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The problem is, we're not all equally engaged in the issue. Nor can we be - I can't simultaneously be an expert on every single thing that touches on my life.

The problem is, we're not all equally engaged in the issue. Nor can we be - I can't simultaneously be an expert on every single thing that touches on my life. For better or for worse, we all cut corners - we all need to cut corners on the caveat emptor thing; there's only so much time in the day - and some of us will be more successful at it than others. So I'm not interested in blaming the victims here. What happened to them was perhaps predictable and certainly tragic, but like with the recent housing crisis it's important to distinguish between people who we wish had known better, and people who actually did have a moral or professional responsibility to know better. If anything, I'm way more interested in blaming the relevant regulatory agencies for not being quicker to do their jobs by ensuring that Mt. Gox was behaving responsibly. Perhaps this whole crisis could have been averted if, 3 or 4 years ago when BTC first got big, someone had thought to knock on their doors and said, "Hey, I'd like to meet your accounting team."

corford 13y ago
I agree with what you're saying in the abstract but in this particular case, I don't think it holds. Everyone knows Bitcoin is still in its infancy and effectively a modern day wild west. You don't need to be fully engaged on the issue to know that, you just need a little common sense. Just like you don't go on holiday somewhere far flung and a bit edgy and decide to walk down the street with all your money, passport, jewellery and documents on you.
defen 13y ago
> The problem is, we're not all equally engaged in the issue. Nor can we be - I can't simultaneously be an expert on every single thing that touches on my life. That's understandable if someone just bought a couple bitcoins on a lark when they were under $100. But there are people who have lost a significant fraction of their net worth - those are the ones who really should have taken the time to know better.
- PakG1 13y ago
  I'd say anyone who bought a house at the peak of the housing market also lost a significant fraction of their net worth. Should we say those are the ones who really should have taken the time to know better? Consider just how many people lost a significant fraction of their wealth and now have underwater mortgages. Do you see where I'm going here? Caveat emptor really does only go so far. That's why at the end of the day, there's supposed to be regulation, to ensure a safe place as possible for people to conduct their economic activity, realizing that risk is still unavoidable. There's acceptable risk, and then there's, oh-no-those-bankers-were-pulling-some-nasty-tricks-and-the-public-suffers risks.
  - bunderbunder 13y ago
    >Consider just how many people lost a significant fraction of their wealth and now have underwater mortgages. Exactly. We really do need to design systems to be used by the human beings we actually are, not the super-humans we like to think we are.
  - locopati 13y ago
    While the expectation of accountability holds for banking and mortgages (and in that case was more or less ignored and hardly punished for it), does it hold for MtGox and Bitcoin, where the foundation is built on the lack of regulation?
    - PakG1 13y ago
      If we want to look at it that way, perhaps we can ask what the Bitcoin Foundation was doing to make sure their members were more capable then? The fact is that if you want Bitcoin to go mainstream, someone somewhere has to be able to say that a service provider is reliable because normal laypeople can't be expected to make that judgment call wisely.
beat 13y ago
If Bitcoin proponents ever want to reach people who aren't "equally engaged", then it needs to be safe and reliable. Like, you know, that evil fiat currency. Which pretty much requires either the backing of governments, or an incredible improvement in fundamental security and transaction support. Until then, it's going to be the currency equivalent of fantasy football, with a side business in digital transactions for otherwise illegal activity.
aestra 13y ago
>but like with the recent housing crisis it's important to distinguish between people who we wish had known better, and people who actually did have a moral or professional responsibility to know better. The problem I have with this comparison is the mortgage defaults and the subprime mortgage crisis were largely caused by personal greed. People thought that they deserve a house (and an expensive/big one at that) no matter if they could afford it or not. There was very little if any personal responsibility or financial planning.

corford 13y ago

I agree with what you're saying in the abstract but in this particular case, I don't think it holds. Everyone knows Bitcoin is still in its infancy and effectively a modern day wild west. You don't need to be fully engaged on the issue to know that, you just need a little common sense. Just like you don't go on holiday somewhere far flung and a bit edgy and decide to walk down the street with all your money, passport, jewellery and documents on you.

defen 13y ago

> The problem is, we're not all equally engaged in the issue. Nor can we be - I can't simultaneously be an expert on every single thing that touches on my life. That's understandable if someone just bought a couple bitcoins on a lark when they were under $100. But there are people who have lost a significant fraction of their net worth - those are the ones who really should have taken the time to know better.

PakG1 13y ago
I'd say anyone who bought a house at the peak of the housing market also lost a significant fraction of their net worth. Should we say those are the ones who really should have taken the time to know better? Consider just how many people lost a significant fraction of their wealth and now have underwater mortgages. Do you see where I'm going here? Caveat emptor really does only go so far. That's why at the end of the day, there's supposed to be regulation, to ensure a safe place as possible for people to conduct their economic activity, realizing that risk is still unavoidable. There's acceptable risk, and then there's, oh-no-those-bankers-were-pulling-some-nasty-tricks-and-the-public-suffers risks.
- bunderbunder 13y ago
  >Consider just how many people lost a significant fraction of their wealth and now have underwater mortgages. Exactly. We really do need to design systems to be used by the human beings we actually are, not the super-humans we like to think we are.
- locopati 13y ago
  While the expectation of accountability holds for banking and mortgages (and in that case was more or less ignored and hardly punished for it), does it hold for MtGox and Bitcoin, where the foundation is built on the lack of regulation?
  - PakG1 13y ago
    If we want to look at it that way, perhaps we can ask what the Bitcoin Foundation was doing to make sure their members were more capable then? The fact is that if you want Bitcoin to go mainstream, someone somewhere has to be able to say that a service provider is reliable because normal laypeople can't be expected to make that judgment call wisely.

beat 13y ago

If Bitcoin proponents ever want to reach people who aren't "equally engaged", then it needs to be safe and reliable. Like, you know, that evil fiat currency. Which pretty much requires either the backing of governments, or an incredible improvement in fundamental security and transaction support. Until then, it's going to be the currency equivalent of fantasy football, with a side business in digital transactions for otherwise illegal activity.

aestra 13y ago

>but like with the recent housing crisis it's important to distinguish between people who we wish had known better, and people who actually did have a moral or professional responsibility to know better. The problem I have with this comparison is the mortgage defaults and the subprime mortgage crisis were largely caused by personal greed. People thought that they deserve a house (and an expensive/big one at that) no matter if they could afford it or not. There was very little if any personal responsibility or financial planning.