3 ms·

Individualism is a feature, too, but I think he really cared about trying to be more democratic than the alternatives. The core precept and summary of the whole

Individualism is a feature, too, but I think he really cared about trying to be more democratic than the alternatives. The core precept and summary of the whole paper is the phrase he used: "one-CPU-one-vote". (Not as good as "one-human-one-vote", but the idea is that that's the closest he could get to it while preventing Sybil attacks.) I believe he thought that even if powerful entities bought a lot of CPUs, the end users of the network would still have a lot of consensus power distributed between themselves. As far as I can tell, it seems unclear if he foresaw just how huge of an advantage GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs would have and that no one else would be mining anymore. Perhaps he was fully aware and knew centralization problems would occur, but it's difficult to be sure.

wpietri 5y ago
CPUs are not people. CPUs voting for blocks of transactions is in no way people having political power over the system. Even at the time, systems with hundreds of thousands of CPUs were operating, so even if voting for transactions were something akin to deciding on how to organize society, which it isn't, letting IBM outvote whole states is not democracy, it's oligarchy. Again, I don't think we have even vaguely similar definitions of what democracies are.
- meowface 5y ago
  Right; he of course knew that. It's just the closest he could get to it that he could think of. I'm not saying it's a democracy; just that he thought it's the closest he could get to it while retaining the properties of decentralization, permissionless, and anonymity. How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic? (I'd argue PoS is more democratic, for example, so you could also think of one that's more democratic than PoS cryptocurrencies. Of course, PoS is still very oligarchical, but it's about relativity.) I kind of feel like you're just reading a few words in my posts and then ignoring all of the subsequent words in the same sentence. My post text: >"one-CPU-one-vote". (Not as good as "one-human-one-vote" Your reply: >CPUs are not people. --- My post text: >My understanding is that most cryptocurrencies intend to be extremely democratic. More democratic than all previously existing currencies, even. (Whether those ideas are feasible or those goals are being achieved is another matter.) Your reply: >>My understanding is that most cryptocurrencies intend to be extremely democratic. >Do they? They don't seem to be succeeding very well.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I am reading the words but trying to focus in on the core of your point. From my perspective, your point is incoherent. That you later contradict yourself does not mitigate that; it's exactly my concern. > How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic? I would not try, because cryptocurrencies are hyper-individualist and hyper-libertarian, and very much antidemocratic. The core notion of any democracy is that a group of humans is in it together. There's a reason America's constitution starts with "We, the people", lays out ambitious collective goals, and then details how we make rules together. The point of an anonymous, permissionless, trustless currency is to sidestep all that, raising a middle finger to democratically chosen regulations. Which is why cryptocurrencies are basically not used for normal commerce, but are instead a haven for scammers, grifters, money launderers, ponzi schemers, thieves, and MMF fools who dream of living in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. So I again suggest you are not really clear on what democracy is if you keep trying to suggest it's material to the original Bitcoin plan. At best you're applying a very thin coat of lipstick to a very large pig.

wpietri 5y ago

CPUs are not people. CPUs voting for blocks of transactions is in no way people having political power over the system. Even at the time, systems with hundreds of thousands of CPUs were operating, so even if voting for transactions were something akin to deciding on how to organize society, which it isn't, letting IBM outvote whole states is not democracy, it's oligarchy. Again, I don't think we have even vaguely similar definitions of what democracies are.

meowface 5y ago
Right; he of course knew that. It's just the closest he could get to it that he could think of. I'm not saying it's a democracy; just that he thought it's the closest he could get to it while retaining the properties of decentralization, permissionless, and anonymity. How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic? (I'd argue PoS is more democratic, for example, so you could also think of one that's more democratic than PoS cryptocurrencies. Of course, PoS is still very oligarchical, but it's about relativity.) I kind of feel like you're just reading a few words in my posts and then ignoring all of the subsequent words in the same sentence. My post text: >"one-CPU-one-vote". (Not as good as "one-human-one-vote" Your reply: >CPUs are not people. --- My post text: >My understanding is that most cryptocurrencies intend to be extremely democratic. More democratic than all previously existing currencies, even. (Whether those ideas are feasible or those goals are being achieved is another matter.) Your reply: >>My understanding is that most cryptocurrencies intend to be extremely democratic. >Do they? They don't seem to be succeeding very well.
- wpietri 5y ago
  I am reading the words but trying to focus in on the core of your point. From my perspective, your point is incoherent. That you later contradict yourself does not mitigate that; it's exactly my concern. > How would you theoretically create a decentralized, permissionless, pseudonymous/anonymous currency that's more democratic? I would not try, because cryptocurrencies are hyper-individualist and hyper-libertarian, and very much antidemocratic. The core notion of any democracy is that a group of humans is in it together. There's a reason America's constitution starts with "We, the people", lays out ambitious collective goals, and then details how we make rules together. The point of an anonymous, permissionless, trustless currency is to sidestep all that, raising a middle finger to democratically chosen regulations. Which is why cryptocurrencies are basically not used for normal commerce, but are instead a haven for scammers, grifters, money launderers, ponzi schemers, thieves, and MMF fools who dream of living in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. So I again suggest you are not really clear on what democracy is if you keep trying to suggest it's material to the original Bitcoin plan. At best you're applying a very thin coat of lipstick to a very large pig.