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Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies,
by Frondo 10y ago
Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions.
With dollars, I get to vote regularly for people, and those people appoint someone to call the shots on "how dollars work". So does everyone else (well, registered voters, but you get my drift). They don't need to be versed in printing or ACH or whatever to have their voice heard.
With bitcoin, if I'm not happy, where do I go to have my voice heard? Saying "code up your changes and get 51% of the network on board" isn't the same, not even same ballpark, or neighborhood, as "here's your ballot, citizen".
So that's my beef with bitcoin.
- microcolonel 10y agoIsn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?
- Nursie 10y agoHow is "the people who can buy the most hashing power have the most votes" fair? That's the bitcoin majority...
- Natanael_L 10y agoThe hashing power follows the economic majority, not the other way around.
- tdb7893 10y ago"majority vote" (i.e. the vote of a few large mining organizations)
- erikpukinskis 10y ago> it is an anti-democratic currency I guess that's true, but that's because there's no commons that needs to be regulated. You don't need to vote on Bitcoin because anyone can just do whatever they want with it. Your neighbor's use of it has zero effect on you. If you don't like it, you can just ignore it and use some other currency, crypto- or not-. It's similar to spoons. Spoons aren't democratic. No one can vote to ensure that your spoons must be a certain way. Spoons are just a thing you can choose to participate in or not. I wouldn't exactly call that anti-democratic so much as there's-no-need-to-vote-because-there's-no-commons.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago> With bitcoin, if I'm not happy, where do I go to have my voice heard? https://coinmarketcap.com/ https://coinmarketcap.com/
- Frondo 10y agoSo, if I'm not happy, I can't turn to bitcoin--but must turn to some other currency--to have my voice heard. Which of those has policy governance accessible via a democratic process like regularly scheduled voting, or elected representatives? Do any of them?
- abrkn 10y agoLike erikpukinskis writes, you simply vote with your feet. Because the currency is now a commodity, the miners and developers need to be keenly aware of the needs of its users to stay competitive. https://fee.org/articles/the-nature-and-origin-of-money/ https://fee.org/articles/the-nature-and-origin-of-money/