Re: <nettime> Stephen Foley: Bitcoin needs to learn from past e-currency

[Florian Cramer <flrncrmr@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Dec 3, 2013 at 9:02 AM, Antti J?rvinen <costello@katiska.org> wrote:

> While I understand that individual humans need to enjoy greater
> privacy than commercial or government entities (that, to my opinion,
> should not expect any privacy regarding their monetary- or other
> issues) this thing that everybody has copy of everybodys wallet
> relieves big and small companies and any other money-handling
> organizations, including the (now almost obsolete) banks, from
> producing yearly financial statements. Talk about transparency, man.


The devil is in the subordinate clause starting with "while" that hints at
the collateral damage of the utopia you sketch. The question is whether
transparency is a value per se. (I would argue: no, it's only a tool for
achieving other goals such as ethical conduct and social responsibility.)
Taken as a value per se, with no prisoners taken, it easily amounts to a
totalitarian nightmare.

Florian


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