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The author's complains are a sober reminder that society is not yet ready, and has not yet evolved all the infrastructure it will need to cope with rising globa

by cs702 13y ago

The author's complains are a sober reminder that society is not yet ready, and has not yet evolved all the infrastructure it will need to cope with rising global Bitcoin adoption.[1] Regardless, if the number of people using Bitcoin continues to grow, our institutions and infrastructure will have to evolve to address the problems mentioned by the author. Among other things, society will need more secure (truly malware-resistant) personal computing systems, more secure (from snooping) communications systems, substantially better authentication mechanisms, more secure energy generation and transmission equipment and facilities, more secure financial institutions, and more technologically-savvy regulatory and policing institutions. Those are all really good things. -- [1] Compare, for example, how society works with paper cash and gold bars versus Bitcoin: * Paper cash or gold in substantial amounts is always stored in private or bank safes, or in high-security underground vaults that most people have only seen in movies. In contrast, Bitcoin private keys are often stored in general-purpose personal computers running a wide variety of applications, managed by people who don't know how to secure a computer. * Transporting any substantial amount of paper cash or gold is often done via armored trucks operated by highly-trained security personnel. In contrast, Bitcoin private keys are transported via all sorts of highly insecure methods by people who don't know better. * No sane person holding a substantial amount of cash or gold at home would ever let complete strangers come and go into their house as they please, while giving them keys to all doors, cabinets, drawers, and safes. In contrast, people regularly give complete access to their computers to complete strangers by willingly or unwillingly installing software created by such strangers. * Our regulatory and policing institutions know how to identify, prosecute, and even prevent illegal gold and cash transactions, successfully keeping them to a tiny percentage of overall economic activity in most advanced economies. In contrast, those same institutions do not yet know how to cope with the use of Bitcoin for illegal activities. -- Edits: moved comparison of Bitcoin to gold and cash to footnote; also, made minor changes to several sentences so they more accurately reflect what I intended to write in the first place.

