5 ms·

It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. You don't need

by natrius 11y ago

It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. You don't need a government to sanction bad actors. The people can do it on their own. Money is power. Anonymous money prevents you from choosing which power you'd like to submit to. Decentralized money prevents governments from restricting power. Let's keep the decentralization and remove the anonymity so you can reject power you find undesirable. The first application of this mechanism will probably be restoring our democracies by rejecting the power of money to influence them. It won't be the last application—I think we'll use it to enforce any rule that has a broad consensus behind it. The boundaries of the enforcement will be the same as the boundaries of our economy: there aren't any. We'll have global governance without a global government. This is merit capitalism. http://meritcapitalism.com/ http://meritcapitalism.com/ Zcash is cool, but if you accept it as payment, you're making yourself powerless.

onion2k 11y ago
It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but that doesn't sound like an easy fix.
- natrius 11y ago
  I appreciate the cynicism. I've never been called a pessimist, so I might have a rosy view of things. I think it's not that hard, though. Technologically, it's very straightforward. Convincing people that they should sacrifice financial privacy is the hard part. That's why I've already started it.
  - RangerScience 11y ago
    What's the thing you've made called, and how does it ensure identity?
digbyloftus 11y ago
It works both ways, anonymous money prevents people from choosing not to accept your own money as much as it does the other way around. It makes the transaction purely about the money, I don't think that's powerless, just reduces people's ability to mind other people's business.
- natrius 11y ago
  Didn't you read the dystopian prophecy above? It's caused by the inability of anyone to mind other people's business. Most people find that to be an undesirable world. Today, your business is minded by the government and large corporations. As a result, the rules that they want enforced are the ones that actually get enforced. Anonymous money is why you have no ability to prevent people from buying your government: no one with the power to mind people's business actually wants to enforce such a rule. If you give everyone the power to mind people's business, then rules that the people want enforced can actually be enforced. There is no way to regain the ability to sanction bad behavior unless you can mind other people's business. Financial privacy feels nice, but it gives the wealthy the ability to rule over us with little recourse. Are the benefits worth the cost?
  - digbyloftus 11y ago
    I didn't see anything dystopian about it. Bad behaviour just like the rest of morality is relative if it exists at all. I certainly don't think the ability to sanction behaviour is a boon.
  - aminok 11y ago
    Crimes with a victim often have a witness, and thus are easy to sanction. Only victimless crime needs financial privacy eliminated in order to sanction, since all parties to such crimes are mutually consenting and thus not likely to come forward. The destruction of individual rights for the sake of preventing individual crime either ends in extreme centralisation of power, with the party given the exclusive privilege of surveiling the population gaining power over the masses through its informational superiority, which makes institutional abuse by the political elite and the organs of the state more likely, or a morass of gridlock where no one can act without the permission of everyone else in society.
drdeca 11y ago
This is an interesting idea, and seems worth considering. What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and manufacturing process? So, each step in the manufacturing process would use proofs received from previous steps that the amount they claim to have produced is not more than they could make with only the materials that previous steps have said they supplied? So, e.g., if there is a place that makes good(?) grain, they would include some cryptographic signature that they provided the amount of grain, and then a baker receiving it would be able to produce a signed claim that they made so many breads with only grain from there, and they wouldn't be able to fake making more by adding grain from elsewhere, because the total of all their claims of how much of the grain is used in each bread could not total more than the grain which was signed as provided? Or something like that. I don't remember the specifics. Would it be better to track who owned the money before you, or to track how the product was made? Or both? I think there are probably some advantages of anonymous money, but I don't know that they outweigh the costs that you mention. (I suspect non-anonymous money makes auctions and things more difficult, and might reduce effeciency, but that might just be the acceptable cost of influencing the world against people doing harm)
- natrius 11y ago
  > What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and manufacturing process? I think it's a great idea, and people are building it. https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust-machine-to-solve-transparency-in-supply-chains-c6bdc90c3f15 https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust-mac... The decentralization renaissance is hitting full steam. If you like thinking about this sort of thing, you should find a way to make it your day job.
- mjevans 11y ago
  This would also be an excellent way to trace recalls based on defective or otherwise harmful products; though the lot numbers involved would need to be in the transactions.
cyphar 11y ago
> It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. I don't understand how this is "easy". Money doesn't become evil because of how it was earned, that's just an overly emotional way of looking at a system of transactions. > Money is power. Anonymous money prevents you from choosing which power you'd like to submit to. Decentralized money prevents governments from restricting power. Let's keep the decentralization and remove the anonymity so you can reject power you find undesirable. That's ridiculous FUD. Consider people donating to WikiLeaks or similar, where the sender might not want a record of where they sent their money. If the source of the money is anonymous, there's no "power" involved. Nobody can force you to do something under the pretext of "but that's what I paid you for".
- natrius 11y ago
  Money's power relies on its transitivity. Bob accepts Alice's payment because he can use it to pay Charlie. Charlie's decision to accept that money is what gives Alice power. If Alice runs a violent cartel in Mexico, Charlie can reject Alice's power. If he uses anonymous money like dollars or Zcash, Charlie is forced to submit to Alice's power because her power is invisible. There are many evil ways to acquire money, and anonymous money makes us all supporters of that evil. We should stop it. > Consider people donating to WikiLeaks or similar, where the sender might not want a record of where they sent their money. The government knows who's donating to WikiLeaks. To state actors, money is already identifiable. People like you and me are powerless when it comes to money, so we can't stop the people who have purchased our government. Let's fix that.
quantumpotato_ 11y ago
Why do you say it makes you "powerless"? If you can buy goods with it, that's power.
- natrius 11y ago
  You can buy goods with it, but you've sacrificed liberty to do so. Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. Since our society is governed by money, accepting anonymous money is consenting to everyone's power, which few people actually want to do. They do it today because it's the default.

