[LINK] Two articles on Bitcoin

David_Gerard

Tangential, but a subject of some local interest:

Why Bitcoin will fail by Avery Pennarun. "The sky isn't red." Thesis:

The gold standard was a bad idea.
Even if it [Bitcoin] was a good idea, governments will squash it.
The whole technological basis (cryptosystem) is flawed.
It doesn't work offline.

I'm not sure I buy these and am not competent to evaluate his claims on 3., but would like others' critique.

L019: Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen by Jason Calacanis. A rather more enthusiastic viewpoint of the project:

Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.
Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.
Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.
Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.
Bitcoin is a political statement by technological libertarians.
Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.

The actual text contains many more caveats than the eye-catching selection of points above.

Tangential, but a subject of some local interest:

Why Bitcoin will fail by Avery Pennarun. "The sky isn't red." Thesis:

The gold standard was a bad idea.
Even if it [Bitcoin] was a good idea, governments will squash it.
The whole technological basis (cryptosystem) is flawed.
It doesn't work offline.

I'm not sure I buy these and am not competent to evaluate his claims on 3., but would like others' critique.

L019: Bitcoin P2P Currency: The Most Dangerous Project We've Ever Seen by Jason Calacanis. A rather more enthusiastic viewpoint of the project:

Bitcoin is a technologically sound project.
Bitcoin is unstoppable without end-user prosecution.
Bitcoin is the most dangerous open-source project ever created.
Bitcoin may be the most dangerous technological project since the internet itself.
Bitcoin is a political statement by technological libertarians.
Bitcoins will change the world unless governments ban them with harsh penalties.

The actual text contains many more caveats than the eye-catching selection of points above.

Why saddened? And what is the other side's standard response to my (apparently well-known) question? I admit I don't know economics at all :-(

Why saddened? ... I admit i don't know economics at all :-(

Because of what it says about economics -- that an outsider can reach the same conclusion, for the same reason, as (half of) the "experts". Remember the "layshadow test"? If an academic field is such that a layperson can come in, spend a few hours, and produce output indistinguishable from people who have spent years "learning" the field, then that field is lost because the inferential distance is low, implying little knowledge accumulation.

That's what seems to be... (read more)

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[LINK] Two articles on Bitcoin

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[LINK] Two articles on Bitcoin

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