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Bill Gates says crypto-currencies cause deaths
- aje403 9y agoI'm trying to figure out just a single comment on this thread to point out the idiocy of but so far I'm unable to pick any one in particular. Hopefully there will be some rational comments here at some point. I can't see any justifiable reason for needing to hide crypto assets from the government in a developed country, other than wanting to hide them. If you need to hide your assets, please move to a 3rd world country where the government doesn't spend large amounts of money to stop your neighbor from running into your house with a gun and stealing your possessions
- throwaway23424 9y agoOr just go to Switzerland where the government's job is to serve the people, not the otherway around
- cup-of-tea 9y agoWhat is the reason for needing to hide anything from the government?
- steego 9y agoIn some countries, simply belonging to the political party not in power is reason enough.
- cup-of-tea 9y agoIndeed, my question was rhetoricial in case that wasn't clear.
- steego 9y agoIt was clear. I thought it would be interesting to answer it so we could demarcate the freedom to organize politically and the freedom to hide potentially illegal assets and business operations.
- oldcynic 9y agoDo you apply the same logic to cash? Should that be phased out? The biggest appeals of phasing out cash are the possibility of negative interest rates along with the erosion of privacy. But those are appealing to governments not citizens.
- aje403 9y agoCash has been relatively phasing out of developed countries for the past half century - it might not be here in a 200 years from organic technological advancement and usage. Most people, when paying with their smartphones, do not stop themselves and ask "gee, now that I don't use cash anymore am I contributing to a hypothetical eventuality of a cashless society that encourages an Orwellian state? What should I have for supper tonight?" Deliberately removing legal tender from circulation is a large endeavor as well; there no simple "this is beneficial for us, let's get rid of it". I'm also trying to picture the US intentionally renouncing its hegemony and announcing to the world that the physical US dollar is no longer in circulation and finding that slightly comical. Providing any analogy from cash to crypto in ANY regard is simply never going to be bijective, so I would never apply the same logic. The entire point is that if I'm trying to hide "value" or "accrued value" from the government, crypto is and has been a considerably better option over other stores, including cash.
- piracykills 9y agoAh, the classic "Who needs privacy if you've got nothing to hide". I'm just glad most people don't think that way.
- aje403 9y agoNo, the classic, a government is justified in trying to prevent money laundering and I don't care about my neighbor's right to circumvent capital gains taxes under a false facade of a libertarian shield
- NickM 9y agoForget drugs, I wonder how many people have been killed by the additional emissions from all the extra electricity being generated to power Bitcoin alone. It's virtually impossible to measure something like that of course, but the WHO estimates about seven million premature deaths occur per year due to air pollution, and certainly some portion of that pollution comes from electricity generation. With the enormous amount of power being sucked up by cryptocurrencies, it's not unreasonable to think that they're directly causing some non-insignificant amount of sickness and death.
- thriftwy 9y agoCucumbers also cause deaths. Around 95% of people who die ate cucumbers.
- freqn 9y agoI know that everyone who uses a fork will die.
- elmar 9y agoProbably the major cause of deaths in the world is the US Dollar, and BTW Bill is totally outdated everyone doing something fishy as moved to Monero by now.
- elmar 9y agoand also Bitcoin as saved many lives, just look at the astonishing quantity of Bitcoins that have been given to charity.
- uhnuhnuhn 9y ago"Probably the major cause of deaths in the world is the US Dollar" How did you come to this conclusion? At least Bill Gates gave his reasoning for his statement. Also: Whataboutism.
- jdamon96 9y agoit's a conclusion of the exact same reasoning
- elmar 9y agoWith what the military complex is paid? With what are drugs bought and sold? .... .... If we follow Bill logic, the guns that are used in school shootings were bought using US dollars so the US dollar is responsible for the deaths. I thought it was so self-evident that no explanation was needed.
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- notsofastbuddy 9y agoHow many deaths has Windows "caused", through military uses etc.? How about PowerPoint?
- Casseres 9y ago> How about PowerPoint? Tangent: There's a great TV show on Comedy Central called "Corporate". (It reminds me of Better Off Ted if any of you liked that series.) There is an episode titled, The Powerpoint of Death, where the main character creates a PowerPoint presentation to win a govt contract for a war.
- NickM 9y agoMost folks would argue that the value people have derived from Windows and PowerPoint far outweigh any such downsides. Whether we can say the same about cryptocurrencies is much more easily debatable.
- oldcynic 9y ago> "The main feature of crypto-currencies is their anonymity. I don't think this is a good thing" So I suppose cash causes death in Bill's world view then?
- tim333 9y agoHe replied to that point: >Yes - anonymous cash is used for these kinds of things but you have to be physically present to transfer it which makes things like kidnapping payments more difficult. Link to the reddit conversation: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/dux2mp7/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/80ow6w/im_bill_gates_...
