Economic Arguments against POS/DPOS

[consensus-analytics.com]

I saw that you are discussing this too.

I made a blog post responding to Paul's article: http://consensus-analytics.com/pow-vs-pos-a-comparison-of-security-costs-in-open-distributed-ledger-protocols/

Overall the discussion about work / cost is pointless if not geared towards some to be maximized criteria. 

You can follow the discussion here: http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#comment-2179988839

[Bitcoinfan]

The utility and purpose of a condom can vary from person to person and is not universal.   

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If you follow your grammer closely, your viewpoint is the same as mine.  "The utility and purpose of a condom."  So your already presuming a balloon has  a function and use that is part of the object that humans can infer.  Utility and purpose did not come from the mind experience alone. 

I did not claim purpose and utility is universal.  People can ascribe different values to the known uses of the object.  But the possible uses of the object are part of the object itself.  Its not simply a mind perception, but an articulation of function and the satisfaction that object can bring to one's life that we come to understand as value. 

Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility can cause people to perceive value,  but they are clearly part of the perception and not the item.

To prove my point ask what purpose or utility it has absent humans.  Without humans the balloon has no one to give it purpose.   Take it back in time 1000 years and ask a native what it's purpose or utility is.


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I think we're getting sidetracked here, but absent humans, the balloon could become home to parasitic organisms, mushrooms, molds, ants, fungi etc that prefer damp and warm and enclosed environments. They didn't need judgement, perception, human consciousness, rationalism, or a human brain to derive function and use from the object.  And they will surely see value in defending their new hive. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/05/27/ants-search-for-food-in-the-same-way-that-markets-hunt-technologies/

[sittingduck]

The utility and purpose of a condom can vary from person to person and is not universal.   

To prove my point ask what purpose or utility it has absent humans.  Without humans the balloon has no one to give it purpose.   Take it back in time 1000 years and ask a native what it's purpose or utility is.


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[Bitcoinfan]

There is no such thing as "society", just individuals.   There is no absolute value, only relative value placed on it by individuals.    Price is nothing more than the least value placed on item by everyone who holds the item compared to the least value placed on another item by everyone who holds that item.   In other words, price is an emergent property from the "LACK OF TRADE". 

Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility can cause people to perceive value,  but they are clearly part of the perception and not the item.

I think we're talking about the same thing, if its Mises definition of value, although I would probe your use of it.  I may not be well versed in Austrian economics as I'd like. But I'm here to learn.  Just to refine what I said before: Value is subjective to each individual and is determined by that individuals belief that it will help them achieve a certain desire/goal/satisfaction.  The purpose of that person and the function and usefulness of that object are needed in this definition. 

To say purpose and utility are solely perceptions and not inherent in any item is a definition is that falls upon itself.  Let's look at your quote again.  "Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility .... they are clearly part of the perception and not the item." 

That's like saying properties of a object is solely a mind experience.  The raw material (your brain) in which you use to make these analytical judgements and evaluations, is in of it itself not useful?  If the brain that's forming these perception, has no inherent function, purpose, or usefulness whatsoever; then where does this experience come?  Where does the judging (the function/purpose) come from if its not a property of brain?  Then what's the purpose of the brain existing in the first place, if its purpose and utility is not to judge? 
 
Uniform objects can have inherent properties that describe its function and usefulness.  The difference is within the definition of value.  Value differs from individual to individual.  Value of utility differs from person to person.  Utility and function itself does not differ from people to people because they are distinct elements of the item.  However, individuals discover for themselves and by observation of others, what they think the known usefulness and function of an item/material is to them.  This is what they call value. 

If also we're saying all value and metrics is relative, and nomenclature does not matter, and rather its random what you and other individuals make out of it, like Bitrose, Bitappl, Bitgorilla, then should we not correct a child when they call a Airplane a duck, or a sofa a truck?  Most parents would correct their child saying that its a plane and a sofa that they are pointing at because of its appearance, design, and function.  Its simply not that thing.  Its something else.  I respectfully bring this up, as a reminder for what we can learn from the original pegless BTS. 

Economic value is relative, but it does give rise to objective value.  If it hadn't how would we know that a company is performing profitability or not?  Or how a country ranks against another country if GDP, an absolute metric can't be used? 

