PoW is as useful as it is necessary. When PoW seems to be useless the question one should ask is, "Is it [the PoW schema] necessary?" The necessity of PoW, I have found, is directly proportionate to that of its coin. In light of this and the discussion here, it would follow that Bitcoin might not be necessary and that, because of that, its PoW is widely deemed unnecessary and, thus, "useless."
Ok, I agree with the bolded parts.
Only I argue that Bitcoin is useful (as money) and therefore its PoW scheme is necessary (for Bitcoin to work the way it does). In fact, Bitcoin actually derives its usefulness (as a form of money) from its PoW scheme, which allows it to stay neutral towards all the participants and be independent of any authority (central or distributed).
Not quite.
If we are talking about fiat, then the money itself is indeed a form of debt plus a promise from the authority to keep recognizing it for taxes and debt settlement. Thus fiat is a recognition that authority-backed debt can serve as a value-carrier, though it might not be suitable for all situations. It is fear-based survival money, which forces the economy to keep expanding not because it wants to, but because it has to. I'm now thinking that fiat is somewhat suitable (as a primary form of money) for developing countries, where society has a lot of work to do to get itself onto the next level (industrial revolution). In other words, if society is in survival mode, it is reasonable to use survival money in order to be able to keep up with other societies who also adopted it, or risk being left behind technologically (might be relevant to some
recent discussions about poor people in Africa).
If we are talking about Bitcoin (or Gold for that matter), then the idea that you can exchange money for something else of value later doesn't represent "debt" unless you attach some expectations to it. Holding onto some bitcoins today is not debt because the exchnage for value thereof is voluntary. Bitcoin simply says: "hey, I will keep some value for you for as long as society wants to use and recognize the system, but I can't promise you it will". Which brings us to the ideas of "quality of money", "adoption curves" and "network effects". I argue that Bitcoin (in its structure) is the highest quality money we currently have, it still lacks in adoption, but that is changing in the positive direction as we speak. The network effect will take care of the rest.
I prefer abolition of state, money, possession, and tribe.
I've come to believe that a good state is the best form of collaboration for people living in a resource scarcity environment. It is a way for society to self-organize in a self-sustainable way. In a good state, transparent and stable government maintains the rules for the competition, while businesses and entepreneurs compete for resources and profit, thus producing value. However, it is the lack of transparency in conjunction with burdens of ever-accumulating fiat debt that poisoned many states of today. My stance is to fix the state, not to abolish it. I see the idea of PoW-secured blockchain as a cure for the illnesses of humanity today.
If you enjoy corporeal life (living in a human body), then you will recognize your body as a state, which needs to seek balance and collaboration of inner parts in order to stay healthy. Humans were once seeded with
"creative" DNA, that now separates them from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is time for Humanity as a whole to be seeded with blockchain DNA and become "creative" as a single healthy organism in ways we can only imagine.