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The comments here mention crypto currencies. However, currency is anathema to anarchist societies and isn't mentioned in the manifesto. Anarchists recognize tha

by mempko 9y ago

The comments here mention crypto currencies. However, currency is anathema to anarchist societies and isn't mentioned in the manifesto. Anarchists recognize that currencies and markets are products of the state and using this tool in a stateless society makes no sense. A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision? Who does it serve? Bitcoin makes it clear it is the FPGA and ASIC operators consuming vasts amount of energy.

tomrod 9y ago
Crypto currency was created to be decentralized, requiring no state to back it.
- mempko 9y ago
  bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. How the ledger is computed and verified is distributed however the product is a single central source of truth. There is nothing centralized about having a single objective "reality". Decentralized systems do not have a single source of truth and by their very nature are inconsistent. In other words, whether the blockchain was computed by one central bank or individual miners doesn't change the nature of bitcoin in it's use. Which is a centralized public ledger. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin was an attempt to shine a light on the black market. Similar to how Tor was created to hide the activities of state spooks.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    >bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. Immediately not following you here. The singular ledger you refer to is in fact stored (and modified) by many different actors and agreed to on a majority basis. There are absolutely different versions of the ledger in existence, but the majority chooses to move forward temporally on the basis of majority consensus. That version of the ledger becomes the basis for future records, and so on. It is an agreement between parties, in the same way that having other people refer to you by your chosen name is 'a single truth' which is actually just majority agreement. >the product is a single central source of truth. I can't see this aspect of your argument panning out to anything other than complete absurdity, to be honest. >There is nothing centralized about having a single objective "reality". Was this a typo? It appears to contradict the rest of your post. If it wasn't, I agree with this point.
    - mempko 9y ago
      Yes,the last one was a typo. Phone input. My argument is bitcoin relies on a consistent ledger to function. It relies on a distributed system to compute the ledger, but it depends on consistency to function. This makes it ACT like a centralized system and therefore it functionally IS one. A real decentalized system functions with inconsistency.
      - FooHentai 9y ago
        So then to track that argument down to an absurdity - The objections you raise could equally be applied to language, or mathematics.
        mempko 9y ago
        Language does not have to be consistent and mathematics are a game we play. Bitcoin is a single global public ledger created in a distributed system. To call it decentralized is strange since all transactions must go into the central ledger to be valid. In other words, decentralized systems function perfectly fine with inconsistency. Bitcoin does not pass that test.
        FooHentai 9y ago
        >Language does not have to be consistent Parties have to agree on terms for language to be of any use. >mathematics are a game we play Ok? So is money. Rest of your comment is a nonsense since it follows a declaration that 'maths is just a game', then gets incredibly specific on a bunch of stuff which, if we're being consistent, is just maths.
  - thephyber 9y ago
    Technically, there is not one ledger. This post is being pedantic, but the parent is wrong, technically, on the central point of its post. Every node keeps a copy of the blockchain and occasionally one node adds a block to the blockchain (upon successful mining), then notifies other networked nodes of the new block. As soon as a block is mined, the lucky miner has a different ledger than the rest of the network. It's not until that new block propagates across the entire Bitcoin network that the ledger is updated. Because of differences in protocol implementations, not all nodes accept the new block (this happened at least once). With the new BTC fork, it will be obvious that any stragglers on the old fork (or the new fork, if the protocol change brings insufficient consensus) will have their own fork of the blockchain, which will mean the ledger is forked.
AYBABTME 9y ago
> A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. Not at all. "State" is a political constructions while currencies are a value transport mechanism and markets are a network of those, both of which, as "pure" concepts, arises pretty quickly when one starts to ponder how to model "actors in need to exchange and use scarce resources which have alternative uses". In that sense, saying that "currencies and markets" have any particular purpose (political at that) is like saying that someone invented the concept/idea of "hash functions" for the purpose of serving P2P piracy, which isn't the case: "hash functions" just are a thing that arises in the universe. Same with currencies and markets, they're just pretty arbitrary, easy to come up with, concepts.
- mempko 9y ago
  You are wrong, they are inventions used for a political purpose. Try making your own currency and markets if you want proof. Bitcoin is a perfect example. Required millions of dollars to get off the ground, provisioned early adopters like a ponzi scheme. Likely has state backing though I have no proof it's a honey pot. Just gut feeling.
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    Honeypot for what?
  - thephyber 9y ago
    > they are inventions used for a political purpose I think you are conflating "fiat currencies" with "currencies". US Dollars are a currency. Gold is a "currency". Bitcoin is a currency. Calling card credits are a currency. Cigarettes in prison are a currency. Any store of value is a currency -- whether created / authorized by a state or not. If anarchists go back to a barter system, there will always be asymmetric transactions that will require some sort of value store (basically an IOU for a transaction that already happened) or cause inefficiencies in the market (the buyer or seller would have to take a hit in order to complete a transaction). Currency always has been to fill this purpose. > Required millions of dollars to get off the ground I would argue that if you chose to try and replace the old Gold System with your Widgets System, you would also need lots of resources to convince others to buy into your new currency. It's not about state power as much as other people having faith in your currency keeping value, which is the only purpose of a currency.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Incorrect on both counts. There are, and have been, both currencies and markets without (or outside) state purview. Though having a state helps standardise much about both. See the content of the Code of Hammurabi, much of which concerned both commerce and tort.
- mempko 9y ago
  Got any good literature on this because I haven't found any supporting what you said. Code of Hammurabi didn't standardize an existing practice in my understanding.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    The persistence in the use of Roman currency throughout Europe after the fall of Rome, the use of various currencies in pre-Columbian America, including the continued use of same by post-Columbian Americans, as well as other commodity monies: beaver pelts, cowhides, etc. These were frequently (though not exclusively) used in frontier regions, where the notion of a government regulating trade was all but absent, or between tribes with whom there was no single overarching regulatory body or legal code. Wampum is the source of "clams" as a synonym for money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum http://factcards.califa.org/mli/tannery.html http://factcards.califa.org/mli/tannery.html The use of cowhides as money is also discussed in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, a travellogue/history of early California in the 1830s. (Also mentioned at the URL above). http://www.worldcat.org/title/two-years-before-the-mast-a-personal-narrative-of-life-at-sea/oclc/944310002 http://www.worldcat.org/title/two-years-before-the-mast-a-pe... The code of Hammurabi: "Nearly one-half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi Citing: http://www.commonlaw.com/home/legal-history-and-philosophy/code-of-hammurabi http://www.commonlaw.com/home/legal-history-and-philosophy/c... William Stanley Jevons wrote at length on money in the 1880s, and discusses early forms of currency, including several mentioned above: https://archive.org/stream/moneyandmechani01jevogoog#page/n43/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/moneyandmechani01jevogoog#page/n4... I'll leave you free to conduct further research on your own.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> FPGA and ASIC operators consuming vasts amount of energy Not vast at all when you compare it with the amount of energy used in traditional banking to move around the same amount of money.
- davidgerard 9y ago
  Yes, vast when you calculate cost per transaction. Mindbuggeringly inefficient.
Jabanga 9y ago
Regardless of how you define anarchy, it isn't how the author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto defined it. Taxation of private income is anathema to privacy. You can only eliminate, prohibit or tax income if you eliminate privacy. That's why in the manifesto it says: >The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. All of the major figures in the cryptocurrency field, like Nick Szabo and Wei Dai, were part of the cypherpunks mailing list. The author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, Timothy May, wrote about uncensorable digital currency in Cyphernomicon, in 1994. >A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision? Markets and currency provision people.. Trade is a basic form of human interaction that benefits participants.