[CLains]

I am really proud of this community, and I think the aspiration to economic efficiency and profitability is a reflection of honesty and willingness to face reality head on. So many communities pretend to a moral high ground when in reality they are really just collectively hiding in abstract ideas. In the short run seeing things as they are is driving us through painful transitions but in the long run we'll be better prepared.

There's no shame in having tons of problems, everyone has problems, and we have our fair share. In the long run the only insoluble crisis arises when people start running from their problems, spiraling into a web of lies, not being honest enough to face the truth, and not being brave enough to tackle the concrete issues head on. Being honest and brave in this way to face the truth seems to me our source of power.

[Troglodactyl]

The byline: 'So-called “alternatives” to Proof-of-Work “waste” just as much “work”.'

Part of his criticism of DPOS is voting in general. He also says the amount of resources "wasted" to political campaigning (among other voting inefficiencies) will equal the resources wasted to mining. Even if it was true, wouldn't such campaigns be more beneficial/productive for their blockchains than mining? He compares it to the "democracies" of today and assumes anyone can get voted in based on how much they spend. I don't think it's a fair comparison.

Parts of his criticism are parenthetical:
"Is vote-buying a bad thing? Who really knows (considering the long-run coordination problems facing this species…)? For today’s post, who cares?"

The article is long-winded and I admittedly skimmed a lot.

Also, I don't believe he addressed the centralization of POW, which would make the rest moot.

"Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide."

This thread is a highly interesting convo that will take me more time to fully digest in order to offer substantive comments on the merits. However, I do feel compelled to comment, more from an abstract philosophical perspective on the basis of voting vs. mining.

It was easy for me to see the benefits of DPoS over PoS based solely on a DAC / balance sheet perspective. My view in that regard has not changed. However, I now have doubts concerning the political influences of both systems which I cannot easily evaluate as to which influences the free market nature of a crypto-currency the least.

There is no disputing that both systems are influenced by politics. PoW by the ever increasing costs of the mechanics of mining drive increasing centralization to save costs, which increase the chances that mining will be influenced more and more by those wealthy enough to buy a bigger share of mining hardware or control over it. Even the cost of power generation is an influential factor.

I don't see any magic bullet to eliminate similar issues in DPoS either. Look at the power of so called "whales" in our ecosystem over who gets elected to produce blocks. It's not currently decentralized and whether it will become sufficiently decentralized such that healthy competition can emerge and the free market qualities of the ecosystem can be maintained remains to be seen. Then there is the issue of voter apathy, and how that tends to put more influence in the hands of "whales who care" to vote.

I'm not convinced it's fair to extrapolate our current experience with DPoS with what it will look like with orders of magnitude greater adoption we all hope will happen. Who knew that mining would lead to centralization? How can we rely on "game theory" and presume to know how people will be swayed to elect (or not elect through apathy or personal preferences) quality "overseers" in the form of workers and delegates? I left out witnesses b/c they are more or less a binary check & balance mechanism, tho if push came to shove and a code controversy splits witnesses into factions that support various versions they too will be influenced by politics.

My doubts about any crypto-currency will always be focused on the philosophical basis and people politics involved. I can't imagine how that perspective could be changed.

I think a key advantage here is that DPoS is a consensus bootstrapping system that allows people to organize based on a shared value system.  Any DPoS network can be forked if it no longer reflects the value system of some of its users, and a new networks rules and distribution system can be altered to reflect the moral ideas of its users.  Networks will grow as more people identify with the networks distribution and rules, and find their functionality useful.  DPoS networks are ruled by the dynamic community of token holders, but PoW networks are less flexible, since all of them are ultimately controlled by the dominant holders of hardware for the given hashing algorithm.  PoW networks are still dependent on community acceptance for value, so nothing is really lost here.

[Thom]

The byline: 'So-called “alternatives” to Proof-of-Work “waste” just as much “work”.'

Part of his criticism of DPOS is voting in general. He also says the amount of resources "wasted" to political campaigning (among other voting inefficiencies) will equal the resources wasted to mining. Even if it was true, wouldn't such campaigns be more beneficial/productive for their blockchains than mining? He compares it to the "democracies" of today and assumes anyone can get voted in based on how much they spend. I don't think it's a fair comparison.

Parts of his criticism are parenthetical:
"Is vote-buying a bad thing? Who really knows (considering the long-run coordination problems facing this species…)? For today’s post, who cares?"

