Is bitcoin the most important technological achievement of our lifetime? - page 2.

Miz4r

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Quote from: BitcoinBobbeh on March 03, 2014, 07:31:05 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: Miz4r on March 03, 2014, 07:16:53 PM

Quote from: BitcoinBobbeh on March 03, 2014, 06:37:44 PM

I'm gonna say no.

If within 10 years Bitcoin is the world's sole currency and has made thousands of new millionaires - my answer is still no.

That honor will probably go to something medical... I love the idea behind Bitcoin but come on - most of us are just greedy nerds. Medical science saves lives.

Do you have any idea how many lives can be saved if Bitcoin can save us from financial debt slavery and oppression? Especially 3rd world countries could benefit greatly. You have no idea how much of our lives are being controlled and demolished by the tyranny of the ones on top of the current financial pyramid.

Well said and I agree.

You know, there were people who attended the World's Fair to see the lightbulb unveiled who were also alive to watch the Moon Landing on TV.

There are people who watched the Moon Landing on TV who are alive today and aware of Bitcoin. And don't care.

Just putting that into perspective. Have fun with your tin foil hat.

You don't need a tin foil hat to see that our fiat system is one big Ponzi scheme. No conspiracy theories needed, people don't need to have secret meetings somewhere and decide how they're going to take over the world from there. The system itself carries all the right incentives for everyone to bring the right ingredients together for this entire scam to work, without anyone even being conscious of it, including the bankers/elite. We're like ants just doing our thing without being aware we're building massive ant hills that almost behave like separate conscious entities themselves.

Ibian

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Quote from: raid_n on March 04, 2014, 05:58:07 AM

Quote from: maximum on March 04, 2014, 05:18:54 AM

stop with all that medical advancement bullshit.

...

no need for big pharma, god gave us everything we need.

Where was (your) god when millions of people including countless children died needlessly because we had not yet discovered penicillin?

I don't trust big corporations to do the right thing no matter in what sector they operate.

But replacing science with belief is not the way to go.
You should not just believe in bitcoin but base your trust in it because you can look at the code and analyze the algorithms and form your own oppinion.

Penicilin is a bad thing when used too much. Which many would argue we do. The more it's used the more resistant diseases become to it, and it spreads throughout the population so it's not just limited to the person in question. We use it to treat zits, for fucks sake. It could, in theory, become a leading cause of a future epidemic.

And that's not even touching on the detrimental effects of removing natural selection from us as a specie. But that's for another thread.

raid_n

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Quote from: maximum on March 04, 2014, 05:18:54 AM

stop with all that medical advancement bullshit.

...

no need for big pharma, god gave us everything we need.

Where was (your) god when millions of people including countless children died needlessly because we had not yet discovered penicillin?

I don't trust big corporations to do the right thing no matter in what sector they operate.

But replacing science with belief is not the way to go.
You should not just believe in bitcoin but base your trust in it because you can look at the code and analyze the algorithms and form your own oppinion.

ErisDiscordia

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Imposition of ORder = Escalation of Chaos

Quote from: Lloydie on March 04, 2014, 05:49:17 AM

Cheap, clean energy is the most important technological breakthrough.

I'm not up to date on the developments there, but a breakthrough in energy extraction efficiency is just about the only thing I can imagine to be of bigger import that the breakthrough of decentralizing finance.

As others have pointed out, the current financial system is at the root of lots of problems, many of them of deadly consequence - like war, poverty and destruction of the biosphere.

Lloydie

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Bitcoin is second most important after cold fusion. Ok, I can hear the laughing.

MIT is running a cold fusion lecture for second year running. National Instruments also have an annual conference on cold fusion. And ELFORSK, the Swedish energy peak research body have issued a statement that they have discovered unexplained large power outputs from ECats.

Cheap, clean energy is the most important technological breakthrough.

maximum

newbie

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stop with all that medical advancement bullshit.

you think the only things that can heal you come from profit oriented companies?

go look up rick simpson oil and there you have your medical science.
no need for big pharma, god gave us everything we need.

anu

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RepuX - Enterprise Blockchain Protocol

Quote from: BitcoinBobbeh on March 03, 2014, 06:37:44 PM

Medical science saves lives.

The current fiat money system* costs us 50% of our incomes as compared with a system where money is not simultaneously someone else's liability. How about counting all the suicides this causes. But worse, that system is set up to facilitate wars (imagine a war that must be financed from running tax revenues).

If you have ever witnessed the workings of the IMF/World Bank/Asia Development Bank in the 3rd world, you'd be absolutely disgusted about how much evil well intentioned people do there which could not happen without the ability to create SDR from thin air.

I'd say a medical advancement that is as important as Bitcoin would have to be something truly fundamental, like reversing ageing.

