Blockchain Will Save Free Speech

[ponda]

The push for political correctness is gathering steam. Governments are putting the squeeze on freedom of speech online. Blockchain technology might be a way of maintaining freedom of expression on the internet.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqIAl4O4k_8

[vortexpoint]

Interesting concept. I have been thinking that it might be necessary to get alternatives to the old social media platforms now that internet censorship has been shifting to a bigger gear. I`m hoping we get some excellent alternatives and there will be a great exodus of internet age. But again maybe I`m too optimistic. However the cat is off the bag and more people than ever in known history realize the massive corruption. What ever tptb do, I believe the life will find a way.

I`m no expert but I love the idea of decentralised social media platform that cannot be taken over and shutdown. Hopefully people start moving into these new alternatives quickly.

[The Freedom Train]

So over my head. What I don't understand at all is why people who are fed up with a currency backed by nothing (the US dollar) are interested in investing a digital currency. It's like people who paid big money to build mansions for themselves in the second life platform. Just can't seem to grok it. Paying for a whole bunch of intangible ideas.

[Anchor]

Free speech needs more than censorship resistant platforms - these already exist (bit torrent for example). It needs workable solutions to being anonymous so "the man" cant come and find you and then ruin or end your life for speaking out against him.

[norman]

Free speech needs more than censorship resistant platforms - these already exist (bit torrent for example). It needs workable solutions to being anonymous so "the man" cant come and find you and then ruin or end your life for speaking out against him.

An education system churning out minds that are self locked isn't easily fixed either.

[ponda]

Free speech needs more than censorship resistant platforms - these already exist (bit torrent for example). It needs workable solutions to being anonymous so "the man" cant come and find you and then ruin or end your life for speaking out against him.

Having a decentralised uncensored non-corporate owned platform to be able to make an anonymous comment on might be a good start. i think that the blockchain tech has a lot of upside for getting away from the big centralised government compliant corporate monopoly that is spreading online.

cheers

[ponda]

Here's a couple of decentralised media platforms that are available now.

Freenet and Diaspora


Freenet

https://freenetproject.org

Browse websites, post on forums, and publish files within Freenet with strong privacy protections.

What is Freenet ?

Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication and publishing.




Diaspora

https://diasporafoundation.org

diaspora is based on three key philosophies:

Decentralization

Instead of everyone’s data being held on huge central servers owned by a large organization, diaspora* exists on independently run servers (“pods”) all over the world. You choose which pod to register with, and you can then connect seamlessly with the diaspora* community worldwide.

Freedom

You can be whoever you want to be in diaspora*. Unlike some networks, you don’t have to use your real identity. You can interact with people in whatever way you choose. The only limit is your imagination. diaspora* is also Free Software, giving you liberty over how you use it.


Privacy

In diaspora* you own your data. You don’t sign over rights to a corporation or other interest who could use it. In addition, you choose who sees what you share, using Aspects. With diaspora*, your friends, your habits, and your content is your business ... not ours!

[Morbid]

So over my head. What I don't understand at all is why people who are fed up with a currency backed by nothing (the US dollar) are interested in investing a digital currency. It's like people who paid big money to build mansions for themselves in the second life platform. Just can't seem to grok it. Paying for a whole bunch of intangible ideas.

they might be backed by "nothing", though the difference between any fiat currency & cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin is that the central banks print their currency out of sheer will (qe 1, 2, 3). cash is mostly unnacounted for as well as massive amounts of digital numbers in banker's databases - its inside info only known by few at the very top. with crypto everything is accounted for & transparent - forgery & printing out of thin air is technically impossible. that in itself is "something" that gives value to an end user. hope that helps.

[Honesty]

..........

[ponda]

Anything blockchained is controlled by the party responsible for the blockchain technology...that is NOT freedom, though it will certainly be presented to the masses as such.

It's early days. I don't think that most of the people who are developing blockchain tech are doing it to gain some type of control over the planet. The corporations and banks on the other hand.....

[Honesty]

..........

[ponda]

Ummm....you may want to review this post:

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?96968-Benjamin-Fulford-Update-3-April-2017-US-and-Japan-are-close-to-civil-war-as-Rockefeller-death-leaves-power-vacuum&p=1145357#post1145357

While most people involved with blockchain tech are just doing it for a living and little more, blockchain technology allows for a further centralization of control. Power corrupts...absolute power corrupts absolutely. By placing control into fewer and fewer hands, the end result is having the human collective handed over to a small group of psychopaths.

