6 ms·

> privacy bs Privacy is always BS until the lack of it bites you personally. Privacy (i.e. 4th amendment) is to Swiss what 2nd and 4th amendment is to conserva

> privacy bs Privacy is always BS until the lack of it bites you personally. Privacy (i.e. 4th amendment) is to Swiss what 2nd and 4th amendment is to conservative Americans: Our insurance against government overreach. The problem is of course that not every place is as democratic (i.e. ruled by the people as a whole) and low in crime, therefore privacy creates unwanted side effects in form of illegitimate uses. What exactly is illegitimate is up for discussion though - e.g. I consider tax hiding as simply a symptom of governments failing to create stringent market places where taxes flow automatically and fairly. As long as you don't have a world- (solar system?) wide government with total control, you'll never eliminate the availability of tax havens, they just get shifted around - currently the easiest place to hide is probably Delaware. I see cryptocurrency as a nice opportunity to introduce a much more stringent monetary system where it's trivial to trace back the origin of money and track whether it has been earned in a legitimate way, including the deduction of taxes. People will still have the same options in general: (a) store it in a personal offline wallet - somewhat dangerous due to potential loss and/or forgetting access codes (b) give access codes to a trusted bank who will have an interest in tracing whether everything is in order (due to regulations) (c) store it somewhere off-shore, risking fraud What crypto enables is basically a clean separation of (b) and (c), which would make life easier for Swiss banks in the current landscape, i.e. allow them to once again deal freely with foreign nationals, especially Americans.

thisisit 9y ago
It seems it is true - you read what you believe and rest is all lost. So thank you for quoting a misused qualifier from my post for your counter. I don't expect people who have not lived or experienced what people like me in the developing countries have to go through because of the Swiss privacy bs. Though I do expect them to hem and haw when stuff like Panama papers are revealed. Additionally, it seems you don't really understand how cryptocurrency work. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous and hence, it allows stuff like this: > I see cryptocurrency as a nice opportunity to introduce a much more stringent monetary system where it's trivial to trace back the origin of money and track whether it has been earned in a legitimate way, including the deduction of taxes. True anonymity which you want from the 4th Amendment, happens in cryptocurrencies like Monero. Those are resistant to blockchain analysis and you can't trace it back to origin.
- castle-bravo 9y ago
  Is it really fair to blame the Swiss for the behaviour of your politicians? I'm not convinced.
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Presumably they ("the Swiss") enabled, through privacy focused banking, the politicians to safely funnel away (big) money.
  - Chriky 9y ago
    He's blaming the Swiss for their own actions
- m_mueller 9y ago
  You don’t seem to be interpreting what I write favorably. My main point is that there is a balance to strike between privacy and control. One of the main issues in developing nations is that opening a small business legally is overly complicated (in some cases literally years of administrative work for the applicant), so people are forced to keep everything out of the books, which prevents them from ever gaining wealth needed to reinvest. An ideal system IMO would achieve full transparency for the money of larger organisations (including governments) while giving privacy to private people and small businesses. The Swiss system is very good at achieving the latter but rather poor at at former (for which instead direct democratic processes are intended to achieve the necessary checks). I don’t have a perfect solution for this problem, but IMO it’s worth thinking about - and crypto seems to be promising. Maybe a combination of Monero and Ethereum where privacy is optional, with regulations for what kind of transactions transparence is required?
microtherion 9y ago
> Privacy (i.e. 4th amendment) is to Swiss what 2nd and 4th amendment is to conservative Americans: Our insurance against government overreach. Ah, that's utter BS. Not one of the advocates of banking privacy is demanding similar privacy for wage statements. Oh no, if your income comes mainly from wages, you obviously can't be trusted like people whose income comes from investments!
- ttoinou 9y ago
  I solely demand similar privacy for wage statements
- walshemj 9y ago
  The IRS and The HMRC do want to know where all your income comes from - J random buzy body or an employer should be told to GTFO
HIPisTheAnswer 9y ago
Your only defense against government overreach (ie violent aggression) is self-defense (ie genuine, well-trained militia of free people). Reference to: The constitution of no authority by Lysander Spooner, and, The law by F.Bastiat
- EarthIsHome 9y ago
  What is an example of a genuine, well-trained militia, and how does it fare against a government's military?
  - jpttsn 9y ago
    Afghan militia has fared well both against US/NATO and Soviet militaries in the past 50 years.
    - danans 9y ago
      If you are referring to the Taliban and their precursors, they have had, and continue to have significant financial and logistical backing from nation states.
      - jpttsn 9y ago
        Does that make them a bad example of a successful militia? Perhaps a successful militia requires significant financial and logistical backing from nation states, in addition to being well trained.
        danans 9y ago
        In that case they are paramilitaries, not just militias.
  - hueving 9y ago
    This question falsely presumes that the government's military is not also fractured by whatever is causing the militia to revolt. The military is made up of citizens.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

