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by ti00 1708 days ago
I appreciate the thorough response. I think I see what you are saying - the deflationary and decentralized nature of Bitcoin acts as a stabilizing force in the economy by enforcing a real value to money or resources to money relationship.

I'm not sure I see how that will "make the world more peaceful over time." Wouldn't the same issues still exist at the geopolitical scale (where the wars are)? The primary means of acquiring new or more resources for your nation have been the same for all of human history: trade and conquest. I can see a more stable economy being a benefit, but I don't really see how it changes that fundamental dynamic.

1 comments

> Wouldn't the same issues still exist at the geopolitical scale (where the wars are)?

Not as easily. In order to finance those wars, assuming Bitcoin renders fiat currencies useless (not improbable), those governments would have to create value, which governments are terrible at. There's a "pipe dream" element to this, but it's not _impossible_. Adopting Bitcoin at scale would put a serious handicap on the ability for governments to pursue conquest or harass their citizens under the guise of "authority." Their only option would be to invest in entrepreneurs and citizens domestically, focusing on being the best place to be as opposed to the ape with the biggest or most rocks (nationalism without the "seig heil!").

That's why I'm so hyper about it. As a civilization, we've never been in this position before so there are a lot of unknowns. At the very least, it would be a grave mistake to dismiss Bitcoin as a "scam" or "bad invention" or fall under the all-too-common spell of "the important thing is the Blockchain technology" (false because you can implement highly-controlled blockchains which recreate the same problem).

The book The Sovereign Individual (interestingly written in the 90s) explains this idea in a more articulate/elaborate way.