5 ms·

Predicting the Future

23 points by aristus 16y ago

kiba 16y ago
If you believe in crypto-anarchism, you will invent political technologies or be part of a community that revolves around such inventions. Such is the case called bitcoins, a cryptocurrency. In two years or so, we will find if my fellow hackers and ciphergeeks and me will find ourselves fools or fricking rich pioneers. Moreover, we believed that money and free market can be a positive social order. If we do not believe it is so, bitcoins wouldn't have a thriving community, much less an entrepeneural one. It also raise and illustrate issues about such a voluntary market economy where there is no police and courts to enforce order. For example, we found out that paypal dollars are bad money. They lack the crucial aspect of irreversibility. It even cause a bank run, a rush to bitcoins. We found out that bitcoins doesn't have that negative aspect and can expect bitcoins to hold value. Unpredictable regime like Paypal cause risk-aversion and effort to find much more predictable ability to transfer from one currencies to another. Bitcoin offer us unique insight of how a new emerging economy might deal with thieves, cheaters, with no guns and no police. Bitcoin show us how a group of political radicals think about problems, and the future at large. It is out of the box, and at time foolish, but sometime brilliance emerge. All of these things wouldn't be possible without the culmination of technolibertarianism and anarchism. All of these wouldn't be happening if hackerdom didn't emerge as it has. Where do you get progress in our society in the conventional sphere of democractic government, parliamentary politics, and such? If you believe power and violence are necessary to achieve goals in society, would you have come up with and invent bitcoins?
- redwoods 16y ago
  Interesting
- btilly 16y ago
  21 million coins, ever, is going to seriously limit the utility of your currency. If the currency did succeed, the inability to increase circulation would result in a natural deflationary spiral over time. Also I guarantee that governments would not appreciate your utopian vision.
  - kiba 16y ago
    21 million coins, ever, is going to seriously limit the utility of your currency. Wrong, it will increase asymptotically to 21 million bitcoins but not ever reach 21 millions. 21 millions bitcoins that is divisible to the 8th place. Even if the 21 million limit starts to limit bitcoins' utility, it doesn't mean that people can't fork the network and the project to create their own currencies. If the currency did succeed, the inability to increase circulation would result in a natural deflationary spiral over time. Price deflation is a good thing. The computer industry are still thriving after enormous amount of price deflation. No amount of price deflation will incentivize people from not buying foods, or even video games and other recreational activities during period of which the purchasing power of money has gone up. They will delay consumption but only to a point. The time-preferences of human beings have a limit. They will not wait 24 years before eating 100,000,000 marshmallows as fast as they could. so I guarantee that governments would not appreciate your utopian vision. I don't take it for granted that bitcoin will succeed or will it be an easy road. There has been many such worries in the bitcoin community. Some bitcoiners may be idealistic or utopians but we're also realists. Either the early bitcoiners become enormously wealthy or bitcoiners were all been fools. I don't know what is going to happen, but I hope that bitcoins will change the world for the better.
    - btilly 16y ago
      Price deflation is a good thing. I'm sorry, but this statement alone convinces me that there are important facts about economics which you do not understand. Deflation, among many other things, discourages investment. Without investment, economies stagnate.
      - kiba 16y ago
        I'm sorry, but this statement alone convinces me that there are important facts about economics which you do not understand. Deflation, among many other things, discourages investment. Without investment, economies stagnate. It would be better to explain why my reasoning is fallacious rather than resorting to opaque statements like these.
- mike_esspe 16y ago
  Do you know what happened to e-gold ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#2008_court_trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#2008_court_trial ) and e-bullion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bullion#2008_murder_of_e-Bullion_principal_and_federal_felony_charges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bullion#2008_murder_of_e-Bull... ) owners? Unfortunately, US government doesn't like private currencies.
  - kiba 16y ago
    Yes, I am well aware of such thing. Bitcoin is decentralized so there is no one company to shut down that will definitely destroy bitcoin. So it may be resilient to such an attack. However, I don't know if it is possible to survive.
tdoggette 16y ago
"A story about AI which concludes that they are utterly and forever alien" is Charles Stross' Accelerando. It's a novel made of sequential stories that follow a family through the Singularity and well beyond, and the AI in it becomes something utterly inhuman in terms of thought. I enjoyed it a lot, and it's a free ebook in addition to something you can get at the library. Many ebook formats: http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.html http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.ht... HTML: http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/toc.html http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/toc.ht...
- aristus 16y ago
  Hey, awesome. Thank you. I figured there were some stories like that, but couldn't think of any right off.

