I had a deep realization or what some call a light bulb moment when one of my best friends explained how Bitcoin's entire ecosystem works. I realized had a little money in something I thought I understood but not as much as my friend did. Perhaps those on Hive with a lot of knowledge already know this.
Within Bitcoin's ecosystem, an algorithm acts as a government without a minister or a committee and without a press conference. It's all just code running.
At the time, I was in the middle of a horrible phone call, the network kept messing up, but once I was able to sit down and think about it properly, I realized that hearing this explanation shifted my perspective on the way that algorithms can govern us. Perhaps it's going to be better if we structured things that way. Although I won't keep out the fact that every good system also has its own drawbacks.
You could actually have an algorithm governing you instead of having a person with an agenda or a political party protecting their donors. These are just rules which by definition cannot know who you are, what your tribe is or how much property your family has.
Governments and I do believe there are some well meaning ones, carry all that human nature like corruption, ego, and limitations like delay because of disagreements. There is always someone who benefits in an unadvertised way from actions taken by a government. You can't call the algorithm at 11:00 p.m. and convince it to change its mind with a few glasses of wine because you're some billionaire.
Is it perfect, like I said earlier of course not. There are tons of valid criticisms about access to it, about the amount of energy it uses, about the way it can be manipulated, early adopters also hold a certain type of power, so that is another issue that has some level of discomfort with me.
But the foundational premise that there is a mathematical way to replace those things we have traditionally had to rely on an authority to do is still something good. It is a different way of thinking about our trust and how we go about trusting politicians and things.