No thanks...

There's probably going to be both centralised and decentralised blockchain tech depending on what it will be used for. There is a lot of potential for the individual to break free somewhat from the big corporations/psychopaths with this evolving tech.

cheers

[ThePythonicCow]

There are some "common beliefs" being presented above in this thread that, as best as I can figure, are false memes.

What's really going on with money, with the web, and with blockchains is not what we have been led to believe.

Money is one of the most important means of control of humanity. It is not created out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Rather it is lent into existence, creating liens on the loan collateral and a demand for that currency in the future to fund repayments. A variety of means are used to keep the money "valuable", meaning to keep it flowing, from where it enters the economy as money lent, to where it leaves the economy as payment for essentials. These essentials include the repayments (of both principle plus interest, greater than the amount previously lent), as well as taxes and energy. The "petro-dollar" serves as a global tax-like system imposed by the American hegemony. Most of the funds collected by OPEC (Saudi Arabia and others) over the last several decades were "invested" in US Treasury debt, which those OPEC nations will never see again. What that really means is that most of those many trillions of US Dollars returned to the New York banks where they were, for all practical purposes, spent by the Exchange Stabilization Fund on manipulating the world's stock, bond, and money (forex) markets.

I spelled this out in more detail in an important post a couple of weeks ago: Misunderstanding the petro-dollar, inflation, and fiat money creation (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?96829-Misunderstanding-the-petro-dollar-inflation-and-fiat-money-creation)

Crypto currencies, such as Bitcoin, are but a pimple on an elephant's butt. Crypto currencies are based on block chain technology, which is inherently far too limited in scale to be able to directly enable billions of end using humans to directly transact on one or a few global block chains, as I spelled out in this post a few weeks ago: Trump 'orders all protest of his policies to be criminalized and press silenced', says Veterans Today -- Post #27 (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?96352-Trump-orders-all-protest-of-his-policies-to-be-criminalized-and-press-silenced-says-Veterans-Today&p=1137613&viewfull=1#post1137613). Also, blockchain technology is too "esoteric" to be directly understood, in its internals, by the ordinary user. All users of crypto currencies on smart phones, and almost all users on PC's, rely on the computers and services of various providers. As we've already seen, this also means that crypto currency users are at risk of theft by those providers, the most notorious example of which being Mt Gox (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/19/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox.html).

The means of generating Bitcoin and other such currently popular crypto currencies is also telling. Whoever controls the greatest proportion of compute power and low cost electricity to power the computations thereby potentially controls that cryptocurrency. This would apparently be China at present.

Blockchain technology is becoming a suitable way for a smaller number (hundreds or thousands) of competent institutions or technically savvy and well equipped individuals to cooperate on maintaining a ledger. It is not and in my estimation never will become a suitable way for billions of individuals to maintain shared control over a ledger. I expect that SWIFT (https://www.swift.com/) and CIPS (https://www.rt.com/business/239189-china-payment-system-ready/) will be replaced by, or re-engineered to become, a blockchain based system. This will be one part of engineering a global monetary system (https://www.corbettreport.com/chinas-swift-alternative-and-the-engineered-death-of-the-dollar/), to replace the current US Dollar based system. Multiple major national governments and financial institutions will be "bonded" together in a global political and monetary system that is subject to increased central surveillance and control, down to the level of each individual.

On the initial topic of this thread, anonymity is not the essence of free speech, nor does blockchain technology provide essential anonymity. Free speech occurs, in my view, when various groups, families, communities, etc can develop trusted relationships, over time, within which they can speak openly, free from much surveillance or control by outsiders. Fancy technology such as blockchains, or "secure web browsing" using https security certificates (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93499-How-the-Elite-Bastards-will-control-the-Wild-Wild-Web.&p=1144169&viewfull=1#post1144169) are like locks for your front door that only you, and Big Brother (some central intelligence agency) have keys for, and which only Big Brother can change. This keeps out common burglars and "terrorists", and yourself, if Big Brother is so inclined, or even just accidentally shuts you off.