23 points by aristus 16y ago

kiba 16y ago

If you believe in crypto-anarchism, you will invent political technologies or be part of a community that revolves around such inventions. Such is the case called bitcoins, a cryptocurrency. In two years or so, we will find if my fellow hackers and ciphergeeks and me will find ourselves fools or fricking rich pioneers. Moreover, we believed that money and free market can be a positive social order. If we do not believe it is so, bitcoins wouldn't have a thriving community, much less an entrepeneural one. It also raise and illustrate issues about such a voluntary market economy where there is no police and courts to enforce order. For example, we found out that paypal dollars are bad money. They lack the crucial aspect of irreversibility. It even cause a bank run, a rush to bitcoins. We found out that bitcoins doesn't have that negative aspect and can expect bitcoins to hold value. Unpredictable regime like Paypal cause risk-aversion and effort to find much more predictable ability to transfer from one currencies to another. Bitcoin offer us unique insight of how a new emerging economy might deal with thieves, cheaters, with no guns and no police. Bitcoin show us how a group of political radicals think about problems, and the future at large. It is out of the box, and at time foolish, but sometime brilliance emerge. All of these things wouldn't be possible without the culmination of technolibertarianism and anarchism. All of these wouldn't be happening if hackerdom didn't emerge as it has. Where do you get progress in our society in the conventional sphere of democractic government, parliamentary politics, and such? If you believe power and violence are necessary to achieve goals in society, would you have come up with and invent bitcoins?

redwoods 16y ago
Interesting
btilly 16y ago
21 million coins, ever, is going to seriously limit the utility of your currency. If the currency did succeed, the inability to increase circulation would result in a natural deflationary spiral over time. Also I guarantee that governments would not appreciate your utopian vision.
- kiba 16y ago
  21 million coins, ever, is going to seriously limit the utility of your currency. Wrong, it will increase asymptotically to 21 million bitcoins but not ever reach 21 millions. 21 millions bitcoins that is divisible to the 8th place. Even if the 21 million limit starts to limit bitcoins' utility, it doesn't mean that people can't fork the network and the project to create their own currencies. If the currency did succeed, the inability to increase circulation would result in a natural deflationary spiral over time. Price deflation is a good thing. The computer industry are still thriving after enormous amount of price deflation. No amount of price deflation will incentivize people from not buying foods, or even video games and other recreational activities during period of which the purchasing power of money has gone up. They will delay consumption but only to a point. The time-preferences of human beings have a limit. They will not wait 24 years before eating 100,000,000 marshmallows as fast as they could. so I guarantee that governments would not appreciate your utopian vision. I don't take it for granted that bitcoin will succeed or will it be an easy road. There has been many such worries in the bitcoin community. Some bitcoiners may be idealistic or utopians but we're also realists. Either the early bitcoiners become enormously wealthy or bitcoiners were all been fools. I don't know what is going to happen, but I hope that bitcoins will change the world for the better.
  - btilly 16y ago
    Price deflation is a good thing. I'm sorry, but this statement alone convinces me that there are important facts about economics which you do not understand. Deflation, among many other things, discourages investment. Without investment, economies stagnate.
    - kiba 16y ago
      I'm sorry, but this statement alone convinces me that there are important facts about economics which you do not understand. Deflation, among many other things, discourages investment. Without investment, economies stagnate. It would be better to explain why my reasoning is fallacious rather than resorting to opaque statements like these.
mike_esspe 16y ago
Do you know what happened to e-gold ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#2008_court_trial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#2008_court_trial ) and e-bullion ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bullion#2008_murder_of_e-Bullion_principal_and_federal_felony_charges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Bullion#2008_murder_of_e-Bull... ) owners? Unfortunately, US government doesn't like private currencies.
- kiba 16y ago
  Yes, I am well aware of such thing. Bitcoin is decentralized so there is no one company to shut down that will definitely destroy bitcoin. So it may be resilient to such an attack. However, I don't know if it is possible to survive.

tdoggette 16y ago

"A story about AI which concludes that they are utterly and forever alien" is Charles Stross' Accelerando. It's a novel made of sequential stories that follow a family through the Singularity and well beyond, and the AI in it becomes something utterly inhuman in terms of thought. I enjoyed it a lot, and it's a free ebook in addition to something you can get at the library. Many ebook formats: http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.html http://manybooks.net/titles/strosscother05accelerando-txt.ht... HTML: http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/toc.html http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/accelerando.charles_stross/toc.ht...

aristus 16y ago
Hey, awesome. Thank you. I figured there were some stories like that, but couldn't think of any right off.