4 ms·

There are already a lot of forks of Bitcoin, some even moderately successful. Actually independent of feminism I have long wondered if other cryptocoins might

There are already a lot of forks of Bitcoin, some even moderately successful. Actually independent of feminism I have long wondered if other cryptocoins might supersede Bitcoin exactly for the reason of fairness. Assume the world wakes up to Bitcoin in a couple of years. Then the BTC wealth will be very unequally distributed. Why should people start using BTC if they are poor in it? They could as well say "hey, cryptocurrencies are swell, but let's use another one were nobody had a headstart". I guess part of dogecoins success story is that everybody got rich in dogecoin quickly (1 Million doges per minute). A lot of people who didn't like Bitcoin like dogecoin.

hosh 13y ago
Sure, I know there are lots of forks of Bitcoin. I'm talking about forking the whole economy though, which requires being able to at least trade for basic survival needs. From an existential point of view, there is no such thing as fairness and yet, people still create whatever notions of fairness. Fairness tends to be deeply rooted into emotional makeup of a person. Many conflicts come about because the parties involved have different, deeply rooted sense of fairness. Forking in open-source software allowed it to more or less outcompete commercial software in many (though not all) areas, and what finally made it work was a relatively cheap way for forked projects to be merged back together again. In other words, if we are forking along the lines of fairness (and come to think of it, notions of fairness are the psychological factor from which economies arise from), then eventually, for things to work out means being able to merge economies back together again.
- throwawaycoder 13y ago
  I probably can't follow your whole reasoning :-( I suppose whole sub-economies will emerge. Some will run on Bitcoin, others on dogecoin, others on whatnot. And of course there are markets for exchanging cryptocurrencies. And there will be tools for just accepting any currency, if the salesman doesn't care. For example there is a widget for accepting dogecoins that automatically converts all dogecoins earned into Bitcoins. Those submarkets will perhaps compete with each other. If few people accept Bitcoin but many accept dogecoin, the price of Bitcoin will fall relative to dogecoin. Or so I imagine.
- hosh 13y ago
  @throwawaycoder I see. You're underlying assumption is that there will ever be only one single "economy" of which there are multiple markets. I'm not sure that is wrong either (though I am not sure that is right). Thanks for bringing that up.
  - throwawaycoder 13y ago
    Until a couple of days ago I only took Bitcoin serious. But dogecoin might me think twice. And today I learned about Cthulhu "offerings" (another Bitcoin currency). I could just imagine how some people would prefer to use "offerings". No idea how things will actually play out, though. Most development energy is certainly poured into Bitcoin, but it tends to be easy to transfer the technical progress in Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. The wallets for dogecoin and Litecoin seem to be forked from Bitcoin, too.
  - hosh 13y ago
    @throwawaycoder huh, not sure why your comments get downvoted. The forking I mean is not necessarily the technical part of it, but rather the interactions of people. On the other hand, I also just talked with someone I know who has been in the payment space for a long time -- he says he prefers to keep things simple, so not necessarily a "forking" that happens. Eh well, something to think about for me. I think the "forking" concept is useful for me when we start talking about markets for which there is oppression. I'm not particularly interested in things like drug or gun trade. I'm much more interested in things like, being able to 3D print a tractor so people can farm land and grow food even if vested interests try to suppress that tractor.

hosh 13y ago

Sure, I know there are lots of forks of Bitcoin. I'm talking about forking the whole economy though, which requires being able to at least trade for basic survival needs. From an existential point of view, there is no such thing as fairness and yet, people still create whatever notions of fairness. Fairness tends to be deeply rooted into emotional makeup of a person. Many conflicts come about because the parties involved have different, deeply rooted sense of fairness. Forking in open-source software allowed it to more or less outcompete commercial software in many (though not all) areas, and what finally made it work was a relatively cheap way for forked projects to be merged back together again. In other words, if we are forking along the lines of fairness (and come to think of it, notions of fairness are the psychological factor from which economies arise from), then eventually, for things to work out means being able to merge economies back together again.

throwawaycoder 13y ago
I probably can't follow your whole reasoning :-( I suppose whole sub-economies will emerge. Some will run on Bitcoin, others on dogecoin, others on whatnot. And of course there are markets for exchanging cryptocurrencies. And there will be tools for just accepting any currency, if the salesman doesn't care. For example there is a widget for accepting dogecoins that automatically converts all dogecoins earned into Bitcoins. Those submarkets will perhaps compete with each other. If few people accept Bitcoin but many accept dogecoin, the price of Bitcoin will fall relative to dogecoin. Or so I imagine.
hosh 13y ago
@throwawaycoder I see. You're underlying assumption is that there will ever be only one single "economy" of which there are multiple markets. I'm not sure that is wrong either (though I am not sure that is right). Thanks for bringing that up.
- throwawaycoder 13y ago
  Until a couple of days ago I only took Bitcoin serious. But dogecoin might me think twice. And today I learned about Cthulhu "offerings" (another Bitcoin currency). I could just imagine how some people would prefer to use "offerings". No idea how things will actually play out, though. Most development energy is certainly poured into Bitcoin, but it tends to be easy to transfer the technical progress in Bitcoin to other cryptocurrencies. The wallets for dogecoin and Litecoin seem to be forked from Bitcoin, too.
- hosh 13y ago
  @throwawaycoder huh, not sure why your comments get downvoted. The forking I mean is not necessarily the technical part of it, but rather the interactions of people. On the other hand, I also just talked with someone I know who has been in the payment space for a long time -- he says he prefers to keep things simple, so not necessarily a "forking" that happens. Eh well, something to think about for me. I think the "forking" concept is useful for me when we start talking about markets for which there is oppression. I'm not particularly interested in things like drug or gun trade. I'm much more interested in things like, being able to 3D print a tractor so people can farm land and grow food even if vested interests try to suppress that tractor.