[HN Gopher] Crypto, the left, and techno-feudalism
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       Crypto, the left, and techno-feudalism
        
       Author : supernihil
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2022-02-05 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (metacpc.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (metacpc.org)
        
       | wrnr wrote:
       | I don't like Greek word salad
        
       | supernihil wrote:
       | My favorite quotes:
       | 
       | "When 'Bitcoin maximalists', as you call them, wax lyrical about
       | the inability to print money (and celebrate this inability as
       | Bitcoin's feature, rather than its bug), they are being terribly
       | unoriginal - banal, I dare say. Capitalism nearly died in 1929,
       | and tens of millions did die in the war that ensued, because of
       | this toxic fallacy that underpinned the Gold Standard then and
       | Bitcoin now. Which fallacy? The fallacy of composition, as John
       | Maynard Keynes called it.
       | 
       | Its essence is a tendency to extrapolate from the personal realm
       | to the macroeconomic one. To say that if something is good for me
       | - if a practice is sound at the level of my family, business,
       | etc. - it must also be good for the state, government, humanity
       | at large"
       | 
       | ""We seem to have forgotten how Marx and Engels had the nous and
       | the ability, on the one hand, to admire and celebrate the
       | technological and scientific wonders of their era and, on the
       | other hand, grasp that these potentially liberating technologies
       | were bound to enslave the many if they became instrumentalised by
       | the very few. The two Germans believed in the emancipatory
       | potential of the steam engine and of electromagnetism. But, they
       | never believed that society would be liberated by the steam
       | engine and/or electromagnetism. Liberation required a political
       | movement that first overthrows the bourgeoisie and only then
       | presses these magnificent technologies into the service of the
       | many. This seems to me an excellent way of approaching today's
       | potentially liberating technologies, including blockchain"
        
       | supernihil wrote:
       | More quotes:
       | 
       | "During the 20th century, and up to this day, workers in large
       | capitalist oligopolistic firms (like General Electric, Exxon-
       | Mobil, or General Motors) received approximately 80% of the
       | company's income. Big Tech's workers do not even collect 1% of
       | their employer's revenues. This is because paid labour performs
       | only a fraction of the work that Big Tech benefits from. Who
       | performs the bulk of the work? Most of the rest of us! For the
       | first time in history, almost everyone produces for free (often
       | enthusiastically), adding to Big Tech's capital stock (that is
       | what it means to upload stuff on Facebook or move around while
       | linked to Google Maps). And, moreover, this capital takes a new,
       | far more powerful form"
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-05 23:01 UTC)