• Members of the previous forum can retrieve their temporary password here, (login and check your PM).

The Coming Digital Anarchy

Migrated topic.
endlessness

endlessness

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Moderator Lab expert
www.telegraph.co.uk

The coming digital anarchy

Bitcoin is giving banks a run for their money. Now the same technology threatens to eradicate social networks, stock markets, even national governments. Are we heading towards an anarchic future where centralised power of any kind will dissolve?
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

Excellent article IMO, on the potential paradigm-changing implications of the invention of the Blockchain and truly decentralized systems arising from the Bitcoin idea.

Long but very worth the read.

Im curious as to what others here think about it :)
 
A (slightly older) critique of systems of capital, in this case, Bitcoin:

Bitcoin - Finally, fair money?

Systematic enmity of interests, exclusion from social wealth, subjection of everything to capitalist growth – that is what an economy looks like where exchange, money and private property determine production and consumption. This also does not change if the substance of money is gold or Bitcoin. This society produces poverty not because there is credit money but because this society is based on exchange, money and economic growth. The libertarians might not mind this poverty, but those on the Left who discovered Bitcoin as a new alternative to the status quo perhaps should.
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can find something more current as well, rather than rehashing our usual talking points on this subject :p
 
As we discussed in the chat, I think that criticism is lacking in the sense that it refers only to a small slice of what the whole Block chain idea can do, without realizing the transformational power of this invention beyond it's use as a simple currency. Bitcoin is only manifestation 1...

I think that this amazingly clever mathematics is going to corrode the corrupt system from the inside by spreading decentralization and transparency like a virus. A bug in the matrix, so to say, or rather some kind of beneficial bacteria :D
 
I haven't read the article yet, I'll give it a good looking over this weekend. However, I'm inherently skeptical of the permanency of alt currencies or anything that exists solely within the digital realm due to the centralization of electricity and internet service. I think there is a lot of potential here, but as long as the plug can easily pulled on the masses, I'm not sure how much effect it can really have. I think these tools will be a lot more powerful if we begin wide-scale mesh networking and creation of more decentralized electric supplies.

We gotta take the power back... literally :d
 
Nothing is permanent.. at some point our planet will be burned when our sun becomes bigger , or the universe will end anyways either in big crunch or the opposite, everything being separated. Or universes will collide.. etc..

So if we are not talking about an eternal permanency, but a relative one... If the internet goes down, so will all the other established structures and all the global civilization as we know it. I think at that point we'd have a lot more to worry about than just this. In any case I dont think its in anyone's interest to make that happen.. Even those in power who might feel threatened by the blockchain idea, their lives and the lives of their family depend on the internet, there's no going back.

But even if we suppose that this could happen and that someone would pull the plug, there's nothing preventing the internet, or any potential successor, from working through a different network. Take the Firechat used in hong kong protests which could work without internet or phone signal as a small example of how things could change.

Now take projects such as the Outernet, and Maidsafe, and add this into the discussion. And now think of all the possibilities that we havent even thought of yet. All that is necessary is transfer of information for the block chain to exist, and this can be totally indistinguishable from any other information in a way that you cant tell appart what is block chain information from any other cryptographed information.

As for the energy necessary to run this, I dont find this in any way a criticism to the block chain idea which is being discussed here, any more than it is an argument against ANYTHING we use these days, including the food most of us eat.

Sure there are limits to our energy extraction/transformation process, but there's nothing preventing new solutions from being found. In fact, I'd argue that with the block chain technology, its MORE likely that people will invent and research viable alternatives in a way that cannot be stopped due to decentralization, as opposed to how hard it was to invent something and feel the pressure of big business to shut the idea down when they had an easy single target.

And yes, please do read the article :)
 
Great article.

It's crazy and probable to have the "autonomous agents" that earn their own $'s for maintenance, repairs, upgrades .. even hiring a human programmer to upgrade their software for them!

I've always likes the idea of a completely online, transparent, democratic government.
Image having a political party that is comprised of experts in each field of running the country. Like a forum of volunteers that are dictated by the online consensus. Get rid of the corruption, the weakest link in the chain of collective human and environmental flourishing
 
Back
Top Bottom