Getting all the data in the world into the blockchain and coding smart contracts to infer judgement from it would be too complex and expensive.
A more practical approach is to transfer the funds to Bob once he clicks on the checkbox and have some lock-up period, so that Alice has the opportunity to trigger a dispute if she needs to.
Then the dispute can be resolved by a private court (composed of humans) that both Alice and Bob agreed on beforehand. See: https://kleros.io
Ok, but this isn’t purely a smart contract anymore. You’re describing a typical escrow (running on a blockchain, because ______) with human judges, conceptually identical to what goes on behind the scenes at EBay. What necessitates a blockchain here?
No, it's running completely on smart contracts. You get the regular advantages of running on blockchain: permissionless and trustless access to finance.
You don't have to trust the escrow holder, you don't have to worry about getting banned from Ebay.
The human judges/arbitrators aren’t, and they’re what’s critical. The contract cannot be sensibly completed without their input.
So you have an escrow system where human judges need to supply critical information. I’m left having to trust the human judges, unsurprisingly. Running this basic escrow code on the blockchain means that I no longer have to trust the kind of basic escrow code that’s used in centralised escrows. My question now is whether the escrow code of centralised providers (if condition then funds.release()) is really so unreliable that I’ll get get tonnes of benefit using blockchain escrows. Whenever there’s controversy over escrows, it comes down to the arbitration, which as you admitted would still be performed by humans.
> Running this basic escrow code on the blockchain means that I no longer have to trust the kind of basic escrow code that’s used in centralised escrows
Yes, it means that you will 100% know that the escrow website is not gambling your money away, that it won't out of the blue ask you to supply more documents when it finally comes the time for you to get paid, it means that the escrow won't get hacked and your PII won't be sold on darknet.
Smart contracts are just a simpler and more transparent way to deal with finance.
> He can work for Alice or anyone else in the world
what's stopping him now?
> without having to deal with intermediaries and bureaucracy.
you mean laws?
edit: immagine this situation, Bob does the job, the other party never clicks on "done", Bob doesn't get the money, what Bob can do if there's no intermediary and/or bureaucracy protecting him?
Laws are not ideal and are often used to discriminate against certain groups.
> immagine this situation, Bob does the job, the other party never clicks on "done", Bob doesn't get the money, what Bob can do if there's no intermediary and/or bureaucracy protecting him?
As I said, there is a period of funds lock-up. In the worst case, Bob has to wait some time until the smart contract sends him his payment.
> Laws are not ideal and are often used to discriminate against certain groups
and your virtual ideology is better, how?
since nobody can enforce anything.
> As I said, there is a period of funds lock-up. In the worst case, Bob has to wait some time until the smart contract sends him his payment.
What if they payment is never sent and "some time" is forever?
You need laws after all (AKA a solution outside of the chain, or a deus ex machina if you want)
If I was Bob I would not see this thing you're talking about like a great advancement and would continue doing my job like I do it now.
I mean, I get you watched a lot of fiction and wanna feel like living as an outlaw, but even outlaws have laws and follow some of them.
You are trading mid to low trust in your local community for zero trust to some entity you'll never know, who'll never know you, couldn't care less about you and respecting the terms of some virtual contract and pretend we all should do the same.
Do you understand that this is the exact definition of "out of touch"?
how does this solve the issue of authoritarian governments?
> You have no idea how smart contracts work, do you?
I was writing smart contracts in solidity in 2015
at least it was something new back then...
but back on topic, what if they payment is never sent and "some time" is forever?
can you tell me what tools can the poor Bob use to claim what is legitimately his in your perrmissionless world?
how would you encode the "work completed" in a smart contract?
should nodes run by people in the Philipines vote on Bob's work, when Bob lives in Yowa and only wanted to be paid for keeping the gardens in his neighborhood clean (as per job description)?
I was talking about Kleros at the beginning of the discussion, but it's just one possible option.
