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I mean it's nice to have those things but you make it sound like it would be impossible without, which is unrealistic... cash worked (and continues to work) for
by tomxor 4y ago
I mean it's nice to have those things but you make it sound like it would be impossible without, which is unrealistic... cash worked (and continues to work) for a very veeeery long time and has mostly the same disadvantages. You can still use cash in most places for a taxi (some cities in China being the major exception where they will outright reject you without wechat).
More generally speaking, fraud is not prevented by digitally traceable transactions. It's still something that happens and businesses have to accept as a cost for ease of use: see "the optimal level of fraud is non zero".
- sharemywin 4y agoThat's ignoring alot of antifraud mechanism in money. 1. face to face transactions are alot harder to defraud someone. 2. coins a hard to make and scales were used too. 3. there's a lot of anti fraud in paper money also.
- tomxor 4y agoAnti-fraud in cash is limited to authenticity, something that any half decent crypto currency can accommodate as a fundamental. There is no conceptual reason why a distributed cryptographic currency could not take the place of cash for in person transactions. In realty crypto has many other issues, but not this one.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoYeah there is? Gold is valuable because it's made of physical atoms that are hard to reproduce, this dynamic doesn't apply to information. The value of information is realized through other means that make a distributed information based currency impractical. Even Ethereum recognizes that some, non-zero, degree of centralization is required.
- tomxor 4y agoI did not compare it to gold. Lack of intrinsic value applies to both cash and crypto. The main difference is that one is backed by a government and is globally recognised whereas the stability of crypto's value is beholden purely to the market. Centralisation is actually incidental here, the government makes certain guarantees that makes it's cash currency more stable. FYI, I'm just playing devils advocate here, I think all crypto so far has utterly failed at providing an alternative to cash even though in theory it's entirely capable, and that's because the main barrier to entry is government recognition... it's a classic failure of "we can solve this with tech and sidestep regulation", but when replacing one piece of information (as you put it) with another, then it turns out that recognition by authorities and regulation is integral to it's success regardless of any technical advantages.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoCash is also made of physical atoms that are hard to reproduce, I chose gold because it's intuitively obvious to everyone whereas some folks may think it's easy to counterfeit cash. It's much more difficult to copy cash then copy information.
- tomxor 4y agoFor crypto, copy != counterfeit.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoSo? The statement that cash is a lot harder to copy than information still stands. High resolution color printers are orders of magnitude more difficult to access then similar tools for information.
- tomxor 4y agoYes, and the sky is blue. You keep bringing up straw men and then pivoting. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve.