The people who put their hope into blockchain and crypto currency technology are missing a fundamental point that would have _catastrophic_ consequences on social mobility, exploitation and oppression in the long term: You don't actually want a decentralized, persistent log of all transactions, especially if that also includes credit and debt.
The financial market is going out of hand because since the 70's/80's it isn't serving it's purpose anymore, which is regulating and allocating resources and credit. Instead it is disjoint from actual value and productivity, so it has started a life of its own.
People and entire nations are being held down by financial obligations while not benefiting from the increase in productivity and profit because the connection between finance and value production is almost completely severed.
The only non-violent way out of this is forgiveness. Which acknowledges that exact monetary value and debt in any form and especially in it's current form is just a highly volatile figment. And that's only possible if we can actually _forget_ transactions.
An eternal, cryptographic, decentralized transaction log might just be the perfect tool for long term financial oppression and exploitation. And the more convenient it gets the more exchange will flow through it. Well at least until the people start magnetizing and burning down data centers and PCs. But I think there are less destructive ways forward.
The financial market is going out of hand because since the 70's/80's it isn't serving it's purpose anymore, which is regulating and allocating resources and credit. Instead it is disjoint from actual value and productivity, so it has started a life of its own.
People and entire nations are being held down by financial obligations while not benefiting from the increase in productivity and profit because the connection between finance and value production is almost completely severed.
The only non-violent way out of this is forgiveness. Which acknowledges that exact monetary value and debt in any form and especially in it's current form is just a highly volatile figment. And that's only possible if we can actually _forget_ transactions.
An eternal, cryptographic, decentralized transaction log might just be the perfect tool for long term financial oppression and exploitation. And the more convenient it gets the more exchange will flow through it. Well at least until the people start magnetizing and burning down data centers and PCs. But I think there are less destructive ways forward.