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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 23, 2018 - 04:17pm PT
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Sorry if this video was already on the bitcoin thread, but I think it needs its own topic.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
If you want to boil it down as much as possible, think of it like this: blockchain is a technical way to build systems that connect people or businesses that want to collaborate in a safe and reliable way without needing a government or bank or large corporation to be a middle-man raking off a huge profit. It's a way of making all of the participants in the system, working in collaboration without ever needing to explicitly trust ANYONE, to act as a "trusted third party" instead of relying on the screwed up entities we use today like hacked credit agencies, greedy banks and corporations, and corrupt/inefficient governments. It can enable a fundamental revolution in society, on par with the industrial revolution and the information revolution.
But beware: while it can be used to create a more just and fair world, you can bet that governments and banks and large corporations don't want to lose their power in the middle of all this. They will try to rely on the ignorance and laziness of the population, to make the population turn to the governments and banks and large corporations to co-opt this new technology while keeping the same unfair systems with existing power-brokers still in the middle.
Example of how this has played out in the Internet:
 The technology supports extreme decentralization of information resources. Instead of having a massive mesh of connectivity options as the technology supports, using a shared mesh among neighbors for maximal distributed resiliency and efficiency, as home consumers we each typically are stuck buying from a monopoly as an on-ramp to the Internet and suffering from the reliability of that single point of failure. There is a way to improve matters but it requires paying even more to multiple Internet providers. There are choke-points where governments tap all of the traffic, and now the laws changed so that our home internet providers can sell information about EVERYTHING we do on the Internet. Anybody with a guilty secret is ripe for manipulation/exploitation. We mostly use one of a handful of email providers to make our lives easier, but by doing so we surrender privacy, and we create entities that are more powerful than the governments trying to regulate them on behalf of the people.
Example of Solar Power:
We have the promise of each home to be independent and decentralized in terms of power generation and distribution with no billing except for buying the solar panels. As the solar power revolution expands, many people take the short-cut of paying for the power company or another large entity to install solar panels on their roofs and then they have to pay for access to the electricity generated that way. Instead of cutting out the middle-man of the electrical provider and distributor, now the middle-man company does nothing but collect checks from the system sitting on your roof!
https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/solar-power-purchase-agreements
While there will be some champions out there trying to make the world a better place with blockchain, there will be governments and banks and corporations trying to force you or trick you into using their twisted versions of the technologies that keep the same power brokers in the middle.
Watch for it in the near future (I'm just making these up right now)...
the "Trans Union Blockchain" for updated credit reporting and management.
the "Citybank Blockchain" for maintaining your personal electronic balances.
the "United Health Group Blockchain" for medical records that they sell to life insurance companies (or better yet they become the largest life insurance company) to up-rate you after you mention certain keywords during your doctor visit
p.s. A good semi-technical review of blockchain (as part of describing how bitcoin works) to really understand the fundamental concepts without getting explicitly into the mathematics that make it work:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
So, how do we rely on the laws of our government to support the evolution of society? It seems like a conflict of interest... and perhaps its better if governments do stop this decentralization of power, because we still need governments to provide physical security?
Or maybe it is more accurate to see a synergy between blockchain and governments... we don't need them as a trusted third party for transactions, but we do need governments to create and enforce policies and laws. That requires funding, and the widespread use of pro-government blockchain technologies would make it easier for governments to have taxes collected as part of each transaction. But, people would use alternative block-chains to avoid paying taxes, and this is an existential threat to any government.
How will it all be resolved? Interesting times ahead.
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Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
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Sep 24, 2018 - 06:28am PT
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Thanks, Nut, I really want to understand this better. I know just enough to be almost totally ignorant! The idea that we can have a virtual currency not backed by a country/gov't is fascinating. Didn't a whole bunch of bitcoins simply vanish a while ago? I guess cash can vanish, too, from accounts when virtually all banking is just numbers in databases these days.
BAd
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ECF
Big Wall climber
Ridgway CO
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Sep 24, 2018 - 06:40am PT
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Any time a human invents a way to free his fellow man, the system will pervert it or regulate it so that it becomes a tool for the system.
It’s been that way since shortly after the wheel came out.
The direction we are going is in direct opposition to the laws of nature.
Currency is a way to exchange real goods and services.
When you place your currency in a fragile medium you risk chaos.
The currency represented the ability to buy goods and services, when the currency disappears, the goods and services remain. So who own them when the money disappears?
The same answer that has always been the truth, those with the power to take them.
The next Carrington event will plunge the whole world into fuedalism if we go down this path.
Glad I’m old, the future is bleak.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 24, 2018 - 06:58am PT
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My acceptible risk threshold concerning climbing and finances are curiously inverse to each other.
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