Bitcoin and its Implications

[plorph]

So I have been incredibly intrigued by bitcoin and the entire slew of alt coins since I was told about it a few years ago and have been following it since. I think it has huge implications on society, and it just exemplifies the power of cryptography in general. Building on these fundamentally good ideas I think we can create truly decentralized messaging, voting, law writing, and more. All transparent and truly democratic. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg for a very big change that can happen. If currency can become decentralized and publicly controlled, why can't the rest of governments functions? Computers are going to get insanely good and much more complex blockchains which store more than just value ownership could enable an entrely new era of societal organization. So many people on this forum I see don't truly understand how bitcoin works or what it means, it is very fundamental and experimental only by implementation. We should all contribute and learn towards this movement and spread these ideas to others for the good of all humans.

[jerowacik]

probably most of us consider bitcoin it simple. bitcoin fact that complicated, was so much complexity can be developed with bitcoin outstanding.

[Blind Legs Parker]

These are the blockchain's applications and potential. Not exactly bitcoin's 

But yeah, that's the potential that it has. A voting system based on a blockchain could bring real transparency to the system. Referendums would become extremely easy to set up.
Now I'm afraid that democracy can easily become a very blind-as-to-the-future kind of system, and such a true democracy, where the population can easily tell their mind about every new bills coming out, given the average degree of education in any country that I can think of, would result in a lot of bullets in the foot. I mean to say, this is not a good idea as long as the people aren't more politically, economically and historically educated.

[franky1]

this is where stuff like the bitcoin foundation blockstream c4 and other organizations should do this.

they spout that blockchain technologies can be decentralized and self regulating without governance. but then the organizations themselves have a governance hierarchy which is the polar opposite of what blockchain technology is all about.

we see these organizations pick only a couple people to be the main faces and then ignore community contributions or idea's. we as a community will find it hard to get projects off the ground if we have to rely on these hierarchical organizations.

there are atleast 100 different versions of bitcoins gui (wallets) and several implementations of the back end (protocol) yet to find these usually takes hours of google searches. and then when you find them their lacks any fully open contribution.

this includes the githubs who pretend to say its open, but there seems to be a few rules that make it less than attractive to invite people to contribute

and as for crowdfunding for projects, it seems like a miss mash of scams over powering genuine projects, vs private VC investments in strange companies rather than direct investment in beneficial projects.

things need to change and opened up more. allowing the community as a whole to benefit rather then the select few

[franky1]

These are the blockchain's applications and potential. Not exactly bitcoin's  

But yeah, that's the potential that it has. A voting system based on a blockchain could bring real transparency to the system. Referendums would become extremely easy to set up.
Now I'm afraid that democracy can easily become a very blind-as-to-the-future kind of system, and such a true democracy, where the population can easily tell their mind about every new bills coming out, given the average degree of education in any country that I can think of, would result in a lot of bullets in the foot. I mean to say, this is not a good idea as long as the people aren't more politically, economically and historically educated.

the utopia of government/law voting would be that each citizen is given 1 votecoins per proposed legal bill. and the bill has 2 addresses for and against. people just send a coin via a mobile app to the address they choose

the problem as 'blind legs parker' elaborates to is that media can twist the bill into a narrative that makes a bill sound different to how it actually is. and if people dont have the time to read the actual working of the bill and take media's interpretation on face value. then that can totally change how the result will become

total citizen involvement in every bill, will only happen if it becomes an offense for media to mis-interpret the narative of the bills. which we know wont happen.. due to media's 'freedom of speach', which allows them tojust write a retraction("oops im sorry") once its too late

[n2004al]

So I have been incredibly intrigued by bitcoin and the entire slew of alt coins since I was told about it a few years ago and have been following it since. I think it has huge implications on society, and it just exemplifies the power of cryptography in general. Building on these fundamentally good ideas I think we can create truly decentralized messaging, voting, law writing, and more. All transparent and truly democratic. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg for a very big change that can happen. If currency can become decentralized and publicly controlled, why can't the rest of governments functions? Computers are going to get insanely good and much more complex blockchains which store more than just value ownership could enable an entirely new era of societal organization. So many people on this forum I see don't truly understand how bitcoin works or what it means, it is very fundamental and experimental only by implementation. We should all contribute and learn towards this movement and spread these ideas to others for the good of all humans.

