Introduction
Whenever a new, potentially world changing idea appears, an obvious question to ask is: “Why do we need it”.
It’s great talking about how we can change the world with new technologies, but at the end of the day, if the purpose of blockchain “Is to abolish Capitalism”, then we would no longer need it after a revolution.
Therefore, there is arguably a deeper reason for needing Distributed Ledger Technology like blockchain. This is probably a lot simpler than you might think, even though the implementation is pretty complex.
Current State/The Problem
A question that people have been asking, probably for as long as we have been around is: “What is truth?”. Some differentiate truth between “Subjective Truth” and “Objective truth”.
Most people, regardless of what language they speak, would say ‘rainbow’ if you asked them what one was. But if we were to do a survey about the colours in the rainbow, the answers would be very very different.
Someone who is said to be colour blind, for example, may not be able to distinguish certain colours, a butterfly would tell you all sorts of colours from the Ultra Violet spectrum, and someone without sight, would not be able to tell you any colours; this does not mean a rainbow does not exist, but it does mean that I can’t be sure I am experiencing the same thing as you are.
The Solution
So how do we know what “Objective Truth” is, or a least that we can put something together that EVERYONE will agree on, unless they are obviously lying, or have made an unintentional mistake.
Well, we can use Science and Maths to help us try and reach a common consensus that we are all experiencing the same thing outside of our subjective selves. By breaking up a rainbow into wavelengths, we are able to say what a rainbow is using numbers. Even a blind person could experience a rainbow this way by reading about the maths behind it.
We could also know that if an alien species far more technologically advanced than ours, came and produced the same results as we do with their maths, then we are closer to “Objective Truth”.
Conclusion
And this is pretty much what blockchain enables us to do. Because multiple parties are all attesting to what the truth is, everyone can be confident that they are all experiencing the same thing. And as long as objective truth is inherently good, then we can trust it.
