> but it sits at the middle of theoretical computer science, economics and finance in a novel way that responds to a lot of shortcomings of attempts before it.
The problem here is that the creator of Bitcoin was following a philosophical motivation, not a scientific one. The 'economics' behind it are completely misguided and appear to be based on the notion that taking power away from powerful entities and distributing amongst individuals will remove the problems associated with capitalist systems. It does not consider that people created these entities and removing power from systems that rely on it creates power vacuums which society abhors. Things just end up getting to the same place a different way, but redoing all of the bad outcomes that had to be painfully learned and many times almost led to humanity scrapping capitalism and free markets altogether because of the damage done.
When you approach problems thinking you have the answer before you start looking for the solution, then you get things like Soviet Russia and you get things like eugenics and you get things like Bitcoin.
I am sorry but by saying 'it has critical flaws' and then also claiming that it it is some work of science and can be used for progress in economics and technology and finance, you neglect totally that it's first and most critical flaw is that it is the product of a dogma which is completely removed from reality in two of those areas.
It's a weird distinction you make. To say that it's a philosophical motivation is ignoring motivation of a lot of innovation and kind of beside the point. The "philosophy" of the internet was to build a network that would be resilient against a nuclear attack yet, because of those motivations and in spite of that cynical outlook, the internet was created that was robust and flexible. The "philosophical" motivation behind cryptography is privacy. The "philosophical" motivation behind medical research is to improve peoples quality of life. Science is the method to pursue our philosophical aims.
This sentence is also weird:
> The 'economics' behind it are completely misguided and appear to be based on the notion that taking power away from powerful entities and distributing amongst individuals will remove the problems associated with capitalist systems.
So you're arguing that consolidating power by removing it from the masses is a better alternative? It's not that distributing power solves problems, it's that distributing power is a necessary precursor to solving problems. You apparently disagree with that premise?
I said that it may have critical flaws not that it does. I'm trying to communicate uncertainty. I believe Bitcoin has a solid foundation but I could be wrong so I'm trying to leave room open for debate and to be open to new information that could prove me wrong. Bitcoin is also an evolving story, with usability issues and scaling issues that complicate discussions.
The fact that dogma is associated with it is kind of irrelevant. I guess you focus on it so much because it's dogma you disagree with? GNU is steeped in dogma. The US constitution is steeped in dogma. The mere fact that dogma is present is not the sole indicator of validity of an idea.
Bitcoin was a specific and evolutionary response to what was perceived as a failing system. Your statements get pretty hyperbolic. I'm not sure it's relevant, helpful or valid to compare Bitcoin to eugenics or atrocities committed by Russia on it's citizenship.
You misunderstand. If I develop a technology because I want society to be able survive a nuclear attack by making a robust network that has extra effects like enabling instant communication between disparate entities, that is a benefit. If I develop a technology that replaces in-place infrastructure like school buildings with nuclear-proof bomb shelters at great cost and by removing the schools and making children homeschool because I think that any ill-effects caused by disrupting society are worth it in order to safeguard humanity from a nuclear attack that I believe is coming -- well that all depends on whether I am right about my founding belief, isn't it? If there is no nuclear attack and we lose critical infrastructure because I had a political, unprovable belief, then we seriously messed up.
I think you know that what the difference is between ancillary benefits because of planning and destructive effects because 'the ends justify the means' especially when the 'ends' ever happening are highly disputed and the 'means' haven't even been proven to work in any sense at all to produce them.
> So you're arguing that consolidating power by removing it from the masses is a better alternative? It's not that distributing power solves problems, it's that distributing power is a necessary precursor to solving problems. You apparently disagree with that premise?
You are better than this. Please don't disrespect your position by relying on loaded questions and strawmen.
What I am arguing for is not disrupting existing power structures that society relies on because you think it would be better off without them and that they are unfair. Especially when your replacement is unproven and it seems reasonable and sounds good on paper until you play it through logically and see that it ignores basic tenets of established processes of modern societies -- like we need to be able for a world-wide payment system to be able to scale and not destroy the planet and eat up a large portion of our energy resources if and when it is trying to do so.
