Centralized Organizations Will Seek to Usurp Decentralized Technology
Paypal recently filed a patent based upon the decentralized technology of bitcoin that attempts to speed up cryptocurrency transactions, but is closed source and involves decisions made by central authority. Such a move is really very ironic and also misses the whole point of decentralization, but isn't at all unexpected. We are, as Andreas Antonopoulos says, reaching the "third stage of grief for the industry they're about to lose" which involves "bargaining".
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Essentially such a move by Paypal is saying "we like blockchain, just without the decentralized, censorship resistant, and borderless properties" but "controlled by us". The last part we can't oblige. Decentralization is about loss of control which if done correctly will ultimately steer us away from the issue of terrorism and return power back into the hands of the people. We're headed into a collision course with those who say they have "authority" based upon the vote or some other authority handing over power.
How did we arrive at such a position where authority has such enormous power? It wasn't because of the vote. The democratic process is a thinly veiled attempt at coercion that tries to confuse you about who is in charge by registering your vote then quickly returning to their own agenda. The proof that you aren't in control isn't hard to find. All you have to do is ask to opt out of the system and you'll quickly find you don't have that choice. You are given a series of meaningless choices that will lead to the same result. This image just about sums it up...
It's enormously important that we understand the difference if we want to avoid pain in the short term. If we blindly accept control by central authority while this counter trend is made manifest, we could be in for a digital panopticon for a generation. The world could live under conditions that east Germany faced when the wall was built but an order of magnitude worse. Now coincidentally, Trump is talking of building a new wall. The cycles of history repeat and are visible to those who are aware.
Authority amassed so much power through having monopoly control on the printing of money. That is the #1 reason. The ability of authority to print up whatever money they need when they want and pass off that cost as future debt on unborn generations is what created such enormous political pressure. It's what they used to claim the disproportionate reward from the effects of prosperity of the industrial revolution. But this is unsustainable in the long run, so it's not a question of if, but when collapse will come. It will happen when "fake news" turns into "fake money"...
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Andreas Antonopoulos talked about the five stages of grief in the first video, but I would modify it slightly because depression and acceptance is not something that psychopaths take lying down. What we are likely to see is anger and war and even greater abuses of power until enough equity is drained from these parasites where they can no longer leech on the resources of the masses.
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I can see this happening exactly as you spell it out.
The centralized institutions that are in control now are not going to give up the power without a fight. Of course, we saw this happen in the record industry, to no avail. However, they did create a mess for a while before having to toss in the towel (remember suing their own customers?).
There is no stopping decentralization in my opinion but they can make it hard for a while. The one thing they have control over is the message. This is why I think we need to promote the idea of decentralization over cryptocurrency or blockchain.
Highlight things such as censorship, security, and centralized power in the big tech companies.
These are all things people are really starting to grasp onto.
I'm curious about the trouble you've had with Win 10 and Delphi: what was the exact nature of the trouble? I might now be having the same trouble, but I don't know for sure.
I can load a program to compile, and compile it --- once. If I try to compile two times in a row, I get the error message "EInOutError 'I/O error 32' which I assume (since I have the 32 bit version of Delphi) might just be the same kind of error as you are getting. I have to completely log out of the IDE before I can compile again. Galling. I'm curious what trouble you're having.
Thanks,
Ko
I'm not having that kind of trouble. I just don't like Windows 10 spyware.
Ah. Thanks. I had thought that Win 10 was disrupting the operation of Delphi for you. Maybe I misunderstood your post (which was, quite a while ago).
There was a problem running one of my IDE's (don't remember which one) a few months ago and it kept trying to force an update but I managed to roll back the windows 10 version and get it to work again. There were other problems as well.
The best thing about this tech is that it transcends boarders. It will be hard to control just use the decentralized platforms and avoid ones like ripple. Use alternatives to PayPal. Stay away from YouTube and use steemit more! 😺
Agreed.
Bitcoin is a huge gift to humanity and we have to try our best to defend it. I like the 5 stages of grief, but I like Gandhis version even better:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
We have passed stage one and two and are now slowly entering stage 3. We should be ready.
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That's why we need more articles like yours to spread the message! Have an upvote!
My concern is that most people who use PayPal don't care whether it wants to maintain central authority and control. Most people--even educated people--just want the convenience PayPal provides. If I'm trying to sell Uncle Louie's dinosaur suit on ebay and I don't use PayPal, I'm making it more difficult for a buyer to pay for the suit. The majority of PayPal users are not deep thinkers and would never entertain an argument about decentralized power. And if you asked them, quite a few of them would probably even side with those in authority. As you say "What we are likely to see is...even greater abuses of power." I'm afraid PayPal is going to win this one.