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Technology doesn't move backwards in time. Or in other words: As long as there isn't (from a technical point of view) a better thing than Bitcoin (for all of it

by gst 13y ago

Technology doesn't move backwards in time. Or in other words: As long as there isn't (from a technical point of view) a better thing than Bitcoin (for all of its current use cases) Bitcoin won't die.

tokenadult 13y ago
Or in other words: As long as there isn't (from a technical point of view) a better thing than Bitcoin (for all of its current use cases) Bitcoin won't die. I've studied the history of technology formally as part of my undergraduate education, and there is no such general principle of how technologies are adopted in a society. Bitcoin could quite readily die. Whether it will or not remains to be seen, but people betting real money that Bitcoin will not die are best advised to diversify their investments.
stephencanon 13y ago
Actual money is "a better thing than Bitcoin for all of its current uses" other than speculation (for which we have tulips) and crypto-anarchist fetishism (for which no better solution is available). Bitcoin may someday be better than existing currencies for some of the tasks we use them for, but it isn't yet.
- sanxiyn 13y ago
  Personally I think http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1mavh9/trustless_bitcoin_bounty_for_sha1_sha256_etc/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1mavh9/trustless_bi... is pretty cool. I am not aware of other systems which can do that.
- baddox 13y ago
  That's factually incorrect. For example, several months ago I was owed some money (around 500 USD) by a friend, and we decided to exchange the funds via Bitcoin, not for speculation or your delightfully pejorative "crypto-anarchist fetishism," but because it was by far the easiest and fastest way for us to do so. Cue your reply, justifying your original universal quantification by retroactively redefining it with new exceptions.
  - revdinosaur 13y ago
    I think the argument against your anecdote is that it was the best solution for you--no doubt a technologically literate person who has confidence in their mental model of what bitcoin is. For the general populace, it's a distant novelty still which reduces its general practicality greatly.
    - gst 13y ago
      It doesn't need to work for the "general populace". As long as it's useful to a small set of people it will be used by this small set of people.
      - revdinosaur 13y ago
        I think that it does, to some degree, in order to fulfill some of the promises that proponents claim will be delivered in the near future. There are ceaseless calls by BTC advocates for retailers of all kinds to accept bitcoin payments. For this to happen on a large enough scale there needs to be distributed demand by a great number of consumers, not frequent demands by a few edge cases.
        pantalaimon 13y ago
        I say that's the minority of the BTC users claiming that widespread adoption will happen. But Bitcoin is already useful as it is, it doesn't need any more use cases, they just may emerge naturally.
    - baddox 13y ago
      So then, the real statement is that Bitcoin is useless, except for the people who are savvy enough to use it? I can accept that, but it's a very weak statement. You could have said the same thing about PayPal (which is now quite popular in the general populace) or even credit cards before they became mainstream.
      - revdinosaur 13y ago
- forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
  Wow, what a arrogant statement! Instead of acknowledging that you don't know what you are talking about, you act like you know it all, and doing so makes you look like a fool for anyone that knows a little about the topic. I had sent-received money from South American or African countries in Bitcoins, and they are super useful. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina, or Colombia or countries from Africa will tax you more than 50% of everything that is sent via official channels, if they let you do this in the first place, which they wont. All the money goes to corrupt governments. With BT not such problems.
smacktoward 13y ago
Of course it does; or it can, at least. We invented SSTs but still plod about on sub-sonic airliners, for instance. The key isn't whether a particular technology is the latest and greatest, it's whether it's the latest and greatest that can economically be used.

by gst 13y ago

Technology doesn't move backwards in time. Or in other words: As long as there isn't (from a technical point of view) a better thing than Bitcoin (for all of its current use cases) Bitcoin won't die.

tokenadult 13y ago

Or in other words: As long as there isn't (from a technical point of view) a better thing than Bitcoin (for all of its current use cases) Bitcoin won't die. I've studied the history of technology formally as part of my undergraduate education, and there is no such general principle of how technologies are adopted in a society. Bitcoin could quite readily die. Whether it will or not remains to be seen, but people betting real money that Bitcoin will not die are best advised to diversify their investments.

stephencanon 13y ago

Actual money is "a better thing than Bitcoin for all of its current uses" other than speculation (for which we have tulips) and crypto-anarchist fetishism (for which no better solution is available). Bitcoin may someday be better than existing currencies for some of the tasks we use them for, but it isn't yet.

sanxiyn 13y ago
Personally I think http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1mavh9/trustless_bitcoin_bounty_for_sha1_sha256_etc/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1mavh9/trustless_bi... is pretty cool. I am not aware of other systems which can do that.
baddox 13y ago
That's factually incorrect. For example, several months ago I was owed some money (around 500 USD) by a friend, and we decided to exchange the funds via Bitcoin, not for speculation or your delightfully pejorative "crypto-anarchist fetishism," but because it was by far the easiest and fastest way for us to do so. Cue your reply, justifying your original universal quantification by retroactively redefining it with new exceptions.
- revdinosaur 13y ago
  I think the argument against your anecdote is that it was the best solution for you--no doubt a technologically literate person who has confidence in their mental model of what bitcoin is. For the general populace, it's a distant novelty still which reduces its general practicality greatly.
  - gst 13y ago
    It doesn't need to work for the "general populace". As long as it's useful to a small set of people it will be used by this small set of people.
    - revdinosaur 13y ago
      I think that it does, to some degree, in order to fulfill some of the promises that proponents claim will be delivered in the near future. There are ceaseless calls by BTC advocates for retailers of all kinds to accept bitcoin payments. For this to happen on a large enough scale there needs to be distributed demand by a great number of consumers, not frequent demands by a few edge cases.
      - pantalaimon 13y ago
        I say that's the minority of the BTC users claiming that widespread adoption will happen. But Bitcoin is already useful as it is, it doesn't need any more use cases, they just may emerge naturally.
  - baddox 13y ago
    So then, the real statement is that Bitcoin is useless, except for the people who are savvy enough to use it? I can accept that, but it's a very weak statement. You could have said the same thing about PayPal (which is now quite popular in the general populace) or even credit cards before they became mainstream.
    - revdinosaur 13y ago
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Wow, what a arrogant statement! Instead of acknowledging that you don't know what you are talking about, you act like you know it all, and doing so makes you look like a fool for anyone that knows a little about the topic. I had sent-received money from South American or African countries in Bitcoins, and they are super useful. Countries like Venezuela, Argentina, or Colombia or countries from Africa will tax you more than 50% of everything that is sent via official channels, if they let you do this in the first place, which they wont. All the money goes to corrupt governments. With BT not such problems.

smacktoward 13y ago

Of course it does; or it can, at least. We invented SSTs but still plod about on sub-sonic airliners, for instance. The key isn't whether a particular technology is the latest and greatest, it's whether it's the latest and greatest that can economically be used.