That's not to say blockchain is the be all and end all, but constantly hunting for arguments why something will never work , is not only terribly boring, but IMO the most counterproductive way to look at anything.
There is ample evidence that stable, predictable institutions are the main driver of improved quality of life in the west. The libertarian instinct to tear down these institutions instead of putting in the hard work to make sure they are well run is counterproductive.
... is predicated on the long-carried memory of institutions like these failing under the duress of locked-in, privileged, out-of-touch bad-decision makers in positions of power fucking it up for the rest of us.
> instead of putting in the hard work
in my view, "hard work" is the work of building fair, equal-access solutions in an open space, instead of building more walls to facilitate Government Guidance of systems that governments have historically mismanaged.
I don't believe this is the same as discrediting solutions looking for problems. Blockchain proponents desire a technical fix to people problems. That is untenable, as people will always override software, whether that's through a courtroom, a government/regulatory body, or a fork based on majority consensus.
I would say every single non-naive person in this space realises this, so it's not true that blockchain proponents "desire a technical fix to social problems" in that sense. What smart contracts for eg could be good for is to leverage social consensus much more highly, rather than replace it (since like you said replacement is impossible)
Betamax, 3D TVs, laserdiscs, segways, new coke, etc.
That does not seem to be a truism on the face of it. Some things change and some things stay the same. New or old is not clearly a winner, the world is more complex than that.
Agreed. It's actually quite empty, on the face of it.
Last TV we bought years ago.... everything was 3D this, 3D that...
What you're saying is also just plainly logically unsound. If we tried to explore every possibility, irrespective of its potential, humanity would be nowhere. "Hunting for arguments why something will never work" is one of the finest anti-insanity protocols we have at our disposal.
Well, people chasing after the latest fad lose much faster...
"In the end" isn't necessarily interesting. In the end, we're all dead anyway :)
It was cows and jugs of honey at first. Then it was seashells. Then it was gold. Then it was printed paper. Then it was records in a database, but living isolated as local records.
It will become even more abstract and even more open, eventually. Whether that's the blockchain or something else, remains to be seen.