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In a podcast with Lex Friedman, George Hotz said something along the lines of: "Cryptography is one of the few games where the defense wins." Transitively, thi

In a podcast with Lex Friedman, George Hotz said something along the lines of: "Cryptography is one of the few games where the defense wins." Transitively, this statement applies to a set of crypto currencies too. I, hence, think it'd be unproductive for anyone to deny this property by e.g. trying to outlaw certain applications of cryptography. While I wasn't alive during that time, I believe that for ideas of similar weight that require immense ethical decision making strength (e.g. anything related to splitting atoms) political and game theoretical advances had to be made before humanity was ready to "live peacefully with that knowledge." It's not by accident that cryptography was once deemed a weapon by certain states. Now it's time that states don't turn their eyes away and merely say "careful, you may loose all your money." That's irresponsie. Rather they must collaborate to ensure that crypto has a useful, peaceful and non-destructive future.

chalst 5y ago
Bruce Schneier has argued that where the advantage lies in offense vs defense depends on the nature of the attack surface: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/attack_vs_defen.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/attack_vs_def... Friedman and Holz are being simplistic.
- timdaub 5y ago
  I think my argument is of simplistic nature too. I anyways believe that I can make a more extended argument for why I believe it'll become difficult for states to extract taxes in the future on an deonic authority-basis ("there shall be taxes because we want it"). Coins cannot be taken away. Infrastructure can go darker to evade state-level control. Shadow economies are feasible. Hence, IMO states should create a friendly environment for the best possible outcome of their citizens. It's epistemic authority that the state needs to apply now ("You shall pay taxes because is a hard requirement for xyz to work").

chalst 5y ago

Bruce Schneier has argued that where the advantage lies in offense vs defense depends on the nature of the attack surface: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/attack_vs_defen.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/04/attack_vs_def... Friedman and Holz are being simplistic.

timdaub 5y ago
I think my argument is of simplistic nature too. I anyways believe that I can make a more extended argument for why I believe it'll become difficult for states to extract taxes in the future on an deonic authority-basis ("there shall be taxes because we want it"). Coins cannot be taken away. Infrastructure can go darker to evade state-level control. Shadow economies are feasible. Hence, IMO states should create a friendly environment for the best possible outcome of their citizens. It's epistemic authority that the state needs to apply now ("You shall pay taxes because is a hard requirement for xyz to work").