williamcotton 13y ago
That's like, your opinion, man. But for real dude, ever heard of democracy? What if I don't agree with you and your bullshit ideas?
- aaronem 13y ago
  Then you should try actually arguing with them, for a change.
  - williamcotton 13y ago
    Have you ever tried arguing with a religious fundamentalist? There's really no point.
    - williamcotton 13y ago
      Just love them, hug them, and keep them the fuck out of politics...
    - unethical_ban 13y ago
      every comment you have made in this conversation has been insult and dull sarcasm. no insight has been provided. I am no supporter of hellbanning, but I cannot fathom how, given this site's heavy use of moderation, you are still allowed to comment. I know I have made no friend from you with this, but I hope you reevaluate the content of future posts.
      - williamcotton 13y ago
        Dude, how can you even begin to argue when people just refuse to budge from this position of 'this is beyond our control now, you will just have to learn to live with it'?
        kd0amg 13y ago
        Show how to control it.
        williamcotton 13y ago
        You're right. I'm being incredibly impatient. I'm being very disrespectful to the people on this forum who aren't Bitcoin zealots. I'm sorry for that and I owe you guys an apology. I've lost almost all respect for the industry and the members of this forum, but even that doesn't warrant my actions. But this Bitcoin madness is driving me fucking insane... and I'm letting fears of sedition and anarchistic revolution get to me. I should heed my own real life advice and just channel all of this energy in to storytelling... I'll get you bastards with a song and a smile! I really need to take a break from this forum...
krapp 13y ago
>In contrast, those same institutions do not yet know how to cope with the use of Bitcoin for illegal activities. There was just recently a (Senate?) hearing about regulatory institutions and law enforcement dealing with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. Also, Silk Road used Bitcoins and still managed to get busted (and the bitcoins seized). Whatever other transformational aspects Bitcoin may or may not have, it doesn't appear to be so alien that the government doesn't know at least in principle how to cope with it.
exelius 13y ago
I love how it's not a problem with Bitcoin, it's a problem with the rest of the world not adapting to use Bitcoin fast enough! So basically, to be able to use Bitcoin, we need to develop a utopian society where the regulators are as smart as the people they're trying to regulate, the average person on the street is able to secure their computer against a financially motivated hacker, the global energy problems are solved and total privacy is achieved. We'll get right on that. Bitcoin is useful for some purposes, but its lack of traceability is MOST useful for criminal enterprises (aka money laundering). It's also not at all risky to attempt to steal Bitcoin; robbing an armored car involves a significant amount of risk. A failed armored car robbery ends with you dead or in jail; a failed attempt to steal Bitcoin ends with you just not having any Bitcoin.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rjzzleep 13y ago
  am i missing something? isn't bitcoin the most traceable currency ever? isn't that precisely why that hearing was so much in favor of bitcoin? on top of the fact that you'll know exactly who the money went through. you'll also have that central authority that wants to redlist bitcoins. "But you don't have to use their software" you say. and that's correct, but others will.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    > isn't bitcoin the most traceable currency ever? It is, but... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6687848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6687848
  - Guvante 13y ago
    Bitcoins are the most traceable currency ever, this is true. However the value behind bitcoins is the most untraceable thing ever. If you send 10 BTC from ADE to 143 and I send 10 BTC from 5FC to 057 you can probably trace that we both still have 10 BTC. Now take advantage of how much data you can shove into a single 10 minute transaction and do 100 transfers with a group of 10 other people turning a total of 10 original addresses into 20, and it becomes tricky to trace. Make that 100 new addresses and it becomes nearly impossible with current technology. Even if you could trace it, all people have to do is not worry about getting all their money back, say by donating 0.1 BTC to a central coordinator overall, and it becomes really hard to figure out that someone put in 99 BTC and got out 98.9 BTC.
ender7 13y ago
Great, so as long as we solve six of the major technical hurdles of the day, we can avoid the societal and technical dangers that BitCoin poses. What a pleasant ultimatum. As you pose it, it's now a race between the darker aspects of BitCoin and our ability as a world society to check off the items on your wishlist. I don't disagree that those are all good things to have, but I don't see how holding a gun to everyone's head and demanding short-term solutions to long-term problems is going to accomplish anything. I don't see a world where we get there in time.
- VMG 13y ago
  Calm down, nobody holding a gun to anybodys head. The world wasn't ready for computers, the internet and cryptographically secure communication either, but we still managed. For a forum that supposedly loves "disruption" everybody seems to be really frightened when it actually happens.
  - towski 13y ago
    Yeah I thought we stopped arguing for 'civil society' 100 years ago, when we realized that it was a sham
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >The world wasn't ready for computers, the internet and cryptographically secure communication either, but we still managed. For a forum that supposedly loves "disruption" everybody seems to be really frightened when it actually happens.* Amen, brother. I've also been preaching cold fusion and perpetual motion machines like forever, and nobody's listening to me either. They are not ready for it.
    - VMG 13y ago
      What are we talking about right now? Bitcoin-will-never-work or Bitcoin-will-destroy-the-world?
      - coldtea 13y ago
dschiptsov 13y ago
What a nonsense. About 70% of the world's population have their cash in a pocket and living from a wage to a wage or by some craft or sales business without any bank deposits. Currencies do work because anyone in the local environment will accept it instantly and tomorrow its purchase power will not deviate more than 1%. Otherwise alternative currency will be adopted by black market, like USD in Cambodia or in Russia in 90th or Indian Rupee in Nepal. It is all about liquidity and money velocity, as they call it. Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology, a service and now a commodity for speculators which is crashing right now.
- jonursenbach 13y ago
  "Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology[...]" Truer words have never been said on HN.
- Guvante 13y ago
  I don't think you actually disagree with the OP. He is saying there are inherent problems with BTC that need to be fixed, you are saying soon those problems will be solved (not necessarily with BTC). He just chose a catchy headline to gain attention.
- laichzeit0 13y ago
  >Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology, a service and now a commodity for speculators which is crashing right now. Agree on that it is not a currency (the word "currency" doesn't even appear on the Bitcoin client's website). However, please explain why you say it is "crashing"? 3 months ago the price was $130 on average. It's around $500 today. How is that a crash?
stcredzero 13y ago
The author's complains are a sober reminder that society is not yet ready Communists used the same rationale. It may have merit, though. Many dot com failures were due to inadequacy of the internet's infrastructure.
- saraid216 13y ago
  > Many dot com failures were due to inadequacy of the internet's infrastructure. My understanding was that the dot com failures were largely due to incompetence in business knowhow. Can you substantiate your claim at all?
  - wmf 13y ago
    Some dotcoms could have succeeded if computing and bandwidth was 10x cheaper. Others could have succeeded if the Internet had 10x more users. That's why some successful Web 2.0 startups are very similar to failed Web 1.0 startups. Starting a company five years too early could be considered a form of business stupidity. Of course, free shipping for pet food is still a bad idea.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      Do you have any examples? The "10x more users" thing sounds suspiciously like social network sites, but the expert opinions I've heard on those have suggested that the failure wasn't a lack of traction but bad policy. And that's before the complete lack of monetization, a business model that didn't seem to really take off until Google figured out how to do it well.
zeteo 13y ago
> if the number of people using Bitcoin continues to grow, our institutions and infrastructure will have to evolve to address the problems mentioned by the author So basically Bitcoin will be successful if Bitcoin will be successful. >society will need [...] substantially better authentication mechanisms, [...] more secure financial institutions, and more technologically-savvy regulatory and policing institutions. This is describing how to improve online banking. Isn't Bitcoin supposed to present an alternative to that?

