| I fear you will be disappointed... Large parts of the tech community seem to not just be blind to the consequences of their work, but to openly embrace and nurture the destruction of the fabric of society. This used to find voice in utopian visions of a sort of libertarian, meritocratic revival of democracy: bloggers replacing journalists, "makers", liquid democracy, etc. There are two successful examples of this spirit I can think of: Wikipedia, and OSS. Unfortunately, this movement also had/has a destructive streak. Partly because these new ideas had existing competitors that needed to be cut down to make room, and partly because they experienced opposition from existing players (sometimes only tangentially related) that quickly became branded as enemies. Two sides of the same philosophy. Guess which one had more staying power? Just look at the fate of The Pirate Bay vs The Pirate Party to get an idea. Or take this quiz: (a) Name a website distributing scientific papers with no concern for copyright. (b) Name an Open Access journal. With regard to the specific topic of the paper, namely information (and political news specifically) those ideas of the citizen-blogger have actually disappeared so thoroughly, you are likely to have no idea what I'm referencing if you are under 30 years of age. And while those ideas were initially coupled with a disdain for established institutions and the press because it was a storyline in need of a villain, the ideas died yet the rot feasting on our sources of shared truth survived. The target of all this destructive energy is, as a first approximation, the very concept of trust. Trust cannot be trusted is a sort-of mantra, that not only gives sense to what would otherwise just be existential dread aimlessly seeking escape in vandalism (4chan). It also makes you appear cool & in the know: "I wonder who paid for this article", "everybody knows a study with n=20000 is underpowered", "<X> wouldn't do <Y> unless <convoluted way to reduce all human activity to a profit motive>". On rare occasions, this destructive mindset still has the spark of creativity: Bitcoin, for all its flaws, is (was?) somewhat impressive. Yet it was always rooted in this sort of cynicism that distrusts institutions and the power of humans to have any positive impact with anything but the tools of physics and math: to wit, the endless conspiracy theories around the FED, the infatuation with Gold and land, etc. In the realm of politics, the destruction is just about total. Nothing of value was created. Meanwhile, the community gleefully watches the destruction of the free press, fine-tuning their adblockers because "information wants to be free", or because that newspaper whose articles they desperately want to read nonetheless made the fateful error of using the wrong JS framework, or something, but in any case, it's their fault if they can't survive. Plus they are just part of Soros' campaign anyway. Everybody knows that. |
> Yet it was always rooted in this sort of cynicism that distrusts institutions and the power of humans to have any positive impact with anything but the tools of physics and math: to wit, the endless conspiracy theories around the FED, the infatuation with Gold and land, etc.
Realism, not cynicism. The historical record shows that anyone with a printing press will abuse it to his own benefit. All central banks do this. Plenty of private banks prior to the Fed did it, albeit with government help via legal tender laws, sanctioned suspension of specie payments (breach of contract), and par laws.
Thus Bitcoin separates money and state and seeks to be a sound digital commodity.