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I saw this earlier, I still don't get the logic of the conclusion. Can you really qualify technology B (Bitcoin) as being more disruptive then technology A (int

I saw this earlier, I still don't get the logic of the conclusion. Can you really qualify technology B (Bitcoin) as being more disruptive then technology A (internet) when B requires A to operate? Maybe if you look at the technologies in the vacuum in which they were created, but in reality you'd want to contextualize them as extensions of one another, otherwise you get a biased picture of their disruptivity. edit:sp

mtgx 13y ago
You make a great point, which is probably true. By that logic the Internet is also less a revolution than transistors, which I guess it is. Unless we talk about "hidden" vs "obvious" revolutions. Because people don't really know about "transistors", but they do about the Internet, and "use it" every day knowing they do so. So in a way, you could use the argument that the Internet is a more obvious and practical revolution (closer to the end user). Bitcoin could be the same vs the Internet, although I don't think we really need to qualify them like that. They could both be very important.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  I suppose this means that the question is whether you pay kudos to the immediate thing or to its necessary causes. We can follow this line back to arguing that nothing is more disruptive than the Big Bang.
  - jedunnigan 13y ago
    >We can follow this line back to arguing that nothing is more disruptive than the Big Bang. Well yes, but the Big Bang was not a discovery/invention made by man. Discovery of how to start a fire would probably be a good candidate for the most disruptive tech.
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      Part of the difficulty is that many discoveries and inventions reach the threshold of being necessary causes of the modern world. Once you pass that threshold, how do you rank them? The removal of any of them (eg fire, the wheel, mathematics, steel, steam ...) renders the current world impossible. Are there degrees of impossibility? I'm not sure. We may be looking at a partially-ordered set here.
- jedunnigan 13y ago
  Haha yes! Qualifying the importance of things against one another is usually a silly exercise.

mtgx 13y ago

You make a great point, which is probably true. By that logic the Internet is also less a revolution than transistors, which I guess it is. Unless we talk about "hidden" vs "obvious" revolutions. Because people don't really know about "transistors", but they do about the Internet, and "use it" every day knowing they do so. So in a way, you could use the argument that the Internet is a more obvious and practical revolution (closer to the end user). Bitcoin could be the same vs the Internet, although I don't think we really need to qualify them like that. They could both be very important.

jacques_chester 13y ago
I suppose this means that the question is whether you pay kudos to the immediate thing or to its necessary causes. We can follow this line back to arguing that nothing is more disruptive than the Big Bang.
- jedunnigan 13y ago
  >We can follow this line back to arguing that nothing is more disruptive than the Big Bang. Well yes, but the Big Bang was not a discovery/invention made by man. Discovery of how to start a fire would probably be a good candidate for the most disruptive tech.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Part of the difficulty is that many discoveries and inventions reach the threshold of being necessary causes of the modern world. Once you pass that threshold, how do you rank them? The removal of any of them (eg fire, the wheel, mathematics, steel, steam ...) renders the current world impossible. Are there degrees of impossibility? I'm not sure. We may be looking at a partially-ordered set here.
jedunnigan 13y ago
Haha yes! Qualifying the importance of things against one another is usually a silly exercise.