That's a good question. I'm on the fence. If you look at the design of an artifact and try to tease out clues to the intentions of the designer, that's very interesting to me.

Recently there was an essay by Charlie Stross buzzing around, fueled by a particularly contentious passage that suggested that BitCoin looked as if it were designed as a weapon against central banking and tax collection. A good chunk of the techno-nerd community denied it with the standard observation that it's just a descentralized protocol, etc.

So that conversation was very much like "This knife was designed to make fillet cuts". Response: "No, it's just a long sharp blade with an attached handle".

And I came away from that thinking "really, doesn't the design of this artifact suggest a little more about its intended purpose?"

And then this article comes out and suggests that the anthropological instincts of Charlie Stross vis-a-vis the design intent behind BitCoin may not have been so off the wall after all. And so that superficially feels somewhat illuminating to me, as someone who would not feel entirely comfortable throwing my weight behind something like that - despite how brilliant and cool BitCoin is on a purely technical level.

I also wonder - if we entertain for a moment the hypothesis that Charlie Stross is on to something - does the fact that Nakamoto no longer has any control over it imply that it would no longer behave as designed?