have been thinking for awhile that Bitcoin has been used to bait the public into acceptance, excitement about digital currencies to ease their on-ramp to CBDC.
really think this was in the WEF Plan... maybe it’s their creation.
hoping that the recent losses prick the bubble and the blind acceptance.
I'm old and old fashioned. And I use cash as often as possible. It's my attempt at resistance, as pathetic as it may be. Like other commenters, I don't understand bitcoin, and after reading this, I don't think I want or need to understand it. It appears to be just a different spelling of greed.
My card company pays me (bribes?) to use their card. Which, of course, is passed to the merchants who then raise their prices accordingly. But my payment is subsidized by those who use cash, so a net benefit to me. That seems to be part of the insidious process to make us own nothing, even ourselves, and become happier.
Here's 2 things I'm certain of: 1) you're going to take some heat; and 2) you're absolutely right about this--"If you balk at my suggestion, then you really haven’t been paying attention over the past two years. Please let’s stop being gullible and let’s start questioning everything.."
I'll re-think my BTC thoughts. I'm sure I disagree with much of what you've written, but then, why? At the root of it, my concerns are not really ecological, but you've touched a nerve. I know in my heart that a person like Jack Dorsey does not have humanity's best interests in mind as he tries to capture this technology. And, like most technologies, descended from Cain, this one threatens, too.
You're absolutely right about taking some heat. I hit some nerves writing about Elon Musk, too. It's hard for people to get past their desire to change the system or bring in new rules, regulations, fix things, believing in some new technology, a new guru. What needs fixing is a basic flaw in human nature and that's so unpopular, mostly that part is simply ignored, and people go back to fighting over what they feel comfortable with.
Whatever energy is necessary to separate government from control of the money supply is in my view worthwhile. With BTC, neither governments nor private actors can simply seize it; and if BTC is the store of value, then it deprives governments of the ability to print money to fund things like wars and Covid shutdowns. Anything that tends to disrupt centralized control is humanity’s friend at this point. To fairly assess the energy costs of BTC, one must consider the costs we pay (enormous) to have governments controlling the currency. For a full discussion of the costs of BTC v other currencies, consider this:
And that would be great if it actually happened. But nothing in the history of humanity supports that assumption. As I showed, once again, those who gain the most power, no matter the system, end up exploiting it for their own gain. Acknowledging this basic human flaw was the most important part of what I was writing about.
What assumption are you referring to? It's pure math and physics. The code is law. Governments can't debase or inflate the supply of BTC. Research the "Blocksize Wars" and see how difficult it is to make changes to the protocol. It would have benefited big corporations to increase the size of block and increase transaction times but the small blockers won out. So now a teenager in the Central African Republic can run his own node on a raspberry pi for under $100 and be his/her own bank. As I see it right now we have about 4 choices: current system, soon to be cdbc system, sh%tcoin/altcoin casino, and bitcoin. Which do you prefer? Or do you have a different solution? I'm all ears.
Which teenager in Africa are you referring to? If you read to end of my essay you will see what my answer is, that replacing one system with another will never work until we address the underlying issues of humanity's flawed nature. Choices have been taken from us, we are now on a runaway train. But that's just how I see it. If I'm proved wrong I'd be more than happy to be. Having lived in Africa and having researched the history of exploitation there, I am not sure how anything would miraculously and suddenly change just because one system replaced another.n
Fair enough. I should have been more specific with my example. Here is a good article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-a-currency-of-decolonization Unfortunately I don't think we will ever fix humanity's flawed nature. And while I sympathize with your point, in the meantime I'm not waiting for a "leader" to be "operating from a position of integrity and truth". I think putting power in the hands of the people is our best bet. And a decentralized currency, in my eyes, is better than the current system or the promise of a benevolent "leader" providing a CBDC solution.
The code is law, but is completely malleable. Changing one bit in the program would double the amount of bitcoin available, halving the value. Code isn't magic, except to those immersed in the video game. Bitcoin is just another video game.
But Bitcoin is notoriously difficult to gain consensus for changes to the protocol. As indicated in the above comment about Blocksize Wars. So far it's proven to be anti-fragile. Hopefully it stays that way.
