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History replays itself every new invention or enlightment humans have. Over the past centuries many have been persecuted for studying chemistry, astronomy, phys

History replays itself every new invention or enlightment humans have. Over the past centuries many have been persecuted for studying chemistry, astronomy, physics and even biology. Think of Galileo who was persecuted for advaing the theory that the Earth was round. Crypto embodies a new paradigm whereby rules can be programmed and enforced by computers. Instead of relying on centralized human authorities to measure, control and enforce, the rule of "law" is coded into the protocol. No one can cheat. The only way to change the "law" is for every player to agree to change the protocol. Through concensus. For example Bitcoin with its fixed supply of 21M coins which prevents dillution and debasement. No human can change that unless, there is a concensus to change the protocol. You see humans still have control, but only if we all agree. We are living a unique human experiment with Crypto. I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. Remember that evolution and innovation is innevitable. The financial system currently controlled by humans will get disrupted by technology. Crypto turns finance onto its head. Fascinating.

iammisc 5y ago
> We are living a unique human experiment with Crypto. I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. This is the sort of pseudo-religious statement that makes people bristle when they hear about crypto. You frame it as an experiment, and then follow it up by your wish for everyone to join the experiment. Normal experiments have control groups. The only groups that have no control group and demand universal obedience are religions. This is why people view crypto-promoters as the modern day equivalent of televangelists.
history_ghost 5y ago
You guys started by comparing yourselves to the great people of history, before you'd done anything. You guys have been saying the same thing for a decade. This kind of mindset and argument sounds remarkably ignorant about how power works (you'll never, never divorce the monetary system from outside, get real), and is ignorant about the value of law being something that changes over time. This is the problem with building the world with 20 year old men. You don't know what you don't know.
starclerk 5y ago
> but only if we all agree. "we all" in this case refers to the top single-digit percent of holders [1]. It's no small feat to get consensus there! But it's also not very decentralized/democratized and sounds a lot like our existing financial (or societal) systems. [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/analysis-shows-bitcoin-whales-are-stockpiling-but-btc-ownership-is-not-highly-concentrated/ https://news.bitcoin.com/analysis-shows-bitcoin-whales-are-s... -- which optimistically states that only 71% of BTC is held by the top 2%.
- tenuousemphasis 5y ago
  That is false. If some small subset of Bitcoin users wanted to or were coerced to change the rules, all they would do is fork themselves into their own copy of the Blockchain. Everyone else would continue using it as they had been previously.
Yizahi 5y ago
> I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. ... so that steady supply of greater fools would never end? No, thanks.
simias 5y ago
Persecuted? Are cryptocultists hiding in basements for fear of the nocoin police? Tortured in backrooms to have them recant the holy blockchain? Blockchain is shilled everywhere, you can find ads for it in the subway. >I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. I'm absolutely ok with experimenting. I'm not ok running trillion dollar ponzi schemes that use a mindbending amount of resources in order to make a proof of concept. That's ridiculous. >For example Bitcoin with its fixed supply of 21M coins which prevents dillution and debasement. Except, you know, for all the bitcoin forks out there.
kmeisthax 5y ago
The rule of law is NOT "coded into the protocol", and you absolutely can cheat the system. In fact, it's far easier to cheat crypto "law" than real law, for several reasons: 1. Real law is not executed by a computer, but by a highly educated judge that can actually interpret the law and contracts, and reject attempts to exploit them. Smart contracts are easily exploited. 2. Real law has a process called "discovery", which is how the legal system gets to determine the facts of the case. This works specifically because of coercive force[0]. Crypto "law" is entirely at the mercy of trusted oracles to inject facts onto the blockchain so that smart contracts can execute correctly. 3. Impersonation is far harder in real law than crypto. In the crypto world, your identity is merely a collection of private keys. These are easily copied[1], and it is common practice for criminals to automate the theft of cryptocurrency because crypto identity is so fragile. 4. Crypto "law" is immutable, which means that if it gets things wrong (very likely because of the above), there is no recourse to change things[2]. In real law, transactions can be reversed and bad rulings appealed, at least for a little while. Until you can make crypto law that can actually do the above things, I will continue to consider it untrustworthy, if not outright unethical to promote. You may have noticed that a lot of those things run counter to the spirit of decentralization... to which I say, that is the point. The financial system evolved to be a centralized one because centralization is more efficient. Central authorities can prosecute frauds that decentralized crowds cannot. For example, Bitcoin has no protection against someone making their own fork of the software and minting another 21M coins. This has happened many times over; some of those forks are even branded the same way as Bitcoin[3]. You may argue that this constitutes some kind of fraud, but... you can't really stop it with crypto law; and people fall for them all the time. Hell, some of those altcoins are actually somewhat viable. How is this not a form of dilution or debasement? [0] Specifically, an escalating scale of sanctions and punishments that make refusing to participate in discovery a very bad idea. [1] I am aware of the existence of hardware intended to prevent the theft of shining keys. I personally find it offensive that the best argument for using crypto is "lock up your keys with the same DRM shit copyright maximalists use and you'll be fine". [2] The closest thing we've seen to crypto actually adjudicating crime was the DAO hack, which more or less only worked specifically because crypto is NOT actually decentralized - the developers still dictate the protocol. [3] Examples: Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitconnect, Bitcoin SV.
catskul2 5y ago
> Think of Galileo who was persecuted for advaing the theory that the Earth was round. FYI, Galileo showed that Earth and the other planets go around the sun. That the earth was round was already known.

