Why Everyone Missed the Most Important Invention in the Last 500 Years
in short:
When people look back hundreds of years from now, only the printing press and the Internet will have it beat for sheer mind boggling impact on society. Both the net and the printing press enabled the democratization of information and single-handedly uplifted the collective knowledge of people all over the world.
without accounting, you wouldn’t be reading this article on your Ipad, or driving to work in a new car or listening to music on Pandora. Without accounting there’s no commerce, no trade. Without commerce there’d be no planes, no trains, no tractors, no steam engine, no skyscrapers or computers. There’d be no nation states, no boats, no shipping containers traveling all over the world ferrying goods from the far corners of the Earth.
The first breakthrough was single entry accounting.
Once you can keep track of who owns what, trading starts to happen at a much larger scale. That’s why the kings and queens of ancient times could build castles and establish professional armies and create great wonders of the world.
Multiple civilizations from the Italians in the 1300s, to the ancient Koreans, to the 2nd Muslim caliphate all developed versions of a double entry system. The systems never caught on though. And that brings us full circle to the most important invention in the history of man: the printing press.
Then in 2006, a self taught programmer likely stumbled on the system. He was working on an alternative currency, with no centralized trust.
It was called Bitcoin.
It was the first working example of triple entry accounting.
But blockchains can do much, much more, as can the cryptos that drive that innovation.
But…But Tulips
Tulips actually had no inherent value. They were just flowers. They were pretty and that was about it.
But only nerds like cryptos!
... they were smart enough to see into the future, projecting out far enough with intellectual curiosity and seeing the potential while people still scoffed at them.
But…But It’s Unstable
Bitcoin looks wild in the short term and it is, but it’s long term trend is up.
But…But It’s Backed By Nothing
Tomorrow they’ll be even more valuable because they’ll power voting, gaming, issuance of shares and even security and reputation banks.
Thank you Daniel Jeffries author of The Jasmine Wars
Yesterday I started investing on Antshares (NEO), first time in to the game.
welcome. and don't forget, #steemit is also running on blockchain ;)