An immense fear based campaign, over decades, is moving us toward this "Matrix (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjUltWHkZjTAhVX6WMKHZCxAzIQFgg0MAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Matrix&usg=AFQjCNHVw5QOPBoZOWQjqQn-u91xki3r1Q&bvm=bv.152174688,d.amc)" like "freedom" of "magical" technology enveloping human civilization. Most old farts are too technically illiterate to notice, and the few who do notice (such as myself) will die off soon enough. Few young will ever have substantial experience with the freedom of genuine anonymity and of trusted genuinely private relations of small groups and communities, nor will they have personally built up, from the solder, wires, and transistors up, including the software at all levels, the technology on which they depend and which they trust.

Such campaigns as "If you see something, say something" (encouraging snitching on your friends to the "authorities"), political correctness, ostracizing or imprisoning those who speak "inconvenient truths" (e.g. - researching the holocaust or 9/11) further destroy the ability of small, independent groups to engage in genuinely free (from centrally controlled oppression) speech. The constant flood of propaganda, misinformation and false memes in our schools and news media, along with the suppression of honest evidence and investigation, further contributes to the destruction of free and well informed speech.

The dumbing down of the population, using a variety of toxins in our food, water, air, and medicines contribute as well, reducing the ability of the population at large to engage in well informed, well articulated, insightful, discussions.

Sorry for this long post ... but the breadth, depth, and variety of the various, interlocking, means to suppress human freedom are not easy to describe more succinctly.

Summation: Blockchain technology will not save free speech (at least not any free speech worth the speaking.)

[ThePythonicCow]

As we've already seen, this also means that crypto currency users are at risk of theft by those providers, the most notorious example of which being Mt Gox (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/19/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox.html).
Crypto currency users are also at risk of changing regulations and limitations imposed on the transfer in and out of crypto currencies to any major currency (whether US Dollar, Chinese renminbi, or whatever). For just one of many examples of this, notice this article on Slashdot today: Bitcoin Exchange Sues Wells Fargo Over Massive Wire Transfer Suspension (https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/04/09/1913205/bitcoin-exchange-sues-wells-fargo-over-massive-wire-transfer-suspension).

Sooner or later, people will be persuaded that block chain technology and crypto currencies would be cool technology, if only they were "properly regulated". That will mark "game over" for any potential that block chain technology might have had for actually "saving human freedom", as that block chain technology becomes just one more piece of the inter-locking global puzzle of control and surveillance mechanisms.

[Honesty]

..........

[ponda]

As we've already seen, this also means that crypto currency users are at risk of theft by those providers, the most notorious example of which being Mt Gox (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/19/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox.html).
Crypto currency users are also at risk of changing regulations and limitations imposed on the transfer in and out of crypto currencies to any major currency (whether US Dollar, Chinese renminbi, or whatever). For just one of many examples of this, notice this article on Slashdot today: Bitcoin Exchange Sues Wells Fargo Over Massive Wire Transfer Suspension (https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/04/09/1913205/bitcoin-exchange-sues-wells-fargo-over-massive-wire-transfer-suspension).

Sooner or later, people will be persuaded that block chain technology and crypto currencies would be cool technology, if only they were "properly regulated". That will mark "game over" for any potential that block chain technology might have had for actually "saving human freedom", as that block chain technology becomes just one more piece of the inter-locking global puzzle of control and surveillance mechanisms.

Summation: Blockchain technology will not save free speech (at least not any free speech worth the speaking.)


Well...'maybe' Paul. It might turn out something like that BUT it's still the first minute of the first quarter of the game and no one knows the final result just yet. The blockchain is still evolving and its best uses are probably still unknown at this point in time. What 'other' types of decentralised anonymous private technology might come from blockchain developments that could benefit the public in a positive way ? Too early to throw in the towel on the blockchain in my humble opinion.

cheers

[ponda]

The argument that drugs use monies that cannot be tracked will be the reason for consolidating all transactions under the banner of one global currency:

GqP-1Y4-0cM

Most purchases that people make right now can be tracked. Anything bought with a credit/debit/bank card or a personal loan or mortgage can be tracked etc. I'm not saying that this is a good thing but it's already common place. All government spending and tax revenues should be able to be tracked accurately imho.

cheers

[ThePythonicCow]

Well...'maybe' Paul. It might turn out something like that BUT it's still the first minute of the first quarter of the game and no one knows the final result just yet. The blockchain is still evolving and its best uses are probably still unknown at this point in time. What 'other' types of decentralised anonymous private technology might come from blockchain developments that could benefit the public in a positive way ? Too early to throw in the towel on the blockchain in my humble opinion.
So far as technology goes, I'm not throwing in the towel on block technology. It's a useful and interesting way to implement what amounts to a distributed database with no single point of control.

I've been involved in implementing and understanding distributed computer and data systems for almost 40 years. Such distributed systems have their uses, and their limitations. No single blockchain will ever come remotely close to providing a single, world-wide, real-time, ledger for all human financial activity. That won't happen. Not even close.

But what I am more concerned with at the moment are the mischaracterizations of both "money" and "crypto-currency":

Money (debt-money, as now dominates the world's financial systems) is lent into existence, and taxed or levied out of existence. It is not "printed" (or key-stroked) into existence, without limit, by the banks.
Blockchain technology is not the magic key to preserve free speech, nor is it the basis for any possible potential world monetary system that has escaped from the control of our overlords.

Those two concerns of mine are not uncertain forecasts of a future that cannot be known to me yet. They are objections to the current false propaganda that is used to obfuscate the way that money really works (to enslave us.)

[ponda]

Well...'maybe' Paul. It might turn out something like that BUT it's still the first minute of the first quarter of the game and no one knows the final result just yet. The blockchain is still evolving and its best uses are probably still unknown at this point in time. What 'other' types of decentralised anonymous private technology might come from blockchain developments that could benefit the public in a positive way ? Too early to throw in the towel on the blockchain in my humble opinion.
So far as technology goes, I'm not throwing in the towel on block technology. It's a useful and interesting way to implement what amounts to a distributed database with no single point of control.

I've been involved in implementing and understanding distributed computer and data systems for almost 40 years. Such distributed systems have their uses, and their limitations. No single blockchain will ever come remotely close to providing a single, world-wide, real-time, ledger for all human financial activity. That won't happen. Not even close.

But what I am more concerned with at the moment are the mischaracterizations of both "money" and "crypto-currency":

Money (debt-money, as now dominates the world's financial systems) is lent into existence, and taxed or levied out of existence. It is not "printed" (or key-stroked) into existence, without limit, by the banks.
Blockchain technology is not the magic key to preserve free speech, nor is it the basis for any possible potential world monetary system that has escaped from the control of our overlords.

Those two concerns of mine are not uncertain forecasts of a future that cannot be known to me yet. They are objections to the current false propaganda that is used to obfuscate the way that money really works (to enslave us.)

The only prediction that i will make is that 'change' is coming

cheers

[ThePythonicCow]

The argument that drugs use monies that cannot be tracked will be the reason for consolidating all transactions under the banner of one global currency:

The "War on Drugs" will no doubt be one of the excuses used to justify a world monetary system.

A major collapse of the current US Reserve Petro-Dollar monetary system, with major damage to the world's financial and economic systems, will likely be, in my estimation, a more immediate and compelling excuse.


Most purchases that people make right now can be tracked. Anything bought with a credit/debit/bank card or a personal loan or mortgage can be tracked etc. I'm not saying that this is a good thing but it's already common place.
Surveillance of monetary activity down to the individual level is wide spread now, but not in a globally unified system. The "new world order" will move the primary locus of financial and monetary control out of New York, and into a multi-layered system, with the finances, laws, economies, and militaries of quasi-independent nations and large corporations all being globally controlled somewhat behind the scenes. The global monitoring and control of activity, down to the individual level, will be by systems extended in a more uniform global fashion, with nationalist flavorings.


All government spending and tax revenues should be able to be tracked accurately imho.
"Should" ?? ... Globally ?? -- Are you saying you want a global system in place sufficient to track all government spending and taxing ? Any globally controlling agency with sufficient power to track all spending and taxing by all governments is a global agency sufficiently powerful to enslave humanity.

[ponda]

Paul said:
"Should" ?? ... Globally ?? -- Are you saying you want a global system in place sufficient to track all government spending and taxing ? Any globally controlling agency with sufficient power to track all spending and taxing by all governments is a global agency sufficiently powerful to enslave humanity.


LOL. Do i want a "Big Bro Global Fascist Police State" enslaving the entire planet. Not quite. How about all public funds being totally and accurately accountable so there will be no more statements such as " we can't account for $2.3 trillion dollars of pentagon expenditure". No more government waste of public funds etc. Imho public funds are being syphoned off into black projects etc. This needs to stop. The only way is to be able to accurately account for all government spending and revenue collection WITHOUT a 1984 Orwellian scenario. I don't think that you have to have the global enslavement of humanity to be able hold the system of government accountable.

cheers

[ThePythonicCow]

I don't think that you have to have the global enslavement of humanity to be able hold the system of government accountable.