And to address your initial comment about "any lock can be picked with sufficient skill or force". It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that the govt is trying to undermine Bitcoin, but I'll take my chances that they would be able to generate my same private hash. Trying to break SHA256 would be equivalent to finding 1 atom that I hid somewhere in the observable universe. 115 quattuorvigintillion ... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E256
I'm an astronomer so I'm familiar with vast numbers. Next up from 2^256 is 2^257, and so on. For every number there are more numbers beyond that. But I'm also an engineer and know that straightforward solutions are not always the best. If you have a strong lock on the front door, go in the back. Or replace the lock. Every system has weaknesses, which is why we get software patches every week. Hackers don't use the front door to "brute force" cryptographic locks. That would be like the key maker in the Matrix movie carrying huge rings of keys. Better to just carry a simple set of picks. Governments have really good picks. Some privateers do too.
Assuming crypto undermines government control assumes the underlying cryptography that secures it is beyond government control. It isn't. Cryptography is an algorithm, a math process, like the operating system on your computer. Any lock can be picked with sufficient skill or force. Do you think governments can't? Probably those governments who want to restrict crypto do not know how to pick the locks. Those who can are much more tolerant.
The US government was very aggressive about controlling cryptography in the last century. Now they're not. Don't assume they suddenly decided to grant us some privacy. They have computers that makes AWS look like a Commodore 64.
In happier times people used a metaphor of "little plastic steering wheel" to indicate ignorant acquiescence. That expression was modeled after the infant car seats in those times with a steering wheel attached that the child could operate and pretend to control the car. Ignorance is bliss.
It’s worth the chance, as literally nothing else offers as much hope. Certainly there are no guarantees, but BTC has survived a decade of very significant challenges. To discount that is ignorant. My view is just that everyone ought to have some (and not full) exposure to BTC (and no exposure to other crypto). The US dollar or any other government currency is certainly more vulnerable right now, witness the US seizing Russian dollar reserves. They can do that to anybody they want at any time. BTC presents risk, certainly, just like everything else. Excessive hostility to it has to be motivated by vested interest.
The dollar is certainly at risk. China could collapse it any time they want, but for now old Joe seems to be doing a fair job of it. Cryptos, on the other hand, are fragile and more likely to join Luna than not. None of them have any intrinsic value, just a token of temporary trust between buyers and sellers, all fickle, and all of whom hope they won't be the ones holding the bag when theirs, too, collapses.
The US is also seizing Russian yachts, which they can do any time they want, to anyone they want, including crypto holders. Theft is habit forming.
Those concerned about collapse of the dollar have a lot more to worry about than money.
I knew nothing about bitcoin before reading your essay, Karen. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun. The top 1% rule. The bottom dwellers work all our lives for them. Man chooses evil over good so often now.
I am even less tempted to ‘invest’ after reading this. A philosopher friend tells me that investing in digital currency is no different than making an investment in tulip bulbs. That was also all the craze at one time and at least when all is lost with that you had the prospect of a few flowers to remind you that you put your money into a lot of hot air.
Yes, some people mentioned the tulip craze to me, too. This was such a fascinating topic to look into. And there's so much more to it. But as you say, at least at the end of the day you had a tulip in your hand that you could see and feel, an actual thing in the real world. There is so much more to this that I will write about because what it leads to is buying in the metaverse and then living in the metaverse, a chilling seduction being played upon people that for most is hard to realize.
We have to get back to 'real' things in nature and relationships and majorly disconnect from the internet. It's difficult of course because this is also the way we communicate.
The SRF & Billionaires do not fear BTC or any other form of digital coins. They own the medium (WWW) in which the digital coins are transacted. If They want they can block all the blockchain and the MMS/3i's will just be looking at a black screen (not even a blue one!). After all the wallet is just a mere IP address and without WWW, no wallet no transactions.
BTC is just another form for them to extract wealth from the herds of MMS/3i's without employing too many resources and effort.
And the simple fact that the herds of MMS/3i's STILL say "1 billion dollars in bitcoin" is a clear evidence that BTC failed the number one goal.
But just like with all religions that the degenerate uman animal mind invents, with this new one (BTC) many will do anything while trying to defend it!
Calling it a new religion is accurate. It's so clearly set up as a manipulation/exploitation and people are so much in need of something to believe in these days.
