I understand what a tool is too.
Then you are not one of those who claim that bitcoin will be the solution to poverty, corruption, fraud, bank abuse, oppression, censorship, etc., etc..
Right?
And, not for the first time I'm reminding you that straw man arguments such as "those who claim that bitcoin will be the solution to poverty, corruption, fraud, bank abuse, oppression, censorship, etc., etc.. " are bullshit and I'm calling you on it. Again. I know hundreds of people within this community both on the technical and financial side and I can't think of a single one of them that sees it in the way as you're trying to paint it here. Not one.
It's a tool. Like I said in my previous post, you're deliberately,
disingenuously conflating tool and solution. I know you're smarter than that hence my facetious tone.
Some tools, like crossbows for example, are known to have levelled the playing field somewhat between the previously empowered and the disenfranchised. No longer did you need to be a trained full time professional belonging to a paid standing army to be useful on the battlefield.
Some tools, like surveillance databases, armoured cars and the like are known to have been of more use to those with privilege and power than those without. Did we throw out computers because IBM helped the nazis track dissidents and minorities with their punched card technology?
Some tools, like hammers, are just tools and, as you've astutely pointed out, can be used to almost equal effect by anyone wielding them. They are used to build both labour camps and hospitals.
The Internet is a tool that can be used by anyone for almost any purpose but, generally speaking, a society with ubiquitous access to a free and open Internet is a greater threat to the .1% than to the rest of us.
There's a possibility that Bitcoin is like a hammer. Just a tool that anyone can use for better or for worse. That's certainly how it looks right now. But I suspect Bitcoin is more like the Internet. Anyone can indeed use it but, generally, the level playing field its widespread adoption presents would be something very threatening indeed.
As you've also said, they'll try to ban it, control it etc. We're watching that. It's fun.
You're certainly old enough to remember the painful death throes of the old guard music industry and how it flapped about and sued the hell out of anyone that moved in an effort to forestall the inevitable change that the Internet was bringing to their business models.
Well that ended in a complete overhaul of the industry in spite of their best, and most cunning efforts.
But we know, for whatever reason, that you've closed your mind to anything positive about Bitcoin and are determined to repeat ad nauseam negative arguments regardless of whether anyone's shot them down or not so if it were just the two of us here, I'd certainly save my breath.
The key here really is that Bitcoin is a disruptive technology and if anything needed disrupting, it's the current global financial industry and the frankly horrific level of global inequality that it supports.
If you'll forgive me, and I'm sure you will, I'm going to put you back on ignore now. It's not like you ever say anything you haven't said before in one way or another.
You saved me a lot of effort trying to reply (rather repeat what you wrote exactly) to his contrarian thoughts. Great comment! It's been awhile since I read such a nice text in here.
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