tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post7987252494124222183..comments2024-03-21T22:36:54.451-04:00Comments on HISTORIES OF THINGS TO COME: Bitcoin's Origins: Generational Circumstances and MentalitiesLC Douglasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-32376945810508813332014-05-05T05:09:57.426-04:002014-05-05T05:09:57.426-04:00The only drawback that people are worried about bi...The only drawback that people are worried about <a href="http://www.bitcoindaily.com" rel="nofollow">bitcoin</a> is its volatility. Its very unpredictable price change makes people doubtful whether to use it or invest on it. However, this makes a good thing for investors who are quite good in foreseeing its price flux. As a bitcoin user, I see that bitcoin can possibly the future currency despite its volatile feature.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05654351946061638623noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-45777176899354102052014-03-19T23:00:43.783-04:002014-03-19T23:00:43.783-04:00"Myth of individual bad luck" - yeah, I&..."Myth of individual bad luck" - yeah, I'm sorry, but it is fair to say that Gen X and Y did not make up the recession of the early 90s or the great recession in their heads. The MSM reported the Boomer dismissal of those on the receiving end as 'doomed to fail,' yet somehow (the narrative goes) these generational failures possessed inherent 'slacking' or 'entitled' character flaws which made them deserve being doomed. Saying unemployed middle aged and younger people were to blame for the great recession is like blaming the men in the trenches for the causes of World War I. When something that big happens, it is not a myth-riddled excuse; it is not due to collective character flaws of an entire cohort. It is a real phenomenon that exposes deep problems in our economic and social system.<br /><br />My question about cryptos would be - assume a scenario in which the economy bounced back to boom level. Would people still feel alienated and want cryptos then?<br /><br />LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-87362289678414349982014-03-19T04:08:03.864-04:002014-03-19T04:08:03.864-04:00(...continued. this was supposed to be a quick re...(...continued. this was supposed to be a quick reply, but hey, have a perspective and feel free to run with it)<br /><br />Notes from the field: It sounds like a fair few of my compatriots in tech are finally getting out of their parents' houses due to the current little Web 2.1-plus-electronic-medical-records boom, but the barrier to generations speaking to each other over here has mostly been that they're speaking to each other every day and it took ten years to sink in that grumping about it isn't getting anyone a nicer retirement or, say, the opportunity to provide their parents with a nice retirement. Someone could probably get a nice sociology paper about just how few opportunities you need to create to maintain the myth of individual bad luck. But as some Libertarian-minded education critic pointed out in some book I was fond of in the 90s, that laterality is built into the education system, too - higher and lower grades are the Other, so stick to your own cohort until you're old enough to realize that made no sense (if you ever do).<br /><br />*Not actually downsized, by the way - skipped corporate America entirely for being a sole practitioner, which did result in a fair few delayed reactions to things garbled in transmission from around other folks' water coolers. The Internet certainly has helped with some of that...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-20145628910193819842014-03-19T04:06:13.095-04:002014-03-19T04:06:13.095-04:00In short: "Yup." And not to be dismissi...In short: "Yup." And not to be dismissive but just to acknowledge it's been tread: Graeber's an interesting read and everybody loves Vonnegut.<br /><br />I think my folks were living a particularly awkward variation of the "Boomer myth" in these parts, though, possibly awkwardly prevalent in my part of New England and in tune with what became the '90s you've-been-downsized? feed-your-family-by-bowhunting* zeitgeist - that they could be totally self-sufficient in sort of a John & Yoko way, and that they'd succeeded academically so were entitled to some kind of ongoing economic reward that never quite came within reach. And if they didn't need a social network and little Anon was doing so good with BBSes and television... well, seal the doors, any friends he makes' parents are crack dealers if they let their kids play in the street, and those pedos from the computer are good teachers but don't go forging connections in real life - you're not going to need a social network if you come from good stock (and to their credit, they didn't cut lose with their own stories of childhood mischief until more than a decade later). Weird times. Frankly, these years it looks like the pendulum has swung back in the other direction - everyone knows something's strange if your whole life ain't on Facebook, and I like to hope the schools are now intent enough on the 'Communist interference' of encouraging social bonds that they're now doing a better job than just letting the lower grades gang up on the obvious targets in the name of forging them - so I wish the current crop the best, even if I ascribe some of the noises starting to come out of San Francisco to them.<br /><br />My personal feeling is that it's sort of ridiculous that US society isn't arranged to provide for a greater degree of, say, homeownership, education, *and* individualism if these are the things it supposedly values - in light of the past decades, Scandinavia does seem to have us beat and they don't seem to be hurting for startups - and it certainly would be nice if those things were available regardless of, or resilient to, any particular family or generation's alignments. But people with the 'staunchly independent' mindset don't seem to consider their rights to organize and create a decent experience with the public sector, and by the time the gray matter starts to decay they just want the government to stay out of their Medicare and Social Security. So until then there's Doge, and if every generation is allowed their own Doge, maybe that's as close to a reasonable free-market solution as things get (bringing back apprenticeships also seems popular among the collectible-Liberty-coins set, because having no hope of social or economic mobility was good enough for, um.. the Middle Ages through Dickensian England?).