The largest political “alt” isn’t left or right.
The groups we refer to as “alt-right” and “alt-left” are fringe that do not represent the largest alternative to status quo. There is one, very loosely tied political opposition. One alternative. One alt.
This opposition knows one way or another the system is rigged. Electing the same types of people over and over will not solve the growing problems in society. The military industrial complex remains in charge and is ever seizing more power. This opposition is ready to support anything that isn’t the establishment. They nearly brought Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders to the presidential races in the USA. Many of them bought Trump’s “drain the swamp” rhetoric and are dismayed to see the swamp still full. Others still think Trump is still working on it and just hasn’t been able to do much draining as his hands are tied…. But one way or another the sentiment is the same: the establishment is bad, must be stopped, or we’re all screwed.
If you’ve been seeing society swing back and forth around elections, you are not in this group. Sorry, hope not to offend anyone. I’m not saying who is right or wrong, just defining a group. It's a significant number of people with political influence. Although it is also a disjointed minority. Worth discussing whatever we want to call it. I’m calling it the opposition. Parties that frequently control the government are the establishment, this group is the largest alternative to that establishment. The true "alt" or opposition. Chomskey said the US has 1 political party, the corporate party, with 2 management branches that take turns winning power. The opposition/alternative is anyone not backing that one party as he defined it.
The opposition includes left and right thinkers, but at the end of the day the differences only amount to proposed solutions. On the left the idea is to bolster wealth distribution and rights, empower the bottom to counter those at the top. On the right the idea is to limit the top by taking away its powers altogether- smaller government and/or no government.
So again if you believe its a race or religion that must be stopped, an ideology of any kind- you are not a member of the group I am defining. The greatest enemy in society for this group is the political establishment.
One thing the opposition agrees on is that the establishment is corrupt. So anything that will limit corruption is the opposition’s ally. If we switch to decentralized money, we greatly limit corruption and we limit the establishment’s power. No more money printing- at the government or at the bank. No more governments “losing” billions of dollars on secret military expenditures, no more corporations buying politicians- bitcoin in large amounts is highly traceable, but very anonymous in small amounts. The top becomes scrutinized, the bottom gains economic sovereignty and privacy.
Bitcoin both empowers the bottom and takes power away from the top, so it spans both political spectrums.
Smaller government AND empowered commoners.
The opposition is voting with their wallets, and they’re buying cryptos.
The way to end the establishment is by building a better structure and moving over to it.
The old way of revolution was to kick out the old people, and put new people back into the same structure. Ending with the same thing.
This time, why tear down the old structure. There is nothing there that is worth using. It is like bricks and mortar are useless when building an on-line store.
So build the new, and don't look back.
Absolutely agree. . . Although "tear down" is a scary thought. I think one of cryptos greatest features is its potential to slowly and peacefully make its way in.
Adapting your analogy a little. . . .
We're creating a bigger better building next door. We're not going to tear down the old building, just make it pointless for anyone to go there anymore.
Another version of Chomsky's sentiment about the establishment is the characterization of left and right as, "Two wings of the same bird of prey." I'm not sure who coined that one but I have to credit Lew Rockwell.
Bernie 2020!
Bitcoin to the Moon!
Damn right!
alt-coin?
Sure hope so!
Does this make Russia part of the opposition as it is said they plan to adopt Ethereum in some sectors?
I'd say any state adopting decentralized money is on the side of opposing globalization. . . As for Russia, I'll believe it when i see it. I hope they do, but I'd rather see them build on Waves or ETC maybe...
Why Waves or ETC?
ETC because it's Ethereum and in my opinion the honest form of it. The ETC blockchain is older and the first ethereum. ETH was created last summer in a very centralized manner that in my opinion hurts decentralization and thereby cryptos in total. ETH relies on its devs far too much, cryptos should not be about people. That's the whole point, you take individuals out of the picture. What happens to ETH price if tomorrow Vitalik is found guilty of some heinousness crime?....Also, the terms laid out in the DAO were clear. People knew they were investing in something risky and it was all open source.
