Quote from: danielpbarron on March 20, 2015, 04:05:13 PM

Quote from: R2D221 on March 20, 2015, 03:53:21 PM

Quote from: danielpbarron on March 20, 2015, 02:40:49 PM

I doubt you meant to advocate socialism, but that's what's going on here.

You say this as if it were a bad thing.

Socialism is a very bad thingⁱ; it is the sort of bad thing that bitcoin is here to destroy. If you desire socialism, what is it you are doing here on a forum about the most capitalist thing to ever fall into man's lap? The ideal money for a socialist is one which is centrally controlled, and with the Federal Reserve you have exactly that. So then what role do you see bitcoin having in a world in which money can be taken from the rich and given to the poor? It is no surprise that you are in favor of changing bitcoin if your goal is socialism; as it stands, unchanged, it makes such a thing impossibleⁱⁱ.
...

Initially I saw Bitcoin's strength as being one which induces the owners of the currency an incentive to make it work for 'the masses' since, at variance with the various state sponsored debt based monetary systems which are ubiquitous today, it would be relatively easy for 'the masses' to devalue a non-working system by switching to another. The barrier would be much lower.

Back in those days I sort of called myself a socialist (especially when I was interested in trolling) on the basis of my belief that the best result for the most people would be had by the most people by working together as a social group for certain projects. Money, though, would always be a power play in any quasi-democracy. My plan had always been to switch away from socialism if it got the upper hand because of the obvious dangers of totalitarianism. Since that time, I've decided that I vastly underestimated the power that socialism had achieved in my society (the U.S.) Now is well past the time to fight it back! I missed it, I feel, because it was masked by on overlay of cronyism which I (mistakenly) ascribed to capitalist-ish malfeasance. We are descending into totalitarianism which is a predictable outcome of socialism (and most other solutions) and have gone farther and faster than I'd recognized.

Bitcoin itself never even came close to achieving a decent result for almost anyone and with USGavincoin it will go directly into the existing corp/gov quasi-socialist vortex where the existing power lies. The masses do not pass go and does not collect $200. Bitcoin will be destroy in exactly the same manner that I originally (and continue to) anticipate as healthy...it does not help people and they'll vote with their feet. The next rendition will not be as easy since we'll be operating under a different form of 'global internet', but these challenges will ultimately only make it stronger.

Sidechains offer one last hope for Bitcoin proper with it providing a reserve role. The various subordinate chains would offer the flexibility to successfully respond to attacks from the stakeholders in existing state-sponsored fiat solution and to meet the diverse needs of a broad userbase. Under such a solution there is more opportunities for wealth to be distributed then we have in todays extremely high GINI, but in a more healthy way. And, of course, the solution might persist for a long enough time period for this to occur.