a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  3353 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How Bitcoin’s Blockchain Could Power an Alternate Internet

Derailing in 3... 2... 1...

What is it with fucking libertarian psychopaths and tech?

    The car Jen hires, in turn, makes deals for road space with other cars, depending on her hurry level. All these cars, of course, drive themselves. But more than that, they’re autonomous business entities — they own themselves. If they prosper, they have “children,” by commissioning more vehicles; if they don’t, Hearn says, “they can’t recharge their batteries, and they die.”

This isn't fucking Conway's Life, this is a bunch of taxis on a freeway. Since when did "survival of the fittest" become an appropriate thing to inject into gassing up? How did we make the leap from "like Uber but with bidding" to "autonomous non-sentient entities competing for bitcoin?"

By the way, suppose Jen's on her way to the airport when her car "dies" - after all, hunger builds desperation, and desperation builds lowballing. What's Jen's recourse? Who pays for the tow truck to get Jen's dead taxi out of the road?

I'd also like an explanation, please, of what happens when someone exploits a zero day on Windows that causes Conficker-level reversion of the blockchain to conflicted levels. What happens when you have a minority opinion over the blockchain's value?

Finally, I've yet to see any attempt an an explanation for how commerce can happen via bitcoin under any sort of oversight (which, to the majority of humanity, is called "protection"). How exactly do we go from "today" to "utopia" without blasting through a Mt.Gox-shaped hellscape?