by mempko 9y ago

tomrod 9y ago

Crypto currency was created to be decentralized, requiring no state to back it.

mempko 9y ago
bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. How the ledger is computed and verified is distributed however the product is a single central source of truth. There is nothing centralized about having a single objective "reality". Decentralized systems do not have a single source of truth and by their very nature are inconsistent. In other words, whether the blockchain was computed by one central bank or individual miners doesn't change the nature of bitcoin in it's use. Which is a centralized public ledger. I wouldn't be surprised if bitcoin was an attempt to shine a light on the black market. Similar to how Tor was created to hide the activities of state spooks.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  >bitcoin is not decentralized because all transactions are on a single public ledger. Immediately not following you here. The singular ledger you refer to is in fact stored (and modified) by many different actors and agreed to on a majority basis. There are absolutely different versions of the ledger in existence, but the majority chooses to move forward temporally on the basis of majority consensus. That version of the ledger becomes the basis for future records, and so on. It is an agreement between parties, in the same way that having other people refer to you by your chosen name is 'a single truth' which is actually just majority agreement. >the product is a single central source of truth. I can't see this aspect of your argument panning out to anything other than complete absurdity, to be honest. >There is nothing centralized about having a single objective "reality". Was this a typo? It appears to contradict the rest of your post. If it wasn't, I agree with this point.
  - mempko 9y ago
    Yes,the last one was a typo. Phone input. My argument is bitcoin relies on a consistent ledger to function. It relies on a distributed system to compute the ledger, but it depends on consistency to function. This makes it ACT like a centralized system and therefore it functionally IS one. A real decentalized system functions with inconsistency.
    - FooHentai 9y ago
      So then to track that argument down to an absurdity - The objections you raise could equally be applied to language, or mathematics.
      - mempko 9y ago
        Language does not have to be consistent and mathematics are a game we play. Bitcoin is a single global public ledger created in a distributed system. To call it decentralized is strange since all transactions must go into the central ledger to be valid. In other words, decentralized systems function perfectly fine with inconsistency. Bitcoin does not pass that test.
        FooHentai 9y ago
        >Language does not have to be consistent Parties have to agree on terms for language to be of any use. >mathematics are a game we play Ok? So is money. Rest of your comment is a nonsense since it follows a declaration that 'maths is just a game', then gets incredibly specific on a bunch of stuff which, if we're being consistent, is just maths.
- thephyber 9y ago
  Technically, there is not one ledger. This post is being pedantic, but the parent is wrong, technically, on the central point of its post. Every node keeps a copy of the blockchain and occasionally one node adds a block to the blockchain (upon successful mining), then notifies other networked nodes of the new block. As soon as a block is mined, the lucky miner has a different ledger than the rest of the network. It's not until that new block propagates across the entire Bitcoin network that the ledger is updated. Because of differences in protocol implementations, not all nodes accept the new block (this happened at least once). With the new BTC fork, it will be obvious that any stragglers on the old fork (or the new fork, if the protocol change brings insufficient consensus) will have their own fork of the blockchain, which will mean the ledger is forked.

