In general, we (humans) are not great at assessing the potential of negative/positive effects beyond certain scale (black swans and all), and analogies along the lines of “like X, but digital” are just too attractive. Those analogies are dangerous, since the scale makes Y an entirely new thing with effects that cannot be predicted based on its outside similarity to X.
This applies to many concepts including infosec (e.g., likening remotely exploitable vulnerabilities to faulty door locks), cryptocurrency, mass media, though when I was writing the above I mainly was specifically thinking about cryptocurrency. It is misleadingly similar to “cash, but digital and not backend by government”, but its scale makes it something we actually have never had to deal with before, with unknown implications that go both ways.
Considering the potential effects can be unbounded, limiting it in order to bound the downsides ones might be a rational (but both unpopular, boring and ambiguous) thing to do, even if it also limits the upsides.
In general, we (humans) are not great at assessing the potential of negative/positive effects beyond certain scale (black swans and all), and analogies along the lines of “like X, but digital” are just too attractive. Those analogies are dangerous, since the scale makes Y an entirely new thing with effects that cannot be predicted based on its outside similarity to X.
This applies to many concepts including infosec (e.g., likening remotely exploitable vulnerabilities to faulty door locks), cryptocurrency, mass media, though when I was writing the above I mainly was specifically thinking about cryptocurrency. It is misleadingly similar to “cash, but digital and not backend by government”, but its scale makes it something we actually have never had to deal with before, with unknown implications that go both ways.
Considering the potential effects can be unbounded, limiting it in order to bound the downsides ones might be a rational (but both unpopular, boring and ambiguous) thing to do, even if it also limits the upsides.