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> The greater danger than fraud is when governments and other institutions get involved to use these systems as control and tracking tools. Snowden's revelation

> The greater danger than fraud is when governments and other institutions get involved to use these systems as control and tracking tools. Snowden's revelations showed laughable secrets compared to what will be done with blockchain as infrastructure. This makes no sense. Why would a surveillance state possibly need or want a blockchain?

lostmsu 8y ago
He is saying, that fraud on blockchain platforms caused much less damage, than state wide survelliance for instance. But there's no cry to dismantle all government structures because of it. Not agreeing, just trying to explain that point. IMHO, this is sort of whataboutism. But I don't agree with the criticism either, for blockchains/Bitcoin so far does not deal measurable damage. Energy consumption is not a danger on it's own.
miscreanity 8y ago
As @lostmsu points out, government surveillance is a greater issue. The paper currency you may have in your pocket has serial numbers on it but it is impractical to associate those numbers with an individual, much less the sequence of travel it takes among varied transactions. Blockchain-style crypto systems make it exceedingly simple for a government to track every transaction anyone engages in, from paying for gas to buying stock to selling a house. We are certainly not there yet for most of the currently-imagined purposes. However, there are services like Chainalsys[1] that are already being used to track users. It is not a stretch to imagine the impact of full government monitoring. Take that a few steps further with regulatory control of development, mining operations, validating nodes, etc; then the control aspect kicks in and makes asset freezes of today seem quaint. Combined with international information-sharing efforts, you will either have to agree with the ruling elite or be excluded from the broader economy. Dissidents will be tracked far more easily as well, leaving nowhere to run but increasingly remote locations. This is why I say that blockchain/crypto will become far worse than the hope for what they could do for people around the world. At the same time, numerous advances in many sectors will make things seem magical - from construction and manufacturing and medicine and robotics. With jobs shifting away from labor-intensive toward creative endeavors in all fields, control will no longer be over people directly but the systems that support us - and who will have control of those systems? [1] https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/

lostmsu 8y ago

He is saying, that fraud on blockchain platforms caused much less damage, than state wide survelliance for instance. But there's no cry to dismantle all government structures because of it. Not agreeing, just trying to explain that point. IMHO, this is sort of whataboutism. But I don't agree with the criticism either, for blockchains/Bitcoin so far does not deal measurable damage. Energy consumption is not a danger on it's own.

miscreanity 8y ago

As @lostmsu points out, government surveillance is a greater issue. The paper currency you may have in your pocket has serial numbers on it but it is impractical to associate those numbers with an individual, much less the sequence of travel it takes among varied transactions. Blockchain-style crypto systems make it exceedingly simple for a government to track every transaction anyone engages in, from paying for gas to buying stock to selling a house. We are certainly not there yet for most of the currently-imagined purposes. However, there are services like Chainalsys[1] that are already being used to track users. It is not a stretch to imagine the impact of full government monitoring. Take that a few steps further with regulatory control of development, mining operations, validating nodes, etc; then the control aspect kicks in and makes asset freezes of today seem quaint. Combined with international information-sharing efforts, you will either have to agree with the ruling elite or be excluded from the broader economy. Dissidents will be tracked far more easily as well, leaving nowhere to run but increasingly remote locations. This is why I say that blockchain/crypto will become far worse than the hope for what they could do for people around the world. At the same time, numerous advances in many sectors will make things seem magical - from construction and manufacturing and medicine and robotics. With jobs shifting away from labor-intensive toward creative endeavors in all fields, control will no longer be over people directly but the systems that support us - and who will have control of those systems? [1] https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/