mark tyler's avatar
mark tyler 2 years ago
Is it possible you’re actually trusting a bit more than you think? Do you run a node? Do you know where the logic is that ensures the transactions your node verifies are in accordance with your desires and not someone else’s? Have you personally checked it? Is there any code on your computer than might cause it to be lying to you about what you see when you read that vs what it actually executes when validating blocks? If you haven’t, checked these, then why? I’m all for avoiding blind trust, I think that’s part of understanding the world. I also think it’s impossible. Devastatingly. So we end up with some version of a trust oneself/masses/experts heuristic for a given situation. If you haven’t read it, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes is excellent on this topic. #bookstr

Replies (2)

Thank you, I will check out the book. And I do run my own node :). I didn't write its code though. And did not review it. But it is open source. And that, yes, I do have a lot of trust in popular open source software. Not blindly, though. I know many programmers, and I see how motivated they are to find issues in open source libraries and report them. But you should not trust me because you do not know me, and therefore should not trust open source unless you did your own verification. Sure some verifications are indirect. The level of verification depends on the level of risk I am willing to accept. And generally I have lowish risk tolerance.
@mark tyler your bio is wrong. You have no right to force me anything regardless of anything. I'll have to think this through, but it feels like also term "legitimate" is evil in itself. I can't quickly think of any context where it would not be misleading. image