Topic: Bitcoin's Dystopian Future - page 10. (Read 28242 times)

Not just that, it becomes impossible for any nation to build an empire, ever.  You absolutely need a centralized currency to move huge amounts of wealth from citizens and future citizens to the state in order to build an empire, otherwise no tax-payer would ever spring for such a goal.

So you're saying we will have a bleak "future" were the pensions fall apart, some are super wealthy while the governments fail to take proper care of the middle class?

Why that would be horrendous.

Honestly though; good post, but I think the positives will far outweigh the negatives - consider this for one: The defunding of the US government will decrease their ability to wage wars for no reason and suppress the world and their population.

I posted some detailed discussion on this topic recently in several threads linked below.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3578196

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3582544

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3581429

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3580502

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.3571527

we already live in the dystopian future, grandma's super/pension is being taxed and devalued out of existence already

some rumor has it, it's been that way since...*cough*.....well, it's not polite to say....but you know when what's his name and co tried.....and we would be on Mars by now....but hey you can't be blamed (well maybe a little) you only have had one side of the story all your lives....and its just to awful to find out maybe that's just what it was. One side of a story. Believe what you will

Sorry I love the phonetics guide to the English language but that must have been a Freudian slip.

My life (in Seattle) is actually quite nice. It's the future of Grandma and everyone else that I'm worried about.

Sounds interesting, but . . . heart worming projections?!

You are falling into a self fulfilling trap of despair; research Medieval Europe and the Enlightenment that came out of it, we are transitioning and yes there are problems - these problems are the result of malinvestment, and will be hard for some to deal with, but most people in the world live with some of the problems you describe daily, and that innocent grandmother who did nothing wrong, she is not so innocent, she drove a car, bought tiers for that car, the rubber for which came from the Congo in a time like the one you describe, only she indirectly funding an unjust global system she didn't take the time to research, had she, she would have seen Bitcoin as a way of elevating that extreme poverty and bought in now.  

You are projecting while maintaining the same base, the world will change community will become stronger, huge impersonal cities will be relics, but with an educated population with imperial knowledge readily available the transition to the new enlightenment (Eckhart Tolle: A New Earth) will unlikely resemble anything from the medieval dark ages.  We will have to adapt and that will look uncomfortable to some, but to about 3% of the population - not involved in Bitcoin this will be the opportunity of a lifetime.

There were some other authors I would recommend but I can't remember who they were (I just heard a book review / summary in a podcast interview), but they define generational evolution in society as seasons.  Great well researched (historically speaking) with very heart warming projections.

Try applying some of that insight to your thought experiments.  

A young man living in freaking San Jose in 2013 thinks life is "bleak"...
Dude, you need to see your pastor or psychiatrist or witch doctor.

All government power flows from it's currency via taxation via Banking System...
Probably 80% of the population would chose this over anarchy.

Crypto-currencies will be co-opted by the Banking System, soon:

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/governments-must-co-opt-bitcoin-to-avert-disaster-1058380-1.html

But I'm a BTC optimist solely due to it's global, international distribution...
It will be just one of many successful crypto-currencies.

There is no land value tax in the UK.

Besides, why would a land lord charge less than he otherwise could? I'll answer that for you - he won't. Therefore, tenants are already paying the maximum they can afford. That's why land value taxation hits the landlord instead.

Land rent is just privately collected tax. It's exploiting a coercive monopoly on a location.

Yes, agreed.

However, this would likely hit rent seekers the hardest. As rent seekers exploit violent monopolies in order to extract wealth from others, it would likely be a better situation than we have now.

In the UK for example, less than 1% own much of the land and charge rent upon it. As said people influence the state heavily (House of Lords etc) governments won't tax them until they absolutely have to.

That's not to say that you need a state in order to identify and respond to coercive monopolies (the state is one too, after all). It's just that they are more likely to tackle them when they have no alternative.

Ofc, at the other end of the spectrum, there is nothing stopping the state offering voluntary subscription services. They could then compete with any other service providers and if they do the best job, then good for them.

Ultimately, states will go after anything which can't be easily hidden or moved. However, expect their actions to come under close scrutiny when they can't print money and fund folly with other taxes. It's difficult to bury things in the figures when there are only a few sources of income.

You must have some faith in the good of humanity or why bother even trying? Faced with a choice of two similar financial investments promising similar returns, surely more than 51% of us will choose the one most morally and environmentally beneficial to the planet and their fellow humans?

Keep steering the world in the direction you believe is the right one, and we will all be the better for it.

 I know I am.    

I know I shouldn't laugh at that, but I did.

