Why burning cash for comments isn't the solution,

in #cryptocurrency6 years ago (edited)

I'm not entirely convinced that having comment writers burn cash is really a solution to ultimately trolling issues, and the larger cultural problem of flame wars. It doesn't necessarily prevent writers from writing articles that troll other writers as an alternative means commenting to troll. When I was browsing on this one website, that has a decentralized payment system, but is otherwise centralized, I'm reminded of how on Twitter.

The administration of that website (Twitter) actively colludes with the political mainstream in order to cause flame wars to happen. In this case, even if the actual architecture allows for reduced trolling, a corrupt administration will go far to ruin the potential benefits: they might pay users through back channels, and use that money to fund endless flame wars and trolling. Well funded adversaries then would have a greater means of influencing public opinion.

In this case, there isn't much a decentralized payment system can do about this issue. And when you allow users to pay for cash with a credit card, not only does this allow for gaming of the system (those who can pay more get more cryptographic currency) but is also a potential privacy nightmare: companies can track your credit card purchases. Which means even if one purchased cash with good intentions (an unlikely prospect) then companies can find out your purchasing habits.

The entire goal of me having cryptographic currency is to avoid that kind of corporate purchase monitoring. So I'll have to decline using yours.org.

A better solution would be to default to having all comments be rotated by ROT13, and have the writer remove the blinders so to speak, if what we're really concerned about is protecting feelings. Or better yet, change the culture that encourages trolling, rather than punishing it.

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