Take crypto out of the equation, what are the implications of the fed issuing a programmable currency? Many financial services would become obsolete. What do I need a stock broker for? What do I need a bank for? You have Wall St and other sophisticated investors profiteering and competing against the general public, devaluing our purchasing power, making leveraged trades because they know the public will hold the bag. It's a system that exists to favor the few and it's time to disrupt the orgy.
I don't get why students need to be apply to be accepted. Why can't everyone go to MIT? Is there a scarcity on chalk boards, shitty chairs and cinder blocks?
HN has hated crypto for a decade now and it's only recently been about energy consumption. It was and will be about monetary policy and the role of government in issuing currency. Kaynes vs Hayek kind of thing. Which in a way is about authoritarian vs market forces. For some reason Hacker News really likes the idea of centralized authority and criminalizing things like math and free association by threat of violence and imprisonment.
I predict eventually a chain that doesn't require PoW will gain popularity.
Also, the chain won't have to be a store of value. Instead the value will be real assets represented as "tokens".
The asset can be anything. Stock, royalty rights, water rights, futures, commodities, etc.
The ledger would then act as an exchange/settlement layer that can match trades. Merchant denominates prices in shares of GOOG, customer pays with AAPL.
It seems like currency is largely helpful for providing liquidity for trades. It's hard to trade goats for camels if the other person doesn't want goats. The ledger I believe can help get around that.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Jefferson wrote. "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
This Jeff guy, what a radical. Probably will never amount to anything.
> These are the sort of real-world constraints that you can't just ignore.
These constraints were drafted by a handful of rich white bankers in a secret meeting. I have no problem ignoring their constraints. It seems you do.
Can you imagine all the hot-takes HN would generate if email were invented today?
"You can't just encroach on the sovereignty of USPS like that"
"Electronic Mail doesn't do anything the pony-express can't do"
"If we allow Electron Mail then how do we attach a postage stamp"
Email adoption, like Crypto doesn't require convincing the entire population. The laggards will join eventually.
What's the intrinsic value of USD? It's a garbage pre-mined token that's continually debased at the behest of a cabal of rich bankers so they can purchase real assets and consolidate the world's wealth. The petrodollar isn't exactly efficient either, considering the costs of the military industrial complex.
Every year the USD is worth less. Every year BTC is worth more.
> the institutions are artifacts of their incentives
Perhaps there's value in sidestepping the institutions entirely. The bitcoin playbook if you will. Cutting out layers of management seems to be a popular idea.
Nevada recently passed a law that would allow companies to incorporate towns that have the authority of a county.
Would love to see a kick-started GovCoin like the DAO where investors and future residents can collaborate on a brand new government tailored with the customers -- I mean "citizens" interests in mind. Start with a clean slate and build a new model society that can be forked and cloned globally.
> which is essentially a planned economy where the over-educated manage the under-educated
Why do you feel this way? Couldn't there be a democratic mechanism to asset allocation? A democratically master-planned community wouldn't be unfathomable. Issue municipal debt with GovCoin serviced by taxes generated by the community.