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Comment by jfroma | Hacker News Reader

What I don't understand about this is that even if it is mathematically and technologically perfect (which I assume will be really hard) how can non-technical people understand something so complex.

I am a software developer and to be honest I don't fully understand bitcoin and blockchains.

Then my next question will be how can I trust something that I don't understand.

Maybe as a counter-argument someone will say how people uses online banking without fully understanding software, internet, etc. But I think is a completely different problem with different challenges.

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Regulatory bodies, an engaged community of experts to provide scrutiny and reach out to journalists when there are problems.

Like with cars, planes, and online banking, the key determinant is that nontechnical people have a _sufficient_ degree of trust in _someone_else_, who does have the appropriate expertise, to provide oversight.

I have no idea if Agora is good or not, or if blockchain-based voting is viable. I'm just saying that there are demonstrated cases (and certainly also other demonstrated failures) in which nontechnical people trust experts and trust organizations to provide a sufficient degree of oversight.

In a sense, you could say that a classroom, or a democracy, is like this too.

Voting is one area where people do not and definitely should not trust some “expert group” to authenticate their choices as a black box. The process needs to be simple enough to be easily reconstructed.

Respectfully, the first mistake is the expectation of trust. I only have confidence in a system based on mutual distrust.

You're using the word "confidence" to mean the same thing the parent comment meant by "trust".

> Then my next question will be how can I trust something that I don't understand.

ive always found this mentality silly. do you understand aerodynamic principles? laws of electromagnetism? mendelian genetics? or information theory?

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