3 ms·

> However I feel like we're having the bad engineer reflex, trying to find a technical solution to a societal issue and we might end up making things worse. Sa

by VMG 9y ago

> However I feel like we're having the bad engineer reflex, trying to find a technical solution to a societal issue and we might end up making things worse. Same is said for encryption. My perspective is that tools empowering individuals is the solution to societal problems. Cryptography does that, whether applied to communication or applied to value transfer.

simias 9y ago
Encryption has legitimate use cases even if you assume that you completely trust the "authorities" like your bank and your government. It's about preventing your neighbor from reading your email over wifi. Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected, which makes it hard for somebody to steal my credit card and use it without my consent. It's arguably even safer than Bitcoin since the bank and regulations offer me some protection if something goes wrong. So bitcoin isn't about making secure transactions the way HTTPS is, it's about hiding my transactions from the bank and, transitively, from the government. It's about creating a completely free libertarian market. Maybe you actually want that but I wish there were more discussions in the bitcoin world about what model of society people really want. I have a hard time believing that all the bitcoin enthusiasts are die-hard objectivists. I feel like many people saw the "get rich quick" scheme and didn't stop to think about the consequences.
- VMG 9y ago
  > Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected To borrow some progressive terminology: check your privilege. Also let's not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks-in.html https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks-in.html Civil asset forfeiture etc.

3 ms·

> However I feel like we're having the bad engineer reflex, trying to find a technical solution to a societal issue and we might end up making things worse. Sa

by VMG 9y ago

simias 9y ago
Encryption has legitimate use cases even if you assume that you completely trust the "authorities" like your bank and your government. It's about preventing your neighbor from reading your email over wifi. Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected, which makes it hard for somebody to steal my credit card and use it without my consent. It's arguably even safer than Bitcoin since the bank and regulations offer me some protection if something goes wrong. So bitcoin isn't about making secure transactions the way HTTPS is, it's about hiding my transactions from the bank and, transitively, from the government. It's about creating a completely free libertarian market. Maybe you actually want that but I wish there were more discussions in the bitcoin world about what model of society people really want. I have a hard time believing that all the bitcoin enthusiasts are die-hard objectivists. I feel like many people saw the "get rich quick" scheme and didn't stop to think about the consequences.
- VMG 9y ago
  > Monetary transactions are already pretty well protected To borrow some progressive terminology: check your privilege. Also let's not forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks-in.html https://wikileaks.org/MasterCard-breaks-ranks-in.html Civil asset forfeiture etc.