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The choice is not between some communist utopia that Varoufakis alludes to, and people grinding in virtual worlds to make a living. The choice is between a fam

The choice is not between some communist utopia that Varoufakis alludes to, and people grinding in virtual worlds to make a living. The choice is between a family in the Philippines facing severe hunger during the lockdown, and that family being able to sell virtual goods to wealthier people in the developed world, to put food on the table. More generally, allowing web users to assume genuine ownership - secured by provable scarcity and public key cryptography - over virtual goods, means the profit that the internet generates will not be monopolized by a few internet giants. Consider, the Ethereum Name Service airdrop rewarded over 100,000 accounts with its ENS tokens. This is a degree of diffusion in the distribution of ownership over critical protocols that was totally impossible before blockchain-based assets and networks.

netsharc 4y ago
> More generally, allowing web users to assume genuine ownership - secured by provable scarcity and public key cryptography - over virtual goods, means the profit that the internet generates will not be monopolized by a few internet giants. Arguably YouTube has enabled thousands of new entertainers, making many of them (but well, a small percentage of all) filthy rich and/or famous, by making entertainment products. Funnily, OnlyFans also fits in the category.
- CryptoPunk 4y ago
  You don't own anything in YouTube. YouTube can always deplatform you.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> The choice is between a family in the Philippines facing severe hunger during the lockdown, and that family being able to sell virtual goods to wealthier people in the developed world, to put food on the table. The answer to capitalism's problems is more capitalism? We are just no doing it hard enough? Why is the family is the Philippines facing severe hunger in the first place? Capitalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wax7wyWwnAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wax7wyWwnAU You know the same Filipinos have been fighting capitalism for the longest any people have ever fought it? https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3027414/explained-philippines-communist-rebellion-asias-longest-running https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3027414/expl... I do not have an answer for any of this, but I know it is not crypto. If you think money can can save people you know nothing about money or people.
- Rufhfhs3747rhe7 4y ago
  Are you suggesting that the level of severe hunger was generally lower before capitalism? I don't believe that to be true.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - FredPret 4y ago
      Fascism is anathema to capitalism. Capitalism means free markets, for which you need free market actors, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement. Capitalism means trusting other adults to be able to use their own intelligence to make the best choices for them. Fascism and other authoritarian systems like communism is, at heart, pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful because it presumes to dictate what the people must do.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        [flagged]
        CryptoPunk 4y ago
        >>Funny that people will say this with a straight face and then walk into their jobs and have their pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful boss tell them what to do for eight hours. Your boss has no power to restrict your choices. They can only offer you an option, and compel you to choose it by making it better than any other offer available to you. There is no comparison between this, and the government mandates that characterize fascist and socialist societies.
        FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        You’re missing the point. You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that. Why do you choose that? Why does anyone choose it? It’s because they don’t choose it, they’re forced into it. Why are they forced into it? Because of private property.
lottin 4y ago
> genuine ownership "Not your keys, not your coins" is the opposite of genuine ownership. Actual ownership is not lost by losing possession of the thing being owned. That's the whole point of ownership.
- CryptoPunk 4y ago
  This is the only genuine ownership that exists in the digital realm. Digital assets that use a ledger run by a trusted third party can always be seized or frozen by that party.
  - lottin 4y ago
    A trusted party is required to enforce ownership rights. If somebody steals your digital assets, the trusted party will seize the stolen assets and return them to their rightful owner. Without a trusted party that has the power to seize assets ownership cannot be enforced, in other words there cannot be ownership.
    - CryptoPunk 4y ago
      In the "not your keys, not your coins" setup, that trusted third party is the government, which gives you security against theft, kidnapping, burglary, etc, so you can keep your keys safe. Adding another trusted third party, like a gaming company, to the mix, to act as the custodian of who owns what, creates a much less-reliable / more-fragile private property system, as that custodian, at their own behest or that of a political faction who holds the reigns to the govenment, can deprive you of your control over the virtual asset. So to put it another way, trusted third parties can also be a threat to private property. The right balance between being protected by a trusted third party from theft and robbery, and being protected against a trusted third party stealing and robbing you, is the "not your keys, not your coins" setup, where the trusted third party only enforces rules against others trespassing your person or home, without having custody of your property on your behalf, so as to not have intimate knowledge of and control over everything you own.
      - 4y ago

