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> Of course, many dozens of thousands of times throughout my life, desperately wished for that to be the case. Unfortunately there is no evidence for this and i

> Of course, many dozens of thousands of times throughout my life, desperately wished for that to be the case. Unfortunately there is no evidence for this and immense amounts of evidence for the contrary. I think the fact that 7 billion people live overwhelmingly under a multi-hundred-year improving standard of living [1], leveraging low-friction global trade, commerce and communication in among the most peaceful period in human history [2] is a pretty clear indication that government does in fact work. Is it perfect? No, nobody will say that. But of course the solution to problems in any overwhelmingly complex system with a long track record is not re-invention but continued optimization. [3] Takes a long time to turn a big boat, and anyone promising you otherwise is selling you a crock. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty-in-brief [2] https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-a-look-at-the-data-5af708f47fba https://towardsdatascience.com/has-global-violence-declined-... [3] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

etherael 5y ago
Nothing that is the largest cause of unnatural death in the last century should be considered as "working". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Authority#:~:text=The%20Problem%20of%20Political%20Authority%3A%20An%20Examination%20of%20the%20Right,Huemer%20released%20in%20January%202013 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Aut.... Blockchain based systems over the duration of their existence by contrast have killed nowhere near as many no matter how you scale it, and although I believe the system to be rife with fraud and inefficiency, the amount of capital growth that has taken place is breathtaking pretty much any way you look at it. I believe the state as a structure needs to die and blockchains so far look like the obvious sword. Nothing else has even come close.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  It’s the largest preventer of death lol. Citation needed there. People will always die. Government minimizes this to the best of our abilities. How many do not die each year because of government? As in software testing we don’t often measure the impact of our work in terms of things that don’t happen because our system exists. It is far easier to count instead the failures. But this misses the whole point. Count the deaths that don’t happen. Meanwhile bitcoins thirst for coal kills thousands per year and achieves literally nothing. Blockchains can only represent true state of things wholly representable on chain, which is why only currencies actually work. As soon as you try and ledger things off chain reality gets in the way and reality supersedes the chain.
  - etherael 5y ago
    Citation originally provided. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > How many do not die each year because of government? I'd honestly like to see any kind of attempt to quantify that, I've seen a few for example that gave credit for removing lead from fuel to the government and then tried to by extension say that the positive externalities from that should be attributed to government. Which of course runs afoul of the point that the government was responsible for promoting leaded fuel to begin with, right up to the point of suppressing alternatives. Which in turn begs the question, what will the government actually do generally speaking? And as far as I can tell the answer is work in its own interests and accrue benefits to those on the inside at the expense of those on the outside, and that's all. If hundreds of millions die in the process, that's totally fine. That almost everybody accepts that entity should have a monopoly on violence and basically unlimited power strikes me as increasingly crazy as every year goes by and it does progressively more insane stuff and we slide closer and closer to the possibility of an extinction level event war. > Meanwhile bitcoins thirst for coal kills thousands per year and achieves literally nothing. I'm not interested in defending BTC generally speaking, as I despise it. I should however point out that proof of work has no intrinsic "thirst for coal". Merely the lowest possible cost of energy, right up to the point of subsidising alternative renewable low cost energy projects, which many POW miners have done and why hydroelectric power is such an oft-constituted part of their energy supplies.
- deleted 5y ago
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etherael 5y ago

Nothing that is the largest cause of unnatural death in the last century should be considered as "working". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Authority#:~:text=The%20Problem%20of%20Political%20Authority%3A%20An%20Examination%20of%20the%20Right,Huemer%20released%20in%20January%202013 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Aut.... Blockchain based systems over the duration of their existence by contrast have killed nowhere near as many no matter how you scale it, and although I believe the system to be rife with fraud and inefficiency, the amount of capital growth that has taken place is breathtaking pretty much any way you look at it. I believe the state as a structure needs to die and blockchains so far look like the obvious sword. Nothing else has even come close.

arcticbull 5y ago
It’s the largest preventer of death lol. Citation needed there. People will always die. Government minimizes this to the best of our abilities. How many do not die each year because of government? As in software testing we don’t often measure the impact of our work in terms of things that don’t happen because our system exists. It is far easier to count instead the failures. But this misses the whole point. Count the deaths that don’t happen. Meanwhile bitcoins thirst for coal kills thousands per year and achieves literally nothing. Blockchains can only represent true state of things wholly representable on chain, which is why only currencies actually work. As soon as you try and ledger things off chain reality gets in the way and reality supersedes the chain.
- etherael 5y ago
  Citation originally provided. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide > How many do not die each year because of government? I'd honestly like to see any kind of attempt to quantify that, I've seen a few for example that gave credit for removing lead from fuel to the government and then tried to by extension say that the positive externalities from that should be attributed to government. Which of course runs afoul of the point that the government was responsible for promoting leaded fuel to begin with, right up to the point of suppressing alternatives. Which in turn begs the question, what will the government actually do generally speaking? And as far as I can tell the answer is work in its own interests and accrue benefits to those on the inside at the expense of those on the outside, and that's all. If hundreds of millions die in the process, that's totally fine. That almost everybody accepts that entity should have a monopoly on violence and basically unlimited power strikes me as increasingly crazy as every year goes by and it does progressively more insane stuff and we slide closer and closer to the possibility of an extinction level event war. > Meanwhile bitcoins thirst for coal kills thousands per year and achieves literally nothing. I'm not interested in defending BTC generally speaking, as I despise it. I should however point out that proof of work has no intrinsic "thirst for coal". Merely the lowest possible cost of energy, right up to the point of subsidising alternative renewable low cost energy projects, which many POW miners have done and why hydroelectric power is such an oft-constituted part of their energy supplies.
deleted 5y ago
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