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Maybe true, but in a way, classical investments are even more complicated. Some of them are even deliberately complicated to obfuscate their risky nature to nai

Maybe true, but in a way, classical investments are even more complicated. Some of them are even deliberately complicated to obfuscate their risky nature to naive investors.

rosser 9y ago
I don't think the predatory complexities found in some shady securities are a very prudent way of "excusing" the technical complexities and consequences of BTC, or any other cryptocurrency. "Not as bad as" is broadly fallacious, anyway.
- anothercomment 9y ago
  OK then, explain to me: what is money?
  - rosser 9y ago
    I'm probably not the person to ask, because my "succinct to the point of sounding flippant, but offered completely honestly" answer is: a profoundly destructive social fiction whose time is well past. The notion and role of a medium of exchange are things on which I have ... divergent views. It's a human invention we have collectively chosen to value more than the thing it was presumably created to serve — you know, "humanity". Any tool that becomes more important than the lives and well-being of the folks that tool was invented to benefit (that is: all of us [0]), I'd submit, needs some serious critical re-examination. I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon, though. Your question is a complete non-sequitur, anyway. It's entirely possible to create systems and stores of value that aren't as abusable, abusive, exploitable, exploited, and just generally bad (or at least less good) for the overwhelming majority of the monkeys involved in its circulation and use, as compared to "money". [0] If your counter is that it doesn't have to serve all of us, then I'd say it was the wrong tool out the gate.
    - anothercomment 9y ago
      I just meant to illustrate that money is actually quite complicated, even though we use it daily without giving it much thought.
      - rosser 9y ago
        And my original response merely suggested that using the ethically compromised complexity deliberately introduced into one of the more obscure forms of "money" we have to justify the technical complexities and their attendant consequences in yet another is at best fallacious. That is: "But CDOs" isn't materially responsive to "BTC is complicated."
SkyMarshal 9y ago
If by classical investments you mean vanilla stocks and bonds, those are heavily regulated with strict disclosure and transparency requirements, heavy penalties for cheating (insider trading), and standardized reporting for de-obfuscation as much as possible. If you're referring to more exotic instruments, those are off limits to mainstream folks, only available (in the US at least) to accredited investors with enough discretionary wealth they won't go homeless if they lose their investment. In either case, a lot of effort goes into mitigating the cognitive load for mainstream non-expert investors.
- anothercomment 9y ago
  What about those things that produced the last financial crisis? Reselling bad credits b mixing it with good credit and so on. Maybe it was only accessible to the pros, but then if they got it wrong, and they probably bundled it up with other things that they were then able to sell to the public.

Maybe true, but in a way, classical investments are even more complicated. Some of them are even deliberately complicated to obfuscate their risky nature to naive investors.

rosser 9y ago

I don't think the predatory complexities found in some shady securities are a very prudent way of "excusing" the technical complexities and consequences of BTC, or any other cryptocurrency. "Not as bad as" is broadly fallacious, anyway.

anothercomment 9y ago
OK then, explain to me: what is money?
- rosser 9y ago
  I'm probably not the person to ask, because my "succinct to the point of sounding flippant, but offered completely honestly" answer is: a profoundly destructive social fiction whose time is well past. The notion and role of a medium of exchange are things on which I have ... divergent views. It's a human invention we have collectively chosen to value more than the thing it was presumably created to serve — you know, "humanity". Any tool that becomes more important than the lives and well-being of the folks that tool was invented to benefit (that is: all of us [0]), I'd submit, needs some serious critical re-examination. I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon, though. Your question is a complete non-sequitur, anyway. It's entirely possible to create systems and stores of value that aren't as abusable, abusive, exploitable, exploited, and just generally bad (or at least less good) for the overwhelming majority of the monkeys involved in its circulation and use, as compared to "money". [0] If your counter is that it doesn't have to serve all of us, then I'd say it was the wrong tool out the gate.
  - anothercomment 9y ago
    I just meant to illustrate that money is actually quite complicated, even though we use it daily without giving it much thought.
    - rosser 9y ago
      And my original response merely suggested that using the ethically compromised complexity deliberately introduced into one of the more obscure forms of "money" we have to justify the technical complexities and their attendant consequences in yet another is at best fallacious. That is: "But CDOs" isn't materially responsive to "BTC is complicated."

SkyMarshal 9y ago

If by classical investments you mean vanilla stocks and bonds, those are heavily regulated with strict disclosure and transparency requirements, heavy penalties for cheating (insider trading), and standardized reporting for de-obfuscation as much as possible. If you're referring to more exotic instruments, those are off limits to mainstream folks, only available (in the US at least) to accredited investors with enough discretionary wealth they won't go homeless if they lose their investment. In either case, a lot of effort goes into mitigating the cognitive load for mainstream non-expert investors.

anothercomment 9y ago
What about those things that produced the last financial crisis? Reselling bad credits b mixing it with good credit and so on. Maybe it was only accessible to the pros, but then if they got it wrong, and they probably bundled it up with other things that they were then able to sell to the public.