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New is pretty context dependent. Money is literally older than history. That sets up a lot of context by itself, and further the fact that it's so important mea

New is pretty context dependent. Money is literally older than history. That sets up a lot of context by itself, and further the fact that it's so important means people, governments and institutions are pretty conservative (in the slow to adopt change sense) about it. Banks have only recently reached infrastructure status in that context - and only in well developed nations. Credit cards are still new in that context (and it shows). The 14 years of bitcoin is basically embryonic in terms of "money tech".

woodruffw 4y ago
This is a reasonable point, but it demands that we ignore the parabolic trend in every other aspect of human development. We've gone from horse-drawn carriages to moon landings and instantaneous global communication in the last 125 years; why does Bitcoin get over 10% of that time to do what I can already do with the piece of plastic in my wallet?
- sophacles 4y ago
  Are you sure this tech isn't "parabolic"? Depending how you define personal credit, its been around ~100 years (or more!), with the card format being adopted in the 60s. It's only been the last 15 years or so that not carrying cash has become a reasonable approach to day-to-day life. So for bitcoin to become as big as it has as a brand new technology in only 14 years seems accelerated. This is analysis complicated a bit by the fact that bitcoin is not a top-down tech like credit, there's no centralized group deciding who gets to use it. On the other side of that though - the tech infrastructure build-out that made credit cards ubiquitous also benefits and accelerates the potential adoption of bitcoin.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    It's parabolic with respect to middlemen, but none of the other properties I care about. That isn't to say there are no advancements (I think privacy-preserving finance is an important frontier), but they don't stack up well, to say the least.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Money is literally older than history. Standardized weights of specie are older than history; you can find different perspectives on how much they count as "money". But history begins at a time when the role of money in society is still very much up for debate; Hammurabi's code (~1000 years after the beginning of history, give or take) includes a provision specifying that, if you run a bar, you can't require customers to pay in silver but must also accept grain. Grain as currency continues across the world for a few thousand years after that, but grain is a terrible currency because it spoils very quickly. (Counting things like "rats got into the grain" as a form of spoilage.)
- sophacles 4y ago
  Huh, super interesting! Do you know some good resources where I can learn more about the (pre) history of money?

woodruffw 4y ago

This is a reasonable point, but it demands that we ignore the parabolic trend in every other aspect of human development. We've gone from horse-drawn carriages to moon landings and instantaneous global communication in the last 125 years; why does Bitcoin get over 10% of that time to do what I can already do with the piece of plastic in my wallet?

sophacles 4y ago
Are you sure this tech isn't "parabolic"? Depending how you define personal credit, its been around ~100 years (or more!), with the card format being adopted in the 60s. It's only been the last 15 years or so that not carrying cash has become a reasonable approach to day-to-day life. So for bitcoin to become as big as it has as a brand new technology in only 14 years seems accelerated. This is analysis complicated a bit by the fact that bitcoin is not a top-down tech like credit, there's no centralized group deciding who gets to use it. On the other side of that though - the tech infrastructure build-out that made credit cards ubiquitous also benefits and accelerates the potential adoption of bitcoin.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  It's parabolic with respect to middlemen, but none of the other properties I care about. That isn't to say there are no advancements (I think privacy-preserving finance is an important frontier), but they don't stack up well, to say the least.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> Money is literally older than history. Standardized weights of specie are older than history; you can find different perspectives on how much they count as "money". But history begins at a time when the role of money in society is still very much up for debate; Hammurabi's code (~1000 years after the beginning of history, give or take) includes a provision specifying that, if you run a bar, you can't require customers to pay in silver but must also accept grain. Grain as currency continues across the world for a few thousand years after that, but grain is a terrible currency because it spoils very quickly. (Counting things like "rats got into the grain" as a form of spoilage.)

sophacles 4y ago
Huh, super interesting! Do you know some good resources where I can learn more about the (pre) history of money?