by cs702 13y ago

williamcotton 13y ago

That's like, your opinion, man. But for real dude, ever heard of democracy? What if I don't agree with you and your bullshit ideas?

aaronem 13y ago
Then you should try actually arguing with them, for a change.
- williamcotton 13y ago
  Have you ever tried arguing with a religious fundamentalist? There's really no point.
  - williamcotton 13y ago
    Just love them, hug them, and keep them the fuck out of politics...
  - unethical_ban 13y ago
    every comment you have made in this conversation has been insult and dull sarcasm. no insight has been provided. I am no supporter of hellbanning, but I cannot fathom how, given this site's heavy use of moderation, you are still allowed to comment. I know I have made no friend from you with this, but I hope you reevaluate the content of future posts.
    - williamcotton 13y ago
      Dude, how can you even begin to argue when people just refuse to budge from this position of 'this is beyond our control now, you will just have to learn to live with it'?
      - kd0amg 13y ago
        Show how to control it.
        williamcotton 13y ago
        You're right. I'm being incredibly impatient. I'm being very disrespectful to the people on this forum who aren't Bitcoin zealots. I'm sorry for that and I owe you guys an apology. I've lost almost all respect for the industry and the members of this forum, but even that doesn't warrant my actions. But this Bitcoin madness is driving me fucking insane... and I'm letting fears of sedition and anarchistic revolution get to me. I should heed my own real life advice and just channel all of this energy in to storytelling... I'll get you bastards with a song and a smile! I really need to take a break from this forum...

krapp 13y ago

>In contrast, those same institutions do not yet know how to cope with the use of Bitcoin for illegal activities. There was just recently a (Senate?) hearing about regulatory institutions and law enforcement dealing with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. Also, Silk Road used Bitcoins and still managed to get busted (and the bitcoins seized). Whatever other transformational aspects Bitcoin may or may not have, it doesn't appear to be so alien that the government doesn't know at least in principle how to cope with it.

exelius 13y ago

I love how it's not a problem with Bitcoin, it's a problem with the rest of the world not adapting to use Bitcoin fast enough! So basically, to be able to use Bitcoin, we need to develop a utopian society where the regulators are as smart as the people they're trying to regulate, the average person on the street is able to secure their computer against a financially motivated hacker, the global energy problems are solved and total privacy is achieved. We'll get right on that. Bitcoin is useful for some purposes, but its lack of traceability is MOST useful for criminal enterprises (aka money laundering). It's also not at all risky to attempt to steal Bitcoin; robbing an armored car involves a significant amount of risk. A failed armored car robbery ends with you dead or in jail; a failed attempt to steal Bitcoin ends with you just not having any Bitcoin.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rjzzleep 13y ago
am i missing something? isn't bitcoin the most traceable currency ever? isn't that precisely why that hearing was so much in favor of bitcoin? on top of the fact that you'll know exactly who the money went through. you'll also have that central authority that wants to redlist bitcoins. "But you don't have to use their software" you say. and that's correct, but others will.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  > isn't bitcoin the most traceable currency ever? It is, but... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6687848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6687848
- Guvante 13y ago
  Bitcoins are the most traceable currency ever, this is true. However the value behind bitcoins is the most untraceable thing ever. If you send 10 BTC from ADE to 143 and I send 10 BTC from 5FC to 057 you can probably trace that we both still have 10 BTC. Now take advantage of how much data you can shove into a single 10 minute transaction and do 100 transfers with a group of 10 other people turning a total of 10 original addresses into 20, and it becomes tricky to trace. Make that 100 new addresses and it becomes nearly impossible with current technology. Even if you could trace it, all people have to do is not worry about getting all their money back, say by donating 0.1 BTC to a central coordinator overall, and it becomes really hard to figure out that someone put in 99 BTC and got out 98.9 BTC.

