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> My money is on early 20th century style oligarchic capitalism I've been enjoying the historical context in this book. I'm not surprised to be liking the book

> My money is on early 20th century style oligarchic capitalism I've been enjoying the historical context in this book. I'm not surprised to be liking the book, but i'm pleased to be getting a better understanding of what the early 20th century space was like. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-standard https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36448501-the-bitcoin-sta...

wayoutthere 7y ago
I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because it would. Money is power only because power likes it that way. But power is power, and a decentralized monetary supply does not serve the powerful. They will attack it with every weapon they have (which is basically all of them) to ensure it doesn’t happen until they control it. In the early 20th century, the rich owned gold mines. Once we moved off the gold standard, they simply took that wealth and put it into the fiat system by owning companies. Even if we do end up on a nominally crypto-backed monetary system, I would expect any governance (even decentralized) to favor the incumbent wealthy as much if not more than our existing system.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I look at it in a systems way. If it /doesn't/ serve those with any actual wealth to back the currency to use it then the question becomes why would anybody use it? I don't see how it could work at all even without some vague nebulous bogeyman stopping it. It brings to mind the conspiratorial "big Pharma is withholding the cure" thinking while ignoring that selling the cure would make them way more, that the long term treatment is competitive, and a cure effectively monopolizes the whole segment of drugs and treatments. The real reason cures are rare is because they are /hard/. With large buy in from lesser concentrations of wealth it could be a "peso" at best - something used by lesser wealths to trade to their localized advantage but lacking the power of big movers.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  > Even if we do end up on a nominally crypto-backed monetary system, I would expect any governance (even decentralized) to favor the incumbent wealthy as much if not more than our existing system Because they can own all the GPUs/ASICs/whatever you'll use as proof of work / proof of stake for your cryptocurrency ?
- tossAfterUsing 7y ago
  > I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. do you then agree with only a centralized national economics? what does that even look like?

wayoutthere 7y ago

I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. Not because it wouldn’t work, but because it would. Money is power only because power likes it that way. But power is power, and a decentralized monetary supply does not serve the powerful. They will attack it with every weapon they have (which is basically all of them) to ensure it doesn’t happen until they control it. In the early 20th century, the rich owned gold mines. Once we moved off the gold standard, they simply took that wealth and put it into the fiat system by owning companies. Even if we do end up on a nominally crypto-backed monetary system, I would expect any governance (even decentralized) to favor the incumbent wealthy as much if not more than our existing system.

Nasrudith 7y ago
I look at it in a systems way. If it /doesn't/ serve those with any actual wealth to back the currency to use it then the question becomes why would anybody use it? I don't see how it could work at all even without some vague nebulous bogeyman stopping it. It brings to mind the conspiratorial "big Pharma is withholding the cure" thinking while ignoring that selling the cure would make them way more, that the long term treatment is competitive, and a cure effectively monopolizes the whole segment of drugs and treatments. The real reason cures are rare is because they are /hard/. With large buy in from lesser concentrations of wealth it could be a "peso" at best - something used by lesser wealths to trade to their localized advantage but lacking the power of big movers.
thatfrenchguy 7y ago
> Even if we do end up on a nominally crypto-backed monetary system, I would expect any governance (even decentralized) to favor the incumbent wealthy as much if not more than our existing system Because they can own all the GPUs/ASICs/whatever you'll use as proof of work / proof of stake for your cryptocurrency ?
tossAfterUsing 7y ago
> I wholeheartedly disagree with any decentralized approach to national economics. do you then agree with only a centralized national economics? what does that even look like?