"Out of Control" and Blockchain: What misunderstandings do you have about the blockchain?

"Out of Control: The Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World."

This book was published in 1994 by Kevin Kelly and has always been influential. Especially after Zhang Xiaolong, the inventor of WeChat, strongly recommended this book, the fire broke out in the first two years in China, and the book was on fire. Even the papi sauce and the founder of the app, Luo Zhenyu, need to take a copy of Kevin Kelly's book.

The great thing about the book "Out of Control" is that in 1994, when Ma Yun had not seen the Internet, he began to predict the future.

It is easy to predict the distant future, because without any responsibility, the existence and prosperity of the earth after a thousand years, not a prophecy that a prophet can say, does not make much sense, except for science fiction creation; It is necessary to be very cautious in predicting the near future. Although it seems normal to develop into the future, human beings always surprise themselves. If they are not careful, they still need courage and wisdom. Kevin Kelly (KK) is out of control. In 1994, it predicted the transformation of social organizations, the arrival of the Internet, the online community, the network economy, the cloud computing, the Internet of Things, etc., which predicted very accurately and exaggeratedly, as if this was the person who passed back.

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However, the true prediction of "Out of Control" may not be the current stage of the Internet, but the next stage. The book begins with a simple individual of little bees, and then they form an efficient and large organization, a methodical work, from biological phenomena to future trends.

Industrialization requires process, standardization, and control. The new biology, biological evolution, is the corresponding view of mechanical evolution relative to industrialization. In short: decentralized, distributed, self-organized . This is the future that KK has seen.

The KK book explains the characteristics of distributed networks:

1. There is no strong mandatory centralization institution;

2. The members of the organization (or sub-units) have a tendency to self-government and autonomous organization;

3. Point-to-point network, nonlinear relationship;

These translated content translations are decentralization, community autonomy, and peer-to-peer value transfer. This is the original intention and utility of blockchain technology. That is to say, the revolution of "out of control" continues, and the final evolutionary form will be perfected by the blockchain, or the Internet is the primary form of evolution, and the blockchain is a more advanced form – these are only bold assumptions. I am not so infinitely optimistic, because there may be many misunderstandings about the blockchain itself. I am now specifically talking about these misunderstandings.

First, digital currency is a digital asset, and digital assets are not just digital currencies . Digital currency is just a blockchain industry, and even a small business in the future. Digital assets or encrypted assets contain digital currency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) and also include securities registration, property registration, patent confirmation, etc. on the blockchain. The latter will be bigger in the future. That is to say, many things in the real world have to be relocated to the digital world (virtual world), and we may be the first immigrants of this era in the future.

Second, if someone says "code is law," he either misunderstands the code or misunderstands the law. This term often appears in smart contracts and the like, saying that as long as there is a code, the next step can be executed, because the computer program will not be deceiving, mandatory, non-tamperable, and automatic. I think people with some common sense know that if this is the case, there are not so many disputes in the world. Actually, you can't do it. If you don't pay your debts, sometimes you have to pay the bills. Sometimes you don't have it. If you really don't have money, how do you execute the program, the card alarm has no money, and then automatically search for other people's assets. , found that all are negative, the direct infinite loop crashes. Utopia's "code is the law" can not be realized in the real world, the judicial process is always there, the code can help the judiciary to conduct arbitration.

Third, the technology of blockchain is very immature. It's not so polite here, it's very immature, and it's a large-scale commercial application. Now this technology doesn't think about it. Now the technology can really support an application. Even if it doesn't develop, it can support this application, that is, send digital currency. Make financial investments or speculation.

