[mbijon]

The first 60'ish slides are evidence supporting why inflation predicates cultural breakdowns, why gold has become a standard, and why a crypto currency offers advantages to gold.

For the Bitcoin-related parts of this presentation, jump to slide #66 (or #62 if you don't know the history of Bitcoin, but then why are you on HN).

[djur]

The slides present a few well-known cases of hyperinflation accompanying economic and social breakdown, but doesn't demonstrate causation. It then shifts to discussing the inflation trend of the US dollar, even though the USD is not experiencing hyperinflation and never has since the introduction of the Federal Reserve system.

Why historical examples of hyperinflation are relevant to the gradual devaluation of the US dollar is never explained. That seems like a grave flaw in the argument.

Even if Bitcoin is viable as a non-inflationary currency outside the control of central banks and nation-states (which I don't think is proven), there's still the question of whether either of those qualities are desirable.

[vbuterin]

> even though the USD is not experiencing hyperinflation and never has since the introduction of the Federal Reserve system.

The USD stayed long-term stable before 1913. It lost 98% of its value since then. Say what you want about short-term economic shocks in the 19th century or the 98% statistic being a deliberately biased framing of exponential decay, but the idea that the USD has not seen hyperinflation "since" the Federal Reserve is highly misleading.

> Why historical examples of hyperinflation are relevant to the gradual devaluation of the US dollar is never explained.

"Why historical examples of people not wearing seatbelts dying in car accidents are relevant to my choice of not wearing a seatbelt is never explained." Same argument.

Also, saying "this hasn't happened yet so it won't" is a highly specious argument to make. Events that are worse than anything that ever happened before them are actually quite common in history - namely, the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, World War I, World War II, the Great Depression, Chernobyl, etc. Given the general trend of an increasingly complex, and hence fragile, society over the past ten thousand years, disasters of increasing and unprecedented scale are the rational thing to expect.

[quattrofan]

Thanks, yeah I know all about BC, I have a few..