Quote from: minor-transgression on January 09, 2016, 09:59:10 PM

Disagree - once inequality passes a critical limit revolution is inevitable. While some would prefer
a world government, it is not an optimal solution, indeed, there may not be a single optimal solution.

This is offtopic of technical, and I don't want to encourage a noisy discussion about everyone's crystal ball opinion. I reply because I think it is very important to get readers to understand how social inertia ALWAYS works historically and thus how it will work again. Because many people just assume that when totalitarianism of top-down society (e.g. socialism end stage and reset) is too oppressive to bear then it resets and everything is restored. But that is not what happens. Study history.

At the minimum, at the timing of peaking global top-down society (e.g. Fall of Western Rome), there are decades of extreme suffering. And if the balance between decentralization (individual action) and centralization (top-down societal control) is unable to restore itself, then society stops functioning and enters a Dark Age for usually hundreds of years. Even the books of knowledge are burned.

We are at a juncture where the control of the digital highway by government could cause all commerce to die as it is monopolized by those with the most capital and connections and all individual entrepreneurialism is taxed and regulated to extinction.

Society is unable to do anything to escape this downward spiral, because analogously to the reasons that professional miners can't prioritize fighting back and have to save their own ass, the people always prioritize themselves first. Thus the people will prioritize what ever morsel they can get for themselves while Rome burns. This is fact of human nature. Study history.

Quote from: Holocaust

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak for me.

Edit: whether we are at a global peak of top-down control might be a subject of debate. We know there is a lot of productivity in Asia with all the youth and Asia is rising with increased education and standards-of-living. It seems Asia will decline but bottom and then rise going forward from say 2020 or so. But that doesn't mean that the top-down control isn't increasing because China's (Asia's) model of commerce is very much top-down control (you can do what you want as long as you don't stick your neck too high above the poppy seeds, i.e. save face and appear to be obedient while learning to cheat and hide that you are doing so...and make connections because top-down power is to be gamed by being part of the hierarchy). Taxes are low but registration and licenses are increasing and so later taxes can increase too. It is a repeat of what happened to us in the West since WW2. One can point out that opportunities are increasing in Asia, but yet top-down control is always becoming more pervasive in other ways such as the example of China requiring all citizens to join a social network for credit ratings which requires snooping and banishing those who issue public comments or otherwise go against Party standards of social conduct. I am in Asia. What I see is the people are becoming more digitally enslaved while simultaneously gaining more income. One difference is the massive duplication of businesses, e.g. a gas station every 200 meters on the highway here in Davao. Thus the profit margins are squeezed. The fat cats in government and large corporations take the lion's share of the profit. Yet for me to ride this boom means I have to also enlist into the same digital control system. So it appears to me that we will definitely see exactly what I explained above which is that the individuals will fall-in-line to the top-down control to get the morsels for themselves as the control increases over time. Thus to profit in this era will mean losing your American values of individualism and joining the China/Russia model of obedience (which to some Westerners is akin to slavery). If I can't find any way to fight this direction, then I will have no choice but to enlist into this direction or just hide away on a farm while the world passes me by. I am 50.7 so maybe my era is over. I am fighting for my ideals and what would be worthy of me continuing to be productive. Otherwise maybe it is time for me to retire. I hope I can find a way to be inspired about what I am working on. I still want to be productive. I don't want to retire yet.

In short the world culture and economy is changing and I don't know if I am aligned or can adjust. What I am seeing now is what you all will begin to face as the West collapses.

Quote from: minor-transgression on January 09, 2016, 09:59:10 PM

With regard to cryptocurrencies, I doubt that a single cryptocurrency ie bitcoin, can provide an optimal
solution to the paradox of thrift, and for that reason alone other currencies must exist.

I can't see any correlation between Paradox of Thift and the need for more altcoins.

Society will converge one one fungible unit. It always works that way. We are not creating apps here. This is money. I realize all the altcoins so far are not really money, but just delusional projects. But if we are talking about widepread adoption, then there will be only one.

Those who deny how history has already shown that there can only be one outcome for money (which is unification on one fungible unit), are in delusion.

Edit: note I am referring to money above. There could end up being multiple viable projects for block chain 2.0 features that are not money.