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> Blockchain is perhaps the most economically important invention of the last 500 years Holy cow are you serious? The most economically important in the last 5

> Blockchain is perhaps the most economically important invention of the last 500 years Holy cow are you serious? The most economically important in the last 500 years? So the steamship, the airplane, the automobile, the railroad, the telephone, the printing press, nuclear power, vaccinations, electricity, radio, radar, the semiconductor, television, the cell phone, penicillin, the Gregorian calendar, pasteurization, the refrigerator, the microscope, the telescope, electric lighting, the transistor, the Internet, the microprocessor, and pretty much everything that makes modern life possible is somehow less important than the block chain? Even is you limit this to just banking, you have widespread checking, credit cards, credit reporting, interbank transfers, wire transfers, mortgage lending, and more. And the blockchain is more important than all of those? I get it. *coins are cool, but it has a LONG way to go to even be in the in the same league as the greatest inventions of the last 500 years. Let's reasses this in 50 years or so and see where we are before declaring blockchains more important than penicillin. :)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tomrod 9y ago
> In early 2017, the Harvard Business Review suggested that blockchain is a foundational technology and thus "has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems." It further observed that while foundational innovations can have enormous impact, "It will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain
- peckrob 9y ago
  Let me see if I can explain this better. 500 years ago was 1517. This is just a bit into the Age of Discovery. We hadn't even managed to sail all the way around the world yet (that wouldn't come until 1522). The Enlightenment was still a couple centuries away. Feudalism was still a thing, plagues still routinely struck. Absolute monarchs reigned over lands. Most people still lived on subsistence agriculture and would starve is there was a bad harvest. People routinely died of things that we don't even think about because of modern medicine. Now, compare that to the world we live in now, where satellites and cables beam information around the world in milliseconds and childhood deaths from diseases are much rarer now. I could be in China in less than a day if I wanted to. And I'm not likely to starve this winter and I never had smallpox as a child. Blockchains MAY someday be important. But it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations. A LOT has happened in 500 years, and it is WAY too early to be making those kinds of pronouncements. (As a side note, two of the most underrated inventions of, let's say the last 100 years or so: the pallet and the ISO container. Both of these are so crucial to the modern economy that they blend into the background.)
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    > it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations I said 'economically important'. The couple years they add to our life expectancy is great, but vaccines weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the railroads or the age of sail. (And wouldn't have even if Salk had patented the polio vaccine.)
    - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
      > Weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the railroads or the age of sail. How do you predict wealth will transfer differently under blockchains than with usual state backed currencies. Not the literal (you don't need a bank), but societal? If block chains were to completely replace US currency, but society used them exactly the same, then they wouldn't be a transformative tech. They'd need to change society economically to do that. How do you see it doing that?
      - Alex3917 9y ago
        I'll blog about this in the next few months, I'm going to wait until the hype dies down first though because I don't want to encourage other folks to make bad life decisions, and also so I can buy what I want to hold until the next cycle. What I would say though is that blockchain has nothing to do with currency, that's just a red herring out there to trick people into not seeing its transformative potential. It's about reaching consensus and being able to make decisions at a society-wide level. I blogged about the implications of this is a little in 2006, before any of this was even invented: http://www.alexkrupp.com/fourwebs.html http://www.alexkrupp.com/fourwebs.html
        pascalxus 9y ago
        > It's about reaching consensus and being able to make decisions at a society-wide level. If this was really true, I could see how important that would be. Having better ways to govern ourselves, and putting 35% of GDP to better use than it currently is being used, would have tremendous impact. But, the Government and the majority will never in a million years allow this to happen and thus none of this "consensus" will ever matter (because it occurs outside the scope of our operating government). The real key to achieving what your alluding too is a massive political innovation which I don't see how bitcoin can bring about.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tomrod 9y ago

> In early 2017, the Harvard Business Review suggested that blockchain is a foundational technology and thus "has the potential to create new foundations for our economic and social systems." It further observed that while foundational innovations can have enormous impact, "It will take decades for blockchain to seep into our economic and social infrastructure." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain

peckrob 9y ago
Let me see if I can explain this better. 500 years ago was 1517. This is just a bit into the Age of Discovery. We hadn't even managed to sail all the way around the world yet (that wouldn't come until 1522). The Enlightenment was still a couple centuries away. Feudalism was still a thing, plagues still routinely struck. Absolute monarchs reigned over lands. Most people still lived on subsistence agriculture and would starve is there was a bad harvest. People routinely died of things that we don't even think about because of modern medicine. Now, compare that to the world we live in now, where satellites and cables beam information around the world in milliseconds and childhood deaths from diseases are much rarer now. I could be in China in less than a day if I wanted to. And I'm not likely to starve this winter and I never had smallpox as a child. Blockchains MAY someday be important. But it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations. A LOT has happened in 500 years, and it is WAY too early to be making those kinds of pronouncements. (As a side note, two of the most underrated inventions of, let's say the last 100 years or so: the pallet and the ISO container. Both of these are so crucial to the modern economy that they blend into the background.)
- Alex3917 9y ago
  > it is the height of tech arrogance, not to mention a gross lack of awareness of history, to put a yet largely unproven technology that most of the human population has not even heard of on the same level as vaccinations I said 'economically important'. The couple years they add to our life expectancy is great, but vaccines weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the railroads or the age of sail. (And wouldn't have even if Salk had patented the polio vaccine.)
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    > Weren't really associated with an enormous transfer of wealth on the same level as, say, the railroads or the age of sail. How do you predict wealth will transfer differently under blockchains than with usual state backed currencies. Not the literal (you don't need a bank), but societal? If block chains were to completely replace US currency, but society used them exactly the same, then they wouldn't be a transformative tech. They'd need to change society economically to do that. How do you see it doing that?
    - Alex3917 9y ago
      I'll blog about this in the next few months, I'm going to wait until the hype dies down first though because I don't want to encourage other folks to make bad life decisions, and also so I can buy what I want to hold until the next cycle. What I would say though is that blockchain has nothing to do with currency, that's just a red herring out there to trick people into not seeing its transformative potential. It's about reaching consensus and being able to make decisions at a society-wide level. I blogged about the implications of this is a little in 2006, before any of this was even invented: http://www.alexkrupp.com/fourwebs.html http://www.alexkrupp.com/fourwebs.html
      - pascalxus 9y ago
        > It's about reaching consensus and being able to make decisions at a society-wide level. If this was really true, I could see how important that would be. Having better ways to govern ourselves, and putting 35% of GDP to better use than it currently is being used, would have tremendous impact. But, the Government and the majority will never in a million years allow this to happen and thus none of this "consensus" will ever matter (because it occurs outside the scope of our operating government). The real key to achieving what your alluding too is a massive political innovation which I don't see how bitcoin can bring about.