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In my lifetime, if I were to compare 3 numbers - no. of hours there was no electricity (X), no. of hours there was no mobile data coverage so that I could conti

In my lifetime, if I were to compare 3 numbers - no. of hours there was no electricity (X), no. of hours there was no mobile data coverage so that I could continue doing transactions without electricity (Y) and no. of hours Fedwie/ACH was down (Z) which prevented me from bank transfers, I'd say X and Y and at least 2 orders of magnitude bigger than Z. If Fed/ACH going down for a few hours bothers you a lot but electricity/mobile network reliability doesn't faze you, you must be living in a truly unique place.

thinkmassive 6y ago
My computers and network are powered by uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) which I highly recommend for every important system. I have a generator in case of extended outage, which I also highly recommend to everyone who is able to have one at home, regardless of whether you own a computer. I personally have fiber, cable, and LTE feeding my home gateway. This might seem like overkill to non-tech folks, but I recommend it to anyone whose productivity/career is highly reliant on being online. I realize this isn’t necessarily a typical home setup, but I also think most people are horribly unprepared for many potential situations. This isn’t a claim that I have zero downtime at home. It’s only to say that if my Bitcoin node is offline then any hope of relying on fiat banking was abandoned much earlier.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > This isn’t a claim that I have zero downtime at home. It’s only to say that if my Bitcoin node is offline then any hope of relying on fiat banking was abandoned much earlier. Even if I had a setup like yours, I'd give up on bitcoin before "fiat banking." You can't buy gas for your generator with bitcoin.
  - grioghar 6y ago
    Yet. I don’t mean this flippantly. One of the cryptocurrency is going to win out for day-to-day usage; the question is which. As Andreas likes to say: “email used to be a multi-step series of memorized commands from a green terminal in a University. Now my Mom can do it with a touch of her finger.” I believe we’ll get that in the near-ish future.
    - RussianCow 6y ago
      > One of the cryptocurrency is going to win out for day-to-day usage; the question is which. I don't know why you're so confident about this? It's entirely feasible that none of them are ever usable for day-to-day transactions. Personally, I haven't seen any evidence that Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) is ever going to enter the mainstream. Even if it did, I don't see any benefit to using it over USD for the vast majority of people.

thinkmassive 6y ago

My computers and network are powered by uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) which I highly recommend for every important system. I have a generator in case of extended outage, which I also highly recommend to everyone who is able to have one at home, regardless of whether you own a computer. I personally have fiber, cable, and LTE feeding my home gateway. This might seem like overkill to non-tech folks, but I recommend it to anyone whose productivity/career is highly reliant on being online. I realize this isn’t necessarily a typical home setup, but I also think most people are horribly unprepared for many potential situations. This isn’t a claim that I have zero downtime at home. It’s only to say that if my Bitcoin node is offline then any hope of relying on fiat banking was abandoned much earlier.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tablespoon 6y ago
> This isn’t a claim that I have zero downtime at home. It’s only to say that if my Bitcoin node is offline then any hope of relying on fiat banking was abandoned much earlier. Even if I had a setup like yours, I'd give up on bitcoin before "fiat banking." You can't buy gas for your generator with bitcoin.
- grioghar 6y ago
  Yet. I don’t mean this flippantly. One of the cryptocurrency is going to win out for day-to-day usage; the question is which. As Andreas likes to say: “email used to be a multi-step series of memorized commands from a green terminal in a University. Now my Mom can do it with a touch of her finger.” I believe we’ll get that in the near-ish future.
  - RussianCow 6y ago
    > One of the cryptocurrency is going to win out for day-to-day usage; the question is which. I don't know why you're so confident about this? It's entirely feasible that none of them are ever usable for day-to-day transactions. Personally, I haven't seen any evidence that Bitcoin (or any other cryptocurrency) is ever going to enter the mainstream. Even if it did, I don't see any benefit to using it over USD for the vast majority of people.