> I said that it may have critical flaws not that it does.
I misread you then, but that is probably because I contend that it does.
> I believe Bitcoin has a solid foundation
You have every right to believe that, and I have every right to tell you that you are wrong and that the debate is only between people who want Bitcoin to be a solution to something it cannot do (fix inequality or really anything that it is advocated for), people who want to use Bitcoin to redistribute wealth to themselves and their friends, and people who want the former group to snap out of it and use their effort to work on productive solutions and for the latter group to be investigated for crimes and if found guilty sent to prison.
> The fact that dogma is associated with it is kind of irrelevant.
Not when you come to terms with the fact that looking for evidence for something you already believe and discarding that which does not fit is something that is extremely harmful to society and prevented and reverted progress for unknown generations of people as evidenced by the dark ages in Europe and the regression of the middle East from world leaders in sciences and technology to war-torn wastelands.
> Bitcoin was a specific and evolutionary response
Evolution does not mean better -- it means more effective. Capitalism is about distributing resources from the ground to production to consumption and conversion into capital. Moving capital from people with little power to people with more power is actually more efficient when you remove regulations and societal prohibitions on deception, fraud, and usury. Bitcoin is great at that.
I am better than what you're accusing me of. It's too bad that you either can't see it or purposefully ignoring it. I suspect what you're doing is arguing in bad faith but accusing me of it first to shield yourself from critique.
> You misunderstand.
No, I didn't. I understood and got at the core of the argument. You've responded to it with the argument you actually wanted to make, not the one you did make in the parent response.
So your argument now is not that it's dogmatic but that the implementation and rollout is/would be too disruptive.
I disagree. I think we're seeing people have mixed fiat currency and cryptocurrency and it seems clear that cryptocurrency can further integrate itself into everyday operations without causing the disruption you're thinking of.
> ... like we need to be able for a world-wide payment system to be able to scale and not destroy the planet and eat up a large portion of our energy resources if and when it is trying to do so.
These are all things that Bitcoin possibly can mitigate and work around. I'm willing to admit that this might not be possible. You refuse to engage in the idea.
> ... looking for evidence for something you already believe and discarding that which does not fit is something that is extremely harmful to society ...
Again, my argument is to have a reasoned critique, not a shouting match. Critique is important. Bullying doesn't help.
I am aware of the shortcomings. I don't want to ignore the problems but I also don't want to let let them overshadow the benefits, especially if the benefits outweigh the problems. I urge you to do the same.
> Evolution does not mean better ...
This was a response to your earlier point that Bitcoin was created from dogma. There might be bias in terms of which economic or political model is best (by Satoshi Nakamoto and other proponents) but my point was that Bitcoin was a logical progression of ideas to fix critical flaws in earlier attempts.
The commonly held political definition of Capitalism is "A socio-economic system based on private ownership of resources or capital." You're describing what you believe to be the effects of capitalism. Maybe that implies what you're talking about but that's not obvious to me and I suspect it's far from the truth. Shooting from the hip, I can already tell you that things like solar energy exist which are in the other direction of where you're pointing to for resources.
Moving capital from people with little power to people continuing to consolidate power is progressing just fine without cryptocurrency [1]. Though I'm not sure if the sources can be trusted or that the interpretation is correct, there's at least some evidence that cryptocurrency is being used for one of its intended, altruistic, use cases [2] [3] [4].
> I am better than what you're accusing me of. It's too bad that you either can't see it or purposefully ignoring it. I suspect what you're doing is arguing in bad faith but accusing me of it first to shield yourself from critique.
Let's get this out of the way right now:
I did not accuse you of anything -- I pointed out that you were using a loaded question and strawman and that you shouldn't do that. You are now suggesting, with no evidence, that I am acting deceptively. I have done nothing but share my opinion based on my own knowledge and experiences and have done so in direct response to you, quoting when appropriate, without pivoting, without moving goalposts, without using logical fallacies, and without accusations. I ask that you do the same going forward. If you dislike or disagree with something I write or I have made an error in rhetoric please point it out, but if not I would appreciate civility. Thank you.
Moving on...
