Bitcoin, Decentralization and a very real Why It Matters – 13 deaths and countless lives ruined by the Horizon centralized system

via Cryptocurrency News & Discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1pupv38/bitcoin_decentralization_and_a_very_real_why_it/

If you're ever in an argument with someone over Bitcoin's benefits and the tired broken rhetoric of "Bitcoin's a solution looking for a problem"…

Point them to this resurfacing scandal from the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxjLFgX-eP0

tl;dr Between 1999-2015, 900 subpostmasters were persecuted and prosecuted for fraud crimes they did not commit. It resulted in at least 13 suicides as these innocents were financially ruined and some jailed. Who was the actual culprit? A centralized system with defects that invented phantom shortfalls! (A hallucinating system? Doesn't sound familiar in today's AI landscape, does it?)

The scandal involved a massive cover-up at the highest levels. The creators of the system discovered their software's faults and maintained the lie that the centralized database could not be directly edited. A mutable ledger with no transparency protected their incompetence and caused massive collateral damage.

This is the ultimate fallacy with arguments that say privacy is only revered by criminals, ergo bitcoin is only a currency for illegal transactions. Central organizations will always have actors that are incompetent or corrupt at some point — and they will have the power to victimize innocents to save themselves. Never stop fighting for transparency. Never submit to singular, centrally controlled solutions.

submitted by /u/rgnet1
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### 比特币、去中心化与真正重要的原因:中央系统导致的13起死亡与无数生命的毁灭

在关于比特币的讨论中,常常会听到一种陈旧的论调:“比特币是一种寻找问题的解决方案”。但是,当我们看到一些令人震惊的事件时,这种说法显得无比苍白。比如最近在英国浮出水面的丑闻。

在1999年至2015年间,有900名邮政小主管遭到起诉,罪名是他们并未犯下的欺诈罪。这场灾难导致至少13人自杀,并使这些无辜者的财政状况陷入崩溃,部分人甚至被监禁。真正的罪魁祸首是什么?是一个存在缺陷的集中系统,虚构了无形的短缺!这样的“幻觉系统”在当今的人工智能环境中并不陌生。

这个丑闻涵盖了最高层的巨大掩盖。系统的创建者们意识到了软件存在的缺陷,却继续维护一个谎言,称集中式数据库无法被直接编辑。缺乏透明度的可变账本保护了他们的无能,造成了巨大的附带损失。

这正是那些声称隐私只受到罪犯保护的论调的致命谬误。这样的观点认为比特币仅仅是用于非法交易的货币。事实上,任何中央组织都会在某个时刻出现不称职或腐败的行为者,而他们将有能力为了保护自己而使无辜的人受到伤害。我们必须持续为透明而战,决不能屈服于单一的、由中央控制的解决方案。

比特币的去中心化特性恰好提供了对抗此类不公的工具。在一个真实的去中心化系统中,每个人的数据和交易都透明且不可篡改,这样的环境有助于防止类似丑闻的发生。我们不应忽视技术带来的潜力,而是应当致力于通过它来促进更公平、更透明的社会。只有这样,我们才能够避免未来悲剧的重演。

当你下次听到关于比特币的批评时,带上这个故事,让人们明白去中心化不仅仅是技术的进步,更是维护正义、保护人权的重要力量。