thisisit 9y ago

It seems it is true - you read what you believe and rest is all lost. So thank you for quoting a misused qualifier from my post for your counter. I don't expect people who have not lived or experienced what people like me in the developing countries have to go through because of the Swiss privacy bs. Though I do expect them to hem and haw when stuff like Panama papers are revealed. Additionally, it seems you don't really understand how cryptocurrency work. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous and hence, it allows stuff like this: > I see cryptocurrency as a nice opportunity to introduce a much more stringent monetary system where it's trivial to trace back the origin of money and track whether it has been earned in a legitimate way, including the deduction of taxes. True anonymity which you want from the 4th Amendment, happens in cryptocurrencies like Monero. Those are resistant to blockchain analysis and you can't trace it back to origin.

castle-bravo 9y ago
Is it really fair to blame the Swiss for the behaviour of your politicians? I'm not convinced.
- jacobush 9y ago
  Presumably they ("the Swiss") enabled, through privacy focused banking, the politicians to safely funnel away (big) money.
- Chriky 9y ago
  He's blaming the Swiss for their own actions
m_mueller 9y ago
You don’t seem to be interpreting what I write favorably. My main point is that there is a balance to strike between privacy and control. One of the main issues in developing nations is that opening a small business legally is overly complicated (in some cases literally years of administrative work for the applicant), so people are forced to keep everything out of the books, which prevents them from ever gaining wealth needed to reinvest. An ideal system IMO would achieve full transparency for the money of larger organisations (including governments) while giving privacy to private people and small businesses. The Swiss system is very good at achieving the latter but rather poor at at former (for which instead direct democratic processes are intended to achieve the necessary checks). I don’t have a perfect solution for this problem, but IMO it’s worth thinking about - and crypto seems to be promising. Maybe a combination of Monero and Ethereum where privacy is optional, with regulations for what kind of transactions transparence is required?

microtherion 9y ago

> Privacy (i.e. 4th amendment) is to Swiss what 2nd and 4th amendment is to conservative Americans: Our insurance against government overreach. Ah, that's utter BS. Not one of the advocates of banking privacy is demanding similar privacy for wage statements. Oh no, if your income comes mainly from wages, you obviously can't be trusted like people whose income comes from investments!

ttoinou 9y ago
I solely demand similar privacy for wage statements
walshemj 9y ago
The IRS and The HMRC do want to know where all your income comes from - J random buzy body or an employer should be told to GTFO

HIPisTheAnswer 9y ago

Your only defense against government overreach (ie violent aggression) is self-defense (ie genuine, well-trained militia of free people). Reference to: The constitution of no authority by Lysander Spooner, and, The law by F.Bastiat

EarthIsHome 9y ago
What is an example of a genuine, well-trained militia, and how does it fare against a government's military?
- jpttsn 9y ago
  Afghan militia has fared well both against US/NATO and Soviet militaries in the past 50 years.
  - danans 9y ago
    If you are referring to the Taliban and their precursors, they have had, and continue to have significant financial and logistical backing from nation states.
    - jpttsn 9y ago
      Does that make them a bad example of a successful militia? Perhaps a successful militia requires significant financial and logistical backing from nation states, in addition to being well trained.
      - danans 9y ago
        In that case they are paramilitaries, not just militias.
- hueving 9y ago
  This question falsely presumes that the government's military is not also fractured by whatever is causing the militia to revolt. The military is made up of citizens.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]