Re:Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
by endisneigh on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @04:19PM
(#28765041)
> If you're worried about currency falling under the control of an unaccountable group of oligarchs who can't easily be removed, I have some bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Board_of_Gover...
These are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, both of which are elected by people democratically. In addition if any of them were particularly egregious, a motivated populace could amend the constitution via no representatives and kick them out anyway.
So...
Re:Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
by philwelch on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @04:33PM
(#28765212)
> These are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, both of which are elected by people democratically.
Do you know a single person who, in their entire lives, has ever voted for either their President or their Senator primarily on the basis of Federal Reserve Board appointments? Most voters don't even know the constitutional duties of the President. Presidential candidates are (mostly) front men for unaccountable groups of oligarchs who can't easily be removed.
Re:Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
by imtringued on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @04:49PM
(#28765428)
Why would you care? All the Fed is doing is kill inflation as much as it can. The only thing that they should stop doing is QE because it literally does nothing. It's as if we swapped names. My comments wouldn't change.
Re:Cryptocurrencies’ Carbon Footprint Underestimated
by elvatoloco55 on Tuesday October 05, 2021 @05:57PM
(#28766203)
Yeah expanding the money supply by 50% causes no inflation.
Just like in every country where the printing press has been abused. Literally 0 precedent right?
If you're worried about currency falling under the control of an unaccountable group of oligarchs who can't easily be removed, I have some bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Board_of_Gover...
The most traditional means of removing oligarchs is for an angry mob to murder them and their entire families. Does cryptocurrency prevent that? Maybe if you don't know who the oligarchs are. But cryptocurrency also doesn't really require that, either. A currency is only valuable when enough people believe that it is valuable. If there's an actual problem with a particular coin, people can switch coins--which they can't with fiat.
Oligarchs, or at least powerful elites, are more or less a human universal in cultures of a sufficient size and complexity. The main difference with democracy is that democracy makes it far easier to gain power through demagoguery and propaganda.
> Even if what I'm saying doesn't come to be, at a minimum you've introduced yet another layer to our financial systems for no benefit - our current system isn't here by accident. It's here due to learnings - learnings about human nature, markets, and so forth.
To what ends?
Among other things, fiat currency makes individual human beings more governable. Cryptocurrency makes individual human beings less governable. The more governable the private individual becomes, the easier it becomes for an oligarchy to oppress him.