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>Consumption is surprisingly flexible in these cases. How often do you "need" a house, right now? Just look at all the data out there on how home-buying pattern

>Consumption is surprisingly flexible in these cases. How often do you "need" a house, right now? Just look at all the data out there on how home-buying patterns are changing. I'd argue that a reduction in our consumption might not be a bad thing. Yes, on a shorter scale it can cause some harm, however we are on a planet with limited resources, and incentivizing saving over consumption might have massive benefits if done correctly. >You currently hold both A and B. Which do you use for your day-to-day spending? If you ignore the benefits that a decentralized cryptocurrency provides, currency A would be the choice. However if you include those benefits (no "gatekeeper" telling you who or what you can spend your money with or on, no ability to "charge back" any money, no trust needed to transact, and an audit-able "paper trail" which cannot be altered), then there are a significant number of transactions where I'd rather use B. Paying for "subscription" services without fear of being continually charged after I stop wanting the service, receiving donations for work without fear that chargebacks will cause me to owe more than I received, buying goods and services that a company or government may not approve of, sending money quickly and cheaply across political boundaries (ignoring that bitcoin is failing here right now in many ways), and more are all very huge benefits that (at least for me) overshadow the fact that my bitcoin might be more valuable tomorrow than they are today. >On an unrelated note, it's a shame that "trust me, I'm an economist" holds no weight nowadays. Its extremely difficult to experiment on "the economy" by its nature, and because of that it is difficult to get hard evidence of the effects that specific things have on an economy. At best they can make educated guesses, but with something that complex I think it's naive to think that anyone fully understands the cause and effect relationships at play. All social sciences share this problem, and it's why they all get similar amounts of distrust and cargo culting.

nerdponx 9y ago
If you ignore the benefits that a decentralized cryptocurrency provides, currency A would be the choice. However if you include those benefits (no "gatekeeper" telling you who or what you can spend your money with or on, no ability to "charge back" any money, no trust needed to transact, and an audit-able "paper trail" which cannot be altered), then there are a significant number of transactions where I'd rather use B. I feel the same way, but by and large we are in the minority on this point. Moreover there's no reason why you can't have all those features with an inflationary currency. educated guesses There's more to economics (and social science in general) than "educated guesses". But it's social science's fault that you feel this way, not yours.
beojan 9y ago
> no "gatekeeper" telling you who or what you can spend your money with or on That only means you'll use option B for the purchases where option A isn't available, not all purchases. > no ability to "charge back" any money For the purchaser, that isn't a benefit. > no trust needed to transact Either the purchaser needs to send the money first, and trust that the seller will deliver the goods, the seller needs to deliver the goods trusting that payment will be (has been) sent, or both need to trust an intermediary. "Decentralized electronic money" doesn't change this, the only solution is to do all transactions in person.

nerdponx 9y ago

If you ignore the benefits that a decentralized cryptocurrency provides, currency A would be the choice. However if you include those benefits (no "gatekeeper" telling you who or what you can spend your money with or on, no ability to "charge back" any money, no trust needed to transact, and an audit-able "paper trail" which cannot be altered), then there are a significant number of transactions where I'd rather use B. I feel the same way, but by and large we are in the minority on this point. Moreover there's no reason why you can't have all those features with an inflationary currency. educated guesses There's more to economics (and social science in general) than "educated guesses". But it's social science's fault that you feel this way, not yours.

beojan 9y ago

> no "gatekeeper" telling you who or what you can spend your money with or on That only means you'll use option B for the purchases where option A isn't available, not all purchases. > no ability to "charge back" any money For the purchaser, that isn't a benefit. > no trust needed to transact Either the purchaser needs to send the money first, and trust that the seller will deliver the goods, the seller needs to deliver the goods trusting that payment will be (has been) sent, or both need to trust an intermediary. "Decentralized electronic money" doesn't change this, the only solution is to do all transactions in person.