In 15th Century Europe, books resembled the pinnacle of wealth. Handwritten & works of art, the process of creating a book of knowledge was extremely difficult and took expensive materials & time. These books were written into texts by monks, because literacy was centralized. The monastery/ central organization funding the creation of these texts had considerable power.
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When Gutenberg created the printing press his inspiration was:
Gutenberg: ‘To help men and women be literate, to give them knowledge, to make books so cheap even a peasant might afford them: that is my hope, yes.’
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However, the centralized powers that be, did not agree with his world view as a positive. Whether they were disingenuous or simply corrupted to the point where they believed it: They responded as:
Head monk: ‘The word of God needs to be interpreted by priests, not spread about like dung.’
Gutenberg: ‘I do not wish to despoil the Word.’
Head monk: ‘But it will happen. To hand it about to all and sundry is languorous, Would you have ploughmen and weavers debating the Gospel in taverns?’
Gutenberg: ‘If that is what they want to do.’
Head monk: ‘But what of the dangers? It would be like giving a candle to infants.’
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Understanding the historical context in how revolutionary technologies are received by society and ultimately the society's current stakeholders, who dismiss the innovative technology as dangerous or unhelpful. Most usually aligned with protecting their interests from INEVITABLE disruption.
Now Take Cryptocurrencies...
When one understands how revolutionary Blockchain technology is, it becomes clear its many real world use cases.
Remember: Efficiency is a reason to exist! If you can replace an existing service for cheaper, it will succeed.
Eliminating Counter-Party Risk!
Peer-to-Peer Networks reducing fees!
The possibilities are huge! This is a revolutionary new tech which we are lucky to be alive to witness the growth of!
And this is how Noble Winning Economists Paul Krugman sees this technology...
The questions you should ask are (1) what problem does this clever solution solve? (2) what determines the fundamental value? As far as I can tell, there are no good answers to either question 5/
Cryptocurrency lets you make electronic transactions; but so do bank accounts, debit cards, Paypal, Venmo etc. All these other methods involve trusting a third party; but unless you're buying drugs, assassinations etc. that's not a big deal 6/
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The Printing Press came with its critics... However, before you trust anyone:! Always ask:
- Is this person incentivized to see things a certain way or are are unbiased?
- Because NO ONE is unbiased, how is this person's bias affecting their viewpoint, and understanding this bias is the information reliable?
Good luck everyone, remember... We're all early adopters here!