jstnwill

Why is the techno-libertarian world so overwhelmingly obsessed with extreme individualism?

We are social creatures. We sacrifice individual needs because we gain massive security and social value in return.

We need a balance of the various ideologies, and not the extremism of any one ideology.

Fifty years of narcissistic, anti-social, "Leave me the hell alone" libertarianism is at the heart of the culture-rot collapse we are facing.

We need people on hackernews and Ridgewood elsewhere developing civic and social innovations that deepen our connections, not replacing them with with increasingly inauthentic, algorithmic, trustless, artificial substitutes.

I argue that the whole blockchain approach is a solution designed for the needs of the early adopter... and is just seeking a mass market problem to solve.

I reach this conclusion, not as a cynic, but as a skeptical advocate.

I ask everyone I can this line of question and have yet to get an answer that doesn't involve magical thinking.

Question:

Other than "decentralization", what value does blockchain provide that can't be provided with existing technology (which will always be inherently less technically complex and thus easier and cheaper) can't do?

My sense is that the answer is "nothing" (except decentralization).

If that's correct, then all of the technical complexity is to be able to achieve decentralization.

However...

The mass market (everyone to the right of the chasm... early majority, late majority and laggards) has proven with our dollars that we don't care about a goal of decentralization. In fact we make sacrifices to have more centralization because we love it. It simplifies our lives.

So if the major market doesn't care about the only real value, then there is no real mass market value.

In that case, blockchain would be just another early adopter solution trying to not die off in the chasm.