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> I feel sort of bad for Vitalik. If he genuinely hoped cryptocurrency would serve as a counterweight to authoritarian governments and Silicon Valley greed, I t

> I feel sort of bad for Vitalik. If he genuinely hoped cryptocurrency would serve as a counterweight to authoritarian governments and Silicon Valley greed, I think he's going to be very disappointed. Well, of course! If crypto is useful as a counter-balance to authoritarian governments, then the value of crypto is rooted in bad (other) government. Who wants to live in a world where all governments are shit but we can still move money around? Crypto might be a temporary plaster over some wounds, but we still need to close the wounds.

biophysboy 5y ago
My understanding is that technologists believe that this authority is founded on centralization, and if this centralization were removed, the authority would disappear. I, and likely you as well, don't agree with this at all.
- rglullis 5y ago
  No. Even with decentralization, we still need to have institutions, authority roles and hierarchical coordination. What changes with crypto is that it gives people the chance to choose (a) who they affiliate with (b) on what terms and (c) allows unilateral disassociation at any time. Think of it this way: imagine if getting citizenship to any country in the world was something that involved no bureaucracy and could be as cheap as getting a cellphone sim card. Save from mass incarceration, there is nothing that authoritarian governments could do to stop people from participating in other economies. People would suddenly be able to participate in a "global market of governance models" without even necessarily having to relocate physically. Authoritarian governments will of course try to stop this, but my bet is they will lose all type of support when the technology is accessible to the middle-class and they get to compare their relative status with the whole world, not just the local society. This would lead (I hope) to the realization that governments are only necessary when they serve the people and that will be the most important piece to fix the current broken lack of "checks and balances". We've got a glimpse of what could happen because of the pandemic and the millions of people who realized that they could do their job from anywhere in the world, and how lots of countries responded by offering "remote work" and "digital nomad" visas. Now imagine if more countries acting like Estonia and start offering "e-residency" programs. The countries would start competing among themselves to see who can attract the most people / most productive people. It's the possibility of self-sovereignty that is important, not the actual realization.
  - biophysboy 5y ago
    Authoritarian governments do suck and I would love for them to not exist. But they coexist with oligarchs, who will only be further advantaged by unregulated markets. The life of a tenant farmer in the Phillippines does not only suck because of Duterte; it also sucks because the wealthy family they work for is comfortable with inefficient plantation-based farming. Now, its certainly possible that crypto could give people more access to the world market, and thereby improve their situation. Rural communities in Bangladesh now have YouTube channels showing the amazing talent they have for cooking. Its a weird world. But there's a dark side to global exposure. Some Malaysians got rich from their global stock market in the 90's without having to relocate, but it didn't end well because the investment was in speculative consumer goods like real estate. Crypto doesn't have to end this way - it could enable real invention that would not be possible with rigid, local fiat currencies. But right now, crypto feels like a casino pizza party, and I'm increasingly worried.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      Sorry, but you interjected a lot of assumptions, biases and opinions and are passing them as fact. > oligarchs, who will only be further advantaged by unregulated markets. No one is saying about "unregulated markets". The idea is about having regulations being localized and based on the principles of much smaller communities. Take the principles from Localism applied to "virtual city-states", if you will. > wealthy family (...) is comfortable with inefficient plantation-based farming. Because they have a monopsony on the labor. On a world where you can decouple "where you live" from "where you work", this goes right out of the window. And it goes both ways: it can be either because the locals leave the place because they can find better opportunities, but also because people from other, wealthier places might look at these places as an opportunity for a low-cost of life and cheap labor. Go checkout /r/digitalnomad and you will see how many people are already doing or planning to do such a thing. For a more cynical person, this means "gentrification". For someone looking at things at a wider-scale, it means that people could eventually be able to do something that was only possible for the elites controlling multinational corporations.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
- the_other 5y ago
  > My understanding is that technologists believe that this authority is founded on centralization, and if this centralization were removed, the authority would disappear. I, and likely you as well, don't agree with this at all. I'm pretty sure the authority (or power) spawns the centralisation, rather than the other way around.

biophysboy 5y ago

My understanding is that technologists believe that this authority is founded on centralization, and if this centralization were removed, the authority would disappear. I, and likely you as well, don't agree with this at all.

rglullis 5y ago
No. Even with decentralization, we still need to have institutions, authority roles and hierarchical coordination. What changes with crypto is that it gives people the chance to choose (a) who they affiliate with (b) on what terms and (c) allows unilateral disassociation at any time. Think of it this way: imagine if getting citizenship to any country in the world was something that involved no bureaucracy and could be as cheap as getting a cellphone sim card. Save from mass incarceration, there is nothing that authoritarian governments could do to stop people from participating in other economies. People would suddenly be able to participate in a "global market of governance models" without even necessarily having to relocate physically. Authoritarian governments will of course try to stop this, but my bet is they will lose all type of support when the technology is accessible to the middle-class and they get to compare their relative status with the whole world, not just the local society. This would lead (I hope) to the realization that governments are only necessary when they serve the people and that will be the most important piece to fix the current broken lack of "checks and balances". We've got a glimpse of what could happen because of the pandemic and the millions of people who realized that they could do their job from anywhere in the world, and how lots of countries responded by offering "remote work" and "digital nomad" visas. Now imagine if more countries acting like Estonia and start offering "e-residency" programs. The countries would start competing among themselves to see who can attract the most people / most productive people. It's the possibility of self-sovereignty that is important, not the actual realization.
- biophysboy 5y ago
  Authoritarian governments do suck and I would love for them to not exist. But they coexist with oligarchs, who will only be further advantaged by unregulated markets. The life of a tenant farmer in the Phillippines does not only suck because of Duterte; it also sucks because the wealthy family they work for is comfortable with inefficient plantation-based farming. Now, its certainly possible that crypto could give people more access to the world market, and thereby improve their situation. Rural communities in Bangladesh now have YouTube channels showing the amazing talent they have for cooking. Its a weird world. But there's a dark side to global exposure. Some Malaysians got rich from their global stock market in the 90's without having to relocate, but it didn't end well because the investment was in speculative consumer goods like real estate. Crypto doesn't have to end this way - it could enable real invention that would not be possible with rigid, local fiat currencies. But right now, crypto feels like a casino pizza party, and I'm increasingly worried.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Sorry, but you interjected a lot of assumptions, biases and opinions and are passing them as fact. > oligarchs, who will only be further advantaged by unregulated markets. No one is saying about "unregulated markets". The idea is about having regulations being localized and based on the principles of much smaller communities. Take the principles from Localism applied to "virtual city-states", if you will. > wealthy family (...) is comfortable with inefficient plantation-based farming. Because they have a monopsony on the labor. On a world where you can decouple "where you live" from "where you work", this goes right out of the window. And it goes both ways: it can be either because the locals leave the place because they can find better opportunities, but also because people from other, wealthier places might look at these places as an opportunity for a low-cost of life and cheap labor. Go checkout /r/digitalnomad and you will see how many people are already doing or planning to do such a thing. For a more cynical person, this means "gentrification". For someone looking at things at a wider-scale, it means that people could eventually be able to do something that was only possible for the elites controlling multinational corporations.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
the_other 5y ago
> My understanding is that technologists believe that this authority is founded on centralization, and if this centralization were removed, the authority would disappear. I, and likely you as well, don't agree with this at all. I'm pretty sure the authority (or power) spawns the centralisation, rather than the other way around.