On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Yosem Companys <companys@stanford.edu> wrote:

While I (and probably others) find the discussion on this thread interesting, it appears to lack the necessary technology component to be deemed liberationtech.

I am not sure the situation is that simple. I believe (this is a long thread) that the underlying question discussed here is whether Bitcoin has a potential as a viable alternative unregulated currency. In order to answer that, one has to first answer the question of what Bitcoin is backed by. There are lots of demagogical claims on Bitcoin-related discussion venues, but ultimately gold is backed by its scarcity, longevity, and subcortex appeal of shiny things; fiat currency is backed by state-protected ability to pay debt; MMORPG currencies are exchangeable for game items; and Bitcoin, if one discards the time period when it was worthless, is backed by its capacity to be exchanged for illicit drugs on international black markets, due to lack of better alternatives. *If* black markets are Bitcoin's claim to fame, then it has absolutely no chance of becoming anything but a small-scale under-the-radar drug trade currency, the reason being that a thriving black market is an early sign of stagnating economy, chaos, anarchy, and civil war, in which case people will revert to more tangible currency alternatives like jewelry and food. There is a widespread opinion that one of the major *economic* reasons for the fall of Soviet Union was producers of goods (i.e., factories, collective farms, etc.) establishing a massive black market between them, avoiding the inflexible system of planned economy. And this is where economic ideology and religious faith become relevant, because according to libertarian views (which are at the core of faith in Bitcoin) post-USSR republics, with their well-educated population that was highly receptive to capitalistic ideals, abundance of resources (natural and factories), extremely weak governments, huge territory, etc. etc., should have somehow formed a libertarian utopia with people-supported militias, thriving free markets, and whatnot. What happened, however, was theft of all available resources, rise of oligarchs who took control of factories, dismantled them and sold the components abroad, organized banditism, pervasive racketeering, demographical catastrophe, several civil wars and population transfers, shortened life expectancy, and all other complete opposites of an utopia. Contradiction? Only if one doesn't use religious faith to reason about economic reality. -- Maxim Kammerer Liberti Linux: http://dee.su/liberte -- Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE