Re: DECENTRALIZED crypto currency (including Bitcoin) is a delusion (any solutions?)
The whole theory that selfish material interest and selfish pleasure seeking is ( or should be) the main driving force behind economics and society rules is what make the world in bad situation today.
This is the essence of living, conscious beings.
Consciousness defining pleasure and suffering, and life defining offspring preference, the obvious behaviour of any conscious, living being is what you just stated.
But selfishness is often a prisoner's dilemma, i.e. not the optimum for the actors in the system. If we design a consensus system which removes that dilemma, perhaps we've changed everything.
Jam right!
"What 'dem selling, we're not buyin'"
In fact, Satoshi mixed several totally different things into one, to come up with a system that seemed brilliant, and turns out to be seriously flawed.
He wanted:
1) to adhere to a sound money theory in order to get a monetary belief (illusion) going. Sound money theory in a setting with monetary competition is an illusion (and suffers from a version of Gresham's law). Sound money theory only makes sense if that money has the monopoly on money and where people are FORCED to use that money, and no other means of exchange, in other words, only under strict economic totalitarianism. But as such, he wanted a convergent series of coin emission.
He wanted:
1) to adhere to a sound money theory in order to get a monetary belief (illusion) going. Sound money theory in a setting with monetary competition is an illusion (and suffers from a version of Gresham's law). Sound money theory only makes sense if that money has the monopoly on money and where people are FORCED to use that money, and no other means of exchange, in other words, only under strict economic totalitarianism. But as such, he wanted a convergent series of coin emission.
I had argued against that in our past discussion. Humans prefer to rally around one unit-of-account, because otherwise they incur exchange rate risk. Also money has value only because of united public confidence. So due to economies-of-scale inertia, there can only be one global currency because we have a global economy now. Also I explained that humanity will want a deflationary currency in the knowledge age because the new economics is meritocracy and value of non-fungible reputation...
If the whales are not united, then maybe BIP148 will have some relevancy but it is a power vacuum of democracy thus it will be manipulated or we will have chaos.
We are trying to end voting and democracy, because they don't work. Instead idealistically we want a meritocracy where nobody has control (not even the economic majority), but it is not known if that is feasible (most believe it is not). Satoshi's PoW is flawed and that is why it is devolving like this.
We are trying to end voting and democracy, because they don't work. Instead idealistically we want a meritocracy where nobody has control (not even the economic majority), but it is not known if that is feasible (most believe it is not). Satoshi's PoW is flawed and that is why it is devolving like this.
As I wrote about a deflationary crypto-currency (which is where I think we are headed), afaics the knowledge age is not going to support a debt-based economy. The debt-based economy was for the fixed capital industrial age. Given those assumptions are correct, I conclude Bitcoin is the wrong paradigm.
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A reserve currency without a central bank can't support a widespread (overly indebted) debt-based economy such as the one we have now. (Which is a good thing since we no longer need the socialism governance model that we required when laborers were fungible and capitalists could replace workers with cheaper workers)
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A reserve currency without a central bank can't support a widespread (overly indebted) debt-based economy such as the one we have now. (Which is a good thing since we no longer need the socialism governance model that we required when laborers were fungible and capitalists could replace workers with cheaper workers)
@dinofelis you are trying to conceptually separate unit-of-exchange from store-of-value and unit-of-account functions of money, but afaics that is inherently impossible if the role of money is to be an accurate information system where utility is rewarded (promoted) and unproductive activity is punished (squelched), c.f. from my prior post Democracy and finance don't mix - the math involved. Per the writings of the Bitcoin billionaire Mircea Popescu, the bankrupt socialistic democracy of the earth is dying and we are entering a WoT-organized, individually sovereign republic wherein all the unproductive masses will perish. Mathematically every exchange and/or hedge between units-of-account is loss (transfer of capital) that accrues to those who base on the least volatile (or let's say most informational in terms of promoting utiilty) unit-of-account. Thus you are correct that greater fool altcoins die out and there can only be one reserve currency. So we don't fix the problem of this thread by denying this math and postulating an ongoing marketplace of altcoins, because there will always be only one dominant reserve currency. Your model only works when there is very little trade between communities, so there is no need for the units-of-account to interact. We actually have to fix the technology of decentralized consensus. Satoshi's work is not yet complete.
Bitcoin is in danger of losing its status as the de facto reserve currency of the coming sovereign republic, if it is soon shown it can be regulated by anyone (including the miners and/or Core). Because top-down control is not maximally informational per the math cited in the prior post. Mircea Popescu better pay attention because maybe his $billionaire computer game will have a reset button and he better not be late to liquidate.
But there is another possible perspective. If value becomes non-fungible wherein it can't even be purchased, then perhaps money dies as concept? The so-called post-scarcity civilization wherein we all survive of donations and we compete for reputation. Then reputation becomes the new money, but it can't be transferred. The higher your reputation, the more attention your projects and efforts get. It is a form of stored capital. Eric S. Raymond referred to this as the gift culture.
Bitcoin is in danger of losing its status as the de facto reserve currency of the coming sovereign republic, if it is soon shown it can be regulated by anyone (including the miners and/or Core). Because top-down control is not maximally informational per the math cited in the prior post. Mircea Popescu better pay attention because maybe his $billionaire computer game will have a reset button and he better not be late to liquidate.
But there is another possible perspective. If value becomes non-fungible wherein it can't even be purchased, then perhaps money dies as concept? The so-called post-scarcity civilization wherein we all survive of donations and we compete for reputation. Then reputation becomes the new money, but it can't be transferred. The higher your reputation, the more attention your projects and efforts get. It is a form of stored capital. Eric S. Raymond referred to this as the gift culture.
(3) it is better to solve the decentralized consensus problem by many stake holders, instead of a few concentrated industrials
(4) digital signatures are cryptographically much, much less wasteful and much, much more secure than proof of work.
(4) digital signatures are cryptographically much, much less wasteful and much, much more secure than proof of work.
You are on the right track, but there are many details to get to a viable system. See my prior post about flaws in your first abstract attempt.