Banking uses far more energy than crypto. Banks also use massive amounts of data center energy, not to mention all of their branches and office buildings, full of computers, lighting, heat and a/c, and tens or hundreds of thousands of employees commuting back and forth to work.
"After all the wallet is just a mere IP address and without WWW, no wallet no transactions" Not true. Just a point of clarification for other readers, a wallet is where you keep your private keys. I generated my keys by rolling dice and my wallet has never been plugged into a computer or touched the internet. But you do bring up some good points about the internet as an attack vector. Luckily plenty of smart people are showing amazing human ingenuity: https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/ and https://blockstream.com/satellite/ as examples.
I used to mine BTC when it started... I was just trying to lay out as simple as it gets! But probably saying that "a wallet is just a mere IP address" means nothing to the majority of fellow MMS/3i's.
The top 1% of the population controlling 30% of the wealth is an example of the Pareto Principle. It is a natural distribution with regard to productivity that shows up everywhere. For example, only a few recording artists sell most of the commercially-available recordings. Only a relatively few authors are the recipients of the vast majority of earnings from books sold. In a company with 10,000 employees, half of all the work is done by 100 employees. The Pareto Principle is so deeply built into nature that it is unavoidable. The mistake we make is in thinking it is an unwelcome consequence of capitalism. It’s not. We can try to mitigate the inequalities, but that will probably set up just another disguised Pareto distribution with different beneficiaries. It’s not always the same group that is among those who benefit.
Nothing wrong with one person being better at something than someone else and being rewarded accordingly with more of something else. I understand the principle. We can debate until forever if one method of gathering more of something is better than another method but that isn't the problem. The problem comes from the corruption that inevitably takes over. Instead of being honest about the truth of "clean" energy, lies are told, underhanded deals are made, those who have less suffer so that those who have more can acquire even more. All for the sake of immediate gratification of powerful. It is now gone to an extreme and perhaps the only answer is for the tower to fall and be built again, as historically happens over and over. Except that now, humanity literally has the ability to destroy the entire planet and that wasn't the case in the past. To put trust in one system over another will never be the answer. Within nature there are leaders and there are followers, there are a billion variations of talents and drawbacks within humanity. The problem comes when power, wealth and fame lead to corruption, greed, you know, all of that "negative" stuff. Until we deal with that basic problem, we will never truly advance--we will just take our problems with us into space and continue making a big mess of it. It's interesting that this is the part of what I have written that is always ignored.
This is not the pareto principle. 1% owning 30 % is not 20% owning 80%. And if you knew anything about real world economics, you'd know: the reason 1% ends up with 30% is they do not play by the published rules. Racketeering is a thing; happens every day, in every industry.
“Certain buzzwords are repeated– decentralization, frictionless, borderless, equitable, democratization.
But how do these words translate into reality? Not very well.”
How so? It’s important to also distinguish between bitcoin the asset and bitcoin the network. Bitcoin the network is absolutely all these things. I would add a very important feature to that list. Permissionless. If I had 1 billion dollars in bitcoin I could send it to you and nobody could stop me. I could travel the globe with the billion dollars in my mind and send it to you from virtually anywhere on the planet. And nobody could stop you from accepting it. Ultimate property ownership.
Except that you don't have a billion dollars and if you did it isn't likely you would give it to me. Those who have billions of dollars didn't get there by being generous and kind. They got there by being ruthless. On the other hand, I appreciate the hope that is put into bitcoin, and it would be great if it fulfilled that hope for people. Unfortunately, reality, history, basic flaws in human nature tells us otherwise. My piece was about the greed that inevitably takes over--the flaw in the human spirit--and how lies, and corruption then abound and those who have less are exploited so that those with more can get even more...endlessly. This is what my two essays on Nickel and Bitcoin were really about, but this is the part it's hard for people to accept. We can change the system as many times as we want but until we face the underlying reasons why we always try to bring other people down so we can rise higher ourselves, we will not actually advance. We now literally have the ability to destroy all of humanity. That hasn't been the case at any other time in history. The planet, however, will be just fine. Without the destructive forces of man, it would rejuvenate itself. It's absurd for anyone to talk about wanting to "save the planet." They don't really care about that. All you have to do is look honestly at what is happening and you see that those who are at the top of the heap really only care about exploiting it. Anyway, that's my two cents worth--an ancient expression now! And I appreciate your comment.
