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> We need to fix human beings. As a non-utopian, I understand that human beings cannot be "fixed." Thus, we must create systems that cannot be corrupted by hum

> We need to fix human beings. As a non-utopian, I understand that human beings cannot be "fixed." Thus, we must create systems that cannot be corrupted by humans. Creating a money outside of state control may be the smartest thing that humanity ever does. We'll need maybe a century to see how it plays out. That said, most of the blockchain projects out there are scams. If your project can run on a centralized database, then you don't need a blockchain.

tCfD 9y ago
> creating money outside state control Which if successful enough to constitute a counterweight with enough force to push back against "the state" will yield merely... another state, but conveniently one with "Our Guys" in control of all the economic leverage. You call yourself non utopian, yet Bitcoin - a tool to deleverage the state by sapping its power of taxation - is a nakedly self serving utopian project. And yet tax rent (in the form of landowner's premiums like mining rewards and tx fees, and soon by lightning network channel brokering fees, not to mention off chain but indispensable infrastructural scaffolding like exchange fees and fiat ramps) doesn't just disappear, it merely flows to the pockets of a different cabal composed of early adopters and wealthy latecomers who were able to buy large tracts of influence and infrastructure in bitcoinland.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  Yet nothing those in power do will ever change the monetary base or inflation rate of Bitcoin.
  - tCfD 9y ago
    These are fig leaf constraints which do nothing to curb the ability for highly leveraged, anonymous individuals in the ecosystem to severely and without warning or accountability alter the purchasing power of the Bitcoins in circulation.
aalleavitch 9y ago
And yet, as we've come to better understand ourselves, human behavior actually has become better. The statistics actually bear this out. We need to stop thinking of "human nature" as some inviolable fundamental quality and start thinking of it as the behavior of an animal in an environment.

tCfD 9y ago

> creating money outside state control Which if successful enough to constitute a counterweight with enough force to push back against "the state" will yield merely... another state, but conveniently one with "Our Guys" in control of all the economic leverage. You call yourself non utopian, yet Bitcoin - a tool to deleverage the state by sapping its power of taxation - is a nakedly self serving utopian project. And yet tax rent (in the form of landowner's premiums like mining rewards and tx fees, and soon by lightning network channel brokering fees, not to mention off chain but indispensable infrastructural scaffolding like exchange fees and fiat ramps) doesn't just disappear, it merely flows to the pockets of a different cabal composed of early adopters and wealthy latecomers who were able to buy large tracts of influence and infrastructure in bitcoinland.

clarkmoody 9y ago
Yet nothing those in power do will ever change the monetary base or inflation rate of Bitcoin.
- tCfD 9y ago
  These are fig leaf constraints which do nothing to curb the ability for highly leveraged, anonymous individuals in the ecosystem to severely and without warning or accountability alter the purchasing power of the Bitcoins in circulation.

aalleavitch 9y ago

And yet, as we've come to better understand ourselves, human behavior actually has become better. The statistics actually bear this out. We need to stop thinking of "human nature" as some inviolable fundamental quality and start thinking of it as the behavior of an animal in an environment.