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The core argument surrounding Bitcoin can be brought to focus by asking the question : "Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?". Of co

by vijucat 13y ago

The core argument surrounding Bitcoin can be brought to focus by asking the question : "Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?". Of course, crypocurrencies are not just algorithms, they're more like algorithms + protocols, but still, that's a great question to ask at a gathering (of like-minded people); it generates some very interesting discussion. My personal take is that : there are two kinds of people. Some need a Central authority. (They probably respect and believed everything uttered by their parents and teachers as children, too. I'd LOVE it if someone did a psychological study of such correlations in personal beliefs.) Others are suspicious of the utility of government. One need not be a full-blown anarcho-capitalist or whatever the well-read cool kids call it; it's just that the 2008 financial crisis has left a deeply unsettling feeling about whether governments are serving the common man. Such people would rather trust a computer science researcher's invention. I'm definitely in the 2nd camp. I think the lack of central authority is what type 1 people find unsettling and unbelievable about Bitcoin. What the world needs is a "Cartoon guide to cryptocurrencies" book or video.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> ""Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?"." Most people can understand government fiscal policy (to a useful extent anyway). Very few can understand an algorithm even when it's explained to them. They vote in the government and currency in it's current form (e.g. USD) has worked for generations. Trusting the government seems much safer. Also with Bitcoin you are trusting more than an algorithm. You're trusting exchanges. You're trusting in the security of a digital system that can be hacked and you don't understand how to secure properly. With physical currency security is simple and understandable. With digital currency it's not.
- ben0x539 13y ago
  When a government fucks up, you can vote to change it or sue them. When the algorithm eats your savings, there's no recourse. I'll put my trust with the concept that isn't claimed to be infallible here.
  - dnautics 13y ago
    have you ever tried suing the government? My dad did. It's taken him 10 years, and he's probably lost about $2M in assets. Status of his suit is still unresolved. As for voting...
- vijucat 13y ago
  > Most people can understand government fiscal policy (to a useful extent anyway). Very few can understand an algorithm even when it's explained to them. They vote in the government and currency in it's current form (e.g. USD) has worked for generations. Trusting the government seems much safer. Do you know what people trust more than anything else? Other people. Trust in government feels so fundamental, but actually it is based on the fact that OTHER people trust the government, too. People trust a lot many things they don't understand, too. People trust https, for example. They feel safe because "everybody else is trusting it, too". IMHO, this kind of normative ethics ("it is correct because everyone else says so") is why many societies have totally acceptable behaviours which are obviously wrong to outsiders : whipping women if they dare to drive in Saudi Arabia, ignoring abject poverty as it stares you in the eye in India (or even the West), punishing non-religious or sexually "deviant", etc; Coming back to BitCoin : the burgeoning community that believes in BTC has the potential to reach critical mass and create the kind of numbers that will serve as a foundation for the kind of trust that the government, for example, or religion (despite being provably nonsensical), enjoys today. TL;DR : it's not that people trust the government, they trust what other people trust. A good enough number of people trust BitCoin.
pdkl95 13y ago
> "Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?" The government, obviously. They have the guns and can simply use those guns to annex the necessary mathematicians, should the need arise. Far too often, people seem to forget that governments are the one that has the monopoly on use of force. Thinks like "logic" and "rhetoric" and "math" don't mean a damn thing when the conflict has been reduced down to basic natural selection. We, as a species, are incredibly talented at postponing that conflict. We pile on more and more layers of indirection - such as "politics", "police", "lawyers" - hoping to avoid the violent battle that lies at the core of any real disagreement. Unfortunately, geeks tend to fall prey to the "just-world fallacy" in these cases. We're used to the rigor and determinism of math and logic, and often assume that such concepts are universal.
- macavity23 13y ago
  They have the guns and can simply use those guns to annex the necessary mathematicians You clearly have a definition of 'trust' that differs significantly from my own :)
- vijucat 13y ago
  > The government, obviously. They have the guns... Guess what is common to the guerrilla soldiers in Vietnam, terrorists spread across the world, the hackers group Anonymous, and other trouble-makers whom the big bad government seems to fight and never win against : they're decentralized. Also, there's not much use pointing a gun at a mathematician a) after they've published the result and b) who can successfully publish his stuff anonymously (Satoshi) > Unfortunately, geeks tend to fall prey to the "just-world fallacy" in these cases. We're used to the rigor and determinism of math and logic, and often assume that such concepts are universal. Not at all. Diffie-Helman key exchange, for example, solves the problem of exchanging a secret key on an untrusted connection. It is exactly this kind of "there WILL be bad people; how do we make it work nevertheless" thinking that gave birth so many interesting results in cryptography that is going into the creation of new currencies, too. Centralized government has had so much history of working well + there are not that many non-centralized protocols at work in real life yet (p2p, bittorrent, distributed consensus protocols like Plaxo, Raft, etc; are the only ones I know, for example) so you may be finding it difficult to believe in a decentralized protocol, that's all?