I appreciate your two cents! And agree that humans are flawed and will continue to be. Not sure what to do about that except create systems that are properly incentivized. As for my comment, the billion dollars was just window dressing. The point was that I don't have to ask permission to use the network. Not from anyone. Thats kind of a big deal.
I don't know a thing about bitcoin so I don't feel qualified to comment about it but I've been around long enough to have acquired a little bit of common sense. Most young people want to change the world for the better, who can blame them. "It's deeply principled, it's weird as hell [and] it's always evolving. It just reminded me of the Internet as a kid." It sounds good, exciting and full of potential. It's all inclusive, even embracing weird as hell. I wouldn't bank on it. Our Constitution was deeply principled, too, and it wasn't even weird. Who knows where it's at now, nobody pays attention to it. Secrecy of the founder is a little off putting because who do you call if they trick you and rip you off? But this quote sealed it for me. "My hope is that it creates or helps create world peace. It's going to be long-term, but my hope is definitely peace." Wow, here's to world peace, brother, good on ya. In the year 3535, if man is still alive, if bitcoin thrives, I'd be surprised.
With the recent massive losses, some, alas, have committed suicide.
NEVER, EVER, commit suicide. There is nothing more important or sacred than LIFE itself. If the worse comes, we leave the body naturally.
Dorsey has already shown who and what he is. Do not be deceived by the likes of Dorsey.
🎯this post was excellent 🎯
have been thinking for awhile that Bitcoin has been used to bait the public into acceptance, excitement about digital currencies to ease their on-ramp to CBDC.
really think this was in the WEF Plan... maybe it’s their creation.
hoping that the recent losses prick the bubble and the blind acceptance.
bitcoin = bitcon
🐱🎯🐱
I'm old and old fashioned. And I use cash as often as possible. It's my attempt at resistance, as pathetic as it may be. Like other commenters, I don't understand bitcoin, and after reading this, I don't think I want or need to understand it. It appears to be just a different spelling of greed.
I think you understand it very well.
My card company pays me (bribes?) to use their card. Which, of course, is passed to the merchants who then raise their prices accordingly. But my payment is subsidized by those who use cash, so a net benefit to me. That seems to be part of the insidious process to make us own nothing, even ourselves, and become happier.
Welp, there's that other shoe I was waiting for.
Here's 2 things I'm certain of: 1) you're going to take some heat; and 2) you're absolutely right about this--"If you balk at my suggestion, then you really haven’t been paying attention over the past two years. Please let’s stop being gullible and let’s start questioning everything.."
I'll re-think my BTC thoughts. I'm sure I disagree with much of what you've written, but then, why? At the root of it, my concerns are not really ecological, but you've touched a nerve. I know in my heart that a person like Jack Dorsey does not have humanity's best interests in mind as he tries to capture this technology. And, like most technologies, descended from Cain, this one threatens, too.
You're absolutely right about taking some heat. I hit some nerves writing about Elon Musk, too. It's hard for people to get past their desire to change the system or bring in new rules, regulations, fix things, believing in some new technology, a new guru. What needs fixing is a basic flaw in human nature and that's so unpopular, mostly that part is simply ignored, and people go back to fighting over what they feel comfortable with.
Whatever energy is necessary to separate government from control of the money supply is in my view worthwhile. With BTC, neither governments nor private actors can simply seize it; and if BTC is the store of value, then it deprives governments of the ability to print money to fund things like wars and Covid shutdowns. Anything that tends to disrupt centralized control is humanity’s friend at this point. To fairly assess the energy costs of BTC, one must consider the costs we pay (enormous) to have governments controlling the currency. For a full discussion of the costs of BTC v other currencies, consider this:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bitcoin-standard-podcast/id1403202032?i=1000547889794
And that would be great if it actually happened. But nothing in the history of humanity supports that assumption. As I showed, once again, those who gain the most power, no matter the system, end up exploiting it for their own gain. Acknowledging this basic human flaw was the most important part of what I was writing about.