At this point, the “coin circle” is the product of mature technology. Therefore, many people in the currency circle are not very concerned about blockchain technology and cryptography. It is also normal. The essence of the currency circle is finance. The combination of industry and finance is mainly in the industry. Realizing the time to create cash flow and profit . Usually, finance is only concerned with the industry, not when it is shot. "Chain Circle" (orthodox technology development team) will have great development in the future, and it is a mainstream force, because they are concerned about blockchain technology. If the transaction speed is seven times a second, then you can't do it. The mobile store that sells popsicles and sells hamburgers all disappoints that the transaction is slow; if all accounts are publicly available, it will not work, and the bank needs an anonymous algorithm. The encryption algorithm and the underlying architecture are not perfect, and the programmability is also the case. It is still too weak. Some projects need to be interoperable across the chain. After running for half a year, they have not ran stable, and the cross is not good. It can be said that after all, it is easy to say, difficult to do, easy to finance, and difficult to start a business. Friends of the chain circle come on!

Fourth, the core of the blockchain is distributed rather than decentralized. Decentralization, is it necessary to have a loose sand? In the ancient Chinese teaching, "the thief first smashed the king", consciousness is the centralized organization under attack height control. As long as the center is destroyed, it is easy to defeat the entire organization. It’s good now, others haven’t destroyed your center, you have to go to the center yourself.

Going to the center is not an end, just a method, just a process, a way to make the organization stronger. The new center replaces the old center and the multi-center replaces the old center. It is precisely because of this that the private chain has value. In general, it will feel that the public chain has value, and the private chain has no value. In fact, the private chain (the alliance chain is strictly private and the private chain between the alliances) It is valuable. The original center, now with multiple nodes inside the system, confirming each other and being able to maintain efficient operation, is itself a more efficient and traceable evolution of distribution.

The issue of fairness and efficiency has risen to philosophical issues. Humanity needs fairness and survival requires efficiency. Therefore, when an organization is in danger or change, it is always hoped that, of course, there will be a strong leader. Strong centralization, centering on one person, and improving decision-making efficiency to the highest level (such as Napoleon, etc.). Blockchain is also unlikely to solve the problem of fairness and efficiency, because most of the time is a contradiction. Note that I mean most of the time, the future is not necessarily, this problem must be solved because of the temporary and block. Chain is irrelevant, so don't talk about it here. The distribution of blockchains can partially solve this problem and make fairness and efficiency more balanced. Therefore, decentralization is not an end. After decentralization, there will be multiple centers emerging. This is not wrong.

Fifth, the distributed ledger is not necessarily a blockchain . One view is that blockchains are distributed databases. But if a database is only distributed and the efficiency is so low, this technology can't be done. The blockchain is a distributed database. There is nothing wrong with it. It just tells a part of the truth. The blockchain is a distributed ledger, but the scope of distributed ledgers is broader. In the past decade, Bitcoin, as the first application of the blockchain, was equivalent to a social experiment that demonstrated some of the obvious technical advantages of distributed networks.

However, some organizations, especially financial institutions, have only applied a part of the structure of Bitcoin (the model structure of the blockchain will be devoted to an article in the future), such as removing the incentive layer, that is, there is no token. It is. Blockchain that does not issue coins. Some people in the market say that it is not a blockchain that does not issue coins. This sentence has some truth, but it is not correct. Because the blockchain itself can be used without the currency, only the public domain must have such incentives. The centralized organization does not need to issue coins, such as the blockchain of the national gold, such as Alibaba's blockchain and so on do not need to issue coins.

The concept of distributed ledgers alone is to distinguish between public chains, and because the concept of blockchain is somewhat sensitive to some organizations, so "distributed ledgers" are said separately. These institutions have modified the blockchain such as Bitcoin to remove digital currency. Adding some privacy protection, as well as multi-center and multi-debit control, is a distributed ledger. "The blockchain is a distributed ledger, and the distributed ledger is not necessarily a blockchain." However, today's distributed books are not mentioned in 2019. The concept of blockchain, public chain, alliance chain, and private chain is enough.

The above is the deviation of most of the friends' understanding of the blockchain. What is outlined in "Out of Control" is only a general future. The meticulous future needs to be worked out by the colleagues in the industry and the readers. These deviations may not be biased over time, and maybe one day the code really has a legal effect. Perhaps the blockchain technology can be well broken in the short term (within three to five years). These old problems are no longer problems. The premise of all this is that the people of the moment must face up to the difficulties.

Author: village two old

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