Rui Brito @britoca@qoto.org
Joined Jun 2020
"The present research studies a subset of people interested in cryptocurrencies. Specifically, we examine the effect of Dark Tetrad traits (Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and subclinical sadism) on a person's crypto attitude and buying intention.
The following mediators were examined as reasons for people buying crypto: (1) conspiracy beliefs (e.g., distrust of government), (2) positivity and (3) fear of missing out (FoMO).
Importantly, we are not suggesting all crypto buyers exhibit Dark Tetrad traits.
Based on a pre-registered survey of the main research question rather than hypotheses (N = 566), it was found that:
- Narcissism was positively associated with crypto attitude which was mediated by positivity.
- Machiavellianism was associated with buying intention which was mediated by conspiracy beliefs.
- Machiavellians were more distrustful of government which was associated with a greater desire to buy crypto.
- Psychopathy affected crypto judgments through FoMO and a negative effect on positivity.
- Sadism is associated with FoMO and a lack of positivity which affects crypto judgments."
Source:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886921008321
Image source and article about study:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/impulsive-psychopaths-like-crypto-why-some-take-risks-on-bitcoin-20220412-p5acv4.html
"Signs of loss have been found in more than 75% of the rainforest since the early 2000s, according to research that outlines this troubling trend."
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-amazon-rainforest-loss-dieback.html
"Five grams of plastic particles on average enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person PER WEEK. This is roughly equivalent to the weight of a credit card."
"It is particularly telling that one of Russia’s first actions in the conflict, which officially began on February 24, 2022, was to destroy a dam on the North Crimean Canal – restoring the flow of water to Crimea.
(back in 2014) Kyiv had retaliated by constructing a dam on its side of the canal, cutting off Crimea’s liquid lifeline. In a matter of weeks, the North Crimean Canal was laid bare, reduced to a brown mass of mud and weeds.
The impact on agriculture was immediate and devastating. After a particularly harsh drought in 2021 which aggravated an already delicate situation, Moscow accused Ukraine of genocide and ecocide for its decision to block the canal."
https://h2oglobalnews.com/russias-hidden-water-war-in-ukraine/
"Not a single country managed to meet the World Health Organization’s air quality standard in 2021, a survey of pollution data in 6,475 cities showed on Tuesday, and smog even rebounded in some regions after a COVID-related dip."
A consideration on the future of anonymous, decentralized blockchain financial applications:
Since the end of World War II, rogue regimes and nations, including dictators, be them right-wing or left-wing despots, terrorist states and extremist groups were, until now, kept in check through economic sanctions. Though arguably better than chaos, this "system", like so many things in life, isn't perfect, and it has been abused more than we might have wished for in the past, unfortunately. However, the advent of distributed blockchain financial technologies is disrupting that paradigm. It is, fundamentally, a shifting of power away from those who dominated the world post-WW2, mostly the modern democracies.
I ask you to do the mental exercise of imagining what the end-game of all this might be, to please stop being naïve by assuming that everyone out there is well-intended and all they want to do is to just hide their finances from "big government". You must go further than that. Because history has so often been unreasonable, you must think of much, much larger scales, and take the concepts to their apparently unreasonable limits. Contemplate all possibilities, from all sides.
By the very nature of this technology, it is available to anyone with internet access, organized or not, large or small, good or bad, sociopaths, psychopaths, misanthropes, religious fundamentalist extremists, you name it.
Can such fringe entities now have access to the means of mining, or secretly benefit from cryptocurrency technology? How many covert warehouses full of mining equipment do tyrants now control? Additionally, all over the world, there are thousands of infiltrators, spies, and secret agents, they can easily bypass the hurdle of KYC through their double identities, and accumulate and siphon cryptocurrency. Think of the scale; a nation has the budget and manpower to manage thousands, maybe millions, of separate cryptocurrency wallets. How many of these "whales" are owned by such entities?
Can rogue countries now find funding for their weaponry? Can Iran now fund its nuclear research program without outside interference? Can North Korea modernize its military and, who knows, twenty years in the future forcefully annex S. Korea? Russia's been doing that lately, will it get even more daring with the new found source of funds? What about Venezuela, can the elite keep on abusing the impoverished population by simply hitting defi loans and liquidity pools? And, can they now all help each other by easily, and surreptitiously, transferring money using anonymity coins, like Monero?
What happens once they realize they don't even have to sell crypto back into fiat, that they don't need to "cash out", that 'on' and 'off-ramps' are redundant, and that they can just handle everything among their shady allies by bartering crypto and privacy coins?
Are we, in our quest for personal financial freedom and privacy, not aiding the wrong kind of people as well? Keep this in mind: these tools are not only available to the little guy.
History repeatedly shows that catastrophes often begin with seemingly harmless beginnings. Remember, World War I began with a single shot, by a single man against another man. I don't see crypto bringing about a prosperous future for mankind. I see crypto as an expression of the dark side of human nature: a disorganized, self-centered, chaotic force, structurally unbalancing the powers that be on this planet, and ultimately, possibly, lead to WW3.
What do you think will happen?
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/o8zqf8/a_consideration_on_the_future_of_anonymous/
“Crypto itself has a lot of dystopian potential if implemented wrong,”.
"If we don’t exercise our voice, the only things that get built are the things that are immediately profitable,”
Joined Jun 2020