Yes - seems we're in a bit of Catch 22 here. The only way evident to make our oppressors more responsible is to give them more power to oppress us.

[Morbid]

Paul do you realise that anyone can make a cryptocurrency today? there are all sort of different systems by now, bitcoin is so happened to be the first one with largest network effect. there are coins that run on tor & other encrypted networks. no matter what scrutiny or regulation bitcoin might go through in future, it will not stop you or me to just simply switching to something less observed for our one-on-one transaction..
i mean i dont wish to step on anyone's toes here - you are a mod after all & your opinion is highly valued here. though unfortunately most things you listed above is rather your subjective opinion, none of us knows whether things happened the way they ment to. internet was also created by large corporations (& those above them) to control us all, but wait, isnt it what we use today to freely communicate & share our opinions? your life is quite dependant on internet today as you spend number of hours here. im not trying to attack you but just providing a mirror.
;
how can we shape people's opinion without knowing the subject? - educating oneself is the path where other's opinions stop being matter. im not asking to be listened - just spend some time trying to understand the subject rather than absorbing opinions regarding it.
funny that knowing all about central bank fraud we here still use their money daily & keep our savings within the system. it seems that one of the most effective ways we can implement to fight this dragon is through our pockets! the fight got to start somewhere.. right?

[ThePythonicCow]

Paul do you realise that anyone can make a cryptocurrency today? there are all sort of different systems by now, bitcoin is so happened to be the first one with largest network effect. there are coins that run on tor & other encrypted networks. no matter what scrutiny or regulation bitcoin might go through in future, it will not stop you or me to just simply switching to something less observed for our one-on-one transaction..
Yes - anyone with sufficient technical skills can make a cryptocurrency using blockchain technology. I am confident that I could do so myself, if I were so inclined.

Many others have created cryptocurrencies. The site that I currently use to track cryptocurrency prices, CoinMarketCap.com (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/views/all/), lists some 696 distinct cryptocurrencies at this point.

Some of my comments above were concerning the underling blockchain distributed database technology, and I deliberately used the term "blockchain", not "bitcoin", in these comments. Blockchain technology deliberately trades off both the abilities to handle high volume and to provide low latency confirmations, in favor of the ability to avoid depending on any single "master" record that is under the control of a single, perhaps untrusted, party.

If there were some way to fight central bank fraud, I'd enthusiastically consider it. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on blockchain technology claim to be such a possible way.

Having spent considerable time studying these currencies and this technology, I have come to the conclusion that this is a false claim. It moreover seems likely to me that some of the more capable agents of our overlords know that this is a false claim, and they are deliberately encouraging this false claim in the alternative media as yet another distraction from and partial hangout covering up, the real dynamics of our civilization's monetary system.

Just because I need something bad, and something claims to meet that need, doesn't mean I embrace that thing, if I conclude that its claims are false.

===

The ability to transact with a few other parties in secret, hidden from the prying eyes of our overlords and from the grubby hands of more common thieves, is of little value, if the thing transacted can not be exchanged in the "real world" for the goods, services, taxes and debt payments that most of us, who are not serious isolationists, seek to acquire or pay for in the public markets.

===

So, yes, I presumably could make a blockchain based cryptocurrency that kept transactions hidden from the minions of the elite (at least until they had reason to focus their surveillance on this), but:

Neither that cryptocurrency nor any other cryptocurrency so conceived and so constructed using blockchain technology across an open and evolving set of servers will ever handle the transaction load of a sizable proportion of the world's economic activity, nor provide suitable response times for such a workload.
As much as I'd like to stick it in the eye of the Fed and associated Banksters, no such cryptocurrency threatens to provide any end run around or opposition to them. Rather, instead, I expect that the Banksters plan to make good use of blockchain technology themselves, as part of the backbone of their "new world banking order".
Currencies, of whatever form, are "in demand" only when they are either useful for paying for something of value (such as buying oil, buying opiates, paying taxes or paying debts, in our present world), or convertible in volume to such a currency. Existing cryptocurrencies, such as the 696 distinct cryptocurrencies listed at the above link, "serve" and provide value at the whim and pleasure of our financial overlords.
When and if the day comes that I cannot convert the small fraction of one Bitcoin that I own to into some currency useful for making purchases or paying taxes, outside of the Bitcoin ecosystem, then on that day my fractional Bitcoin will become worth even less than a US Confederate Dollar, the day after the Confederates lost the US Civil War in 1865. I won't even have a nicely engraved piece of paper to decorate my wall with or to serve as scratchy toilet paper.