>You can only hire someone for a job if you have the money.
No, you can only hire someone for a job using this specific method if you have the money beforehand. This means that Bob can be 100% sure that his employer is capable of paying him.
>In reality many people hire someone for a job and thanks to their help they'll have the money to repay them in the future.
There can be other smart contracts which allow this. The cool thing about them is that Bob is always fully aware whether his employer has the funds to pay him or it's just an IOU.
>But what if Alice disappeared because she's dead, and Bob id the one who killed her?
This is outside of our threat model. We're designing a smart contract for employing a freelancer, not high value SC where murder would be economically viable. If Bob murders Alice this is handled the same way as any other murder.
>You're avoiding the answer, and I understand you, it's hard to come with an answer when your design have bugs.
I'm not avoiding an answer, I gave you it clear and straight.
>If Alice dies Bob get his money.
Correct.
>There no way to stop it from happening.
>What if Bob is a minor or the employer is a minor?
>That would make the contract void in real life.
Depends on jurisdiction.
>Should people publish their personal info on the public blockchain so that the smart contract can exclude them from proposing or accepting a job?
They can do whatever they want.
>And how do you check that the informations are correct?
Idk. I wasn't proposing putting public info on the blockchain, it's your problem.
>What if Bob is an immigrant running from a regime and has no way to prove who he is, but needs the job to survive?
Bob would be delighted to know that he can interact with a permissionless network that does not require an ID and get paid for his work without revealing his identity.
>you'd need to basically recreate what government do today, without the enforcement of the law capability.
Nope.
>who would trust a system like that, except outlaws and scammers?
People who like efficiency and don't like intermediaries.
it's funny that people like you, who don't have a clue about what they're talking about, think they are so edgy that have something to teach to the humanity as a whole.
> Bob would be delighted to know that he can interact with a permissionless network that does not require an ID and get paid for his work without revealing his identity.
so basically Bob the pedophile could work with kids and nobody would ever know, until it's too late.
Or Bob the racist could employ black kids from developing country and everyone would be OK with that.
Bit most of all nobody could stop Bob, because nobody knows who he is!
That's a great advancement for society!
Of course bad people of the World would be delighted, I bet they would!
I'm starting to think you're one of them.
> People who like efficiency and don't like intermediaries.
exactly: mobsters, criminals, scammers, etc etc
there is nothing to gain for the common people. they can only lose the few protections they have left.
Crypto is the most anti-authoritarian and anti-nazi technology of 21st century. It empowers the individual and makes them less vulnerable to state violence, like getting their wealth confiscated because of their ethnicity.
You've proven multiple times that you have no idea what you're talking about.
> Crypto is the most anti-authoritarian and anti-nazi technology of 21st century
CVD. cargo cult.
how is crypto stopping Nazis?
and who cares if it's true or not, I was merely addressing your reasoning: volunteering and well behaving are orthogonal.
People can both volunteer and do bad.
> It empowers the individual and makes them less vulnerable to state violenc
it also makes them alone and vulnerable to any other kind of violence, and put them outside of the protection of the state and/or the community.
in your example people have to both pay for the justice system through taxes and for a private jury system handled by who knows who, using expensive crypto currency, when they already have a justice system they pay for.
> like getting their wealth confiscated because of their ethnicity
how exactly?
can you show Me an example where this actually happened, outside of your idealistic virtual universe?
like if nobody has ever been scammed in the crypto space.
> You've proven multiple times that you have no idea what you're talking about.
see?
that's what I am talking about: you confuse what you blindly believe with reality.
The world, unfortunately for you, is not what you imagine it to be though...
A more practical approach is to transfer the funds to Bob once he clicks on the checkbox and have some lock-up period, so that Alice has the opportunity to trigger a dispute if she needs to.
Then the dispute can be resolved by a private court (composed of humans) that both Alice and Bob agreed on beforehand. See: https://kleros.io