On 12/23/2013 9:07 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
Crypto-currencies, like cryptography, can surely help to save the freedom of privacy and
privateness.
Crypto-currencies does not need to be a pyramidal con, like Quentin suspects. They just
allowed to create new independent banks which can do their work "honestly" or not.
"honestly" is not moral here, but it means that it is attempted, at the least, to not
base economy on lies (which often happens to keep jobs despite they became obsolete).
Money is both the most wonderful economical tool and the most horrible life
goal.
When money is used honestly, every one (good willing enough) win and is enriched. But
the longer the play, the bigger the liars can win, so "those who make money the main
goal" crack, and corrupt the system, which at that moment become pyramidal.
It is basically a confusion between meaning and use, or goal and tool.
Today, a part of the economy relies on lies, so it is more the actual bank system which
seems to lead us (partially) to a pyramid.
The existence of crypto-money can help by providing different competing economies, and
can help in making transition (and awakening from the lies) more smooth.
I don't see it as any different than gold or silver. Banks used to have reserves of gold
or silver and they issued their own script money that was redeemable in gold or silver.
BUT they always loaned much more script than they had gold or silver. They relied, quite
reasonably, on the fact that in any given time interval, only few people would want to
redeem their script in gold or silver.
Now you may say this is "lying", but so long as not done to excess, it makes for good
economics. Consider and extreme example: Suppose the 'banker' has no gold or silver at
all but he's prepared to loan script anyway. Someone comes to him and wants to borrow
$1000 to build a bridge over small river near the town. The banker loans him the script.
He pays for material and labor, which he can do because people believe the script is
backed by gold. The bridge gets built and so farmers can come to town much more quickly,
productivity is improved and the town thrives, so more people deposit money in the bank
and the banker can actually buy some gold to back up his script. "Artificially"
increasing the money supply can be very useful; but just as with all kinds of interactions
it depends a lot on trust. If nobody trusts anybody else, as now so many people
automatically distrust their government, then the economy is dragged down.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/21/in-no-one-we-trust/?_r=0
Brent
Such competitor money can help to follow the "non-monopoly rule". But they can be
swallowed by other money, and they are not immune against new lies per se. (risk can be
diminushed by investment in "real" education (≠ brainwashing)).
When the bandits got power, count on them to exploit (disadvantageously for *you*) any
solution you could find on the economical problem. You might need to encrypt it :)
Bruno
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