[ThePythonicCow]

By the way, I have been involved with a very similar technology to the blockchain, since its inception in 2005, long before Satoshi Nakamoto introduced the blockchain to the world in October of 2008.

In 2005, Linus Torvalds created a distributed source control system called "git", which uses a distributed chain of cryptographically secure changes to a shared source tree to manage the Linux operating system kernel. I was heavily involved in Linux kernel development at the time, as the primary author of cpusets, the ancestor of what's now known as cgroups. I had a long history with software source control systems at the time, having:

worked across the hallway from Marc Rochind, the creator of SCCS inside Bell Labs,
been the lead architect and developer for another such source control system, called MESA, also used inside Bell Labs,
been the lead architect and developer for a major ctools rewrite, the main source control system inside Silicon Graphics,
worked across the hallway from Larry McVoy, the developer of Bitkeeper, the system used for the Linux kernel prior to git, and
been an active Linux kernel developer at the time that it switched from Bitkeeper to Git.

I know source control, and I know git, which uses essentially the same technology as the blockchain, to solve a different problem, that of reliable, distributed, software source code management. I also understand the mathematics involved, with a Mathematics degree and decades of experience dabbling in cryptography.

Distributed, cryptographically secure, change sequences, whether for software updates or financial transactions, are an important technology for the present and for the future, on the World Wide Web.

However applications of this technology are and will necessarily continue to be "purpose built", for specific uses with somewhat limited transaction volumes and not very stringent latencies.

The world-wide use of such technology for a substantial proportion of the world's financial transactions will necessarily be in a multi-tiered structure, involving many smaller blockchains, and gatekeepers both between these many blockchains and at the "entry" and "exit" doors, where monetary worth enters and leaves these blockchains. The minions of the elite bastards will become these gatekeepers, and impose whatever laws, taxes, limitations, fraud, and extortions they can on the flow of funds on and off various blockchains. Such is already the case now, and will remain the case, for the forseeable future.

The glowing reports of the importance of the blockchain, such as in the new documentary The Blockchain and Us (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-10/blockchain-and-us-documentary), are one part correct, one part high production quality, one part high promotion quality, and three parts hype. Just listen to it ... it reeks of hype. And it's misleading, in my considered and experienced opinion.

The single most important word in my above imposing blizzard of claims is "gatekeeper".

For a better understanding of what I mean, I recommend studying the works of Michael Hudson, such as Paul Craig Roberts discusses in his recent article The World’s Best Economist (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/04/paul-craig-roberts-on-junk-economics/), which is a review of Hudson's most recent book J is For Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/02/j-is-for-junk-economics-a-guide-to-reality-in-an-age-of-deception/). Hudson frequently uses the term "rent extraction" to refer to the extraction of fees, profits and taxes from the many economic "toll booths" that are constructed in our civilizations economic activity. See for example this recent interview of Hudson, Why Deficits Hurt Banking Profits (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/why-deficits-hurt-banking-profits/), by Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network.

(By the way, economics is another area in which I have studied for years. I was once even, albeit briefly, a student in the Graduate School of Economics in the University of North Texas.)

Rent extraction, by gatekeepers imposing their way at various (figurative) toll booths, in a world of many blockchains involved in a multitude of legal jurisdictions, is what we have now in cryptocurrency, and what we will have even more so in the future, as an increasing proportion of financial and monetary transactions go onto blockchains.

Blockchains (very much the plural here) are the wave of the future. Unfortunately, the blockchain technology will serve to more stringently impose its constraints on transaction flow, thus favoring, not restricting, the rent extractions of gatekeepers.

[Morbid]

wow its sounds like you're on top of it all. good luck & see you in future!

[ponda]

Paul said;
Yes - seems we're in a bit of Catch 22 here. The only way evident to make our oppressors more responsible is to give them more power to oppress us.



