Oddbean

Seems like part of the utxo ownership debate lies in the taboo corner of the “with freedom comes responsibility” rabbit hole. It feels uncomfortable to ask the further question “but what about the person who doesn’t want responsibility and is happy to give up some freedoms.” When this arises in our mind we sometimes switch from the curious mode to the “ought” mode and say “well they should…” or we proudly recall a founding fathers quote about choosing death over the lack of freedom. But those responses feel more like avoiding the question. When we say choosing death we mean choosing our own death, not the death of others making a different choice. Most deep thinkers in this space hold the non-aggression principle fairly central to their ethics so we wouldn’t initiate violence towards someone giving up freedoms for the benefit of non responsibility. We’d advise against that choice, but again we’re avoiding the question. I think there’s a very good chance that a very large percentage of people will simply choose the non responsibility route. Furthering the taboo nature of this line of thinking is that this becomes close to some kind of freely chosen slavery. But we needn’t go down that tangent when as the issue applies to the non slave who simply chooses a little less freedom. Many of us thought the Covid cellar dwellers were cowards, but so long as their choice affects only themselves, we respect their right to be cowards. I would never encourage that route, but regardless of encouragement, I think most people will chose it. Imo most will happily give up the benefits of utxo ownership over the responsibility of utxo ownership. I also think it’s avoiding the issue to imagine that some UX improvement or protocol change will make the foundational issue go away. Sure better ux can help a little but 99% of the “bad ux” problem is that you are responsible for losing your coins, and the extent to which you do not have the ability to lose your coins is the extent to which you don’t own the coins. Everyone knows there’s something dishonest about the person claiming they have a technological solution that fixes this. Clearly some have the hfsp mentality - they know most don’t want the responsibility, likely nothing will change that, and attempting to create more utxo space is pointless. Others feel it is our responsibility to create more space for them incase this dynamic changes and suddenly most people want the responsibility. I think it’s fairly obvious right now that a very small percent of people want the responsibility. Maybe if your circle of friends is only bitcoiners you’d think otherwise, but if you have non bitcoiner friends and family you know what they’re like. And it’s not bitcoin, it’s that they’d always prefer to not be the one responsible. And to think that Bitcoin will fix this about people I think is again being dishonest. My point here isn’t so much that I have to solution to the problem. I’m more trying to point out that it’s this taboo topic that I think lies behind the utxo debate. I guess I’m also writing this to clear up my own thoughts on it. Maybe I shouldnt post it. Screw it, this is Nostr here goes