Ok...there are going to be some people who scoff at this post, but I encourage everyone to consider this moving forward and, hopefully, we can speak rationally about this a little bit. It certainly is a very interesting topic to me---even as a person who has a real skeptical streak about the Bible's Messages and source.
Of all of these messages, the Mark of the Beast one really hits home with me...ESPECIALLY after learning more about the blockchain. If I were a Tyrant, I would want data from EVERYTHING "My" citizens do. The Block Chain, though highly unlikely at this current time, could CERTAINLY be used as a protocol layer that captures, monitors and eventually alters every entity, action, state in the entire spectrum of organic existence.
If there is a God (which, to me there has to be SOME form of
Grand Creator), I would imagine he/she/it would have created a system that would be perfect...and that to truly corrupt humanity a new LAYER would need to be built upon that protocol, and would introduce flaws into an already-homeostatic environment. I started really thinking about this after reading the following post:
"Okay, I'm being humorous with that one, but on a more serious note- what if we were to consider Bitcoin becomes widely successful and adopted worldwide. What if the government would one day see the value in having near infinite addresses for a finite amount of people in the world. What if governments started dolling out addresses to individuals like Social Security numbers and mandated that you use that address for your transactions.
Certainly businesses could be forced to use specific 'assigned' addresses, (it's easy enough to check if they aren't) and then the government can sit back and watch the block chain to asses their tax responsibility.
What if your Bitcoin address were required as a form of identification? We assume that Bitcoin has an element of anonymity because no one knows who owns the addresses, but governments could do a pretty good job of forcing individuals to keep public accounts and then watch closely.
It's anonymous only so long as addresses aren't assigned. If they are assigned though, the blockchain becomes a pretty incredible tool for surveillance of a population.
The Mark of the Beast is a reference to the outcry from some Christian groups about how Social Security Numbers were the "mark of the beast".
http://usa-the-republic.com/mark%20of%20beast/Forward.htm "
The thread can be found @
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86792.msg953480#msg953480Definitely a good read, but I hope we will all keep this in the back of our minds while we move forward in this technological breakthrough. Please dont get me wrong here in thinking that I do not see the merits of the blockchain and what can be built with it...but that SAME amazing potential can always be a double-edged sword. I am interested to see where the community stands with regard to greatest concerns and how to address them in the future.
As always guys and gals....much <3
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if you would like me to look into your project proposal or would like to see this happen.
