
Is Bitcoin the most dangerous open source project ever? - jasonmcalacanis
http://launch.is/blog/l019-bitcoin-p2p-currency-the-most-dangerous-project-weve-ev.html
======
hugh3
Oh fuck, Calicanis is on the bitcoin-promotion train now.

Now here's a note to the other bitcoin article-spammers. Watch Calcianis and
learn. He's done everything right for memetically engineering the kind of
article that gets upvoted.

1\. He's asked a provocative question, the kind which makes people want to
argue with it ("Why no, I'd say that such-and-such is the most dangerous open
source project ever").

2\. He's used attention-grabbing words like "dangerous" and geek-friendly
terms like "open source".

3\. And almost the entire article is made up of point-form lists. Everybody
loves point-form lists.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
1\. Why so angry? 2\. Calacanis is how my name is spelled. 3\. It's just one
person's opinion--but a well informed one.

Why not spend your time reading the piece and pushing the discussion forward
based on merit?

best j

~~~
hugh3
To respond to your points in reverse order (ignoring "3" which isn't actually
a point):

Firstly, there's really no need to sign things with your name. Your name is at
the top, it doesn't need to be at the bottom too.

2\. Sorry. Many letters. Small font. Light grey text. Calacanis. Got it now.

But (1) is a good question. I'm not angry, but this "bitcoin" meme does annoy
me. Why? Because it's one of those viruses that can be really dangerous to
social news ecosystem. Much like those parasites that burrow into the brain
and take over the host's motor functions to spread itself more easily,
everybody who gets bitten by the meme (ie winds up with a few bitcoins of
their own) suddenly has an incentive to start spreading the bitcoin meme as
far and as wide as possible to drive up the value in the (imho extremely
forlorn) hope that someday it will become truly widespread. Since it only
takes a few well-timed votes to push something to the front page of HN, this
makes HN fertile ground for being manipulated by this kind of thing.

So I approach bitcoin advocates the same way I approach folks selling Amway or
religious missionaries.

~~~
gbog
Bitcoin "can be really dangerous to social news ecosystem"

So you agree with the article, but you don't want people to talk too much
about it on HN? I think it is a very weird position to hold. Imagine there was
a very dangerous disease, should it be discussed openly in physician
congresses? Yes? Same here (HN is the hackers congress, right?), so let us
discuss the topic freely.

Why is Bitcoin so dangerous:

\- Could break the current economy.

Ok, and so? Is the current economy that perfect a thing that we do not want
any replacement? Just have a look in countries where all the wealth created is
sucked by a very few corrupted nababs lying down in sofas, and meanwhile
people starve silently in the streets. I don't say Bitcoin will fix this, I
just say that changing the current economically rules is still a possibility,
and Bitcoin-like currency could be a part of the picture. The current economy
applied to the world is in fact a very specific and recent invention. In
Imperial China (only 200 years ago), the inflation was artificially set to a
very high level, so the price of money would go down very fast, and nobody
would think of "keeping money aside", so everyone was just spending. That's
another model, it did work not so bad for a big part of humanity for some
centuries. I am no technotarians, I respect the law, but I think it is quite
possible that our economical model is not the best possible.

\- Bitcoin could ease the work for wrong-doers (drug traffic, etc.)

This argument is very weak. The same has been said for cell phones, Internet,
etc. If this powerful tool is kept secret and hidden in a kind of black
market, it will help mostly people in these places. If we discuss it openly,
and make it accessible, it may help more "normal" people.

\- Tax

Tax is the biggest issue, but let's not be in fear: Governments are very
imaginative when it comes to getting money from their administrates. For
example, they could easily ask for Bitcoins in exchange of the right to use
information vectors (cables, wireless).

