Re: OpenBazaar: Decentralized markets for online trade

On 3/6/15 12:50 PM, Tao Effect wrote:
> Sorry to jump in, but someone mentioned OpenBazaar, drugs, and
> Pandora's box right next to each other.
...[snip]

> Let's watch our rhetoric and not allow the rhetoric of politicians to
> infiltrate it and distort reality, truth, etc.
>
> Cheers,
> Greg Slepak

I apologize for not being explicit in what I meant the 'Pandora's box' 
reference to refer to; and I think I'm fair in pointing out that you 
don't know what that was. :-)

So luckily neither of us are perfect, because then what would there be 
left to do? ;-)

What I meant was that the ability to effectively transact using a 
global currency (and thereby make decisions about resources of all 
kinds, including drugs, and a whole lot more besides) without national 
government accounting or control, could, in some models of how our 
world operates, cause severe disruptions in which:
   a) governments are modified in some substantial way
   b) governments become very threatened, and threatening
   c) governments as we know them become superfluous

Or some combination of the three.

So perhaps 'Pandora's Box' was a poorly chosen reference; maybe "We 
live in interesting times" would be better?

Steven Rowat


>
> --
> Please do not email me anything that you are not comfortable also
> sharing with the NSA.
>
> On Mar 6, 2015, at 12:44 PM, Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net
> <mailto:steven_rowat@sunshine.net>> wrote:
>
>> On 3/6/15 2:29 AM, Anders Rundgren wrote:
>>> It depends, notarization isn't for free and explicit paying for such
>>> services probably won't be terribly popular.
>>
>> Popular to who? To you?  ;-)
>>
>> AFAI understand, OpenBazaar is attempting a revolutionary worldwide
>> system that might be able to do things that have never existed (but
>> have been dreamed by many, including on this list).
>>
>> If they can present a system that does these things -- including
>> close to zero transaction costs in an industry that takes 3%
>> commonly and skims another 2% or so behind the scenes for currency
>> exchange -- wouldn't there be room for a thriving notary business
>> that could charge, say, half a %, and still keep many users happy?
>>
>> Plus, it occurs to me that for digital sales -- downloading digital
>> works of science, art, music, software -- the notary might not be as
>> important. IMO people have always traditionally been taking a
>> calculated risk with buying information, based on various
>> combinations of trust and previews. It appears that their web of
>> trust could be part of this tradition.
>>
>> Interesting that they're moving head-on towards a confrontation with
>> governments, by saying "Yes, you can sell drugs with it. You can do
>> whatever you like with this, we just made it, we're not responsible".
>>
>> Pandora's box...?
>>
>> Steven Rowat
>>
>>>
>>> BTW, is searching for products really realistic in a fully
>>> decentralized model?
>>> TPB (The Pirate Bay) as far as I know (I'm not much of a
>>> freeloader...) provided this component which is the reason the
>>> founders now are in prison.
>>> Maybe you can create a TPB-like information aggregator for this as
>>> well?  Ebay 2.0?
>>>
>>> A decentralized Facebook seems like a more useful concept than a
>>> decentralized marketplace.
>>>
>>> OTOH, they say that you shouldn't reject things you haven't tested so
>>> I may be totally wrong :-)
>>>
>>> Anyway, I think that we need new hardware to make decentralized
>>> systems a viable alternative.
>>> I.e. there should be an Internet-facing server in every home router.
>>> Well, you can of course use a hosting service.
>>> However, since hosting services for consumers in order to be
>>> profitable need millions of customers, the word "decentralized" then
>>> becomes somewhat exaggerated.
>>>
>>> Anders
>>>
>>>
>>
>

Received on Friday, 6 March 2015 22:16:29 UTC