<br /><br />(out of space _again?_)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-90821475972455076322014-03-18T18:57:23.215-04:002014-03-18T18:57:23.215-04:00Typo above; I meant to say: *as dropped in favour ...Typo above; I meant to say: *as dropped in favour of intra-gender loyalty and mutual support between women.LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-25842262635558532522014-03-18T18:54:28.049-04:002014-03-18T18:54:28.049-04:00Anon, thanks for your comments, they are most welc...Anon, thanks for your comments, they are most welcome. The idea that vulnerable adults should fend for themselves with little or no help from dominant adults depends on new cultural, political and Postmodern definitions of society. Look at traditional cultures - the family across all age ranges is still considered a viable unit. There is no shame in mutual support.<br /><br />I have written at length about the revolutionary historic processes which changed vertical loyalties in society (say, in a family unit or a village) to horizontal ones (creating loyalties within single genders, classes, age groups, among other alignments). <br /><br />http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2011/11/99-per-cent-generation-catalano-and-why.html<br /><br />In more traditional societies, you could have economic social alignments that spanned different age groups, different genders, different classes. Modern and Postmodern thinking increasingly identified alternate bases of loyalty from which you get a host of egalitarian -ism ideologies: feminism is one example, where traditional cooperation (many would argue traditional suppression) was dropped in favour of cross-gender loyalty and mutual support between women.<br /><br />NB I'm *not* mentioning this point to support or criticize this process, merely pointing out the pattern of change. In your example, you fell prey to a generational alignment that sees members of one age group declare greater loyalty to other members of its own cohort and their common interests - over and above loyalty to family members who belong to other age groups. This is evidence of a lateral or horizontal social arrangement. If you watch media, marketing and entertainment carefully, you will see abundant evidence of these messages of lateral loyalty being reinforced.<br /><br />Under these conditions, you have two options; seek support and help from others in your laterally defined groups, be they generational, cultural, gender-based or political. OR create new values, institutions and areas of social and economic activity which break down these lateral barriers, redefine the collectives that operate in society and create new sets of collective values. This option does not have to constitute a return to patriarchal systems and inegalitarianism as is so often assumed. In the latter case, generations will speak to each other again and cooperate instead of competing to get a controlling interest of the country, to the detriment of everyone else who is not in the same marketing demographic.LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-7341765401020116662014-03-18T03:11:44.917-04:002014-03-18T03:11:44.917-04:00Hey, glad it held up enough to be anything after a...Hey, glad it held up enough to be anything after a night's sleep! As "cheerleady" as that might sound, it's only why it seems pretty reasonable to me to want to keep some of that "N months' savings" everyone's supposed to magically have and maintain in something similar to "digital cash" alongside actual bank deposits, having gotten over the modest hump of setting up the software and actually learning what I'm doing.<br /><br />I'm also actually a little weirded out over what this does to taxation in practice, though not in theory, if said kids who seriously think they're better at paying for their own private roads etc. are actually in the majority, or a sizeable enough minority to throw a wrench in public goods that the private sector has no interest in. But if you want to take a generational view, anything that gets the "old guard" to reinvest in the next generation at a more predictable rate helps solve the "getting them out of the basement" problem. (And as to me personally.. I'm still slightly astounded my family decided to implode rather than help me arrange for transportation when I was seeking that all-important First Job in a public-transitless and unwalkable corner of the USA - not that I was 'entitled', but I physically couldn't interview or even figure out where to interview without a liiittttle more coordination on that front - pre-Craigslist, of course. I think only a fraction of kids are in *that* confused a boat, but the "You could program a VCR when people knew what VCRs were, shouldn't you just be a billionaire automatically for some reason by now like the TV told us?" attitude is still semi-prevalent, so eh.. who knows, "Is this the VCR?")Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-35020753846221762932014-03-17T08:41:47.350-04:002014-03-17T08:41:47.350-04:00Thanks for your comment anon. I am addressing the ...Thanks for your comment anon. I am addressing the investment mentality in the crypto world, the government / banking perspectives, and crypto's anarchic links in later posts.LC Douglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04250961297714038453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-49628739028864596842014-03-17T00:50:52.455-04:002014-03-17T00:50:52.455-04:00(...continued:)
