PoW - an obvious, but rarely articulated analogy

Red

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Quote from: meowmeowbrowncow on April 18, 2013, 06:59:35 PM

I said one of the major premise of Bitcoin is that PoW provides a relatively predictable way to defend against a majority group or entity that would take control of Bitcoin.

Philosophically, that used to be true at the beginning.
Right now all of the proof-of-work effort has much less effect than you imagine.
Shhhhh! Don't tell anyone! They'll be very disappointed!

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Simple answer ... no.

Miners can't change the rules of the system. They can only validate or ignore transactions. Bitcoin requires a consensus at all times. Miner's can't choose the potential choices they can only force the network to a consensus on the status of coin ownership between existing choices (created by coin owners). There is almost no connection to a democracy. If Bitcoin was a democracy it likely would have failed already.

Impaler

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CryptoTalk.Org - Get Paid for every Post!

Yes indeed it is the spirit the US was founded under.

THAT THE LANDED ELITE WOULD BE THE ONLY ONES ENFRANCHISED!

Mylon

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Mining FTW

sshhhhhh, don't let the other people know!

meowmeowbrowncow

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I rarely create new threads with little substance, but I had to mention this.

When countering the 'energy usage' argument with someone that does not know about the specifics of Bitcoin I attempted to describe the importance of PoW.

I said one of the major premise of Bitcoin is that PoW provides a relatively predictable way to defend against a majority group or entity that would take control of Bitcoin.

I did a mental double take on the associations of that statement. And that was:

Representative Democracy. The grand bargain.

Does Bitcoin share in the spirit of the fundamentals in which the US was created? (this is not a libertarian plug. Just an observation)

Maybe this is the start of a bona fide money revolution? Bitcoin spangled banner, anyone?

Topic: PoW - an obvious, but rarely articulated analogy (Read 1865 times)