iammisc 5y ago

> We are living a unique human experiment with Crypto. I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. This is the sort of pseudo-religious statement that makes people bristle when they hear about crypto. You frame it as an experiment, and then follow it up by your wish for everyone to join the experiment. Normal experiments have control groups. The only groups that have no control group and demand universal obedience are religions. This is why people view crypto-promoters as the modern day equivalent of televangelists.

history_ghost 5y ago

You guys started by comparing yourselves to the great people of history, before you'd done anything. You guys have been saying the same thing for a decade. This kind of mindset and argument sounds remarkably ignorant about how power works (you'll never, never divorce the monetary system from outside, get real), and is ignorant about the value of law being something that changes over time. This is the problem with building the world with 20 year old men. You don't know what you don't know.

starclerk 5y ago

> but only if we all agree. "we all" in this case refers to the top single-digit percent of holders [1]. It's no small feat to get consensus there! But it's also not very decentralized/democratized and sounds a lot like our existing financial (or societal) systems. [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/analysis-shows-bitcoin-whales-are-stockpiling-but-btc-ownership-is-not-highly-concentrated/ https://news.bitcoin.com/analysis-shows-bitcoin-whales-are-s... -- which optimistically states that only 71% of BTC is held by the top 2%.

tenuousemphasis 5y ago
That is false. If some small subset of Bitcoin users wanted to or were coerced to change the rules, all they would do is fork themselves into their own copy of the Blockchain. Everyone else would continue using it as they had been previously.

Yizahi 5y ago

> I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. ... so that steady supply of greater fools would never end? No, thanks.

simias 5y ago

Persecuted? Are cryptocultists hiding in basements for fear of the nocoin police? Tortured in backrooms to have them recant the holy blockchain? Blockchain is shilled everywhere, you can find ads for it in the subway. >I really wish people would stop bashing the industry and instead join in the experiment. I'm absolutely ok with experimenting. I'm not ok running trillion dollar ponzi schemes that use a mindbending amount of resources in order to make a proof of concept. That's ridiculous. >For example Bitcoin with its fixed supply of 21M coins which prevents dillution and debasement. Except, you know, for all the bitcoin forks out there.

kmeisthax 5y ago

The rule of law is NOT "coded into the protocol", and you absolutely can cheat the system. In fact, it's far easier to cheat crypto "law" than real law, for several reasons: 1. Real law is not executed by a computer, but by a highly educated judge that can actually interpret the law and contracts, and reject attempts to exploit them. Smart contracts are easily exploited. 2. Real law has a process called "discovery", which is how the legal system gets to determine the facts of the case. This works specifically because of coercive force[0]. Crypto "law" is entirely at the mercy of trusted oracles to inject facts onto the blockchain so that smart contracts can execute correctly. 3. Impersonation is far harder in real law than crypto. In the crypto world, your identity is merely a collection of private keys. These are easily copied[1], and it is common practice for criminals to automate the theft of cryptocurrency because crypto identity is so fragile. 4. Crypto "law" is immutable, which means that if it gets things wrong (very likely because of the above), there is no recourse to change things[2]. In real law, transactions can be reversed and bad rulings appealed, at least for a little while. Until you can make crypto law that can actually do the above things, I will continue to consider it untrustworthy, if not outright unethical to promote. You may have noticed that a lot of those things run counter to the spirit of decentralization... to which I say, that is the point. The financial system evolved to be a centralized one because centralization is more efficient. Central authorities can prosecute frauds that decentralized crowds cannot. For example, Bitcoin has no protection against someone making their own fork of the software and minting another 21M coins. This has happened many times over; some of those forks are even branded the same way as Bitcoin[3]. You may argue that this constitutes some kind of fraud, but... you can't really stop it with crypto law; and people fall for them all the time. Hell, some of those altcoins are actually somewhat viable. How is this not a form of dilution or debasement? [0] Specifically, an escalating scale of sanctions and punishments that make refusing to participate in discovery a very bad idea. [1] I am aware of the existence of hardware intended to prevent the theft of shining keys. I personally find it offensive that the best argument for using crypto is "lock up your keys with the same DRM shit copyright maximalists use and you'll be fine". [2] The closest thing we've seen to crypto actually adjudicating crime was the DAO hack, which more or less only worked specifically because crypto is NOT actually decentralized - the developers still dictate the protocol. [3] Examples: Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitconnect, Bitcoin SV.

catskul2 5y ago

> Think of Galileo who was persecuted for advaing the theory that the Earth was round. FYI, Galileo showed that Earth and the other planets go around the sun. That the earth was round was already known.