> I understood and got at the core of the argument. You've responded to it with the argument you actually wanted to make, not the one you did make in the parent response.
I'd rather not that I rehash the same things but respond to you specifically. By bringing counterpoints you force me to revisit my thinking and clarify and expand -- this is a good thing and this is what discussions are good for. I hope you aren't suggesting that we sit here and yell the same unchanging talking points at each other ad-nauseum. I am honestly confused by your response here -- if you got my point the first time I said it then you wouldn't have responded to a misunderstanding of it. If you think you understand that what I meant by a philosophically motivated product was anything like a solution oriented product then I have not explained it properly and I would ask that you try and parse it so that we can be on common ground and not talk past each other.
A philosophically motived product such as Communism has as its goal a politically driven end-point. It seeks to get there by whatever means are available and sees the end-point as the mark of success and treats things like human suffering on the way there as irrelevant or collateral damage or justice. Another example would be 'apocalypse fetishism' (with or without a religious basis)
A solution motivated product like medicine or the writing of the constitution seeks to to solve problems by working through them, proceeding in a fashion that seems reasonable, and moving forward or in other directions based on the results as the happen. Sometimes these products are ineffective, or they were the result of external forces, but the people at the heart of them were working towards progress and a goal (freedom, health) and would change their methods when news ones proved better, or they realized it was not productive or what have you.
I contend that Bitcoin is essentially a philosophically motivated product and has as its end-point a 'libertarian' society based on economics averse to central banking.
The fact that you can point out faults in some of these things does not change the fact that they are fundamentally different ways of approaching things. That is what I was trying to convey. If you still think there is no difference then I will either have to think of a better way to explain it or I will have to concede to the fact that I am either terrible at communicating something that seems basic to me, or that you are unable to understand it for some reason, but I neither of those things is true.
> I disagree. I think we're seeing people have mixed fiat currency and cryptocurrency and it seems clear that cryptocurrency can further integrate itself into everyday operations without causing the disruption you're thinking of.
I don't see any of the use cases for it happening at all. It may be that I live in the USA and am privileged, but no one I know who interacts with crypto sees any problems which can be solved better by it, except for novelty or speculation. The only cryptocurrency which is good at legitimately solving a problem well is Monero, because it is good at being a means of transaction for illicit goods online for which there is a good privacy wall in place.
> These are all things that Bitcoin possibly can mitigate and work around. I'm willing to admit that this might not be possible. You refuse to engage in the idea.
There is a difference between refusing to engage in an idea and having already spent time engaged in that idea and realizing that the idea is a bad one. I have done the latter.
> Again, my argument is to have a reasoned critique, not a shouting match. Critique is important. Bullying doesn't help.
There is no way to illustrate what can only be described as a technology which has as its stated goal the changing of society but to mention times in the past when this has happened to ill effect. I do not see it as hyperbolic at all. If you wanted to talk about a political philosophy advocating the training of dogs or something, then I wouldn't bring up Soviet Russia as a response. But since Bitcoin wants to break down central banking, for which our world economies are reliant, then Soviet Russia seems apt.
> Capitalism
I don't want to get into a 'the definition of...is' type debate, can we accept I was being a bit reductive but that you understood my general point, and skip the back-and-forth about it that we both know is pointless?
The problem here is that the creator of Bitcoin was following a philosophical motivation, not a scientific one. The 'economics' behind it are completely misguided and appear to be based on the notion that taking power away from powerful entities and distributing amongst individuals will remove the problems associated with capitalist systems. It does not consider that people created these entities and removing power from systems that rely on it creates power vacuums which society abhors. Things just end up getting to the same place a different way, but redoing all of the bad outcomes that had to be painfully learned and many times almost led to humanity scrapping capitalism and free markets altogether because of the damage done.
When you approach problems thinking you have the answer before you start looking for the solution, then you get things like Soviet Russia and you get things like eugenics and you get things like Bitcoin.
I am sorry but by saying 'it has critical flaws' and then also claiming that it it is some work of science and can be used for progress in economics and technology and finance, you neglect totally that it's first and most critical flaw is that it is the product of a dogma which is completely removed from reality in two of those areas.