What assumption are you referring to? It's pure math and physics. The code is law. Governments can't debase or inflate the supply of BTC. Research the "Blocksize Wars" and see how difficult it is to make changes to the protocol. It would have benefited big corporations to increase the size of block and increase transaction times but the small blockers won out. So now a teenager in the Central African Republic can run his own node on a raspberry pi for under $100 and be his/her own bank. As I see it right now we have about 4 choices: current system, soon to be cdbc system, sh%tcoin/altcoin casino, and bitcoin. Which do you prefer? Or do you have a different solution? I'm all ears.
Which teenager in Africa are you referring to? If you read to end of my essay you will see what my answer is, that replacing one system with another will never work until we address the underlying issues of humanity's flawed nature. Choices have been taken from us, we are now on a runaway train. But that's just how I see it. If I'm proved wrong I'd be more than happy to be. Having lived in Africa and having researched the history of exploitation there, I am not sure how anything would miraculously and suddenly change just because one system replaced another.n
Fair enough. I should have been more specific with my example. Here is a good article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-a-currency-of-decolonization Unfortunately I don't think we will ever fix humanity's flawed nature. And while I sympathize with your point, in the meantime I'm not waiting for a "leader" to be "operating from a position of integrity and truth". I think putting power in the hands of the people is our best bet. And a decentralized currency, in my eyes, is better than the current system or the promise of a benevolent "leader" providing a CBDC solution.
Of course decentralized is better.
The code is law, but is completely malleable. Changing one bit in the program would double the amount of bitcoin available, halving the value. Code isn't magic, except to those immersed in the video game. Bitcoin is just another video game.
But Bitcoin is notoriously difficult to gain consensus for changes to the protocol. As indicated in the above comment about Blocksize Wars. So far it's proven to be anti-fragile. Hopefully it stays that way.
And to address your initial comment about "any lock can be picked with sufficient skill or force". It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that the govt is trying to undermine Bitcoin, but I'll take my chances that they would be able to generate my same private hash. Trying to break SHA256 would be equivalent to finding 1 atom that I hid somewhere in the observable universe. 115 quattuorvigintillion ... https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2%5E256
This video is a great watch just to try and wrap the head around it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY
I'm an astronomer so I'm familiar with vast numbers. Next up from 2^256 is 2^257, and so on. For every number there are more numbers beyond that. But I'm also an engineer and know that straightforward solutions are not always the best. If you have a strong lock on the front door, go in the back. Or replace the lock. Every system has weaknesses, which is why we get software patches every week. Hackers don't use the front door to "brute force" cryptographic locks. That would be like the key maker in the Matrix movie carrying huge rings of keys. Better to just carry a simple set of picks. Governments have really good picks. Some privateers do too.
Assuming crypto undermines government control assumes the underlying cryptography that secures it is beyond government control. It isn't. Cryptography is an algorithm, a math process, like the operating system on your computer. Any lock can be picked with sufficient skill or force. Do you think governments can't? Probably those governments who want to restrict crypto do not know how to pick the locks. Those who can are much more tolerant.
The US government was very aggressive about controlling cryptography in the last century. Now they're not. Don't assume they suddenly decided to grant us some privacy. They have computers that makes AWS look like a Commodore 64.
In happier times people used a metaphor of "little plastic steering wheel" to indicate ignorant acquiescence. That expression was modeled after the infant car seats in those times with a steering wheel attached that the child could operate and pretend to control the car. Ignorance is bliss.
It’s worth the chance, as literally nothing else offers as much hope. Certainly there are no guarantees, but BTC has survived a decade of very significant challenges. To discount that is ignorant. My view is just that everyone ought to have some (and not full) exposure to BTC (and no exposure to other crypto). The US dollar or any other government currency is certainly more vulnerable right now, witness the US seizing Russian dollar reserves. They can do that to anybody they want at any time. BTC presents risk, certainly, just like everything else. Excessive hostility to it has to be motivated by vested interest.
The dollar is certainly at risk. China could collapse it any time they want, but for now old Joe seems to be doing a fair job of it. Cryptos, on the other hand, are fragile and more likely to join Luna than not. None of them have any intrinsic value, just a token of temporary trust between buyers and sellers, all fickle, and all of whom hope they won't be the ones holding the bag when theirs, too, collapses.
