting fascism is here by preventing us from advancing with a more secure election system that would permit a more responsible, accessible digital voting, are you not?
You’re holding us back for fear of what could be.
Even in the wake of what already is a practical reality as I showed.
Thats a lot of mental gymnastics to justify a massive overhaul of a system which would open up a whole slate of security issues. I get it, I used to believe strongly in blockchain but so far it seems to be a solution looking desperately for a problem to solve. You cannot “tech” your way out of societal issue.
The more voter accessibility, the better vote turnout. It’s no different than going the opposite way with voter suppression strategy or Jim crow laws. Most states already utilize digital transfer of voting data to state secretary central branches to my knowledge.
Not only this but it (a) actually helps prevent voter fraud while (b) improving turnout by way of digital accessibility.
If we shot down every idea from the peanut gallery because it wasn’t simple on its surface we wouldn’t have a lot of things.
But what did I notice is that you’ve now twice dodged the fact that the thing you’re most scared about implementing this is already a reality.
So can you explicitly tell me what unavoidable downside it would bring that doesn’t already exist in reality?
I’m just here to tell you that this is a very US centric view. I’m not from the US and, outside of random internet posts, there are no records of any of my political associations, past or present, and I’ve voted in all local and national elections for >20 years. Seeing as extremist forces are unfortunately currently gaining power over here, I REALLY wouldn’t want any type of public record even hinting at who exactly I’ve been voting for.
It’s all the bad idea of regular digital elections, with the additional stupid of being more public, complex and wasteful