Other than that, I'm kind of surprised at the high quality of thought and discussion going on here. Thanks everybody who chimed in. Some of you actually made me feel a tiny bit better

Bitcoin allows capital flight to a degree never before seen in history.  This will enable people to vote with their feet much much more easily than ever before.  People will choose to live in places where security against physical and economic violence is best.  This should result in higher quality governance as places with poor governance experience massive capital flight, leaving them poor and ineffective.  This boon is worth minor negatives.  We must get away from the status quo in which optimizing for conquering others is a more effective strategy than optimizing for standard of living.

I think OP fails to realize that the money with decentralized currencies is going to flow to the most creative/productive and those types of people are the ones who can "create" jobs.

There will be LESS unemployment - not more. Government jobs will be eradicated, but replaced by even more free market jobs. In fact, for every regulatory agency that shuts down there will be whole new industries that spring up as a direct result.

I think the problem will be that those who have gotten their money through our current system of looting and mooching will suddenly find themselves at the bottom of the income brackets instead of the top. ( A municipal judge, having no actual productive skills, may have to work at McDonald's someday.)

To those people I say -"too bad"

Decentralized governments is actually not a new concept, between 10th to 15th century Italian cities was independent states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_city-states

With the help of technology and p2p currencies it is easier and more efficient to run small states today than 1000 years ago. When our current governments fail, smaller states will be formed which means smaller gap between the leaders and the people. When people have a stronger connection to their government they will also be more loyal to each other and the government which decreases the chance of the worst case scenarios.

Switzerland is a good example of a functioning small country with decentralized democracy already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Switzerland

It is obvious to me that the OP has missed a major piece of the puzzle.

It's not just cryptocurrency that is making all of these changes... It is decentralization itself that is... And those changes will be far, far larger than monetary.

Decentralization is nothing less than the removal of power from those who have it and scattering it around to all that want it.

Gnutella was technically the first decentralized program. (That I know of.) They may have fizzled, but today we have Bittorrent, Mega, and TOR, among others, to share information through. Together these make IP laws start to seem kinda silly.

Bitcoin is a bigger jump, because it represents half the economy; any product or service that someone wants to sell, worldwide, we can now buy in a decentralized way. But it's just the buying half...

3D Printing using DEFCAD search and the resulting industry built around downloadable products will represent an even larger jump... They are the other half of the economy, and everything one could sell will eventually be manufactured and sold this way. (Destroying pretty much all existing industry worldwide.)

But that's not all! What else can we decentralize?

Well, if the government does it today, why can't we decentralize that too?

Security? But of course. Why use the .govs police when you can have free-market security services bought and sold in a decentralized environment?

Law? No problem. There are already websites like judge.me that offer non-nationalized law... Making those into a decentralized solution would be childsplay.

Whenever you think it can't be decentralized, trust me, it can. Even roads can be built privately, and decentralized marketplaces can expedite them. Fire services? Same as security. It can all be done without any government once the interest to do so is there.

So I submit that bitcoin's influence on our future is one of many 'decentralizers.' -And not the largest one by far.


So I guess you haven't heard yet that you don't have to use their internet?

We'll all be our own ISPs in a few short years. Wireless Mesh networking is real tech and they've even had it in the One-Laptop-Per-Child computers for several years now.

The range of wifi has been the largest stumbling block, however we are only 1 wifi standard away from having complete and total wireless freedom without any centralized points in it that governments can control.

He obviously hasn't 

Ever heard about the network effect?

Nah, everyone else will just mine Bytecoin, Trytecoin, Crumbcoin, or Hexcoin or whatever name they come up with next.   Bitcoin's current value is based mostly on the fact that most people don't know how it works. Once the other iterations of bitcoins start getting attention, the value will probably even out between them.

The OP believes that criminality will increase if anonymity can be guaranteed in communications and transactions but we already have criminality and trafficking today. The society won't change a lot because of some more anonymity.

Anonymity is a tool. You can use it for good or bad. I believe the consciousness and morality of humanity is evolving, therefore increased anonymity is not a threat to the society.

Some people thinks that the rulers (Governments, Bankers and Big Corporations) will buy into bitcoin, they probably won't.
The rulers will watch how the bitcoin experiment unfolds, learn from it and create their own cryptocurrency. Their primary goal will of course be control, so they design their cryptocurrency in a way that gives them 100% control over who, where and when was involved in each transaction, each wallet must be connected to a person or company. Cash-fiat will be totally abandoned since it is anonymous. Gold, Silver coins might emerge as an easy alternative for anonymous transactions offline.