I see that you love bitcoin (as to many of us who are here) but to arrive in the proposal of such targets (as can be these make with bold by me) is a little out of reality. A country cannot have a computer or a product of peer to peer technology (which is the technology which produced this invention and gave it this power that it has) instead of its Government, its Army, its Police, its Mayers of every city etc. The previous are some of the most important Government functions. Then we are not yet a national money decentralized and publicly controlled. Bitcoin s not currency of some country. Not only this, but about 70-74 percent of all the countries of the world ignore it totally. To not mention here those who has banned it.

Peer to peer is a technology but to arrive partially such targets (if possible) needed in the best of case at least tens and tens of years. There are initiatives which want to replace some civil services (like e-residence program or blockchain based public notary) but there are yet projects and not concrete implementations and for more are only public service and not government functions. For example I cannot understand in which way a computer can create a law? Or perform other mentioned above governmental functions.

[calkob]

There can be know doubt about the potential of future blockchain applications, the future will be fascinating over the next years. Blockchains will help all sorts run things more efficiently 

[~Bitcoin~]

When there is new thing developed it will be always a raw or simple one. And the evolution and innovation in it will make it more perfect and more complex. I think bitcoin and blockchain as the new thing to world and it have lots of limitation but the good thing is that it can be improved. So all the block size issue and transaction time problem will get improved with upcoming days. Yes blockchain is new technology that can be used in multiple sectors.

[YoonYeonghwa]

probably most of us consider bitcoin it simple. bitcoin fact that complicated, was so much complexity can be developed with bitcoin outstanding.

Bitcoin is quite simple if you don't talk about blockchain and mining. Other than that, it is really easy to use.

[eternalgloom]

probably most of us consider bitcoin it simple. bitcoin fact that complicated, was so much complexity can be developed with bitcoin outstanding.

Bitcoin is quite simple if you don't talk about blockchain and mining. Other than that, it is really easy to use.

Yeah I have to agree, once you get used to using Bitcoin for transactions or to make purchases, it's as easy as any other payment processor.
Plus you have the option of running that 'payment processor' on your desktop, which enables you to transfer money extremely fast compared to online banking or even Paypal.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

These are the blockchain's applications and potential. Not exactly bitcoin's  

But yeah, that's the potential that it has. A voting system based on a blockchain could bring real transparency to the system. Referendums would become extremely easy to set up.
Now I'm afraid that democracy can easily become a very blind-as-to-the-future kind of system, and such a true democracy, where the population can easily tell their mind about every new bills coming out, given the average degree of education in any country that I can think of, would result in a lot of bullets in the foot. I mean to say, this is not a good idea as long as the people aren't more politically, economically and historically educated.

But for those decentralized applications to properly function you need a decentralized token, because no one is going to trust a (for example) voting system which uses a centralized goverment issued-closed source token, when you have Bitcoin which is open source and decentralized, and at the same time, if you use a open source, decentralized token, no one is going to trust any other one but Bitcoin because Bitcoin has behind the most hashing power earth. So as you can see, everything leads to Bitcoin as the best alternative. Therefore, the blockchain technology without Bitcoin as a token is pretty useless to be honest.

[maokoto]

Yes, there might be lots of implications if Bitcoin and blockchain technology goes on and gets more developed in a general sense. But it seems it will go bit by bit. I think we have to start using Bitcoin more, even in forums and such (small tips for good posts or answering doubts, pay for blog post read etc.) for it to become more useful and advance the technology.