In the Pond, nothing counted until you said it out loud.
Bao sold three plums that morning, so she went to the caller and told him, and the caller nodded and announced it to the whole length of the market.
“THREE PLUMS. BAO. TO THE CAT IN THE GREY HAT.”
Four hundred animals heard him.
The book keeper, at the end of the market, heard it, nodded his head and wrote it in his book.
Watching the cat in the GREEN hat walk off towards the bridge with her plums, Bao realized that it was actually the cat in the green hat that she had sold the plums to, not the cat in the grey hat.
She ran back to the caller. “Call it again. Say I meant the cat in the green hat."
"I can call anything you like," said the caller. "But, I can't un-call what I’ve already called," said the caller.
Bao ran to the book keeper. “Cross it out, I meant the green hat, not the grey”
"I only wrote it down. I didn't make it true." The bookkeeper did not look up. "Four hundred people heard it.”
So Bao went to find whoever was in charge of the Book.
She asked the gatekeeper, who said he had always assumed it was the book keeper. She asked the book keeper, who said he just had the neatest writing, and was only in charge of writing down what has been called. She asked the toad on the bridge, who said he had wondered that himself for eleven years.
Then she sat down next to Moolah and said, "Nobody is in charge of the Book."
"No."
"Somebody should be in charge of the Book?" Bao asked
"Should they," said Moolah.
"Then I could ask them to fix it."
"Yes," said Moolah. "And so could everybody else. Including my plums, without asking me."
Bao sat with that for a while.
Then she stood up, and went to the caller, and said a new thing out loud, which was that the three plums had gone to the cat in the green hat and she was an idiot to say it was the cat in the grey hat.
The caller called it. The book keeper wrote it underneath.
The first line stayed exactly where it was.
From then on Bao said her trades slowly. She looked at the animal, and then at the hat, and then at the hat one more time, only then did she open her mouth. It cost her about four seconds each time.
She thought this was a very small price.
She was right.
Margin Note: You can always say a new thing. You can never un-say an old one.
The Honest Bit: This is how a blockchain works, and the Book is the least important part of it. The record is not one page in one place. It is thousands of machines that all heard the same thing at the same time. Nobody is in charge, which is exactly why nobody can undo your mistake, and also exactly why nobody can freeze your money or refuse your trade. Corrections are new entries. The error stays readable forever. It is also why coins sent to a wrong address are gone.
The Question of the Day: Having nobody in charge cost Bao three plums. Name the thing it protected her from. Then decide whether you would make the swap.
Try It: Open any transaction on a BSC Scan. Notice that nobody asked whether you were allowed to look, and that there is no button anywhere on the page to undo it.
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