No not really. The old systems are failing and change is on its way. :)





“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” ~ Victor Hugo

[Foxie Loxie]

Nice to learn about your background....good to know someone of your "stature" is here on Avalon! :bowing:

[ponda]

Short 1 min video that shows some of the early possibilities that the blockchain might have on voting in the future.


cheers






Blockchain Voting & The Future Of Democracy




Nowadays, voting is mostly carried out using paper based systems which despite their inexpensiveness and accessibility have two major setbacks; firstly, paper voting systems are almost entirely dependent on the honesty and security of personnel supervising the procedure; secondly, paper voting systems have a scalability problem which can be reflected on the accuracy of the results of the voting procedure.

The blockchain technology represents a scalable solution to the problems affecting today’s voting systems via offering a fraud-proof mechanism for electronic voting

In September 2016, The Economist partnered with Kaspersky Labs to organize a competition where MBA students from the USA and Britain competed to create voting systems that are built using the blockchain. The Votebook team won the competition and presented what can be considered an effective blockchain based voting system.

Votebook create a blockchain voting model that closely resembles the present system, utilizing voting booths and stations while backing up the voting process, which took place on the blockchain, via paperwork.

Although voters’ experience in Votebook’s blockchain based voting model will closely resemble the present voting experience using EVMs in the USA, it will be way more secure, reliable and hack-proof. So, the blockchain technology cannot only change the way we vote, but it can also totally introduce democracy to a whole new level.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQSliI-rPg

[ThePythonicCow]

Although voters’ experience in Votebook’s blockchain based voting model will closely resemble the present voting experience using EVMs in the USA, it will be way more secure, reliable and hack-proof. So, the blockchain technology cannot only change the way we vote, but it can also totally introduce democracy to a whole new level.
More "secure, reliable and hack-proof" in theory, which means "ignoring reality."

However, anytime that the means of counting votes is "magic" for most of those voting, then the election results come under the control of the "magicians" who actually develop and operate the "magical" devices. Everyone else has to take it on faith that the claims by these magicians that the vote counting machines or software are fair, reliable and honest.

Any such faith is grievously misplaced.

Honest elections require that ordinary voters be able to view and understand the vote counting process.

If everyone had the mathematical and software background I had, and if everyone could easily examine the actual software code running in a "blockchain based" voting mechanism and know it was the actual code, unhacked, being used, then a blockchain based voting mechanism could work.

... back to the reality we live in on this earth ... paper ballots, that both the voter and the vote counter can easily understand, counted locally in each voting precint, are the best vote tallying mechanism that I know of.

[ponda]

These vids from this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93986-Blockchain-Technology-in-Online-Voting-Follow-My-Vote) give a more detailed explanation of how blockchain tech might be used in the voting process in the future.


cheers





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXgka5404Gc



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R53pDz4vp1s




And here are two documentaries that highlight the flaws and corruption in the current systems.






Stealing America: Vote by Vote - A Documentary on Voting Fraud

STEALING AMERICA: Vote by Vote brings together behind-the-scenes perspectives with a focus on the U.S. presidential elections. Startling stories that warrant serious investigation range from vote counts that don't match votes cast to sweeping disenfranchisement of minority voters and many other examples of election results. We hear from voters who experienced a wide range of problems, including votes flipping from one candidate to another, and not enough machines to serve the number of voters. Investigative journalists describe how their reportage on election fraud was ignored. First-person testimonies speak of waiting in line nine hours to vote. We hear polling experts' requests for data was rejected. Ballots were being systematically destroyed, making audits impossible. The bottom line message is for voters to be aware and to take responsibility and report irregularities.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH30e7YIKeQ




Hacking Democracy - Hack Votes

This is the hack that proved America's elections can be stolen using a few lines of computer code. The 'Hursti Hack' in this video is an excerpt from the feature length Emmy nominated documentary 'Hacking Democracy'. The hack of the Diebold voting system in Leon County, Florida, is real. It was verified by computer scientists at UC Berkeley.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Bq9A1F3X8

[ThePythonicCow]

These vids from this thread (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?93986-Blockchain-Technology-in-Online-Voting-Follow-My-Vote) give a more detailed explanation of how blockchain tech might be used in the voting process in the future.
What stops that "third party vendor" who has the contract to verify ID's from verifying a few extra thousand or million (depending on the size of the election) "voters", who represent "the highest bidder" for that vendor's election "enhancing" services?

By the way, there is almost no "more detailed explanation" of blockchain technology in these two videos. Other than mentioning a blockchain's purported immunity to hacking, almost nothing in these videos goes into any blockchain technology.

