500 sats \ 2 replies \ @frostdragon 29 Aug 2023 \ on: Controversial take on bitcoin mining and the security budget bitcoin
This is super thoughtful and I want to make sure I understand the overall point:
You're saying you think mining hash power and its decentralization will eventually be supported by law because of how things will naturally result from bitcoin's existence?
Yes exactly! I'm thinking civil liberties and civil rights in the United States are derived from the Constitution and its amendments, as well as from various legal interpretations, and I'm wondering if bitcoin's fixed liberties and distributed ledger will provide the same globally, where the court in this case is the protocol, which enforces the rules permissionlessly, and governments and institutions provide the security, all of whom are in a check and balances state of play, with basically the same aligned incentives. Hope that makes sense.
reply
Yeah so this is exactly how I think about it - essentially everything resets around bitcoin, and I think comparing it to the way the constitution slowly reshaped everything is a great way to put it.
A few additional thoughts:
-
how this happens and how long it takes is completely unknown, and things could get worse (possibly for a long time) before they get better. The revolution happened before the constitution was written and things evolved from there. In our case, immutable decentralized freedom money was written and the revolution has yet to happen
-
I don’t think we fully understand what the negative ramifications of bitcoin will be. I think it’s inevitable whether or not things are better or worse, and it could be either. — For example, the Pareto distribution, which is the trend of most things in the universe, could be catastrophic for bitcoin (meaning, it’d be bad if a small, elite few had custody of the vast majority of bitcoin). I’d be less worried about DOS and more worried about significant accumulation. Or maybe the momentum of the global community prevents things from ever happening. — Also, there are plenty of “comforts” fiat affords us. Some would argue these are absolute necessities (public funding for education, fire/police departments, healthcare, etc). And while all of it will inevitably come at the cost of hyperinflation, it’s not clear how great things will be if everything is privatized. That could be a pessimistic take - perhaps we’ll have no problem carrying on with those things even after separation of money and state, and on the optimistic side of things, maybe government is “fixed” by bitcoin because bitcoin forces you to responsibly adhere to finite reality.
All that to say, I agree with your take. I think bitcoin will be like a global constitution in the long run. The transition could be extremely turbulent. Things could be worse for a while even after the transition. But I think in the end, freedom wins and most people are better off.
reply