Well, if money were defined by thousands of lines of poorly written C++ code and you had to run the same (bug-for-bug compatible) C++ code to use your money, then sure, programmable.
Also, when the monetary policy needs to change, you need to take all the money offline for a stop-the-world updated coordinated over IRC or even Reddit.
And it's "money" only in the sense it's an artificially scarce resource/reward created for wasting electricity to find magic numbers. Not entirely stable in the long term (as we've seen with 2-5 recent proposals to "fix it" in the past few months).
Money is "programmable money". It's like saying that a magic new protocol that inefficiently creates an emergent behavior that resembles the behavior of email is somehow better than just building a web service that does the job directly and efficiently.
> I've never understood Hacker New's (majority) vitriol towards Bitcoin.
Perhaps it's because a forum full of software programmers who aren't mesmerized by the technical merits of the insanely overhyped bitcoin software are exhausted from being told that they just don't understand why this software is the future of money that will disrupt finance and liberate the masses from the tyranny of banking. I think every programmer can agree that bitcoin is a unique and interesting technical feat and even a pretty impressive demonstration of what software can achieve, but any concessions to bitcoin's technical merit seems to invite absurd levels of over-the-top evangelism that grates against any patience for bitcoin is a technical topic.
With all that stated, I still think the GP's comment is unnecessarily condescending and doesn't add anything constructive to the conversation.
Its proponents push it as a currency without a government to rule it, and that's fair, but it does have its economic assumptions baked into the code itself. And if it became widespread, there'd be no way for people to vote on making changes to those economic assumptions. They're baked into the code, and into the network.
Something that could potentially govern people's lives (i.e. a new kind of currency) that they have no say at all in operating? I'm not comfortable with that; the general arc of history has been to give people more power in the political and economic realms, and this is definitely a step back from that.
More like digital gold. This in that it has a arbitrary fixed amount, and if the storage unit holding the "coins" gets lost that amount is forever reduced.
All in all, it is the perfect fuel for speculation and hoarding. Neither is something you want with a day to day main street trading currency.
As far as I'm concerned, Venmo, PayPal, Square Cash, Google Wallet, Apple Pay all work fine for me and are as good as cash for 99% of my daily use cases like buying coffee or spotting a friend some money :)
I'm pretty sure it's just a run of the mill MLM going through it's last stages. You have to be a certain kind of stupid to think Bitcoin could possibly work.
>You have to be a certain kind of stupid to think Bitcoin could possibly work.
We live in a society where everyone is stupid. People in our society will essentially give you things for free in exchange for green paper. It all works out because everybody is an idiot. You may have been ripped off for your services in exchange for green paper, but because you can always safely rip off some other idiot with your useless wads of green paper, everything is a-ok. The economy works because of mutual stupidity.
Bitcoin is not an MLM. But to get it to work people need to work on being stupid together. When I say hey, I'm going to sell you this worthless data on my computer called Bitcoin for $50, everyone else needs to say "Yes, I buy." When everyone participates in this idiocracy then bitcoin works. Which goes full circle to your original statement.
>You have to be a certain kind of stupid to think Bitcoin could possibly work.
timbowhite|10 years ago
It's literally programmable money.
seiji|10 years ago
Also, when the monetary policy needs to change, you need to take all the money offline for a stop-the-world updated coordinated over IRC or even Reddit.
And it's "money" only in the sense it's an artificially scarce resource/reward created for wasting electricity to find magic numbers. Not entirely stable in the long term (as we've seen with 2-5 recent proposals to "fix it" in the past few months).
mpyne|10 years ago
It's not better, even if it is a nifty hack.
vectorpush|10 years ago
Perhaps it's because a forum full of software programmers who aren't mesmerized by the technical merits of the insanely overhyped bitcoin software are exhausted from being told that they just don't understand why this software is the future of money that will disrupt finance and liberate the masses from the tyranny of banking. I think every programmer can agree that bitcoin is a unique and interesting technical feat and even a pretty impressive demonstration of what software can achieve, but any concessions to bitcoin's technical merit seems to invite absurd levels of over-the-top evangelism that grates against any patience for bitcoin is a technical topic.
With all that stated, I still think the GP's comment is unnecessarily condescending and doesn't add anything constructive to the conversation.
Frondo|10 years ago
Its proponents push it as a currency without a government to rule it, and that's fair, but it does have its economic assumptions baked into the code itself. And if it became widespread, there'd be no way for people to vote on making changes to those economic assumptions. They're baked into the code, and into the network.
Something that could potentially govern people's lives (i.e. a new kind of currency) that they have no say at all in operating? I'm not comfortable with that; the general arc of history has been to give people more power in the political and economic realms, and this is definitely a step back from that.
bdcravens|10 years ago
digi_owl|10 years ago
All in all, it is the perfect fuel for speculation and hoarding. Neither is something you want with a day to day main street trading currency.
brighton36|10 years ago
stefanix|10 years ago
I mean what other way is there online that resembles cash transactions?
testingonprod|10 years ago
brighton36|10 years ago
crimsonalucard|10 years ago
We live in a society where everyone is stupid. People in our society will essentially give you things for free in exchange for green paper. It all works out because everybody is an idiot. You may have been ripped off for your services in exchange for green paper, but because you can always safely rip off some other idiot with your useless wads of green paper, everything is a-ok. The economy works because of mutual stupidity.
Bitcoin is not an MLM. But to get it to work people need to work on being stupid together. When I say hey, I'm going to sell you this worthless data on my computer called Bitcoin for $50, everyone else needs to say "Yes, I buy." When everyone participates in this idiocracy then bitcoin works. Which goes full circle to your original statement.
>You have to be a certain kind of stupid to think Bitcoin could possibly work.
agenthumble|10 years ago
this_user|10 years ago
kolev|10 years ago
grubles|10 years ago
[0]http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/nasdaq-launches-enterpri...
pantalaimon|10 years ago