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The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

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Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#11
post #9
post #7

blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. there's a reason all political parties promote it (while campaigning), besides the populist parasocial emulation for votes.

> blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. Please elaborate? BTC would break the money printer and iff people self custody and use lightning then privacy can also be achieved. Monero does all that by default.

> BTC would break the money printer

How? What would be the scenario here? The Fed stops issuing USD and starts managing the economy using BTC? Why would the US ever undermine their own sovereignty by doing that?

Even if I give you that BTC is a viable currency, it's another currency alongside all the others. What is the viable path to it becoming the primary currency of a country without that country's consent? The IRS is still going to want your taxes paid in USD.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#12
post #9
post #7

blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. there's a reason all political parties promote it (while campaigning), besides the populist parasocial emulation for votes.

> blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. Please elaborate? BTC would break the money printer and iff people self custody and use lightning then privacy can also be achieved. Monero does all that by default.

It depends how the Blockchain is implemented. A common misconception about cryptocurrencies is that they are private. The crypto means cryptographically secure, not cryptographically private.

A Blockchain based digital currency could also hold the entire history of all transactions made by people and a privileged party could identify the holder of each wallet. In fact we can kinda do this with BTC, but we can't identify who holds the wallet until they cash in or out through an institution.

This technology is the wet dream of a fascist regime. There are no secret transactions. Cash is non existent. Cash is only used by criminals. If you aren't using a traceable currency then you have something to hide. All transactions are stored. This should also be an issue for many because laws change and aren't consistent. Buy weed legally today, it gets criminalized, get punished. Buy a drink at the local gay bar, travel to a LGBTQ unfriendly country, get interrogated.

It's not about what is happening so much about what could happen. How can the technology be abused. Maybe it's fine with our government but is it everywhere? It's about not giving power to saints that devil's my inherit.

But this is why we have privacy coins. Some coins don't even maintain the leger but a hash of it (hashes all the way down). You can't peek at the leger but you can verify it is consistent (added benefit of keeping a static leger size too). You can have zero knowledge transactions. You can have differential privacy. All these technologies are not a necessary condition of a blockchain but are privacy enhancing. These are not a fascists wet dream but rather a major roadblock for them. Those fighting against them are allowed to operate beyond their knowledge.

So the bigger again is what is the cost benefit analysis? Are terrorists and tax evaders such a problem that it is worth the technology that a future fascist could inherit? Or are they not?

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#14
post #7

blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. there's a reason all political parties promote it (while campaigning), besides the populist parasocial emulation for votes.

We've banned this account for posting tedious flamewar rhetoric to HN and ignoring our request to stop. Not what this site is for.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28088809.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#16
post #14
post #7

blockchain in the context of the society you describe is a fascists wet dream. there's a reason all political parties promote it (while campaigning), besides the populist parasocial emulation for votes.

We've banned this account for posting tedious flamewar rhetoric to HN and ignoring our request to stop. Not what this site is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28088809 .

We can no longer see it as it is “flagged”.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#17
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for posting tedious flamewar rhetoric to HN and ignoring our request to stop. Not what this site is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28088809 .

We can no longer see it as it is “flagged”.

It's not the [flagged] bit that makes you not see it, but the [dead] bit. Anyone who wants to see [dead] posts can do so by setting "showdead" to "yes" in their profile.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can no longer see it as it is “flagged”.

It's not the [flagged] bit that makes you not see it, but the [dead] bit. Anyone who wants to see [dead] posts can do so by setting "showdead" to "yes" in their profile.

Thanks! I did not know this.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work (2015) [pdf]

#19

is it possible that trained engineers who take this engineering sermon to heart, are then not prepared to deal with daily, common corrupt practices and dark-patterns so prevelant in real-life money handling? Second, different question -- To what extent do you have to believe in good, to do good in real life. How much overlap does that have with the practice of cryptography ? Third question - are specialists in a comp…

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