Sven Slootweg @joepie91@pixie.town

@serapath @joelving @powersource And why is it hard?

@serapath @joelving @powersource ... no, that is not how it works, and that is not where the power dynamics are. If it were that simple, you could simply decide not to use their money and the problem would be solved. The fact that that hasn't happened should tell you that there's more going on here.

@serapath @powersource Yes, but this is precisely the point I am trying to make. Those systems *did* break down, and I do not see a reason to believe that cryptocurrency will be magically immune from this (and I would argue that it has reached this state in record time, looking at the state of the cryptocurrency world).

Point being, cryptocurrency and its vision of "P2P money" will not fix any of these problems. It simply cannot. The problem isn't with the choice of currency or issuance in the first place.

@whreq Right. But that is a very small minority of people in practice, and that is Their Problem, to put it bluntly. It does not create an obligation on anyone else's part to accept that goal.

And in practice, most people just are not *that* growth-obsessed, and are more just operating on assumptions about what 'success' looks like, and are entirely capable of finding a middle ground. Including many of the people who are loud about it.

@TechConnectify That is definitely a major problem, though it's unfortunately not the *full* problem either. I always make a point of explaining to people that "capitalism" is an ideology rather than an economic system (and therefore different from "markets"), though in more words - and then very often run into people simply not wanting to believe that a) this distinction even exists, or that b) capitalism is ideological in nature, no matter how much evidence you can provide.

This doesn't happen with everyone, and explaining what I mean with 'capitalism' is definitely an improvement over not doing so, but it's unfortunately not a miracle solution either, even if I do agree that it's a *prerequisite*.

@whreq I do not believe that there are circumstances where there is no middle ground. I do agree that there will be a non-zero amount of people who will not compromise on anything under any circumstances, regardless of whether there are any concrete concerns. I do not think that that would have done anywhere near the damage that has occurred now (and I am also talking about damage to the *existing* community, not just "scaring away newcomers").

@whreq I was there when people were trying to have that conversation and got paved over.

@serapath @joelving @powersource The rich do not get rich through printing money. They get rich through exploitation.

@serapath @powersource Sorry, but this is just completely false. Early forms of money were often collectively-managed exchanges of value where the money was based on existing things and a mutual agreement about their value. There was no central issuer. These kinds of systems were even cited as an inspiration for Bitcoin!

@whreq And that is how we ended up with the overall hostility. It was entirely avoidable if said people actually took the time to talk this through with others.

@whreq It may not be. But that is not a reason to just storm ahead and not give a shit about the rest; it's a reason to tread cautiously and carefully think about how to approach this without causing excessive issues for others. And that simply didn't happen.

Basically, in any conflict, the healthy way to resolve it is to collectively find the solution that works the best for everybody. What happened here is that one group went "well I don't care what you want, *I* want this network to grow bigger, so fuck you" and just went full steam ahead on their own preferences.

@whreq (And I understand that this wasn't very clear to many of the newcomers - they mostly just ended up being collateral damage in the conflict, more or less)