The US is also seizing Russian yachts, which they can do any time they want, to anyone they want, including crypto holders. Theft is habit forming.
Those concerned about collapse of the dollar have a lot more to worry about than money.
I knew nothing about bitcoin before reading your essay, Karen. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun. The top 1% rule. The bottom dwellers work all our lives for them. Man chooses evil over good so often now.
I've been learning so much with each essay I write. I found the research for this one to be fascinating.
"A teacher learned more than a student."
Karen, I'd love to see a conversation between you and Aleks Svetski. Could you contact him?
That would be great! Who can make that happen?
I am even less tempted to ‘invest’ after reading this. A philosopher friend tells me that investing in digital currency is no different than making an investment in tulip bulbs. That was also all the craze at one time and at least when all is lost with that you had the prospect of a few flowers to remind you that you put your money into a lot of hot air.
Yes, some people mentioned the tulip craze to me, too. This was such a fascinating topic to look into. And there's so much more to it. But as you say, at least at the end of the day you had a tulip in your hand that you could see and feel, an actual thing in the real world. There is so much more to this that I will write about because what it leads to is buying in the metaverse and then living in the metaverse, a chilling seduction being played upon people that for most is hard to realize.
We have to get back to 'real' things in nature and relationships and majorly disconnect from the internet. It's difficult of course because this is also the way we communicate.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/there-never-was-real-tulip-fever-180964915/ Thought this was an interesting read on the ‘Tulip Craze’. I’m definitely in the Bitcoin maximalist camp but agree 100% with your comment about unplugging and getting back to nature and relationships.
So much to ponder!!
on the other hand... we are introducing a super computer that operates at 0.02% of the power requirement of today's leading super computers, 3.2 kW vs 17.8 MW... https://www.bcmindustries.com/post/introducing-tod-5120-the-world-s-most-advanced-supercomputer
Great. Let's see if that is the answer to human nature's basic flaws.
The SRF & Billionaires do not fear BTC or any other form of digital coins. They own the medium (WWW) in which the digital coins are transacted. If They want they can block all the blockchain and the MMS/3i's will just be looking at a black screen (not even a blue one!). After all the wallet is just a mere IP address and without WWW, no wallet no transactions.
BTC is just another form for them to extract wealth from the herds of MMS/3i's without employing too many resources and effort.
And the simple fact that the herds of MMS/3i's STILL say "1 billion dollars in bitcoin" is a clear evidence that BTC failed the number one goal.
But just like with all religions that the degenerate uman animal mind invents, with this new one (BTC) many will do anything while trying to defend it!
Calling it a new religion is accurate. It's so clearly set up as a manipulation/exploitation and people are so much in need of something to believe in these days.
Banking uses far more energy than crypto. Banks also use massive amounts of data center energy, not to mention all of their branches and office buildings, full of computers, lighting, heat and a/c, and tens or hundreds of thousands of employees commuting back and forth to work.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/banking-uses-56-times-more-energy-than-bitcoin-valuechain-report
"After all the wallet is just a mere IP address and without WWW, no wallet no transactions" Not true. Just a point of clarification for other readers, a wallet is where you keep your private keys. I generated my keys by rolling dice and my wallet has never been plugged into a computer or touched the internet. But you do bring up some good points about the internet as an attack vector. Luckily plenty of smart people are showing amazing human ingenuity: https://www.wired.com/story/cypherpunks-bitcoin-ham-radio/ and https://blockstream.com/satellite/ as examples.
I used to mine BTC when it started... I was just trying to lay out as simple as it gets! But probably saying that "a wallet is just a mere IP address" means nothing to the majority of fellow MMS/3i's.
So, lets just keep ourselves entertained!
The top 1% of the population controlling 30% of the wealth is an example of the Pareto Principle. It is a natural distribution with regard to productivity that shows up everywhere. For example, only a few recording artists sell most of the commercially-available recordings. Only a relatively few authors are the recipients of the vast majority of earnings from books sold. In a company with 10,000 employees, half of all the work is done by 100 employees. The Pareto Principle is so deeply built into nature that it is unavoidable. The mistake we make is in thinking it is an unwelcome consequence of capitalism. It’s not. We can try to mitigate the inequalities, but that will probably set up just another disguised Pareto distribution with different beneficiaries. It’s not always the same group that is among those who benefit.