* A different fiat money system (greenbacks) may even be worse

ErisDiscordia

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Imposition of ORder = Escalation of Chaos

Yes, I have said so before: I consider Bitcoin (or to be precise - the technology of the Blockchain) to be the most important technological invention of the 21st century so far. The only other thing I consider to have a similar potential impact is 3D printing. Programmable wealth/money and programmable matter. There is a pattern here to watch for

raid_n

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Quote from: bassclef on March 03, 2014, 08:34:59 PM

Ron Paul once said, "You can't stop an idea whose time has come." His speech during the 2007 US presidential debate began a mass awakening to the dangers of central banking. He was ahead of his time.

Bitcoin (and its digital currency brethren) are all ideas whose times have come thanks to another guy who was ahead of his time. They are competition to dinosaur banking cartels. They have size, but we have speed, agility and youth. I know which side I'm on.

+1

It is the idea instilled in people that virtual goods can have value and be used as a means of exchange that is of importance.

Many people don't trust bitcoin because "it is not backed by anything" without realizing that pretty much our entire global economy already runs on digital bookkeeping with very little more than reassuring words that that what we use as a means of exchange is actually worth something.

Every auction house in an MMO or in app purchases for digital goods are further strengthening this notion.
Sure, bitcoin as a protocol is very elegant and its security provides stronger trust but that is not at the core as can be clearly seen by many
altcoins that are being used without providing formal proofs that their systems are robust to attacks.

The "internet" is about to be monetized in a big way. What this will mean for everyone is yet to be seen

isov

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I've posted this before to some place here but if you like to marvel about all the things possible, you probably like this web site.
www.futuretimeline.net

Asrael999

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In my lifetime I am afraid both the personal computer and the internet trump bitcoin, as they enable it.

Mythul

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So far Bitcoin is a great technological breakthrough, the biggest of this decade at least.

Ibian

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The internet wins this contest. But it's probably in the top ten.

Edit: Guy above me makes a solid point, so I'll say the third most important invention since the transistor - preceded by the internet which it runs on and the computers that make the net work. All of it powered by electricity of course, which goes beyond the scope of this poll.

JimboToronto

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You're never too old to think young.

Bitcoin itself isn't nearly as important as open-source, cryptography-secured, proof-of-work-based, decentralized, peer-to-peer networking.

Bitcoin's just one implementation of a world-changing disruptive technology with the promise of revolutionizing everything from elections (and democracy in general) to notarizing documents.

It however is merely another step in an evolutionary process that has led us from the vacuum tube and punchcard computers of my youth, through higher-level (than raw machine language) programming languages, inter-computer networking, TCP/IP, the internet, HTML, the WorldWideWeb, centralized P2P, etc, all the way to today's onion routing and cryptographic networking.

I realize I'm older than many here but I'd tend to consider the most important technological achievement of my lifetime to be the development of integrated circuits (or transistors themselves, invented the year I was born), without which all of the advances I listed above wouldn't have been possible. Even all of the wonderful medical advances mentioned in other posts in this thread were made possible by ICs.

TL;DR-

Not BTC, but ICs and the computer technology they led to.

log2exp

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If crowd funding via bitcoins cured cancer, then yes.

BitcoinBobbeh

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Quote from: BldSwtTrs on March 03, 2014, 08:23:34 PM

I think it's one of the five biggest technological achievement of human history in its consequences (it's on the same level as stuff like agriculture, alphabet, internal combustion engine. Even computers and Internet are outclassed.)

Really? You think it outclasses computers and the internet? And the idea of free speech? Maybe space travel? Heart transplants? Machines that BREATHE for people?

Bitcoin is a good thing. However- if you think it's one of the very most important inventions by mankind, you would legitimately be the creep I don't talk to at a party.

DieJohnny

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I thought Gay marriage was the most important achievement for mankind???

BTW, I heard of some parents that are sex-changing their toddler boy into a girl because he wears dresses. So glad they figured out that he was born a girl instead of a boy, amazing progress.

lemfuture

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youre forgetting about internet itself where bitcoin is born and many other things to come. thanks to the power of communication

theonewhowaskazu

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If its not the most objectively important, its certainly the most interesting, at least to me.

kkaspar

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banned but not broken

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Quote from: kkaspar on March 03, 2014, 08:30:36 PM

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Quote from: kkaspar on March 03, 2014, 07:53:32 PM

Jokes aside, bitcoin is a nice step in the evolution of finance, but keep a cool head if you don't want to look like an Jehovah's Witness

Sometimes it's OK to get excited about things.

I'm excited about having the technology to protect and control my money as I see fit!

You may control your bitcoins, but the bitcoin market controls your wealth Wink

The former will ensure the success of the latter.

The faith of the hodlers will decide the amount of your wealth. You could always pray for god/satoshi, that no old adopter/drug dealer/coin thief will decide to dump 100 000+ coins and decrease your wealth by ten times or more

But I agree, it's a matter of taste. It suits some people to act on blind faith while ignoring the risks. Sometimes it pays off also. If it wouldn't be like that, then we wouldn't have any lottery winners

Topic: Is bitcoin the most important technological achievement of our lifetime? - page 2. (Read 3389 times)