Oddbean new post about login | logout I get the privacy angle, but what I don’t understand is the apparent sentiment that all of humanity should aspire to transact with only strangers in an anonymous capacity. If they feel this way, Im not sure they understand how human civilization works. We need each other and we _have_ to get to know each other sometimes to thrive.
That sentiment is shared by merely a few people. The ability to transact without a central authority being able to interfere does not necessitate anonymity.
I agree with this. I think some people dont understand that money is for commerce which is a fundamentally built on establishing trust in the goods and services proximate to their provider. You dont have to trust someone vis-a-vis the money, but you do need to build trust with respect to what you’re trying to get for the money.
There are advantages to being anonymous, especially in cases of whistleblowers. In general however, privacy is what most people are looking for, which Bitcoin does well, especially through lightning.
I agree with this completely. There is a place for privacy, an important essential place. But broadly commerce cannot operate in a perfectly anonymous marketplace, that would be nuts and I get the sense some people want that or want some kind of magic solution where they can pop seamlessly in and out of anonymity which is of course impossible.
Anonymity is not really a thing. Whatever nym you use still needs to accrue reputation, which means you’ll have an identity. But should that identity have a social security number and other overshared information? I don’t think so. Privacy enables us to break our personal data “blockchains” into pieces we own.
I appreciate this take and agree. We should be able to have control over our level of exposure. What I take issue with is the idea that privacy is costless.
Yes, it’s not costless. Your personal data has value. Corporations sell it, and you can benefit from oversharing, too.