by natrius 11y ago

onion2k 11y ago

It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. Perhaps I'm being cynical, but that doesn't sound like an easy fix.

natrius 11y ago
I appreciate the cynicism. I've never been called a pessimist, so I might have a rosy view of things. I think it's not that hard, though. Technologically, it's very straightforward. Convincing people that they should sacrifice financial privacy is the hard part. That's why I've already started it.
- RangerScience 11y ago
  What's the thing you've made called, and how does it ensure identity?

digbyloftus 11y ago

It works both ways, anonymous money prevents people from choosing not to accept your own money as much as it does the other way around. It makes the transaction purely about the money, I don't think that's powerless, just reduces people's ability to mind other people's business.

natrius 11y ago
Didn't you read the dystopian prophecy above? It's caused by the inability of anyone to mind other people's business. Most people find that to be an undesirable world. Today, your business is minded by the government and large corporations. As a result, the rules that they want enforced are the ones that actually get enforced. Anonymous money is why you have no ability to prevent people from buying your government: no one with the power to mind people's business actually wants to enforce such a rule. If you give everyone the power to mind people's business, then rules that the people want enforced can actually be enforced. There is no way to regain the ability to sanction bad behavior unless you can mind other people's business. Financial privacy feels nice, but it gives the wealthy the ability to rule over us with little recourse. Are the benefits worth the cost?
- digbyloftus 11y ago
  I didn't see anything dystopian about it. Bad behaviour just like the rest of morality is relative if it exists at all. I certainly don't think the ability to sanction behaviour is a boon.
- aminok 11y ago
  Crimes with a victim often have a witness, and thus are easy to sanction. Only victimless crime needs financial privacy eliminated in order to sanction, since all parties to such crimes are mutually consenting and thus not likely to come forward. The destruction of individual rights for the sake of preventing individual crime either ends in extreme centralisation of power, with the party given the exclusive privilege of surveiling the population gaining power over the masses through its informational superiority, which makes institutional abuse by the political elite and the organs of the state more likely, or a morass of gridlock where no one can act without the permission of everyone else in society.

drdeca 11y ago

This is an interesting idea, and seems worth considering. What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and manufacturing process? So, each step in the manufacturing process would use proofs received from previous steps that the amount they claim to have produced is not more than they could make with only the materials that previous steps have said they supplied? So, e.g., if there is a place that makes good(?) grain, they would include some cryptographic signature that they provided the amount of grain, and then a baker receiving it would be able to produce a signed claim that they made so many breads with only grain from there, and they wouldn't be able to fake making more by adding grain from elsewhere, because the total of all their claims of how much of the grain is used in each bread could not total more than the grain which was signed as provided? Or something like that. I don't remember the specifics. Would it be better to track who owned the money before you, or to track how the product was made? Or both? I think there are probably some advantages of anonymous money, but I don't know that they outweigh the costs that you mention. (I suspect non-anonymous money makes auctions and things more difficult, and might reduce effeciency, but that might just be the acceptable cost of influencing the world against people doing harm)

natrius 11y ago
> What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and manufacturing process? I think it's a great idea, and people are building it. https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust-machine-to-solve-transparency-in-supply-chains-c6bdc90c3f15 https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust-mac... The decentralization renaissance is hitting full steam. If you like thinking about this sort of thing, you should find a way to make it your day job.
mjevans 11y ago
This would also be an excellent way to trace recalls based on defective or otherwise harmful products; though the lot numbers involved would need to be in the transactions.

cyphar 11y ago

> It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. I don't understand how this is "easy". Money doesn't become evil because of how it was earned, that's just an overly emotional way of looking at a system of transactions. > Money is power. Anonymous money prevents you from choosing which power you'd like to submit to. Decentralized money prevents governments from restricting power. Let's keep the decentralization and remove the anonymity so you can reject power you find undesirable. That's ridiculous FUD. Consider people donating to WikiLeaks or similar, where the sender might not want a record of where they sent their money. If the source of the money is anonymous, there's no "power" involved. Nobody can force you to do something under the pretext of "but that's what I paid you for".

natrius 11y ago
Money's power relies on its transitivity. Bob accepts Alice's payment because he can use it to pay Charlie. Charlie's decision to accept that money is what gives Alice power. If Alice runs a violent cartel in Mexico, Charlie can reject Alice's power. If he uses anonymous money like dollars or Zcash, Charlie is forced to submit to Alice's power because her power is invisible. There are many evil ways to acquire money, and anonymous money makes us all supporters of that evil. We should stop it. > Consider people donating to WikiLeaks or similar, where the sender might not want a record of where they sent their money. The government knows who's donating to WikiLeaks. To state actors, money is already identifiable. People like you and me are powerless when it comes to money, so we can't stop the people who have purchased our government. Let's fix that.

quantumpotato_ 11y ago

Why do you say it makes you "powerless"? If you can buy goods with it, that's power.

natrius 11y ago
You can buy goods with it, but you've sacrificed liberty to do so. Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. Since our society is governed by money, accepting anonymous money is consenting to everyone's power, which few people actually want to do. They do it today because it's the default.