However I’m not sure what you mean to signify with your paper vs stone tablet comparison. Unlike blockchains, paper doesn’t claim to do anything magical compared to stone tablets - it’s still just a medium of storing written text.
The blockchain can't inspect a house before sale. The blockchain can't test the water quality outside of a factory upstream from your town.
This but unironically.
How many blockchain hype people are explicitly promoting wars for independence, though?
that's called enforcement of the law, that can rely on force, if necessary.
a blockchain has the same value of paper (on paper) but it can be shut down by cutting electricity and, most of all, has no way to enforce what's stored on it.
Because no trusted party is willing to make the effort, there is no way a bunch of individuals are going to come together and declare war (to whom?) to make it stick.
Otherwise known as working State with an army, a navy, nukes, and democracy (for stability), or some semblance thereof, and all the other stuff that keeps it humming along for 200+ years despite internal turmoil, foreign attacks, and all that. And rich enough to keep its economy humming too, and its coffers flush with cash and other reserves.
That's what makes a stable currency; not "fiat" or "paper stacks".
Fundamentally, the "state of the real world" is the result of might is right, force or threat of force. The state of the real world is the result of action, and action is an act of force on the matter of the world, the act of changing things away from their most stable state by way of expression of energy. This is an act of force in it's simplest sense on non living things. Where living things are concerned, it becomes recognizable as force because living things have their own agenda, and putting them into a state you prefer necessitates some degree of coercion.
So a hypothetical world where entities like these network States, blockchain states and consensus mechanisms control real world assets is a world where action on the real world, including use of force, is automated. You don't have to have permission from the current status quo structure of institutions for blockchains and the like to have real world effect, you just have to have a way for them to act with or without institutional approval. A world where construction, modification and aggressive action is automated and thus can be deterministically and provably democratic is what you get out of all this.
"My program would be so great if I didn't have to do I/O"
I made essentially this comment yesterday on the corncob article, but now realize it's the essence of crypto/dao fandom.
Think of this scenario: Suppose I got an online token/contract/NFT on any Blockchain that says I own the property and house at 123 Main Street and further suppose this is as verified on the chain as it can be. No doubt about it.
Then when I show up to 123 Main Street there is already someone living there with a different claim (let's say a classic deed in some government real estate database).
Then the police and the courts get involved and at the end of it one party will be removed from the property, by force if necessary.
This is what the GP meant with trusted physical party. The entities who IRL decide and enforce which of the many competing "proofs" of ownership are actually legit.
Hence, the only thing a blockchain can be used for is an abstract token that does not have an equivalent in the real life, and thus can be used to represent anything - not just a house or an artwork or a chicken - but all of these at the same time and yet it is backed by actual energy.
And this is Bitcoin.
Every other use of a blockchain is a scam.
You could have a centralized DB that believes X is true. You could have a distributed DB that believes X is true - or even that reflects that a bunch of people involved in the network believes that X is true.
But what if X isn't true according to the consensus of the local societies you live in? Then it simply doesn't matter what sort of DB you use.
In this "network states" discussion there seems to be a simple problem here: a network that crosses political boundaries can't solve certain things. So ok, it "crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states"
But... is that actually even realistic at all, or is it all fantasy? And even if you get there, your problem of border defense is INCREDIBLY difficult in your geo-distributed state. Traditional states appear to have some massive advantages in cases of any conflict.
the network itself is already decentralized.
interoperability and open protocols > immutable ledger (which is a centralized source of the truth)
philosophically speaking a society where information is stored with no restriction but can be made available to other parties in an open and documented manner is more free than one where the "tables of the law" is one immutable and indisputable blockchain because the computer says so.