Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjgoeke | Hacker News Reader

"On two occasions I have been asked, — 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Passages_from_...

View on HN

Which is cute and all but it's the blockchain proponents that seem to think it will give right answers. Hell they frequently ellide the need to supply figures-right or wrong- at all.

I don't think this is accurate. It's the nontechnical zeitgeist shouting blockchain, not those in the know. Just like how carbon nanotubes were supposed to be the best at everything from conductors to batteries to bullet proof vests, and there are 0 usable products on the market. It's just easier to to get away with for programs.

And yet here we are discussing a blockchain start up putting almost zero effort into verifying the provenance of a piece of art despite verifying the provenance of art being its entire business model. Or are we just going to Scotsman them into non-technical shouting?

Perhaps unwittingly the earliest request for the "DWIM" command in a computing environment...

DWIM==<Do What I Mean>

If you take this question out of context, it’s pretty easy to dismiss that a human operator, on the other hand - would be, in most of the cases, be able to tell if the numbers are wrong.

So I believe Babbidge is incredibly wrong here.

This is a deeply disingenuous characterization of the author's point. The linked post is responding to claims made by blockchain proponents and businesses that the blockchain completely obviates the need for trust or outside verification, and points out that the actual technology falls far short of the hype and isn't the dagger in the heart of centralized institutions that proponents so often claim it is.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com