| The writing was not great, but, the first paragraph asks a few questions and then says the piece is for you if you answered yes to any of them. If you are happy with the idea that there doesn't need to be any other form of money than centrally administered digital money, then by definition the piece was not for you. It said so right to you right at the start. The arguments are unlikely to be convincing to you, or else you already wouldn't need any convincing. To me the arguments are self-evident and obvious, and sort of makes no sense to try to explain them except to a child.
It's like asking why one should want to eat food or avoid getting burned by fire. According to the articles own opening statement of purpose, it wasn't written for someone like you to read and be convinced of something they didn't already think. It was written for someone like me to read so that I can better articulate arguments when conversing with someone like you. But I rarely ever bother to do that for the reason I just gave. If someone doesn't recognize the problem, nothing anyone else says will change that, because they were already aware of all the same facts, and the reasoning that proceeds from those facts is too simple to not grasp. So if given the same facts, someone doesn't think there's a problem, it's because they simply don't agree about the importance or imacts or implications of some of the facts. That's essentially just feeling and opinion, and that can't be argued with. So I usually only say "Go forth and enjoy your terribly_unwise_thing". In this case, go forth and enjoy your all-digital life. By the numbers, it will likely go fine for you. By which I mean because that's the way all things work no matter how bad or wrong. If a harm affects everyone, then it's either indirect and deniable (in other words hidden), or it's mild enough on an individual scale that each individual just tolerates it. Collectively someone is getting away with murder, but individually you just tolerate some small theft or technical injustice because that is the path of least resistance, and a lot of people equate that with "rational". Or if a harm is significant, then it doesn't affect most people and so most people don't care about the propblem only a few people face who aren't them. IE, by the numbers, both you and I will probably never suffer any obvious problem from money being all digital, and all centralized in orgsnizations we can't audit or control. The difference is when I see a single instance of someone's life being destroyed or even merely controlled by the abuse or even mere mismanagement of the power granted by digital assets and digital ID, I recognize that there is no special difference between myself and that unlucky person, and the mechanism that provides that power should probably simply not exist. The problem is not that some power isn't administered well enough, the problem is that the means exist at all. I am not ok with relying on essentially a lottery that I won't be abused, not where it's artificial and avoidable. We have to suffer all kinds of luck no matter what, but that in no way excuses voluntarily giving your life into someone else's hands and just hoping they treat to right, or excuses them for creating systems that grant themselves that much control and requiring you to trust them with that much control and veto power over every tiny aspect of your life. It doesn't matter if they mostly don't get in your way. As an IT guy I sometimes get funny looks from a customer when I avoid knowing their most important passwords. "Can't I trust you?" Absolutely. The way you know you can trust me is I never ask you to trust me. Anyone who not only asks, but requires you to trust them with some significant power over you, is automatically in the wrong. Automatically. It's an indellible property of the very act itself. |