+1 — service discovery _feels_ like something that gossip can solve, but that's only true at global/open/untrusted scale, in a well-scoped and authoritative domain like a company it's really not, it's really just another typical, expected-to-be-consistent state problem
> The current system is the equivalent of some old unmaintainable shit written in COBOL . . .
It just isn't! It really isn't. It is the way it is for good and historically motivated reasons. Can you elucidate those things? If you don't understand the rationale for the system as it exists, you can't propose an alternative that has any chance of success.
The "legacy financial system" exists in the way it does for specific reasons. Do you understand those reasons? It's a Chesterfields Fence situation: unless you can elucidate those things, you're not qualified to propose an alternative.
> As a whole I think people need to ask what money is again and have some serious conversations about what money and the monetary system should be.
Money is not some concrete thing that has some inherent value. It's never been that. It's always been a promise, an abstract thing backed by collective trust.
Fractional reserve banking was not a coup d'etat of an elite few performed to disenfranchise the 99% in order to ballast the 1%. It was a considered decision by rational actors and was necessary to enable economic growth since its introduction.
In many ways it's wonderful that the current generation is questioning the old ways of doing things. This is how progress is made. I'm down. But money, government, everything which is the product of historical trial-and-error is a Chesterson's Fence: you really do need to understand why it's there before you try to rip it out and replace it with something else. And it's just so clear to me that basically nobody trying to replace fiat currency with crypto or whatever actually understands why fiat came to be.
Unregulated markets lead to exploitative and destructive outcomes 100% of the time. This isn't even a controversial statement, it's just a pithy summary of all relevant history.
The overwhelming majority of people live in countries with representative government and functioning legal systems. Yes, the US and Russia and China and India and Brazil all meet this description. Why do you believe otherwise?
It is I think vastly better for people to make those decisions than for them to be made by smart contract. The institutions we discuss now are at their core social systems.