Re:Ghash.io very close to 51% of bitcoin pool
by VMG on Thursday January 09, 2014 @03:44PM
(#7033089)
It is both very technical and very political.
Encryption itself is a highly political technology - the right for two parties to communicate securely and covertly is controversial in many parts of the world, even today.
The economics of centralization are a dependent on the technical choices of the protocol -- PPCoin and scrypt-based crypto-currencies are specifically designed to avoid the scenario that is happening right now, by not relying solely on sha256^2 hashing power. Of course they are not perfect and have their own issues.
Re:Ghash.io very close to 51% of bitcoin pool
by scotty79 on Thursday January 09, 2014 @04:55PM
(#7033557)
Politics is about taking things from people without actually shooting at them. I think your definition of politics so broad that in encompasses apolitical things.
Re:Ghash.io very close to 51% of bitcoin pool
by pron on Thursday January 09, 2014 @05:41PM
(#7033797)
Politics (New Oxford American Dictionary): "the assumptions or principles relating to or inherent in a sphere, theory, or thing, esp. when concerned with power and status in a society".
So politics is everything concerning the managing of power in a society.
I am not sure I catch your meaning (about incentives being encoded etc.), but suppose they are. Isn't that a very political statement to design a system that entrusts "the last word" with an abstract algorithm rather than humans? Why is it that way?
And again, whenever engineers build something that they want people to use to change the world, they can no longer hide behind "technical". This isn't a discussion about using one hash function over another. It's a discussion about how quickly concentrated power arose in what was meant to be a system free of concentrated power.