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Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 20:06:21 +0000
From: Monarch <monarch@cock.li>
To: hearn@vinumeris.com
Message-ID: <602b978abcedd92fbed85f305d9d7bfe@cock.li>
User-Agent: Roundcube Webmail/0.9.5
Cc: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Your Gmaxwell exchange
Precedence: list

On 2015-08-31 19:11, Mike Hearn via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> I think your summary of what people actually want from
> decentralisation is pretty good, Justus.
> 
> 
>> I don't believe that any Bitcoin user actually cares
>> about decentralization, because none of them I've asked can define
>> that term.
> 
> +1 Insightful
> 

What is Bitcoin if not decentralized?

Bitcoin the most awkward, unprivate and damaging currencies ever
created.  It is terribly slow for general use, and it is very
difficult for users to get over the technical hurdles required to use
it safety.  It is simultaneously the least private payment system ever
conceived for general use, yet still manages to consistently help
terrorists and pedophiles.  Over half a gigawatt of power is used to
power the miners which timestamp the network, causing hundreds of
millions of tonnes of CO2 and radioactive particles to be spewed into
the atmosphere.

Perhaps we can justify these damages as the cost of decentralization,
similar to one justifying the tor anonymity network as having
significant positive effects outweighing the negative.  However if you
are truly willing to give the goal of absolute decentralization up as
unachievable or unrealistic, it would be much more sensible to replace
the entire Bitcoin network with a couple of geographically distributed
SQL servers and call it a day.

Without decentralization as an ultimate goal, Bitcoin is an
abomination that is best dismantled.