Every great innovation have been seen as extremely dangerous by the people in
place. Do you take the plane? Yes. Did you heard about this guy a 100 years
ago who tried to fly like a bird: he held tight a set of man-made "wings",
jumped from the top of the Eiffel tower, and flatly crashed on the floor. One
of my good friend's father did refuse to take a plane to see his newborn
grand'son.

~~~
zem
> Bitcoin "can be really dangerous to social news ecosystem" So you agree with
> the article, but you don't want people to talk too much about it on HN?

No, he doesn't (necessarily) agree with the article - what he's saying here is
that bitcoin early-adopters have an incentive to spread the gospel of bitcoin
by whatever means possible, which means that social news could get subjected
to a tide of bitcoin-related spam. Different form of danger altogether.

------
avolcano
Completely unrelated to this site, but did anyone else panic and think their
monitor was covered in smudges while reading this site? Worst background ever:
<http://launch.is/storage/launch_bg.jpg>

~~~
Raphael
My monitor is covered in smudges, so I didn't notice at all.

------
danielmo
I'm not sure it's 'dangerous,' unless you're seeing through the eyes of a
government, credit card company, or financial middle-man. Bitcoin empowers
people, and removes companies or governments out of simple value transfers.

It's as though someone has created another Napster, except everyone's a 'node'
and music isn't transmitted, 'wealth' is. Bitcoin is only as revolutionary or
'dangerous' as you want it to be.

HN folks may be interested in some of the discussions going on in Quora:
<http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin>

------
angusgr
If you're left wanting a high-level technical explanation, the Wikipedia page
seems to be a decent one <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#Technology>

(Answered some fairly obvious questions I was left with after reading like
"how do they aim to stop someone from spending the same coin everywhere and
then disappearing before anyone else notices?")

~~~
ioa44
Share with the class so I don't have to click the link, would you?

------
fexl
Why is it that any time the subject of private voluntary human interaction
comes up, so many people immediately think of the risk of mass death, horror,
and self-destruction? What a dismal state of mind. I look on the bright side,
because I know that human life _depends_ on private voluntary human
interaction, and is ultimately impossible without it.

------
zethraeus
why would this lead to prosecution by world governments? well, ok, maybe it
will for a while, but if the tech really were to take off, it would just end
up being taxed in the end anyway. Taxing it isn't harder than taxing cash
transfers.

this is all very cryptonomicon to me.

~~~
mike_esspe
Government can't survive anonymous money not only due to impossibility to tax
it, but also due to assassination prediction market:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market>

If bitcoin will succeed, we will see a political singularity in several years.

~~~
zethraeus
I think there's a fair chance that Assassination Markets are a libertarian
construction that underestimates humanity's inherent valuing of life.

As a thought experiment it is interesting, and I'd encourage anyone to read
the actual essay (<http://jya.com/ap.htm>) but, and feel free to call me
optimistic, pessimistic, closed minded, soft, or whatever your world view
leads you to think of my opinion, the idea reeks of an academic exercise that
would just not be accepted universally enough to work.

------
veb
My only gripe is it's quite difficult to find a way to transfer real-currency
to BTC easily, and fast. I have to pay $25 - $50 for a bank transfer if I only
want to get 10 BTC?

It was easy and useful to use PayPal, until everyone started getting banned.

~~~
sgornick
Dwolla! $0.25 per transaction.

------
wglb
So I have a couple of questions. First, the claim is that it cannot be taxed.
Has the IRS said that exchange of Bitcoins for, say, labor, cannot be taxed?

Further, does anyone remember the Liberty Dollar? I remember a famous hacker
exhorting "Don't mess with the Eagle".

Just askin.

~~~
sgornick
> the claim is that it cannot be taxed.

The tax laws may be difficult and expensive to enforce ... with an anonymous
digital currency.

------
pbreit
I don't think (m)any of Jason's projections will come to fruition. We've seen
this movie a number of times before (Digicash, et al) and I don't see why
today's environment is any different. They all had the exact same early
momentum as we are seeing with Bitcoin and all, of course flamed out hard with
zero government action (while PayPal thrived spectacularly). The fact of the
matter is that digital money is appealing only to a teensy, tiny group of
people.

------
fendrak
Bitcoins breach the divide between the physical and digital worlds, and it
seems that when that happens the old guard throws a fit (cf. digital
music/games).

------
dynosaur
To answer your question: yes.