I don't consider the DAO hack a theft at all. Suppose i put an envelope of cash on my porch, and then bequeath all authority over that cash to the envelope itself. Even openly state that the envelope is in charge of the money, maybe write it on the outside. Someone comes along and takes the envelope from my porch- have they done something wrong? The envelope is in charge and it didn't tell them to stop so.....
Bottom line ETH is too centralized and doesn't respect immutability. Without immutability crypto isn't an innovation, its a database. I'll never buy or endorse ETH.
Oh yea and WAVES i threw in there based on a friend's recommendation. I actually don't know a ton about it. I had heard though that things may be aligning where ETH=USA NEO=China and maybe WAVES=Russia...
"I'll never buy or endorse ETH."....sorry, this is harsh. I don't actually hate it or the people who follow it. I just think there are way way better options out there that serve decentralization.
And the free market allows you to avoid that which you do not agree with.
I have read somewhere that the WAVES Decentralized Exchange is not quite decentralized.
As a precaution, and until I get more information, I have extrapolated that information to the WAVES blockchain itself.
Thanks, yes i should look closer at it. I bought a tiny bit on a friend's recommendation, thats all.....Too many coins and too many stories!
Many, including myself, would disagree with you when it comes to the hack not being theft; to each, their own opinions.
The beauty about blockchains is when we disagree, we can hardfork and go our separate ways. No side needs to be right, no need for majority wins. Every side gets their own blockchain. The only compromise is the name and symbol to be used by exchanges and wallets and that is also the choice of the individual developers and not some market authority.
Absolutely that is the beauty of blockchains....Although I said what i said about ETH not because i'm gauging morality or anything. Simply assessing which chains will have the most longevity. At the very least, the ETH fork was contentious, hard to argue with that. It didn't respect immutability. Long term that creates a big risk that ETC and other projects don't have. The contentious fork was only possible because the community is following people, the developers, and thereby the price will always be subjected to their lives. When they die, switch, have scandals, the coin value is at risk. Immutable coins are centered around decentralization, not people.
I also would worry what happens when there is a major scandal at an ETH ICO. Same situation occurs again, people bought something risky and lost everything. Will the devs do another roll back and again change the ledger? Seems to me that an ICO fail is bound to happen, they can't just do a reset every time people want their money back. At some point investors would lose faith in such a thing as it'd be not much different than a database.
It seems to me that ETH is popular with the establishment because of the pull back.
The institutions working to integrate ETH are confident that in the event that they fuck up on a grand scale, the ETH community has shown to be willing to go against immutability in order to correct their grand mistakes.
Immutability is not friendly to institutional money i.e. quantitative easying money.
Sorry missed this comment. Love it! Very true.....its one of those things and a long time complaint of bitcoin. Its absolute, so when you fuck up there's no going back. Trustless is too scary of a concept for most- especially those with a lot to lose!
Replacing the undeserved power that the establishment (both governments and banks) have been able to accrue through the use of fiat currency with a currency of the people (which bitcoin might be) would be a hugely positive step. However I can't believe the establishment will give up the power that easily.
They definitely won't want to give it up, but if they haven't stopped Bitcoin and cryptos by now it seems like they maybe won't be able to.....I can't at least envision how they'd hope to stop it.
Great post as usual @remistevens! I'm personally on the empowerment of the bottom side, and BTC obviously represents a tremendous opportunity to do just that. At the end of the day, the rich are going to stay rich - the smart ones anyway. Similarly, even if we tear everything down, the familiar power structures will reassert themselves (or at least will not go easily without a fight). Every revolution is followed by a counter-revolution. But that all said, no matter what happens in the next few years, crypto will actually give people a real shot at the American Dream.
Thanks man! Yes the rich will stay rich and there will always be rich people.....But the rich we have now have created a protectionist enclave. Its like an inbred aristocracy- classes in place on nepotism not merit. Crypto will change all that. If you're rich, you will face true competition. So spending on tyranny and protectionism will no longer be viable. Corporations won't be manipulating populations by ensuring that goods all ship across oceans. Nothing is efficient in shipping goods across the globe constantly- BUT, if all goods are foreign, centralized control makes sense. Globalization makes sense if we're going to be morons and ship garbage back and forth. Globalization makes sense if power is passed down from family to family first and foremost.....When the free market comes, we'll finally be weeding out morons and tyrants from the rich.