5 ms·

Cryptocurrency will always be political

68 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

cjbprime 9y ago
This cryptocurrency article misspells Bitcoin and Ethereum. o_O
- KasianFranks 9y ago
  Yes, lets dismiss it altogether. Crypto is adverse to the core culture of software engineering. Keep shunning it and it will go away. Lets not be disrupted.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    This is only tangential, but I really hate everyone calling cryptocurrencies "crypto" (and Wikipedia "wiki"). These words had meaning before, you know, and it's really confusing if you start overwriting a term. "currency" was added to "crypto" to form "cryptocurrency" because the word meant something already.
    - y4mi 9y ago
      urm, it did? i thought it was just a shorthand for cryptography previously? don't see a problem with shortening something else to the same string, as both are just terms you use because you're to lazy to actually spell it out.
    - Buttes 9y ago
      Crypto is the new cyber.
simonebrunozzi 9y ago
Apropos crypto + political : excellent must read by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist that I greatly admire (but not always 100% agree with), on "Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money": https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/ https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-da...
- travmatt 9y ago
  I probably say this every chance I get but the cleanest insult I’ve ever seen on the world stage was when, as Greek finance minister, he called eu austerity measures “fiscal waterboarding”.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I like Varoufakis, and I don't hold Bitcoins, but I didn't find that article particularly insightful. It's just the old Keynesian fear of deflation - which invariably uses the Great Depression, since there's very little evidence of the supposed harms of deflation besides it - and a fair criticism of Bitcoin being currently more driven by speculators than regular users, but with no explanation why that's an insurmountable flaw in Bitcoin.
thisisit 9y ago
It seems that the article is trying an artsy way to introduce cryptography and hashing: Communication is easy, but it’s hard to tell who knows what. Messages pass one another in corridors; conversations fragment. When A replied to B, had she received your message yet, or was she reading C’s? Did she ignore what you said because she didn’t like it, or because it had yet to be delivered? When D proposes a simultaneous attack on the wardens as they deliver dinner, how many people received it? When A confirms to D that she’s in, will D see the message in time? Will D know that B saw it? Here’s one solution, if a strange one. Write a message with a very difficult mathematical problem on it—a problem so hard that it would take a month of concentration to solve. Now wait. And I don't get the point of this. Is cryptography bad because it needs to ensure things are not intercepted in between?
remarkEon 9y ago
My friend sent me a meme today that illustrated a view (not his) of what hardcore Crypto evangelists believe. In full disclosure I am not one, but believe there is probably some utility in it, I own a decent amount of BTC (not enough to make me quit working...enough to make me think about buying a house in the near future, depending on taxes), and I understand what the community is trying to do. It was a meme of a scene from the Matrix. >Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can trade my Bitcoin for millions some day? >Morpheus: No Neo. What I’m trying to tell you is that when you’re ready...you won’t have to. This view I think starkly disturbed me because it seems to signal that hardcore Hodlers really do think that on a long enough timeline the whole economic system collapses.
- jstanley 9y ago
  That you won't have to sell your bitcoins doesn't imply the "whole economic system collapses". It just means you can buy all the goods and services you need directly in bitcoin.
  - divanvisagie 9y ago
    Yeah , I do think there are those who believe in a collapse of normal economic systems but the reality is that things would probably just transition to it.
  - remarkEon 9y ago
    That makes no sense whatsoever. If I can buy everything in BTC that demonstrates that something happened very wrong that makes USD untenable for basic, or any kind of, transaction.
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      That's a very American-centric view. The fact that Amazon UK accepts orders in euros doesn't mean that the pound is untenable for any transaction. Similarly, Amazon accepting Bitcoin (thus meaning you can buy almost everything with BTC) doesn't make the dollar obsolete.
xiongwei_13 9y ago
In the traditional economy, ledger or account are mapping real transaction, just like a shadow of the truth. We build a huge economic system to make it work. Whole economic system will be collapse when we use cryptocurrency.
s17n 9y ago
Since currency is created by consensus, it's inherently political. Currently the political system underlying bitcoin - in which formally, decisions are made by voting with hashing power and informally, the bitcoin core developers and a handful of large miners / pool operators have enough power to call the shots - is a disaster. However, even deeper than this social/political structure is a value system shared by bitcoin users - there are some changes to the system that would not be accepted by users no matter how much hash rate or which influential community members backed them.

