Good post. Many proponents of crypto fundamentally misunderstand their own creation. What they refer to as disintermediation is actually automation: replacing administrative middlemen with more censorship-resistant middlemachines - ideal-typical bureaucrats who, as some proponents seem to think, should be given full autonomy/independence from external power.
《creditors still gain from their ability to intermediate. They have power, in particular the power to ease the survival constraint, or to choose not to.》
Why is it so easy to tie Minsky's survival constraint to physical resource constraints, but in fact the survival constraint is psychologically noisy? In 1874 did Grant have to impose a harsh survival constraint by vetoing the Greenback Party's Inflation Bill? In 2008, would a different Fed chair have set the survival constraint differently? How arbitrary and fickle is the survival constraint?
Daniel, I've been thinking about this a lot recently, great post. One of the interesting ways this stroy has turned out is we now see "mostly" automated protocols that aggregate funding and loan distribution. So the credit intermediary is served by the protcols balance sheet. Not sure where this fits on the revolutionary vs novelty scale, but it does seem to be a more direct challenge to how the survival constraint is traditionally resolved. Curious to hear your thoughts.
Crypto and the survival constraint
Good post. Many proponents of crypto fundamentally misunderstand their own creation. What they refer to as disintermediation is actually automation: replacing administrative middlemen with more censorship-resistant middlemachines - ideal-typical bureaucrats who, as some proponents seem to think, should be given full autonomy/independence from external power.
https://mariolaul.medium.com/middlemachines-8d7b7784c9c3
《creditors still gain from their ability to intermediate. They have power, in particular the power to ease the survival constraint, or to choose not to.》
Why is it so easy to tie Minsky's survival constraint to physical resource constraints, but in fact the survival constraint is psychologically noisy? In 1874 did Grant have to impose a harsh survival constraint by vetoing the Greenback Party's Inflation Bill? In 2008, would a different Fed chair have set the survival constraint differently? How arbitrary and fickle is the survival constraint?
Daniel, I've been thinking about this a lot recently, great post. One of the interesting ways this stroy has turned out is we now see "mostly" automated protocols that aggregate funding and loan distribution. So the credit intermediary is served by the protcols balance sheet. Not sure where this fits on the revolutionary vs novelty scale, but it does seem to be a more direct challenge to how the survival constraint is traditionally resolved. Curious to hear your thoughts.