ender7 13y ago

Great, so as long as we solve six of the major technical hurdles of the day, we can avoid the societal and technical dangers that BitCoin poses. What a pleasant ultimatum. As you pose it, it's now a race between the darker aspects of BitCoin and our ability as a world society to check off the items on your wishlist. I don't disagree that those are all good things to have, but I don't see how holding a gun to everyone's head and demanding short-term solutions to long-term problems is going to accomplish anything. I don't see a world where we get there in time.

VMG 13y ago
Calm down, nobody holding a gun to anybodys head. The world wasn't ready for computers, the internet and cryptographically secure communication either, but we still managed. For a forum that supposedly loves "disruption" everybody seems to be really frightened when it actually happens.
- towski 13y ago
  Yeah I thought we stopped arguing for 'civil society' 100 years ago, when we realized that it was a sham
- coldtea 13y ago
  >The world wasn't ready for computers, the internet and cryptographically secure communication either, but we still managed. For a forum that supposedly loves "disruption" everybody seems to be really frightened when it actually happens.* Amen, brother. I've also been preaching cold fusion and perpetual motion machines like forever, and nobody's listening to me either. They are not ready for it.
  - VMG 13y ago
    What are we talking about right now? Bitcoin-will-never-work or Bitcoin-will-destroy-the-world?
    - coldtea 13y ago

dschiptsov 13y ago

What a nonsense. About 70% of the world's population have their cash in a pocket and living from a wage to a wage or by some craft or sales business without any bank deposits. Currencies do work because anyone in the local environment will accept it instantly and tomorrow its purchase power will not deviate more than 1%. Otherwise alternative currency will be adopted by black market, like USD in Cambodia or in Russia in 90th or Indian Rupee in Nepal. It is all about liquidity and money velocity, as they call it. Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology, a service and now a commodity for speculators which is crashing right now.

jonursenbach 13y ago
"Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology[...]" Truer words have never been said on HN.
Guvante 13y ago
I don't think you actually disagree with the OP. He is saying there are inherent problems with BTC that need to be fixed, you are saying soon those problems will be solved (not necessarily with BTC). He just chose a catchy headline to gain attention.
laichzeit0 13y ago
>Bitcoin is not a currency, it is a technology, a service and now a commodity for speculators which is crashing right now. Agree on that it is not a currency (the word "currency" doesn't even appear on the Bitcoin client's website). However, please explain why you say it is "crashing"? 3 months ago the price was $130 on average. It's around $500 today. How is that a crash?

stcredzero 13y ago

The author's complains are a sober reminder that society is not yet ready Communists used the same rationale. It may have merit, though. Many dot com failures were due to inadequacy of the internet's infrastructure.

saraid216 13y ago
> Many dot com failures were due to inadequacy of the internet's infrastructure. My understanding was that the dot com failures were largely due to incompetence in business knowhow. Can you substantiate your claim at all?
- wmf 13y ago
  Some dotcoms could have succeeded if computing and bandwidth was 10x cheaper. Others could have succeeded if the Internet had 10x more users. That's why some successful Web 2.0 startups are very similar to failed Web 1.0 startups. Starting a company five years too early could be considered a form of business stupidity. Of course, free shipping for pet food is still a bad idea.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    Do you have any examples? The "10x more users" thing sounds suspiciously like social network sites, but the expert opinions I've heard on those have suggested that the failure wasn't a lack of traction but bad policy. And that's before the complete lack of monetization, a business model that didn't seem to really take off until Google figured out how to do it well.

zeteo 13y ago

> if the number of people using Bitcoin continues to grow, our institutions and infrastructure will have to evolve to address the problems mentioned by the author So basically Bitcoin will be successful if Bitcoin will be successful. >society will need [...] substantially better authentication mechanisms, [...] more secure financial institutions, and more technologically-savvy regulatory and policing institutions. This is describing how to improve online banking. Isn't Bitcoin supposed to present an alternative to that?