See this video for a better explanation: https://youtu.be/BZMBdRfbk6A
Nothing wrong with one person being better at something than someone else and being rewarded accordingly with more of something else. I understand the principle. We can debate until forever if one method of gathering more of something is better than another method but that isn't the problem. The problem comes from the corruption that inevitably takes over. Instead of being honest about the truth of "clean" energy, lies are told, underhanded deals are made, those who have less suffer so that those who have more can acquire even more. All for the sake of immediate gratification of powerful. It is now gone to an extreme and perhaps the only answer is for the tower to fall and be built again, as historically happens over and over. Except that now, humanity literally has the ability to destroy the entire planet and that wasn't the case in the past. To put trust in one system over another will never be the answer. Within nature there are leaders and there are followers, there are a billion variations of talents and drawbacks within humanity. The problem comes when power, wealth and fame lead to corruption, greed, you know, all of that "negative" stuff. Until we deal with that basic problem, we will never truly advance--we will just take our problems with us into space and continue making a big mess of it. It's interesting that this is the part of what I have written that is always ignored.
This is not the pareto principle. 1% owning 30 % is not 20% owning 80%. And if you knew anything about real world economics, you'd know: the reason 1% ends up with 30% is they do not play by the published rules. Racketeering is a thing; happens every day, in every industry.
“Certain buzzwords are repeated– decentralization, frictionless, borderless, equitable, democratization.
But how do these words translate into reality? Not very well.”
How so? It’s important to also distinguish between bitcoin the asset and bitcoin the network. Bitcoin the network is absolutely all these things. I would add a very important feature to that list. Permissionless. If I had 1 billion dollars in bitcoin I could send it to you and nobody could stop me. I could travel the globe with the billion dollars in my mind and send it to you from virtually anywhere on the planet. And nobody could stop you from accepting it. Ultimate property ownership.
Except that you don't have a billion dollars and if you did it isn't likely you would give it to me. Those who have billions of dollars didn't get there by being generous and kind. They got there by being ruthless. On the other hand, I appreciate the hope that is put into bitcoin, and it would be great if it fulfilled that hope for people. Unfortunately, reality, history, basic flaws in human nature tells us otherwise. My piece was about the greed that inevitably takes over--the flaw in the human spirit--and how lies, and corruption then abound and those who have less are exploited so that those with more can get even more...endlessly. This is what my two essays on Nickel and Bitcoin were really about, but this is the part it's hard for people to accept. We can change the system as many times as we want but until we face the underlying reasons why we always try to bring other people down so we can rise higher ourselves, we will not actually advance. We now literally have the ability to destroy all of humanity. That hasn't been the case at any other time in history. The planet, however, will be just fine. Without the destructive forces of man, it would rejuvenate itself. It's absurd for anyone to talk about wanting to "save the planet." They don't really care about that. All you have to do is look honestly at what is happening and you see that those who are at the top of the heap really only care about exploiting it. Anyway, that's my two cents worth--an ancient expression now! And I appreciate your comment.
I appreciate your two cents! And agree that humans are flawed and will continue to be. Not sure what to do about that except create systems that are properly incentivized. As for my comment, the billion dollars was just window dressing. The point was that I don't have to ask permission to use the network. Not from anyone. Thats kind of a big deal.
Yes, that's a valid point. Let's hope it stays that way.
I don't know a thing about bitcoin so I don't feel qualified to comment about it but I've been around long enough to have acquired a little bit of common sense. Most young people want to change the world for the better, who can blame them. "It's deeply principled, it's weird as hell [and] it's always evolving. It just reminded me of the Internet as a kid." It sounds good, exciting and full of potential. It's all inclusive, even embracing weird as hell. I wouldn't bank on it. Our Constitution was deeply principled, too, and it wasn't even weird. Who knows where it's at now, nobody pays attention to it. Secrecy of the founder is a little off putting because who do you call if they trick you and rip you off? But this quote sealed it for me. "My hope is that it creates or helps create world peace. It's going to be long-term, but my hope is definitely peace." Wow, here's to world peace, brother, good on ya. In the year 3535, if man is still alive, if bitcoin thrives, I'd be surprised.