Hacker News Reader

Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but think the next response is "Do you use MongoDB? MongoDB is webscale".

This is just trolling. No thought has gone into whether Wikipedia has a problem to solve, nor whether blockchain has the capabilities to solve any problem. It's just memes.

>Bitcoin can help any system to become more Byzantine fault tolerant

View on HN

> Bitcoin can help any system to become more Byzantine fault tolerant

Bitcoin, the only tech fad which can prevent you from having weird mad emperors or being invaded by the Turks.

What I kept thinking.

Unfortunately, the original poster appears to genuinely believe in the power of blockchain. Cryptocurrencies seem to attract a certain crowd which is extremely technical but also surprisingly naive about the way humans work. The result is you have a lot of idealistic techies who propose blockchain as the solution to literally every hard societal problem you can think of.

The result is you have...

You know, I'm not quite sure how yet, but I'm almost certain we can fix this problem with blockchain.

Problems that can be solved with blockchain must have a certain value if they get solved, and since blockchains are a good value store, perhaps we could make a blockchain where blocks are mined based on solving blockchain related issues, and the miners who solve these issues then get the rewards. I’m a bit fuzzy on the technical details, so perhaps the first draft can use written contracts and fiat exchanges as placeholder for the blockchain tech, and focus on problems that can be solved using the same. But there’s definitely a great startup idea here if only we can get the billions in investment needed to make this dream a reality!

There are no real problems with Byzantine faults in Wikipedia unless you start adding systems like blockchains. So they're proposing that it will fix a problem that it will cause. Interesting reasoning.

"Yes, but how do you protect your car from flooding without the built-in catch-valve in our car sink?"

I like the addition of the word "more", while Byzantine fault tolerance is really a binary property (albeit with variable thresholds).

The next response was "As well as a Byzantine fault-tolerant system?", which is even better.

There was a Reddit user u/passwordissame whose nodejs mongodb webscale copypasta was very funny to read. Is that you?

There is a famous youtube video the above poster is referencing. Search 'MongoDB is web scale' or something along those lines.

I miss them. Some of the funniest reddit posts ever. The best part is the number of people who took the bait.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com