AYBABTME 9y ago

> A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. Not at all. "State" is a political constructions while currencies are a value transport mechanism and markets are a network of those, both of which, as "pure" concepts, arises pretty quickly when one starts to ponder how to model "actors in need to exchange and use scarce resources which have alternative uses". In that sense, saying that "currencies and markets" have any particular purpose (political at that) is like saying that someone invented the concept/idea of "hash functions" for the purpose of serving P2P piracy, which isn't the case: "hash functions" just are a thing that arises in the universe. Same with currencies and markets, they're just pretty arbitrary, easy to come up with, concepts.

mempko 9y ago
You are wrong, they are inventions used for a political purpose. Try making your own currency and markets if you want proof. Bitcoin is a perfect example. Required millions of dollars to get off the ground, provisioned early adopters like a ponzi scheme. Likely has state backing though I have no proof it's a honey pot. Just gut feeling.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  Honeypot for what?
- thephyber 9y ago
  > they are inventions used for a political purpose I think you are conflating "fiat currencies" with "currencies". US Dollars are a currency. Gold is a "currency". Bitcoin is a currency. Calling card credits are a currency. Cigarettes in prison are a currency. Any store of value is a currency -- whether created / authorized by a state or not. If anarchists go back to a barter system, there will always be asymmetric transactions that will require some sort of value store (basically an IOU for a transaction that already happened) or cause inefficiencies in the market (the buyer or seller would have to take a hit in order to complete a transaction). Currency always has been to fill this purpose. > Required millions of dollars to get off the ground I would argue that if you chose to try and replace the old Gold System with your Widgets System, you would also need lots of resources to convince others to buy into your new currency. It's not about state power as much as other people having faith in your currency keeping value, which is the only purpose of a currency.

dredmorbius 9y ago

Incorrect on both counts. There are, and have been, both currencies and markets without (or outside) state purview. Though having a state helps standardise much about both. See the content of the Code of Hammurabi, much of which concerned both commerce and tort.

mempko 9y ago
Got any good literature on this because I haven't found any supporting what you said. Code of Hammurabi didn't standardize an existing practice in my understanding.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  The persistence in the use of Roman currency throughout Europe after the fall of Rome, the use of various currencies in pre-Columbian America, including the continued use of same by post-Columbian Americans, as well as other commodity monies: beaver pelts, cowhides, etc. These were frequently (though not exclusively) used in frontier regions, where the notion of a government regulating trade was all but absent, or between tribes with whom there was no single overarching regulatory body or legal code. Wampum is the source of "clams" as a synonym for money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum http://factcards.califa.org/mli/tannery.html http://factcards.califa.org/mli/tannery.html The use of cowhides as money is also discussed in Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, a travellogue/history of early California in the 1830s. (Also mentioned at the URL above). http://www.worldcat.org/title/two-years-before-the-mast-a-personal-narrative-of-life-at-sea/oclc/944310002 http://www.worldcat.org/title/two-years-before-the-mast-a-pe... The code of Hammurabi: "Nearly one-half of the code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi Citing: http://www.commonlaw.com/home/legal-history-and-philosophy/code-of-hammurabi http://www.commonlaw.com/home/legal-history-and-philosophy/c... William Stanley Jevons wrote at length on money in the 1880s, and discusses early forms of currency, including several mentioned above: https://archive.org/stream/moneyandmechani01jevogoog#page/n43/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/moneyandmechani01jevogoog#page/n4... I'll leave you free to conduct further research on your own.

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

> FPGA and ASIC operators consuming vasts amount of energy Not vast at all when you compare it with the amount of energy used in traditional banking to move around the same amount of money.

davidgerard 9y ago
Yes, vast when you calculate cost per transaction. Mindbuggeringly inefficient.

Jabanga 9y ago

Regardless of how you define anarchy, it isn't how the author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto defined it. Taxation of private income is anathema to privacy. You can only eliminate, prohibit or tax income if you eliminate privacy. That's why in the manifesto it says: >The State will of course try to slow or halt the spread of this technology, citing national security concerns, use of the technology by drug dealers and tax evaders, and fears of societal disintegration. All of the major figures in the cryptocurrency field, like Nick Szabo and Wei Dai, were part of the cypherpunks mailing list. The author of the Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, Timothy May, wrote about uncensorable digital currency in Cyphernomicon, in 1994. >A currency and markets primary purpose is to provision the state. What would a crypto currency without a state provision? Markets and currency provision people.. Trade is a basic form of human interaction that benefits participants.