Ian Grigg

I guess the problem with a long article, even an interesting long article like the one submitted here, is that it is hard to read to the end. Near the end of the submitted article is this paragraph:

"A second problem is that even when it comes to alternative energy sources, Germany doesn't reward carbon dioxide reduction. Rather, its policy establishes well-defined subsidies for specific technologies: a kilowatt-hour of solar power is rewarded more than power from offshore wind, which in turn earns more than power from onshore wind. Even though solar subsidies have been reduced to rates far lower than the ones Leurs locked in, solar power still pays the highest rates. If reducing emissions were the focus, however, more money would be directed toward reducing energy use. 'If you could choose the optimal instruments, focusing on those areas first where you can achieve your goals most inexpensively, you would focus not so much on renewables but much more on efficiency,' says Pittel, the energy economist from Munich."

This ignores the advice of Amory Lovins

http://www.rmi.org/Amory+B.+Lovins

(Amory Lovins profile page at Rocky Mountain Institute website)

http://www.ted.com/speakers/amory_lovins.html

(TED profile)

http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_a_50_year_plan_for_energy.html

(TED Talk video "A 40-year plan for energy")

and generally the advice of any thoughtful scholar on how to improve worldwide energy efficiency. The German Energiewende plan is a remarkable…

One thing you might be thinking of is "there should be one mode, and it should be secure".

http://iang.org/ssl/h3_there_is_only_one_mode_and_it_is_secure.html

This isn't exactly the same as what you said, but I think it's an argument in favor of your point of view.

Another analogous thing is that academic cryptographers will regard an algorithm or protocol as broken if an adversary can gain a significant advantage (probability of distinguishing things that are supposed to be indistinguishable, reduction in work factor, etc.), even if the resulting work factor to mount the attack is still enormous. For example, if there were an attack that could break AES in 2¹⁰⁰ operations, AES would be considered broken even though we believe there is no one who can perform 2¹⁰⁰ operations, because it no longer provides the designed or advertised security margin.

A blockchain is triple entry accounting, which has advantages over double.

http://www.warrenhenke.com/writing/essays/triple-entry-accounting

https://iang.org/papers/triple_entry.html

I find it odd to say "thats a human problem" as if technical invention over centuries isnt specifically to abstract away human inefficiency.

A group of somewhat trusting firms doesnt need crazy PoW/PoS. The idea of companies sharing a collaborative ledger when working together shouldnt be dismissed so flippantly. Everyone keeping their own (unreconciled automatically with each others) book may be the status quo, but it doesnt make it optimal.

Democratic Autonomous Organizations -- which are corporations whose law is created not by human organizations; the law for ricardian contracts is instead defined by a relationship between trustless consensus and formally verifiable logic.

See the og tao here: http://chriseth.github.io/browser-solidity/?gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab#gist=192371538cf5e43e6dab

and read about the $50 million tao debacle on wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)

more about ricardian contracts on ethereum here: http://iang.org/papers/intersection_ricardian_smart.html

It also seems to conflate online access to land records with bitcoin.

It's possible that the same folks that pushed MERS (trying to move land records out of county systems and into a private, mortgage industry-controlled system) may be pushing this as a second attempt at the same (just with the word "blockchain").

The only way it makes sense to me is as a further means of authenticating exactly what was done and who the parties were. See "Triple Entry Accounting" for a similar concept (added value from blockchain use): http://iang.org/papers/triple_entry.html

Try this for a start:
https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169

Actually, this is better:
http://iang.org/papers/triple_entry.html

My attempt at trying to explain it in one sentence: blockchain provides the technology to connect the double entry ledgers of two (or more) parties by recording the transactions between them, in a way that makes it possible to _prove_ the existence and validity of the transaction independently, without relying on either party's ledger.