netsharc 4y ago

> More generally, allowing web users to assume genuine ownership - secured by provable scarcity and public key cryptography - over virtual goods, means the profit that the internet generates will not be monopolized by a few internet giants. Arguably YouTube has enabled thousands of new entertainers, making many of them (but well, a small percentage of all) filthy rich and/or famous, by making entertainment products. Funnily, OnlyFans also fits in the category.

CryptoPunk 4y ago
You don't own anything in YouTube. YouTube can always deplatform you.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

> The choice is between a family in the Philippines facing severe hunger during the lockdown, and that family being able to sell virtual goods to wealthier people in the developed world, to put food on the table. The answer to capitalism's problems is more capitalism? We are just no doing it hard enough? Why is the family is the Philippines facing severe hunger in the first place? Capitalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wax7wyWwnAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wax7wyWwnAU You know the same Filipinos have been fighting capitalism for the longest any people have ever fought it? https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3027414/explained-philippines-communist-rebellion-asias-longest-running https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3027414/expl... I do not have an answer for any of this, but I know it is not crypto. If you think money can can save people you know nothing about money or people.

Rufhfhs3747rhe7 4y ago
Are you suggesting that the level of severe hunger was generally lower before capitalism? I don't believe that to be true.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - FredPret 4y ago
    Fascism is anathema to capitalism. Capitalism means free markets, for which you need free market actors, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement. Capitalism means trusting other adults to be able to use their own intelligence to make the best choices for them. Fascism and other authoritarian systems like communism is, at heart, pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful because it presumes to dictate what the people must do.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - CryptoPunk 4y ago
        >>Funny that people will say this with a straight face and then walk into their jobs and have their pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful boss tell them what to do for eight hours. Your boss has no power to restrict your choices. They can only offer you an option, and compel you to choose it by making it better than any other offer available to you. There is no comparison between this, and the government mandates that characterize fascist and socialist societies.
        FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        You’re missing the point. You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that. Why do you choose that? Why does anyone choose it? It’s because they don’t choose it, they’re forced into it. Why are they forced into it? Because of private property.

lottin 4y ago

> genuine ownership "Not your keys, not your coins" is the opposite of genuine ownership. Actual ownership is not lost by losing possession of the thing being owned. That's the whole point of ownership.

CryptoPunk 4y ago
This is the only genuine ownership that exists in the digital realm. Digital assets that use a ledger run by a trusted third party can always be seized or frozen by that party.
- lottin 4y ago
  A trusted party is required to enforce ownership rights. If somebody steals your digital assets, the trusted party will seize the stolen assets and return them to their rightful owner. Without a trusted party that has the power to seize assets ownership cannot be enforced, in other words there cannot be ownership.
  - CryptoPunk 4y ago
    In the "not your keys, not your coins" setup, that trusted third party is the government, which gives you security against theft, kidnapping, burglary, etc, so you can keep your keys safe. Adding another trusted third party, like a gaming company, to the mix, to act as the custodian of who owns what, creates a much less-reliable / more-fragile private property system, as that custodian, at their own behest or that of a political faction who holds the reigns to the govenment, can deprive you of your control over the virtual asset. So to put it another way, trusted third parties can also be a threat to private property. The right balance between being protected by a trusted third party from theft and robbery, and being protected against a trusted third party stealing and robbing you, is the "not your keys, not your coins" setup, where the trusted third party only enforces rules against others trespassing your person or home, without having custody of your property on your behalf, so as to not have intimate knowledge of and control over everything you own.
    - 4y ago