Chinese President Xi Jinping Calls Blockchain a 'Breakthrough' Technology (cnbc.com) 82
Even as cryptocurrencies continue to draw skepticism from some, at least the underlying technology, blockchain, has found yet another high-profile admirer: Chinese President. Xi Jinping said in a speech this week that blockchain has "breakthrough" applications. From a report: "A new generation of technology represented by artificial intelligence, quantum information, mobile communications, internet of things and blockchain is accelerating breakthrough applications," he said Monday, according to a translation of his remarks. Xi also emphasized the need for China to focus on technological development and become the global center of science and innovation.
Re: (Score:2)
They've allowed for several special economic zones which have some of the least government economic interference on the planet and these places are wildly popular and productive. Shenzhen went from a tiny town (by Chinese standards) to one of the large
Re:This is all diversion (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
China is the most successful US regime change operation in US history. Starting in 1972 with Nixon to now. Before 1972 China looked like NK does today except they had more mouths to feed. All the US had to do was show the Chinese leadership how rich they could become if they adopted a more open market economy. The migration was slow but steady. It's no surprise that the Communist Party leaders are some of the richest people on the planet. And the Party leadership is dynastic in form. People literally inheri
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
new facial recognition/biometric/economic/credit-social score tracking systems yet?
It's true we're being invaded (US and Canada) and it's awful it's still treated as bigotry and tin foil hat/alt right garbage but as I write this I enjoy a full life as a plus Fifty Technology worker, married, a bouncy new puppy, nice house, year old car and savings/investments with a plethora of hobbies, all of which would be curtailed by Chinese authoriti
Re: (Score:3)
You are an absolute idiot, there are almost 3000 elected officials in the Chinese government; the fact that China actually has election within CCP is probably lost upon you. Calling China a fascist oligarchy is like calling US is a fascist oligarchy, it is moronic. The fact that you are even somehow voted 5 informative shows ./ is full of idiots, probably (hopefully) just Americans.
Hmmm... Hi there, I lived in China for 6 years, been spending half my life there for the better part of 20, and my wife is Chinese. One of my best friends is Chinese, still lives there, and has worked his way up quite high in the Zhejiang provincial power structure (politically connected into Beijing, and he runs a division of a heavy industry owned outright by the CCP). Only certain members of the CCP can vote, you need to be sponsored in to the CCP in the first place, and each election has almost alway
Re: (Score:2)
China has always been a fascist oligarchy, like pretty much all Communist nations end up (or, more accurately, start at and never move beyond). A small group of families run everything, and maintain dictatorial control via 100% State control of key industries. China still does this - complete control of communications, steel, transportation (air and rail), banks, and a few other key industries. It also maintains strict controls on the flow of currency in and out of the country, as well as goods and services; not just tariffs on imports, but required tariffs and controls on exports.
The US is also a hydraulic empire [wikipedia.org] with little political representation of its population; it is just not as blatant.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
do the math...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
When the Communist party detects anything that is not approved that social score is lowered.
The "blockchain" is not just about creating new wealth.
Xi Jining is all about centeralized control (Score:2)
His control.
And Block Chain is all about decentralized control. So an odd pick.
I suspect he was just rattling of technological buzzwords that sounded trendy. Looks he forgot "Deep Learning".
Re: (Score:1)
People in tech in the west seem to forget the word 'chain' is in there somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Just... no. One of the things you can do with blockchain technology is decentralize something. However that is not remotely the only application. China is interested in it for it's tracking capabilities, and the advanced control it gives over its citizens actions.
Re: Xi Jining is all about centeralized control (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Nope. Clearly the government of China is impressed by developments in Russia and are themselves going to pursue changing China to a technocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]. Democratic at the mid to high level and the rest are taught to vote the right way. It is in line with current trends, it provides significant developmental and economic advantages. The US kakistocracy is rapidly consuming itself, a snake eating it's own tale, being eaten alive by corruption and trying to compete with technocracies
Two meanings of "Corruption" (Score:1)
In the USA, it means money lobbies government to reduce to impact of the voters.
In China there are no voters, totally corrupt in that sense. And "Corruption" means princelings putting public money directly into their own pockets -- that type of direct corruption is extremely rare in the USA. (It is done indirectly, e.g. the general getting the job in the arms factory upon retirement, but not directly.)
There is no comparison.
Sure, there is trouble in the USA. But they are chalk and cheese.
