Quote from: dacoinminster on April 19, 2013, 06:05:11 PM

Rather suddenly, things start to go wrong. At the same time all her expenses start skyrocketing, the government has a liquidity crisis; they are having trouble collecting taxes and can no longer pay for her health care. Her savings are still safe in the sense that she will get U.S. Dollars out of them, but that is little comfort when those dollars which should have lasted years can barely pay her weekly grocery bill.

Grandmas retirement has been sabotaged by the rise of a new kind of money that she cant even begin to understand. All she knows is that she did everything right, and now she has nothing.

Already happening before Bitcoin, in countries all over Europe and around the world. With a total value of less then a few billion the SNACK FOOD industry has more of an impact on the economy.

Quote from: dacoinminster on April 19, 2013, 06:05:11 PM

For this thought experiment, we will imagine that your child has been kidnapped and put up for sale on TorSlaver. Their business plan is to kidnap children and sell them to the highest bidder, whether parent or pedophile. The winning bidder is sent the location of the child, probably bound and gagged and dumped somewhere. As long as they dont get caught doing the kidnapping, the kidnappers can do this again and again with complete impunity. Once someone proves it can be done, copycats will come out of the woodwork, and it wont matter if the first mover gets caught.

As a parent of three small children..... (bla bla bla)

This is already happening as well, in Mexico, off the shores of Africa and in many other places. Does not need Bitcoin to flourish, just people willing to pay kidnappers.

Quote from: dacoinminster on April 19, 2013, 06:05:11 PM

I wouldnt be surprised if this chaos gives rise to a strong, centralized, one-world government which gets its revenues by tightly reigning in freedom of commerce in order to collect taxes. For instance, I will not be surprised to see a requirement someday that every person buying or selling have an implant which tightly binds their identity to the sale. Perhaps the implant will even be located on the back of the right hand or the forehead! This may seem repugnant to you now, but wait until you have lived in the storm for a while before you call it impossible. The natural reaction to the deadly chaos of decentralized currency is for the populace to embrace increasingly centralized controls on commerce. The battle lines are only just starting to be drawn, and your guess is as good as mine for how it will play out.

Already happening, mostly due to the drug war and 9-11 security theater crap. Bitcoin does not accelerate this either.

Quote from: dacoinminster on April 19, 2013, 06:05:11 PM

The Lifeboat Foundation is attempting to provide this thinking, advice, and solutions. They are already getting ready for a new advisory board, culled from computer scientists, economists, and bitcoin experts. If you make a fortune from your investments in decentralized currency, I urge you to consider how you can help all the people harmed by these rapid changes. Many bitcoin enthusiasts seem to think they will get to retire on a private island with a harem and a stable of Italian sports cars. This is wrong. Bitcoin investors need to someday become bitcoin philanthropists, and our giving needs to be targeted at helping all the people we have harmed. The Lifeboat Foundation is one option, but Im sure there will be others.

I first published this article on the blog of the Lifeboat Foundation: http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/bitcoins-dystopian-future
Reddit version is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1cos8x/bitcoins_dystopian_future/

tl;dr: Wildly successful distributed currencies could hurt a lot of people.

If you want people to take you or lifeboat.com seriously, don't publish link bait FUD CRAP like the above.