The article is long-winded and I admittedly skimmed a lot.

Also, I don't believe he addressed the centralization of POW, which would make the rest moot.

"Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide."

This thread is a highly interesting convo that will take me more time to fully digest in order to offer substantive comments on the merits. However, I do feel compelled to comment, more from an abstract philosophical perspective on the basis of voting vs. mining.

It was easy for me to see the benefits of DPoS over PoS based solely on a DAC / balance sheet perspective. My view in that regard has not changed. However, I now have doubts concerning the political influences of both systems which I cannot easily evaluate as to which influences the free market nature of a crypto-currency the least.

There is no disputing that both systems are influenced by politics. PoW by the ever increasing costs of the mechanics of mining drive increasing centralization to save costs, which increase the chances that mining will be influenced more and more by those wealthy enough to buy a bigger share of mining hardware or control over it. Even the cost of power generation is an influential factor.

I don't see any magic bullet to eliminate similar issues in DPoS either. Look at the power of so called "whales" in our ecosystem over who gets elected to produce blocks. It's not currently decentralized and whether it will become sufficiently decentralized such that healthy competition can emerge and the free market qualities of the ecosystem can be maintained remains to be seen. Then there is the issue of voter apathy, and how that tends to put more influence in the hands of "whales who care" to vote.

I'm not convinced it's fair to extrapolate our current experience with DPoS with what it will look like with orders of magnitude greater adoption we all hope will happen. Who knew that mining would lead to centralization? How can we rely on "game theory" and presume to know how people will be swayed to elect (or not elect through apathy or personal preferences) quality "overseers" in the form of workers and delegates? I left out witnesses b/c they are more or less a binary check & balance mechanism, tho if push came to shove and a code controversy splits witnesses into factions that support various versions they too will be influenced by politics.

My doubts about any crypto-currency will always be focused on the philosophical basis and people politics involved. I can't imagine how that perspective could be changed.

[bytemaster]

All value is perceived value.    Trades do not create nor destroy value, only reallocate it.

Mining reallocates value from current coin holders to the producers of electricity via the issuance of new coins.  Best-case, mining reallocates value from those who are making a transaction to those who convert electricity into computational cycles. 

So if you remove the illusion of the printing press which socializes costs, and ask the pro-mining community to pay for the full cost of their transactions as $12 per transaction to the miners then things become real clear real fast.

The amount of mining that can be performed is proportional to the value of the coin relative to the value of electricity.  The value of the coin must come first so that it can purchase electricity.

The assumption that 100% of dilution ends up being used to cover the cost of political campaigning is laughable.    People are going to campaign for changes regardless and the stakeholders would never vote for people that don't do significant real work in exchange for the funds they receive.   

DPOS does not require dilution and he completely misses that.  Dilution is an OPTION to fund growth, not a requirement.   Under POW dilution isn't an option because the network would be too insecure if it relied only on fees!

 

Appreciate the brevity here.  Although value is not entirely perceived, moreover it is ultimately defined by usefulness (utility) and purpose.   Just writing USD on a piece of paper doesn't make it valuable to society just because one person perceives it as worth as much as a Benjamin.  An asset has value because certain groups of individuals believe that it is useful to them. 

"People forget already how much utility they get out of the Internet - how much utility they get out of e-mail, how much utility they get out of even simple things like brochureware online."  Jeff Bezos

Yes if "Trades nonetheless do not create nor destroy value, only reallocate it."   This reads like the law of matter and thermodynamics, where energy and matter are neither destroyed or created.  This would mean that then bankers aren't entirely value add to the services they bring?  Really?!   

There is no such thing as "society", just individuals.   There is no absolute value, only relative value placed on it by individuals.    Price is nothing more than the least value placed on item by everyone who holds the item compared to the least value placed on another item by everyone who holds that item.   In other words, price is an emergent property from the "LACK OF TRADE". 

Purpose and Utility are both PERCEPTIONS that are unique to every individual.  Hence, they are not a property of the item but of a person's judgement.   Purpose and utility can cause people to perceive value,  but they are clearly part of the perception and not the item.

[Bitcoinfan]

All value is perceived value.    Trades do not create nor destroy value, only reallocate it.