Re: (Score:1)
Not odd at all. Perhaps he just doesn't want the US dollar to remain the main reserve currency that everyone must hold to do business. US basically can blackball/blackmail any country at any time, just like they are trying to do right now with businesses that may want to do business with Iran. Maybe Xi thinks that blockchain tech can change that.
Ideal for the State! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You can track EVERYTHING with Blockchain. Make the one-time association between user and hash, and you have everything they ever do. Perfect for an all-controlling State!
That's true, but how is that different from using a credit or debit card or any bank account that's associated to real person identity?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I've no doubt all that's tracked on some server somewhere. But if it were a blockchain, the intermediaries couldn't fuck with it. It would let top China party members trust the regional bosses to collect lists of all the phone logs, money transfers, lists of people they black-bagged. Their underlings couldn't just pencil in whatever value they wanted, or run a SQL script to DELETE FROM TaxRecords WHERE name=${myNephew}.
It ALSO means they can't fuck with it, which isn't the sort of loss of control I'
Breakthrough Application (Score:4, Insightful)
If the translation is right, he said "breakthrough applications" and not "breakthrough technology". See the difference?
Blockchain doesn't have to == cryptocurrencies. (Score:3)
Blockchain is commonly defined by investment folks as such, sure - but it's just a database oriented to ensure uniqueness and carefully tracking user access.
Here's a gaming-oriented view on how Blockchain can be used more generally, and not just to ask for money:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Perhaps in the end, it will all be a dead-end, since those same ideas can be mixed better in something not called 'Blockchain' - but as it is, it is nicely well-tested set of code you can use for lots of other stuff. It seem a waste to not use it as a basic toolset, when it's so relatively well-tested.
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if he understands it. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Buzzwords (Score:2)
Sounds like he threw out some random tech buzzwords to me. Big deal.
Re: (Score:2)
Buzzwords? I believe you mean "#hashtags".
Re:Buzzwords (Score:5, Funny)
Well at least with the popularization of hashtags Americans have finally progressed beyond calling # a 'pound'.
It would have made the #metoo campaign a little... awkward.
Time to call a top. (Score:1)
Time to call a top.
,br>
One Japenese band, one Chinese Poo-bah, several people I work with who bought into ICO's, way too much money.
Time to call a top.
Re: (Score:2)
It's mathematically hard by design. That means computational crunching power. You can see that as wasteful if you want, but think of all income of all the bankers and all the severs running VISA transactions and all the advertising costs that Visa and Mastercard and such pay for. And all the fraud. Visa just eats the costs of a lot of fraud (and passes it onto merchants).
But yeah, any blockchain tech that gets popular and has lots of transactions is going to take serious hardware and have electricity co
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Git is sort of like a blockchain. However, you most certainly CAN change a git history. I've done it before when I realized I accidentally committed 2 things together that should have been separate commits and then pushed them. All you have to do it go back to the spot in the history you want to modify, make the modification, and then successively rewrite everything that came after it. What happens then is that you simply fork the GIT repository. One fork has the original history, and the other fork ha
Re: (Score:1)
I ordered my new world with Italian sausage and extra cheese.
Reading Comprehension 101 (Score:2)
According to the translation he's saying "A new generation of technology ... is accelerating breakthrough applications". You know what this means? Party time! Blockchain mentioned! Actually, it's called one of many new generation technologies. I also agree with comments noting it sounds basically a list of buzzwords with no specific meaning, although if you look at the list, they're all immensely useful technologies for ubiquitous surveillance. But he said "breakthrough applications", that can only mean one
Re: (Score:2)
Are (any) fiat-currency and (any) cryptocurrency really equivalent, as cryptocurrency fans claim?
Of course they're not equivalent. Fiat-currencies are backed by hopes and dreams and the trust in the issuer. They can, at their whim, simply print more money and devalue it, making all of the currency you're holding worth less and throwing your usage of the currency into uncertainty. If you can trust the US government to keep the private institution that is the Fed in line, then you can trust the value of the currency. And if you can trust FDIC, you can even trust banks and credit-unions and such. And
What good is it? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
well yeah. But with the added twist of "you don't have to trust the people holding onto the database." Like how email let you "send mail... but on a computer", all the crazy blockchain ideas are just old tasks done on a distributed ledger that's secure from people fucking with it. Right now you have to trust your bank to keep the right number next to your account. You have to trust the DMV to have the right picture and birth year and name associated with your driver's license. And they generally do a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oooooor fix it, and note that you fixed it. It's not like anything in a git repo "never needs to be changed". The values in the ledger change all the time. It's actually their defining feature keeping track of a value that goes up and down.
Re: (Score:2)
China has intelligent leaders (Score:1)