I think there's a tendency among people in these conversations to believe that state capacity is in precipitous and irreversible decline. I think this stems from oversimplification of the equities and incentives.
Discussion
To add a historical analogy: Weimar Germany's currency failed and the government became insolvent. But that did not presage a dissolution of the state, it presaged a massive increase in state capacity. And we all know how that turned out.
Excellent point. So many people argue that the dissolution of our institutions will lead us to eden. Without them, the scared, desperate, gullible majority would become the plaything of the despot with the best story of who to blame.
Not a popular viewpoint around these parts!
No. I appreciate your views and the arguments you’ve presented here. There is no doubt the ship we are on has been corrupted, but let’s not burn the blueprints.
Here's another unpopular view: I don't think our society is anywhere near a maxima in terms of corruption. Anybody who has studied political history carefully, would find themselves disabused of this notion quite quickly.
There is this strange element in many of these conversations which comes down to what I've previously called the "denial of progress", which appears to be born partly of ignorance for the problems of the past, and a human tendency to always think things are getting worse. Even when it's not true by any objective measure.
I would agree with this statement. Many wish to believe that their struggles are far more severe than their ancestors. I have more reasons than most to believe this, but I know it so far from the truth, on so many levels. Does this mean that mine don’t matter, or that we can’t work to make these better, of course not.
I think I'm pretty open-eyed about the challenges we face. I talk about them all the time. But I'm allergic to notions of "everything is so fucked, we need to burn our institutions to the ground and start over." I just get off the bus at that point, because I perceive extreme risks to freedom, liberty and peace if that were to transpire.
Many people are convinced that tools like bitcoin mean that none of these negative outcomes will come to pass, so they're sanguine about the idea of a catastrophic collapse of all of our political institutions. But I think this is silly at best, and dangerous at worst.
A desperate, starving bear will eat its young. History has shown us that a desperate group of men, will do far worse things than a bear.
I think parents will always organise institutions because they are a requisite for keeping children safe.
Anarchists are generally teenagers and young adults, and people soon grow out of this once they consider their own children living in a world with malevolent actors.
The first social problem to solve is malevolence.
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It also doesn’t help that doom sells.
The key difference is that we now have a money that can be in the hands of the people not a central authority. While I think it’s a long shot, it does make for a different case from historical examples. We are entering new territory and it’s not an apples to apples comparison.
It's not dice I think we should roll. Iteration is better for bitcoin and for everyone.