I recently picked this short book out of my Wish List and read it on the Metro.
and the technology on which it rests satisfy needs that make sense only in the context of right-wing
I found myself drawn toward the title and then thesis of the book: that because ’s ideals come from cyberlibertarianism, its political pillars have threads which you pull on and find yourself in far right-wing beliefs and theories. It is true that even technical overviews of will discuss the concepts of central banking / fiat / the Federal Reserve / ‘feeding the beast’ in the same tone as a right wing or libertarian activist. The implication that the Federal Reserve or ‘the banks’ control gold and the economy does lead itself to the idea that it manipulates the economy’s ups and downs, which does lead to conspiracies.
It’s been a while since I was studying an economics textbook, so I learn a lot from political discussions and informed criticism of . The author, Professor David Golumbia, explains the benefits of reasonable inflation, the Federal Reserve, and as agreed on by most economists, and that even technical guides to claim the opposite as undisputed common knowledge. Many traders will agree that they celebrated the lack of until exchanges and DAOs started getting hacked. He also points out the whiplash of banks adopting as proof of ‘going mainstream’ and rejection as proof that actually ‘banks fear ’, and the lack of introspection toward how might change hands during deflation.
There are a few sections that ask, can people with left-wing find productive, pro-democracy purpose in ? The author posits this will be fruitless, because users are buying into the same anti-central-banking theories, and the right-wing is strengthened by this. I agree that it’s difficult to think of examples of being used for means beyond protecting and consolidating wealth. Even -based voting and DAOs trend toward shareholder voting, rather than strengthening one-man-one-vote democracy or transparency.
Where I disagreed strongly was:
- The book discusses inaccurate and debatable libertarian thought on money supply and size of government, but also bizarre conspiracies (Rothschilds, Illuminati, the Queen, and somehow even mentions of David Icke). Are these particularly ‘right wing’?
- The book mentions ‘national sovereignty’ and ‘nationalizing currency’ as a rallying cry of central bank opponents. This feels unfamiliar with how anti-Federal Reserve / pro-gold people usually talk in the United States, plus it has nothing to do with bitcoin’s goal of ‘be your own bank’. If anything, hardcore cyberlibertarians want to set up some type of personal sovereignty (or autonomy, with DAOs).
The technical content I would say is accurate, with only one awkward paragraph (showing a address hash and saying that it is an ‘encrypted version’ of the public key, and that the address can only be ‘decoded’ by the user’s private key).
TL;DR thought-provoking. It was useful for questioning my beliefs about and , and went beyond the typical ‘lol cyber money’ critique that you usually see in print.
There’s a crypto guy who I follow on Twitter who says essentially, when banks can print money, they always will. As a liberal and someone with a few leftover Zimbabwe bond dollars, I see this as a justification for diversifying my individual savings, and thinking about how flows across national borders, but I don’t want a crazy insurrection to end deficit spending. A is possible in political moderation, just like it’s usable without criminal intent.
Published at Sun, 03 Mar 2019 23:17:54 +0000
