Wait, I think we are missing his point. Last sentence of the article:
"So let’s talk both about whether BitCoin is a bubble and whether it’s a good thing — in part to make sure that we don’t confuse these questions with each other."
I think this article does not go into the 'will it work?' debate. It alerts us instead to another debate, 'to what degree do we want it?'
It is an addition to what Charlie Stross was saying. He is just adding "guys, why are your comments replying to a different question?"
At least, I think that is the discussion he wants to start. But his talk about the ceiling and floor in value in the middle of the article actually belongs to the OTHER discussion, the one he does not want to start but spends half of the text going into.
It is like trying to talk about empirics to consider for deciding national policy, while everyone is shouting their usual political opinions.
I think this is a good point, but for Paul Krugman, the discussion of the role of the central bank in the stability of the dollar is absolutely, well, central, to the question of desirability. That is, the central bank is in some sense "responsive" to the monetary environment in a way that bitcoin is explicitly and inexorably not. I think Paul Krugman is arguing that that is a big deal.
Wait, I think we are missing his point. Last sentence of the article:
"So let’s talk both about whether BitCoin is a bubble and whether it’s a good thing — in part to make sure that we don’t confuse these questions with each other."
I think this article does not go into the 'will it work?' debate. It alerts us instead to another debate, 'to what degree do we want it?'
It is an addition to what Charlie Stross was saying. He is just adding "guys, why are your comments replying to a different question?"
At least, I think that is the discussion he wants to start. But his talk about the ceiling and floor in value in the middle of the article actually belongs to the OTHER discussion, the one he does not want to start but spends half of the text going into.
It is like trying to talk about empirics to consider for deciding national policy, while everyone is shouting their usual political opinions.