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The way I see it this scarcity thing is exactly the point, and I'll go a bit deeper. Capitalism can only work with scarcity to monetize. With scarcity nearing
by malermeister 5y ago
The way I see it this scarcity thing is exactly the point, and I'll go a bit deeper.
Capitalism can only work with scarcity to monetize. With scarcity nearing an end, there's now two camps:
* those that are excited for the post-scarcity future where we can freely share data and culture
* those who are deeply bought into capitalist ideology and who are terrified of capitalism ending with scarcity.
The first group hates all the crypto stuff because it's a technological attempt to put the genie back in the bottle and undo the progress we've made in eliminating scarcity.
The second group hails crypto as their savior and thinks it will revolutionize everything by reintroducing scarcity everywhere, giving capitalism a life line.
I think that's the core disconnect.
- brightstep 5y agoI don't think capitalism is going anywhere. "Web3" might succeed but, absent a political fight, only if it can be assimilated into existing capital and power structures.
- malermeister 5y agoI'm not sure you fully got the point I was trying to make. Despite all the claims from crypto advocates about crypto freeing us from existing power structures, I think the truth is actually the opposite. Crypto entrenches existing power structures, where capital = power. You can see that formalized in various decentralized organizations where votes are allocated by token count, or in other words, more capital means more power. Crypto is an effort to preserve the status quo, not to change it. If the "web3" were to succeed, moneyed interests would still be controlling everything, with the only change being that some early crypto adopters would also rise to their level. Crypto advocacy comes down to an attempt to rise to the ruling class by serving it, not to topple it.
- brightstep 5y agoYes! That's what I've been saying. If crypto succeeds, it will be because it serves capital (what crypto believers refer to as "centralixed authority") not in spite of it.
- malermeister 5y agoAh! It was I who misunderstood you then. Glad to hear we're on the same page!