I think we are just in a golden period like the 1920s before May 1, 1933 when gold was confiscated.

Central bank digital currency seems inevitable. I imagine in the far future there will be central bank digital currency and illegal crypto currency that facilitates black market transactions. Crypto holders will be smeared in narratives as drug traffickers and criminals. At some point there will be risk outside of volatility with holding crypto. I just can't see how things evolve any other way.

The digital Yuan is going to be incredibly tough competition for the West that I don't see how a renegade non-central bank digital currency does not eventually come to be seen as counterfeit.

I guess it depends. Crypto in my country doesn't have such a negative attitude. Some places allow you to pay your taxes in crypto, our main Amazon competitor is accepting crypto for years now, even our 'old people paper magazin shop' accepts crypto.

In Switzerland you have banking privacy, no or high cash limits, you can privately buy a new car in cash without anyone raising an eye brow. Crypto isn't actually a real danger when your whole society is based on monetary freedom.

In a sense, it could be good for bitcoin long term for the speculative mania to die. Then it can possibly find some price stability to actually function as a currency.

This is all standard speculative mania stuff right now though. The bubble burst, next the scams are uncovered and wiped out, regulation comes in then to "protect" investors from being scammed in the same fashion in the future.

GOOG had 22% revenue growth up to 68 billion dollars last quarter. Not being able to see the difference between GOOG and crypto pretty much sums up the sophistication of crypto investors.

The original comment is still valid: why is the drop in Bitcoin on the top page of HN, and the drop of GOOG not?

Probably because so many have been watching this closely. It's a very polarizing issue.

I hadn't realized google was falling hard, that's great news to me, and I wish it had been on the front page.

Could be google hiding from bad press here as they are wont to do.

I will freely admit that Wolfram's thoughts are over my head and there are very few thoughts that fall into this category.

I imagine many are in the same boat, if they admit it or not.

I also imagine that Wolfram isn't the best at compressing his ideas into a form that is easier to digest for those of us of more average intelligence.

This really can't be overstated. Propaganda was highly effective even as words on pieces of paper distributed once a week or infrequent AM radio broadcasts.

I believe the old idea that would hold even more so now is that the only defense against propaganda is essentially to be illiterate. It is really hard to propagandize a person who can't read. The more informed a person believes themselves to be about the world from text, the more propagandized they are. I believe that is from Edward Bernays.

Illiterate people can listen to radio (or now, videos) just fine, though. Text isn't special, the content is.

Illiterate people can also be lured into crowds marching with photos of their leaders, de facto becoming themselves part of the propaganda.

It is also that we are expected to grow from 8.0 billion now to 9.9 billion by 2050 and almost a billion people don't have electricity right now.

The developed world going back to 1950 would probably cause the biggest famine in human history.

Let them eat cake.

How this would also work in the real world is that you need to go back to a 1950s living standard to save the planet.

Me? My current living standard is essential to saving the planet so it would be a mistake for me to join you.

That is not the only option. For example, we could expand nuclear power greatly, akin to France, to make electricity cheaper.

I'd love to know how your current living standard is essential to saving the planet.

I am a registered Democrat that absolutely can't stand Elon Musk and his cult of personality.

The mob turn on him for trying to buy Twitter is so disturbing though. It is straight Jacobin.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity..if you disagree in any sense, then the guillotine.

I don't think anyone can answer this for you considering you have to live somewhere.

Don't forget though that real estate is an inflation hedge so even if the market cools it is hard to see it falling off a cliff.

Bloomberg has taken this to another level. It use to be a straight financial news source. I would imagine it is the effect of Twitter on the news in general.