I see an additional sociological/psychological question on the background.
The success of humans is built on (a balance between) both individual and collective effectiveness and the efficiency of either requires a form of 'automation' so not to have to start from first principles/observations on every action. Trust is such an 'automation' (we assume trust so we spare ourselves having to check everything, we act automatically, not after deliberation) These systems want to change that to something that is built on the individual drive only, by creating effective mechanisms that do not require this trust (but — surprise — cost energy in other ways).
Is it a good idea (assuming it is possible) to try to build a society where technical means make sure all collective goals are supported by individual ones? Is it a good idea to build a society on the assumption of distrust, creating some technical mechanism (like blockchain) enforcing trustability instead, one that makes everyone free to distrust one another? In fact, is the 'risk of trust' not an essential element of having a society in the first place instead of a collective of distrusting individuals? Trust, after all, might require practice too, and the more you replace it with something else, the more you will probably damage its function elsewhere. We already see this after half a century of more and more individualism, which may be the source of us humans becoming worse and worse at trusting each other, slowly undermining one of our key strengths: collective actions.
Yes, the blockchain (and the various lower-impact workarounds) enables trust in the binary object that is "cryptocurrency" in a massively decentralized system, but that was the easy part. It's those pesky humans where things get messy. A trusted object enforces nothing beyond the object's existence. I will once more pimp my invention, Fudd's 1st Law: (named in honor of Firesign Theater's Fudd's 3rd Law of Power: "if you push something, it falls over") "if there is a system, someone will try to game it". Crypto is as secure as the wallet you store it in. Getting rid of The State, or just its role in finance, may be a noble goal, but as always the sticky bit is what replaces it, and crypto's offer of unbreakable encryption does not inspire confidence. Fudd's 1st Law.
What a beautifully constructed/argumented piece.
I see an additional sociological/psychological question on the background.
The success of humans is built on (a balance between) both individual and collective effectiveness and the efficiency of either requires a form of 'automation' so not to have to start from first principles/observations on every action. Trust is such an 'automation' (we assume trust so we spare ourselves having to check everything, we act automatically, not after deliberation) These systems want to change that to something that is built on the individual drive only, by creating effective mechanisms that do not require this trust (but — surprise — cost energy in other ways).
Is it a good idea (assuming it is possible) to try to build a society where technical means make sure all collective goals are supported by individual ones? Is it a good idea to build a society on the assumption of distrust, creating some technical mechanism (like blockchain) enforcing trustability instead, one that makes everyone free to distrust one another? In fact, is the 'risk of trust' not an essential element of having a society in the first place instead of a collective of distrusting individuals? Trust, after all, might require practice too, and the more you replace it with something else, the more you will probably damage its function elsewhere. We already see this after half a century of more and more individualism, which may be the source of us humans becoming worse and worse at trusting each other, slowly undermining one of our key strengths: collective actions.
Yes, the blockchain (and the various lower-impact workarounds) enables trust in the binary object that is "cryptocurrency" in a massively decentralized system, but that was the easy part. It's those pesky humans where things get messy. A trusted object enforces nothing beyond the object's existence. I will once more pimp my invention, Fudd's 1st Law: (named in honor of Firesign Theater's Fudd's 3rd Law of Power: "if you push something, it falls over") "if there is a system, someone will try to game it". Crypto is as secure as the wallet you store it in. Getting rid of The State, or just its role in finance, may be a noble goal, but as always the sticky bit is what replaces it, and crypto's offer of unbreakable encryption does not inspire confidence. Fudd's 1st Law.