My first at-bat at a personal blog and I have already had one profanity-laced retort. Not bad going – I never quite managed that with the ASI or the New Statesman!

To be clear, the individual I quoted in my last post – to whom the retort belongs – was not identified for the purpose of personal criticism, but rather because his blogpost which I chose to quote was easily the best, and most succinct, written example I’ve seen of a widely-held political idea shared by crypto advocates of many stripes, some of whom I consider my friends.

This is the idea that the blockchain is law, the sovereign, or somehow beyond national jurisdiction, simply because government can’t take the network down with a 51% attack or crack a private key.

This view is clearly, from my vantage point, incorrect.

It’s a simple point, and a perfectly reasonable one, which is readily amenable to constructive civil discussion and disagreement. Except, it would appear, for people who just don’t like being disagreed with.