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- Adversarial thinker Udi Wertheimer has chosen Twitter to host his new show ‘The Untrollable’.
- Wertheimer shares his delight to invite Vitalik Buterin as his first guest on the show earlier today.
- He questions the Ethereum founder Vitalik as to ‘why blockchains are better than spreadsheets’.
VR meetup organizer and adversarial thinker Udi Wertheimer has chosen Twitter to host his new show ‘The Untrollable’. Wertheimer shares his delight to invite Vitalik Buterin as his first guest on the show earlier today. The show is all about inviting a guest to have a discussion regarding a particular topic by tweeting their views. He questions the Ethereum founder Vitalik as to ‘why blockchains are better than spreadsheets’.
Happy to announce my new show:
THE UNTROLLABLES
It’s me and one guest. We hash it out in the comments, and the rest of you watch.
My first guest – if he’s brave enough to accept – is @VitalikButerin!
Vitalik, why are blockchains better than spreadsheets?
(Please retweet!) pic.twitter.com/vPQdN1yIEd
— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) May 20, 2020
In response, the Ethereum founder highlights the risks associated with the GoogThereum especially the risk associated with hacking. He further stresses the fact that there are strong cases for all the three risks he has highlighted.
GoogThereum has 3 risks that Ethereum doesn't:
1. GoogThereum may censor or interfere with your application because of pressure from the USA gov
2. GoogThereum may censor… because of Google's strategic interests
3. GoogThereum may get hacked or otherwise break involuntarily— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
However to this Wertheimer asserts that the web already solves the cases. He states an instance that one can rather opt Amazon server in case there occurs a compromise in the Google server.
Thanks for the detailed answer!
For all of these cases, (1) (2) and (3), doesn’t the web already solve that? If a Google server censors or get compromised, one can use an Amazon server instead, right? Or use both? Plus some servers in Russia and China etc?
— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) May 20, 2020
Vitalik Buterin’s views
So I suppose you *could* build a consortium chain with some nodes run by Google, some by Huawei, some by (checks notes for European tech company) The Pirate Bay. And I agree that would be a step up in addressing all these concerns.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
Buterin states his opinion about building a consortium chain with nodes run by Google, Huawei, and The Pirate Bay, for instance. He agrees that it is a move to address various concerns. However his belief is that it can cause one to miss out on the advantages of centralization. Alongside that, he believes building such a chain can turn out tougher. Lastly stating that such chains have not come into existence yet.
But note that by going even this far you're losing a lot of the advantages of centralization. And it turns out that for whatever reasons, setting up such a chain is socially hard; after over half a decade of hype they don't exist yet.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
The Pirate Bay is a good example of a web app surviving numerous censorship attempts, Wertheimer tweets. He questions Buterin as to what can be wrong with the current fairly distributed web model.
Does it have to be a strict structure aka “consortium chain”? What’s wrong with the current web model, which is fairly distributed?
It’s interesting you bring up The Pirate Bay! They’re a good example a web app that survived countless censorship attempts
— Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) May 20, 2020
Buterin cites an example of cryptocurrency asserting that a Pirate Bay-style team cannot maintain it. As he believes that it is difficult to migrate a system with the long-term active state running.
But a cryptocurrency isn't the only application with long-term state of this type; a decentralized DNS-like system is another system. Also cryptocurrencies with more advanced features, eg. stablecoins / synthetics.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
Furthermore, he draws focus to his view that a cryptocurrency isn’t the only application with the long-term state. As even the decentralized DNS-like system falls under the same category besides Stablecoins and synthetics.
Conclusion
GoogThereum, where anyone can view the chain but only Google can write to it, does better. I suppose the main practical benefit of Ethereum over GoogThereum is just being on the same platform as the various other Ethereum-issued assets.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
Lastly, Vitalik reasons out as to how Ethereum is better than GoogThereum. He highlights the benefit of being on the same platform as other Ethereum assets. Additionally, GoogThereum will have difficulty in having the same network effect due to probable risk-of-shutdown issues, Buterin tweets. Also he mentions its poor coordination.
GoogThereum would have a hard time getting the same network effect because of all the trust and risk-of-shutdown issues mentioned above: sure, the apps can hop, but they can't easily coordinate hopping to the same new platform
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 20, 2020
Nonetheless, their further tweets highlight their views mainly on Tether, interoperability, and other related topics.