by vijucat 13y ago

k-mcgrady 13y ago

>> ""Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?"." Most people can understand government fiscal policy (to a useful extent anyway). Very few can understand an algorithm even when it's explained to them. They vote in the government and currency in it's current form (e.g. USD) has worked for generations. Trusting the government seems much safer. Also with Bitcoin you are trusting more than an algorithm. You're trusting exchanges. You're trusting in the security of a digital system that can be hacked and you don't understand how to secure properly. With physical currency security is simple and understandable. With digital currency it's not.

ben0x539 13y ago
When a government fucks up, you can vote to change it or sue them. When the algorithm eats your savings, there's no recourse. I'll put my trust with the concept that isn't claimed to be infallible here.
- dnautics 13y ago
  have you ever tried suing the government? My dad did. It's taken him 10 years, and he's probably lost about $2M in assets. Status of his suit is still unresolved. As for voting...
vijucat 13y ago
> Most people can understand government fiscal policy (to a useful extent anyway). Very few can understand an algorithm even when it's explained to them. They vote in the government and currency in it's current form (e.g. USD) has worked for generations. Trusting the government seems much safer. Do you know what people trust more than anything else? Other people. Trust in government feels so fundamental, but actually it is based on the fact that OTHER people trust the government, too. People trust a lot many things they don't understand, too. People trust https, for example. They feel safe because "everybody else is trusting it, too". IMHO, this kind of normative ethics ("it is correct because everyone else says so") is why many societies have totally acceptable behaviours which are obviously wrong to outsiders : whipping women if they dare to drive in Saudi Arabia, ignoring abject poverty as it stares you in the eye in India (or even the West), punishing non-religious or sexually "deviant", etc; Coming back to BitCoin : the burgeoning community that believes in BTC has the potential to reach critical mass and create the kind of numbers that will serve as a foundation for the kind of trust that the government, for example, or religion (despite being provably nonsensical), enjoys today. TL;DR : it's not that people trust the government, they trust what other people trust. A good enough number of people trust BitCoin.

pdkl95 13y ago

> "Would you rather trust a government or a mathematical algorithm?" The government, obviously. They have the guns and can simply use those guns to annex the necessary mathematicians, should the need arise. Far too often, people seem to forget that governments are the one that has the monopoly on use of force. Thinks like "logic" and "rhetoric" and "math" don't mean a damn thing when the conflict has been reduced down to basic natural selection. We, as a species, are incredibly talented at postponing that conflict. We pile on more and more layers of indirection - such as "politics", "police", "lawyers" - hoping to avoid the violent battle that lies at the core of any real disagreement. Unfortunately, geeks tend to fall prey to the "just-world fallacy" in these cases. We're used to the rigor and determinism of math and logic, and often assume that such concepts are universal.

macavity23 13y ago
They have the guns and can simply use those guns to annex the necessary mathematicians You clearly have a definition of 'trust' that differs significantly from my own :)
vijucat 13y ago
> The government, obviously. They have the guns... Guess what is common to the guerrilla soldiers in Vietnam, terrorists spread across the world, the hackers group Anonymous, and other trouble-makers whom the big bad government seems to fight and never win against : they're decentralized. Also, there's not much use pointing a gun at a mathematician a) after they've published the result and b) who can successfully publish his stuff anonymously (Satoshi) > Unfortunately, geeks tend to fall prey to the "just-world fallacy" in these cases. We're used to the rigor and determinism of math and logic, and often assume that such concepts are universal. Not at all. Diffie-Helman key exchange, for example, solves the problem of exchanging a secret key on an untrusted connection. It is exactly this kind of "there WILL be bad people; how do we make it work nevertheless" thinking that gave birth so many interesting results in cryptography that is going into the creation of new currencies, too. Centralized government has had so much history of working well + there are not that many non-centralized protocols at work in real life yet (p2p, bittorrent, distributed consensus protocols like Plaxo, Raft, etc; are the only ones I know, for example) so you may be finding it difficult to believe in a decentralized protocol, that's all?