From Dizzynomics:
The new naivety
From The Telegraph, an article entitled “the coming digital anarchy”.And therein lies a truth that must be faced if an individual or a society is to avoid perversity and perversion on just about every level and regarding just about every activity.
A blockchain forms the beating heart of Bitcoin. In time, blockchains will power many radical, disruptive technologies that smart people are working on right now.The article is really long. Too long. Ultimately it foresees the blockchain freeing us all from government and corporate tyranny. It envisages a day when a cybernetic balance allows autonomous agents (like self-driving cars, owned by no-one) to serve you on demand, funded by bitcoins.
Until recently, we’ve needed central bodies – banks, stock markets, governments, police forces – to settle vital questions. Who owns this money? Who controls this company? Who has the right to vote in this election?
Now we have a small piece of pure, incorruptible mathematics enshrined in computer code that will allow people to solve the thorniest problems without reference to “the authorities”.
The benefits of decentralised systems will be huge: slashed overheads, improved security and (in many circumstances) the removal of the weakest link of all – greedy, corruptible, fallible humans.
It is, in short, amazingly naive.
For one thing, it assumes that Bitcoin and open ledger systems are free. They are not.
At their heart they are funded by everyone who participates in them on a if-you-use-then-pay-to-support basis. Unfortunately, what was envisaged by Satoshi as an egalitarian utopia has already fallen privy to the problem of anacyclosis, which dictates that all anarchic systems end up organising around the strongest, smartest and most exploitative players — because hierarchy is innate to humankind. And hierarchy breeds corruption, which then induces revolution and change....MORE
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
-Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
