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Subject: RE : Cryto-currencies, national stagnation, historical and future From: "Bill Howell. Hussar. Alberta. Canada" <> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2018 01:00:51 -0700 To: Gordon Ball <> Cc: Simple answer - No. I haven't taken the time to really look closely at crypto-currencies, butI need to do that "some time". Right now I'm desperately begind with conference paper peer reviews (only 5 done out of 14 so far, with only two-three weeks left to complete), and after that I really need to work on my physics projects. To friends who are concerned about their "virtual or vapour" nature, I've been saying that while the crypto-currencies lack the large base of tax-payers and long-term stability, in some other respects they aren't much different from national currencies. First of all, my guess is that they may soon approach the size of many smaller national currencies, if they aren't there yet. Second, one can reliably expect the collapse of national currencies every decade or so, although no-one can believe that their own currency can fail. WWII did that for many nation, Frenchman were fleeing across the Alps with suitcases of gold after Mitterand was in office for a while (not really any new large French company for probably 40 years or so), Venezuela is at some insane level of inflation right now, and that has happened regularly throughout history, especially when socialists take over. Second, our past history of fiscal sanity and responsibility is now a mirage, given everybody's propensity for insanely high debt levels, and signs are that government fiscal responsibility just cannot happen politically. Or maybe crypto-currencies will [boom,crash,disappear] : You don't have to be an expert to say there could be a big risk, but history tells the same tale about national currencies. We'll probably see [failures, criminal behaviour, legal problems] with crypto-currencies as they develop, forgetting that we deal with that regularly with national currencies as well (see above). Both are highly vulnerable to military [scale, expertise] attacks, and we'll eventually see collapses from that. But overall, the advantages of crypto-currencies may make flakey political and economic behaviours by national governments and economies much more difficult to get away with, and that would be a HUGE improvement. That crypto-currencies may become the only reliable way of financing and becoming more international to survive is quite possible given our "policy stupidity", and that financing may turn out to be something that saves our businesses and economic leaders. If it forces Western nations to be responsible and realistic, and backrupts goverenments and economic agents who are sucking our blood dry, then great hardship could become a great salvation over the long term. Political correctness and the accompanying stupidity has gone too far for me have much faith in our system, especially when you look at the collapse of our international competitiveness, and growing inability to implement new technologies for productive goods and services. We crap all over decent, hard-working people who build businesses that create good jobs and wealth, and we make heroes of [liars, morons, delinquents, hippocrites, back-stabbers, cowards, parasites]. Is it worth going through the gauntlet of fire to build a new [business, technology] in Canada? It seems that, like Nortel, the big activity could become mostly huge government programs to inject life into the economy, with near-complete disregard to economic necessity and profitability. Profit is now a dirty word, but people forget (perhaps most doen't understand economics and were never aware) that socialism (Communism and Nazism being only specific forms of socialism, albveit the former is far and away the dominant form in the world) and state enterprises also make profit, (or they couldn't sustain their assests, let alone grow). It's just that they camouflage it with other wording and prose. In my mind, Canada (much more than the USA) is racing its way to becoming a third world nation. It's likely that, given a chance, crypto-currencies would take over in the long term, but I don't think that our populations and governments will allow that, for all the wrong reasons. But in the healthy developing nations, these could easily grow to dwarf out own systems, and they could become the only international medium of exchange other than a rapidly declining trade in the US dollar, and exploding use of currencies of Chinese and other heathly economies. In many nations, they could easily become the only reliable medium of exchange (I wonder how many Venezuelans are thinking of that right now), and it's perhaps even likely that we will be forced to use crypto-currencies anyways to avoid trade and economic collapse (creditors call the shots, not irresponsible debtors), and because others simply won't take our dollars. [Computer,internet,Deep learning and beyond] will be huge challenges, but the adept societies will adapt and resolve this to an acceptable level, and trust is always the key underpinning of any successful system (contrary to modern intellectual thinking). You probably won't see any good analysis in Canada unless you dig hard enough to find perhaps three to five solid minds - but how do you pick these of of a million or so sages? (Forget the university profs - I have almost no faith in our modern psudo-intellects). Our media will reliably pick out exactly the wrong ones to follow. Search globally for any signs of intellectual life on this subject, and they will likely all be amateurs, as I've consistently seen in areas of science. But who will hold the reins? You could bet on the historic role that Jews played in Europe, and they are likely contenders. East Indians and Chinese are also long-term historic big players. And don't discount the [Arabs, Persians, Ottomans,Russians, Polish] although I think that [sun, climate] trends will not favour the latter three over the next 100 years (assuming a big cold from a grand solar minimum hits as usual every 200-400 years , although there is a distinct possibility this could be more like the 2,400 year hit, at least according to the [crazy, naive,one-dimensional] concept of the last 7,500 years of history of my father and I. Not surprisingly, developing powers don't want to capture our diseases (the cancer of modern democracy being a blatent one), and I can't pretend to understand how they think and how they will develop and react. I think the next great evolution of political and economic systems could very well appear soon, most likely if we get hammered by a crushing blow to our systems and society. On this subject, I favor the historical thinking and themes of the great Arab historian Ibn Kaldhun ("The Muqqadimah"), that greatness of nations (eg Caliphates), and possibly civilisations (eg Western), tend to decay over 3, maybe 4 generations. I give him an edge over Arnold J. Toynbee's concepts on this subjects, as Toynbee's "challenge and response" theme doesn't really give ecouraging hope for [dishonest, stupid, lazy]-type thinking and behaviours. With Toynbee, you will haveto wait to see whether we can respond to "creative destruction" when things go real bad. We did that up to certainly 80-100 years ago, perhaps as recently as the early 1960s. But I doubt that we can do it now as dysfunctional thinking is too deep and too entrenched in our society. The great history of Great Britain and the USA is not something that I expect to see in the future, as I have a hard time seeing them doing anything but becoming worse and worse with rapidly growing political correctness. Bill |