Mining reallocates value from current coin holders to the producers of electricity via the issuance of new coins.  Best-case, mining reallocates value from those who are making a transaction to those who convert electricity into computational cycles. 

So if you remove the illusion of the printing press which socializes costs, and ask the pro-mining community to pay for the full cost of their transactions as $12 per transaction to the miners then things become real clear real fast.

The amount of mining that can be performed is proportional to the value of the coin relative to the value of electricity.  The value of the coin must come first so that it can purchase electricity.

The assumption that 100% of dilution ends up being used to cover the cost of political campaigning is laughable.    People are going to campaign for changes regardless and the stakeholders would never vote for people that don't do significant real work in exchange for the funds they receive.   

DPOS does not require dilution and he completely misses that.  Dilution is an OPTION to fund growth, not a requirement.   Under POW dilution isn't an option because the network would be too insecure if it relied only on fees!

 

Appreciate the brevity here.  Although value is not entirely perceived, moreover it is ultimately defined by usefulness (utility) and purpose.   Just writing USD on a piece of paper doesn't make it valuable to society just because one person perceives it as worth as much as a Benjamin.  An asset has value because certain groups of individuals believe that it is useful to them. 

"People forget already how much utility they get out of the Internet - how much utility they get out of e-mail, how much utility they get out of even simple things like brochureware online."  Jeff Bezos

Yes if "Trades nonetheless do not create nor destroy value, only reallocate it."   This reads like the law of matter and thermodynamics, where energy and matter are neither destroyed or created.  This would mean that then bankers aren't entirely value add to the services they bring?  Really?!   

[Ben Mason]

This article abstracts most of the relevant issues into "externalities" and then ignores them.

absolutely 

[bytemaster]

All value is perceived value.    Trades do not create nor destroy value, only reallocate it.

Mining reallocates value from current coin holders to the producers of electricity via the issuance of new coins.  Best-case, mining reallocates value from those who are making a transaction to those who convert electricity into computational cycles. 

So if you remove the illusion of the printing press which socializes costs, and ask the pro-mining community to pay for the full cost of their transactions as $12 per transaction to the miners then things become real clear real fast.

The amount of mining that can be performed is proportional to the value of the coin relative to the value of electricity.  The value of the coin must come first so that it can purchase electricity.

The assumption that 100% of dilution ends up being used to cover the cost of political campaigning is laughable.    People are going to campaign for changes regardless and the stakeholders would never vote for people that don't do significant real work in exchange for the funds they receive.   

DPOS does not require dilution and he completely misses that.  Dilution is an OPTION to fund growth, not a requirement.   Under POW dilution isn't an option because the network would be too insecure if it relied only on fees!

[xeroc]

What happens when the cost of energy goes to zero(or near zero).  As we begin using more and more renewable energy, the cost of energy becomes marginal.

The cost of energy will not reach even close to zero unles a "free energy devise" is invented, and then somehow slips by  "the powers that be", and then reaches global commercial manufacturing. In other words, extremely unlikely by today's standards. ...Unless things are radically changed.

Renewable energy is not free either, but it has reached "grid parity", which means it costs the same (over time) as other forms of energy (on a level playing field where all incentives are stripped away). So at best, RE is as expensive as, or a little cheaper, than "fossil fuel". Both require large up-front costs.

.. and you still have the issue that whenever you transform energy into some other form of energy you have an efficiency smaller 100% with the rest heating up your environment .. (which I would consider a "cost")

[Troglodactyl]

This article abstracts most of the relevant issues into "externalities" and then ignores them.

[DMo09]

What happens when the cost of energy goes to zero(or near zero).  As we begin using more and more renewable energy, the cost of energy becomes marginal.

The cost of energy will not reach even close to zero unles a "free energy devise" is invented, and then somehow slips by  "the powers that be", and then reaches global commercial manufacturing. In other words, extremely unlikely by today's standards. ...Unless things are radically changed.

Renewable energy is not free either, but it has reached "grid parity", which means it costs the same (over time) as other forms of energy (on a level playing field where all incentives are stripped away). So at best, RE is as expensive as, or a little cheaper, than "fossil fuel". Both require large up-front costs.

[Pheonike]

What happens when the cost of energy goes to zero(or near zero).  As we begin using more and more renewable energy, the cost of energy becomes marginal.