In my estimation, we're being sold another scheme, to make it easier to steal elections while at the same time making it easier to convince voters that the election results are honest.


And here are two documentaries that highlight the flaws and corruption in the current systems.
Yes - the current systems are corrupt.

Beware the offered solutions, however.

[ThePythonicCow]

For a better understanding of what I mean, I recommend studying the works of Michael Hudson, such as Paul Craig Roberts discusses in his recent article The World’s Best Economist (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/04/paul-craig-roberts-on-junk-economics/), which is a review of Hudson's most recent book J is For Junk Economics: A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/02/j-is-for-junk-economics-a-guide-to-reality-in-an-age-of-deception/). Hudson frequently uses the term "rent extraction" to refer to the extraction of fees, profits and taxes from the many economic "toll booths" that are constructed in our civilizations economic activity. See for example this recent interview of Hudson, Why Deficits Hurt Banking Profits (http://michael-hudson.com/2017/03/why-deficits-hurt-banking-profits/), by Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network.

Here an excellent four part discussion between Michael Hudson and John Siman, a "Classicist" who is clearly well schooled in the history of ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean. The series is entitled The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson About His Forthcoming Book The Collapse of Antiquity.

Part 1 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-about-his-forthcoming-book-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-1.html)
Part 2 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-mixed-economies-today-compared-to-those-of-antiquity-part-2.html)
Part 3 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-the-inherent-financial-instability-in-western-civilizations-dna-part-3.html)
Part 4 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html)

Michael Hudson, drawn out by someone who understands much of the classical history that will be behind Hudson's upcoming book The Collapse of Antiquity, does an excellent job of reworking how we understand the various political, economic and financial structures that occurred back then, and how that relates to our current situation.

[ThePythonicCow]

Here an excellent four part discussion between Michael Hudson and ...
For all the Michael Hudson fans out there (all two or three of us on this thread), I'll go further off the topic of this thread and recommend the following interview of Michael Hudson conducted on 7 May 2018 in Beijing, by Professor Lau Kin Chi and Professor Sit Tsui Jade.

Michael takes us on a quick tour of his life ... wow ... a man of diverse talents and a very high functioning mind.

To quote the Youtube blurb:
Professor Hudson talked about his formative years, and his turn to economics from music as he found his mentor Terence McCarthy's speech about economics beautiful and asethetic. He recalled his experiences in research and teaching, and the background leading to his writing the many books on imperialism, balance of payment, history of debt, and fictitious capital.
hH9pzzIIEj4

[ThePythonicCow]

Here an excellent four part discussion between Michael Hudson and John Siman, a "Classicist" who is clearly well schooled in the history of ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean. The series is entitled The Delphic Oracle Was Their Davos: A Four-Part Interview With Michael Hudson About His Forthcoming Book The Collapse of Antiquity.

Part 1 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-about-his-forthcoming-book-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-1.html)
Part 2 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-mixed-economies-today-compared-to-those-of-antiquity-part-2.html)
Part 3 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-the-inherent-financial-instability-in-western-civilizations-dna-part-3.html)
Part 4 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html)


The following paragraph, from Part 4 (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html) of this discussion with Michael Hudson, summarizes my main concern with our present debt-money system:




That is what Aristophanes meant when his characters say that wealth is not like bananas or lentil soup. Wealth has no object but itself. Wealth is status — and also political control. The creditor’s wealth is the debtor’s liability. The key to its dynamic is not production and consumption, but assets and liabilities — the economy’s balance sheet. Wealth and status in the sense of who/whom. It seeks to increase without limit, and Socrates and Aristotle found the major example to be creditors charging interest for lending “barren” money. Interest had to be paid out of the debtor’s own product, income or finally, forfeiture of property; creditors did not provide means of making interest to pay off the loan.
I emboldened the key problem - the compounding interest increases the debt until the debtor's collateral is forfeited.

The debtors include all manner of participants in Western economies - individuals, local and national governments, and businesses large and small.

The "money changers" as they were known long ago, aka the Banksters as they are disparagingly called now, pump up the debt ... it is their main product ... until a place and time of their choosing, when they tighten up credit lending policies, forcing a financial and economic collapse, which their foreknowledge enables them to side step, to make more money shorting the markets on the way down, and then to collect the collateral for the failed debts at the bottom.