Can’t agree more. With the internet we have a chance to fight back. It’s a huge threat for those who controlled everything just a few years ago / still do. It’s getting harder to play the game of short selling / market manipulation for huge gains for a few people. Now we can play with the big boys and they don’t like that.
I am pretty sure that the folks who “invented” those decentralized systems had exactly this in mind.
Hmm,
I honestly hope to not offend anyone but I am a little shocked about the the whole crypto situation and about the whole argument situation as well.
Krugman has good points and its a valid Argument. Can Anyone here give a real life example for everyone to understand in the here and now where Blockchain is used for something that beats the centralized version.
Decentralization is NOT democratisation as long as you trade your coins on Coinbase, use Iphones for that, use Power from a big Power Cooperation for that and use the Internet infrastructure provided to you by a big internet provider. You are NOT in any way independent. If just one of those big players says stop - your independence, your blockchain and your currency stops. Meanwhile one can still buy bread with a paper dollar or euro or what have you.
It shurly is not communism its hyper capitalism. Look at everyone. Onlything you read about is: where is the floor, where do I buy in, when will it rise again, will it fall again, buy the dip…no one is asking what all that means for the Blockchain in general. Everyone is in it for the money. And thats why it will not work. Because there is no worth being created you are just stealing the money from each other. Which you are free to do so of course.
Say fuck you to the big boys does not work by becoming the big boy yourself in my opinion. It works by leaving the game and play your own. Their game works by letting you live under the impression that there are ways (whatever ways) to climb to their level, by lottery, by investing smart, by work, by luck. There are no such ways. This is the game. If you believe it you play by their rules still. From time to time there is a Dr Dre and they can say: Look you can make it from the bottom to the top. Keep trying. And Dumpheads like 50 Cent keep the propaganda up - so get rich or die trying. Guess what. Most people on earth die trying 
Blockchain may be an interessting tech and a useful. And the internet of course changed a lot of things. but I am still not shure if just for the better.
How is any of this “power to the people” if one of the richest men on the planet can jerk the entire coin market around with just one tweet?
Doesnt do much to negate the ‘sheeple’ concept does it?
C’mon, making billionaires out of coal-burning bitcoin miners in Xinjiang is real freedom and peace.
More seriously: all crypto wealth, at the point where it can be converted into fiat and exchanged for real goods and services, is a claim on the actual resources of the world. Cryptocurrency does not add to those resources. If crypto hoarders are getting richer, everyone else is effectively getting poorer. At which point crypto fans might say, ‘get on board then!’ But in the medium term it forces a showdown; either crypto runs the world or it doesn’t. I’d still put my bets on existing interests winning that battle over crypto. And I want them to, because I’m convinced that huge amounts of the crypto ‘space’ are outright fraudulent. Anonymous, international, unregulated, based on poorly-understood tech and hype; there’s never been a better opportunity for a conman with a little bit of technical nous to make a quick billion. Cut-and-paste a ‘white paper’ no one will read and that’s all the proof of value you need.
My thesis is that allowing crypto to become money represents a huge transfer of wealth from ‘everyone’ and into the hands of fraudsters.
How stupid is this Gang? Bitcoin will not use less Power just because you power it green. The energy is missing elsewhere then…
Where is it missing? I’m planning to produce my own energy in the future… should I have a guilty conscience already - or only if I mine crypto with my generated power?
Your joking right? 🤦
You have a two pieces of energy 1 coal and 1 solar and your have two pieces that consume energy. One hospital and one bitcoin farm. You can now power one of both with solar and one with coal or you shut one down and become real sustainable.
I power bitcoin with solar, paint myself green and do a raindance
I power both with Solar, Donald Trump says the election is stolen I gave up math in 2th grade
I power both with coal. Lets get the party startet.
I wanna call someone
2 points each and you CAN choose more than one.
As long as coal is cheaper everybody who wants to make money (hospital) will choose coal. And if I use green energy because I think it’s better / greener …whatever… I steal it because someone else ‘cannot’ use it?
From a society point of view - yes. Theres a power grid where power is split between participants. The picture you paint with a few solar panels that are yours and you are connected to is not how it works in the grand scheme.
Yes but the way you paint it is also not quite right.
It’s all about money. We are already getting to the point where solar is getting cheaper and cheaper so the process / shift towards green energy has already started. Also we hopefully get new nuclear plant tech that is not as dangerous as it was. Wind, solar and nuclear power is the future. Bitcoin won’t change that and if … to the better because more companies will start production of renewable energy tech.
Nuclear is dead. What may come is Fusionpower.
And Bitcoin does change that, cause its a useless waste of energy. And there is not enough green energy.
Green is consuming less, not producing better.
Bitcoin is not green.
I’ve seen a video recently about a container with a kite that generates enough energy for 160 households (double the amount of a modern wind power plant).
In my eyes the energy problem will be solved in the next 10 years.
The more countries understand that renewable energy is cheaper or there will
be consequences if fossil fuels still being used (like other countries will stop trading with you).
And I see the point: There is not yet enough tech yet for everybody for the shift. In the first place big energy leeching countries need to understand that they need to switch.
So it’s only a temporary problem in my world view.
The thing is, that there is no your world view ir my world view. There is science, math and evidence. And the arguments and facts are clear. We need to reduce energy consumption. Bitcoin uses way to much for what it does. So do fuel driven cars. Thats why those things need to change. You cant argue that bitcoin will in anyway solve any energy problems its like prescribing cigarettes for cancer.
But that’s also a temporary problem.
ETH will consume only a fraction of what it does now when PoS is rolled out with ETH2.0. And since Elon and the rest of the world is ranting so much … I’d say BTC will roll out something similar as well.
Anyways: The tech is here to stay. And improvements are on both sides already visible on the horizon.
The more we rant of course the faster the transition will be — so I’m on your side – don’t get me wrong.
If this changes maybe there is a future for it. Dont get me wrong either, I am not against the future. Whatever it may bring. But doing the same mistakes over and over again makes us a pretty stupid generation and I‘d rather be progressive. So I would also say that most people are on the same page. Lets discuss details and pull this crashed car on the street again 
But here you have the negative side of decentralized networks. Ethereum already split once. ETH 2 will be the same, not everyone will jump in the bandwagon who investet millions in mining gear. Bitcoin is even worse because its bigger. So you can‘t just say its PoS now and all is good 
A good example is that UN Habitat is using a blockchain for creating a land registry in Afghanistan. The benefit here is that the property ownership data is public, immutable and not owned by any one single organisation. So the proof of land ownership will survive a change of the political power structure in the country.
This kind of situation, where data needs to be public but also out of the hands of any one organisation, is a good example where blockchain technology can be an improvement on centralised systems.
This system also includes smart contracts where things like transfer of property ownership is much more efficient than, say, paper. But this aspect could be recreated on a centralised system so not that relevant here.