Hacker News Reader

This: When internet adoption began to take off in the 1990s, it came with skeptics and an endless series of questions. In 1995, Newsweek published an article titled “Why the Web Won’t be Nirvana,” stating:

“Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

20 years later the visionaries have been proven to be visionaries.

This: When internet adoption began to take off in the 1990s, it came with skeptics and an endless series of questions. In 1995, Newsweek published an article titled “Why the Web Won’t be Nirvana,” stating:

“Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

Cryptocurrency, definitely yes.

Bitcoin, hopefully not. I’m fundamentally opposed to rewarding that particular wealth redistribution scheme.

Is current wealth redistribution scheme so much better? With forced taxation, shady fractional reserve system, central banks manipulating markets, rich getting richer, etc. I don't think so.

Actually Bitcoin is very fair. Everything is Open Source, verifiable, public. There is no insiders, no trusted parties changing rules, everything is publicly know: number of coins and their distribution scheme.

The price of Bitcoin is a fair price. It corresponds to current market knowledge about it's usefulness and chances to be more/less useful (valuable) in the future. Anyone is allowed to participate, and noone is forced to participate.

People holding Bitcoin are rewarded for their risk of holding risky asset. People trading it, are rewarded for providing liquidly, people mining it are rewarded for keeping the p2p network running.

Bitcoins is the fairest game in the town. And any wealth redistribution it causes is a fair redistribution.

It’s not an either-or question. The current system is a travesty; replacing it with another that rewards those with means and early adopters at the expense of others isn’t any better.

Can you elaborate as to why?

I'm seeing criticism but no suggestions.

Nice article, very thorough

Waiting for Bitcoin