68 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

cjbprime 9y ago

This cryptocurrency article misspells Bitcoin and Ethereum. o_O

KasianFranks 9y ago
Yes, lets dismiss it altogether. Crypto is adverse to the core culture of software engineering. Keep shunning it and it will go away. Lets not be disrupted.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  This is only tangential, but I really hate everyone calling cryptocurrencies "crypto" (and Wikipedia "wiki"). These words had meaning before, you know, and it's really confusing if you start overwriting a term. "currency" was added to "crypto" to form "cryptocurrency" because the word meant something already.
  - y4mi 9y ago
    urm, it did? i thought it was just a shorthand for cryptography previously? don't see a problem with shortening something else to the same string, as both are just terms you use because you're to lazy to actually spell it out.
  - Buttes 9y ago
    Crypto is the new cyber.

simonebrunozzi 9y ago

Apropos crypto + political : excellent must read by Yanis Varoufakis, an economist that I greatly admire (but not always 100% agree with), on "Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money": https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/ https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-da...

travmatt 9y ago
I probably say this every chance I get but the cleanest insult I’ve ever seen on the world stage was when, as Greek finance minister, he called eu austerity measures “fiscal waterboarding”.
icebraining 9y ago
I like Varoufakis, and I don't hold Bitcoins, but I didn't find that article particularly insightful. It's just the old Keynesian fear of deflation - which invariably uses the Great Depression, since there's very little evidence of the supposed harms of deflation besides it - and a fair criticism of Bitcoin being currently more driven by speculators than regular users, but with no explanation why that's an insurmountable flaw in Bitcoin.

thisisit 9y ago

It seems that the article is trying an artsy way to introduce cryptography and hashing: Communication is easy, but it’s hard to tell who knows what. Messages pass one another in corridors; conversations fragment. When A replied to B, had she received your message yet, or was she reading C’s? Did she ignore what you said because she didn’t like it, or because it had yet to be delivered? When D proposes a simultaneous attack on the wardens as they deliver dinner, how many people received it? When A confirms to D that she’s in, will D see the message in time? Will D know that B saw it? Here’s one solution, if a strange one. Write a message with a very difficult mathematical problem on it—a problem so hard that it would take a month of concentration to solve. Now wait. And I don't get the point of this. Is cryptography bad because it needs to ensure things are not intercepted in between?

remarkEon 9y ago

My friend sent me a meme today that illustrated a view (not his) of what hardcore Crypto evangelists believe. In full disclosure I am not one, but believe there is probably some utility in it, I own a decent amount of BTC (not enough to make me quit working...enough to make me think about buying a house in the near future, depending on taxes), and I understand what the community is trying to do. It was a meme of a scene from the Matrix. >Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can trade my Bitcoin for millions some day? >Morpheus: No Neo. What I’m trying to tell you is that when you’re ready...you won’t have to. This view I think starkly disturbed me because it seems to signal that hardcore Hodlers really do think that on a long enough timeline the whole economic system collapses.

jstanley 9y ago
That you won't have to sell your bitcoins doesn't imply the "whole economic system collapses". It just means you can buy all the goods and services you need directly in bitcoin.
- divanvisagie 9y ago
  Yeah , I do think there are those who believe in a collapse of normal economic systems but the reality is that things would probably just transition to it.
- remarkEon 9y ago
  That makes no sense whatsoever. If I can buy everything in BTC that demonstrates that something happened very wrong that makes USD untenable for basic, or any kind of, transaction.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    That's a very American-centric view. The fact that Amazon UK accepts orders in euros doesn't mean that the pound is untenable for any transaction. Similarly, Amazon accepting Bitcoin (thus meaning you can buy almost everything with BTC) doesn't make the dollar obsolete.

xiongwei_13 9y ago

In the traditional economy, ledger or account are mapping real transaction, just like a shadow of the truth. We build a huge economic system to make it work. Whole economic system will be collapse when we use cryptocurrency.

s17n 9y ago

Since currency is created by consensus, it's inherently political. Currently the political system underlying bitcoin - in which formally, decisions are made by voting with hashing power and informally, the bitcoin core developers and a handful of large miners / pool operators have enough power to call the shots - is a disaster. However, even deeper than this social/political structure is a value system shared by bitcoin users - there are some changes to the system that would not be accepted by users no matter how much hash rate or which influential community members backed them.