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Comment by stfu | Hacker News Reader

the lack of even distribution of early wealth

Totally! All we need is an "affordable bitcoin act" and the problem is solved.

Without being snarky: I just dislike when people tie political ideology into their evaluation of new technology.

i don't think you understand what he was saying. You are just being overly defensive against any liberal ideology. He was saying that if it isn't that evenly distributed then one actor, or maybe a few, could have large control over the markets. That is a different problem than distribution of wealth in the sense that the poor are disadvantaged. This argument is purely from a stability concern, not a concern of societal well being.

"I just dislike when people tie political ideology into their evaluation of new technology."

Tying political ideology to the evaluation of new technology is the MO of Bitcoin's supporters. If you wanted to focus strictly on technology, Bitcoin would never have gotten off the ground. No security definition, design documents spread across human language and source code, no attention given to the various ways distributed systems can be attacked or can fail, etc. The only reason Bitcoin became popular in the first place is that people with a particular political ideology saw a chance to realize their dreams.

GP may not have had ideology in mind. Bitcoin is probably worth more when everyone has some.

BC is worth more when everyone wants more than they have.

I do not know about ideology but there is definately a political angle to all of this. Bitcoin is only worth anything as long as people are willing to give things or services of value in exchange of bitcoins. For now people have because bitcoin has generated a lot of excitement and there have been relatively few bitcoins available for purchase.

But if one of the early adopters busts out a billion dollars worth of bitcoins and demands massive amounts of real world wealth in exchange, people may just decide he does not deserve it and stop buying bitcoins. Then the bitcoin will be worth nothing again.

Nobody deserves a billion dollars and if someone was to become a billionaire I feel it is more likely the people holding BitCoin would be more concerned with their own value appreciation than all cooperating to devalue a single entities value. You also have to consider that wide adoption of BTC would mean a diverse set of people with a diverse set of values.

I've often read that in the US (as an example, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere) poorer people are likely to vote against their best interest because they have a belief that one day they will be rich. That sort of scenario makes more sense to me, people will just worry about themselves than burning their own value for some collective 'good'.

It's only considered voting against your own interest when a poor person does it. When a relatively well off person is campaigning for higher taxes, voting against their won interest, then it's a principled stand.

I had never looked at it from that angle before. Interesting.

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