- "What's the fuss?&quo...(...continued:) <br /><br />- "What's the fuss?" I'd say 50% of crypto enthusiasts right now are actual anti-tax 'protesters' who might have blindly inherited that position from their parents. The other half are just interested in it for the technology and the idea of maybe owning somewhere to live without threat of eviction someday - how twencen! But on some level, anyone who's filled out a tax return understands the reason for the whole exercise is that there's an element of volition involved - the citizen has the duty to report honestly, and in exchange, the government upholds their rights to their property and security. The massive freakout over crypto shows how little trust there is on either side - the Randy kids who are absolutely sure they could provide better healthcare and roads themselves want to hide every penny, and governments are equivalently responding with worries about money laundering, drugs, and everything else that was equally possible (but might have demanded a larger truck) with cash. I think to some extent this lack of trust is being smelled by other kids who might not have politically cared about it, because clearly this is an interesting moment where the old guard is caught blubbering: "Wait, we didn't want you to -exercise- your liberties!" Combine that with everything else in the air and this goes to the basic issue of our time: how much criminal/terrorist intent can the government assume of its citizens just because that makes their jobs easier?<br /><br />Or in other words: "Why are you even still printing cash if hoarding it under the mattress makes grandma a person of interest for it?" Since the people profiting from the 'death' of cash happen to be those banks and payment processors, whose actions (and continued operations) are inextricably linked with implementing government policies ("The Ownership Society," etc), this is an interesting question to ask, and asking it en masse is one way for these generations to ask why they aren't allowed to have it at as "good" as grandma did back when she was a beatnik... (Not that the history was actually terribly rosy, but remember, we've selected for the people who did well enough to keep in touch with their grandkids.)<br /><br />That last part is the "reexamination" being prompted: Do we actually still have the freedom to deal in cash, or in lumps of imaginary digital scarcity readily exchanged for it like gold nuggets back in the klondike? If not, what are we getting in exchange for the new system other than the risk of having our lives frozen at various others' whims (which, at present, happens to give equal power to the law, the banks, _and_ any average criminal, as far as temporarily denying me the right to enjoy a sandwich with my earnings)?<br /><br />I feel like I left out half of what I was ready to say, but that's probably enough - and goes to the heart of it more than deconstructing generational differences. "Older folks" are really just as much risk, but have a stronger belief that they'll be protected or that customer service will sort things out; and indeed, "kids" don't get the concessions a generous bank might make for grandma, in part because they're less likely to concede the $7/mo "identity protection fee" might be a reasonable solution.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905155363976375938.post-41381533158391884822014-03-17T00:50:19.094-04:002014-03-17T00:50:19.094-04:00Hm, interesting writeup. You got some attention o...Hm, interesting writeup. You got some attention on Reddit for it, too. I guess I'm old now, so I'm between Y and X and never even got an opportunity to participate in soul-crushing corporate structures for various personal reasons, that said, painting stuff with the broadest socioeconomic brush overlooks a few more basic reasons for the sudden boom in crypto:<br /><br />- Nobody minds getting rich quick. Cost to enter with the unfair advantage of having mined at least some altcoins is still ridiculously low, so if any of these other reasons are enough to sustain the value, it's a way to swipe some value back from the big movers...<br /><br />- Cash exists. It's been a thing for a long time. The idea that there should be have some way to have something resembling a digital equivalent re: anonymity, personal ownership, etc. has also been around for a long time...<br /><br />- Personal ownership allows for personal liquidity. You can stuff your cash or gold Rand Paul anti-Ameros under the mattress. The idea that you need to rely on a bank or CC intermediary to conduct your everday transactions for food and other necessities is a very modern thing.<br /><br />- The last crisis was a crisis of liquidity. I don't think the Y/Z kids felt this personally in a way crypto would have helped, but maybe they've absorbed it from mom or dad - or else they're just the ones with the time to kill given the lack of other opportunities. However, people closer to Gen X have been around the block enough to have probably discovered their bank account and credit accounts are subject to "DoS" by the banks' stubborn refusal to implement actual security mechanisms (who has a CC that implements the 'temporary account number' trick in meatspace? Note that Chip & PIN solves the 'wrong' problem and has only been used to push liability back on customers where permitted) in the face of the inevitable triennial skimming or so - and as someone who's been there roughly every three years despite best personal practices, they're now more than interested in selling ID theft insurance or additional accounts with additional minimums and fees. The risk of maintaining a personal store of value as a 'backup' seems very reasonable under those circumstances, the moreso if you can transfer it on and off of your person (via e.g. a phone wallet) for actual use without extreme wait or hassle. At least then if you're denied access it might only be your own fault.<br /><br />(out of space, continued)<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com