- emwjacobson 9y agoI’m fairly certain in a reply someone mentioned this, and Bill said that cash does lead to deaths, but with it comes actual Person-to-Person contact to exchange, making the anonymity of cryptocurrencies more appealing.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- freqn 9y agoBill needs to stick with what he actually knows about.
- steego 9y agoWhere is Bill wrong? Many cryptocurrencies are well-tested vehicles for laundering money and conducting illicit business. Also, the speculative wave around ICOs does introduce volatility and jeopardize long-term value. Speculative waves have always acted like a double-edged swords when it comes to long-term investing. They bring in capital and generate excitement, but they can also create turbid markets dominated by people who don't care about fundamentals or first principles. > Bill needs to stick with what he actually knows about. In the four years you've been on this site, you haven't exactly dazzled us with any insight. Maybe you can break your 2 sentence limit today and explain why Bill is out of his element.
- freqn 9y agoSeriously??.. ROFL.. Sorry to burst your bubble there steeeeego with your pointing out of what's already obvious, but I have no need to dazzle anyone. Get a grip & get outside once in a while. Fresh air might do you well.
- steego 9y ago> Sorry to burst your bubble there steeeeego with your pointing out of what's already obvious Some may even say condescendingly obvious > I have no need to dazzle anyone. I may have overstated things a bit for dramatic effect, but writing a short, cogent paragraph that shares your point of view will most likely not dazzle anyone. If anything, people will most likely simply read it like it was written by a regular user who uses the discussion board to discuss things.
- geezerjay 9y agoIf you have nothing to add to the discussoon then don't say anything at all. You're just lowering the signal-to-noise ratio.
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- padobson 9y agoHe was referring to the way digital currencies like Bitcoin are used to buy drugs like synthetic opioid fentanyl. anonymity of digital currencies meant they were linked to terrorist funding and money laundering It sounds like he means drug overdoses, black market violence, and terrorists attacks kill people. But at least he knows malaria kills far more people than those three combined. He should probably get back to solving that.
- Eyas 9y ago> But at least he knows malaria kills far more people than those three combined. He should probably get back to solving that. Good news he is :) Honestly, some of the responses in this article are a bit defensive-- he was asked what he thinks of crypto currencies, and he answered that he doesn't think the social impact of anonymous cash is good. There's a sense in this thread that he is going around attacking crypto currency, when he is in fact expressing his view of how anonymous decentralized currencies can enable/facilitate dangerous things to happen.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y agoThe cryptocoin crowd is ridiculously defensive by nature. They have to be, the value of their funbux relies significantly on speculation so negative press is threatening to their pocket book.
- neilsimp1 9y agoTo be fair, he's not really saying crypto-currencies cause deaths. He's saying anonymous currencies can cause death. It sounds like he could be in favor of a regulated crypto-currency.
- cup-of-tea 9y agoSo cash causes deaths? What about trading directly without even using money? Is it really that surprising the Bill Gates's solution would be to surveil everyone, considering what Windows 10 is like?
- Casseres 9y agoCouldn't traceable currencies cause death too? Let's say the government knows you bought XYZ, and later a fascist regime comes to power and they have access to your spending history.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y agoI feel like his case would be stronger if he'd said they all cause deaths. If the oft-touted figures for how much power generation goes in to mining is to be believed anyway.
- ataturk 9y agoSays the billionaire who hasn't had to worry about political repression or a natural disaster or anything else bad for that matter. Regular people need cash and anonymous currencies for all kinds of low-tech reasons. Arguments abound for why thing X is bad no matter what X happens to be. Just look at all the hatred the media has for Internet! Even if you're not a fan of cash, you should be a little concerned that without it the Fed can pump the money supply even harder and screw regular people with inflation and negative interest rates with no exit door in sight.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- geezerjay 9y ago> He's saying anonymous currencies can cause death. To be more precise, his point was that the ability to transfer large amounts of cash anonymously without any control or oversight is something that favours all sorts of illicit activities. And cryptocurrencies in general and bitcoin in particular do just that.
- hockeybias 9y agoLots of silly comments here.
- gesman 9y agoBill can solve it by investing billions to build private quantum computer and then solve and disclose all private keys. Thus driving value of all bitcoins to zero. Ohhh by then I guess quantum secure coins will pop up! Never mind ....
- cjcfjrf 9y agoClick bait headline, Oh BBC. What has life come to
- jdamon96 9y agohow is it clickbait? he said this pretty directly
- RickJWag 9y agoI think Bill's right. Anonymity for cash can enable many bad things, I can't think of many moral reasons for it.
- JhonHeyden 9y agoBill Gates, the philanthropist and former chief executive of Microsoft, is concerned about the craze for cryptocurrency, saying that the anonymity offered by the new technology has "caused deaths in a fairly direct way." In the group interview, Gates had harsh words for other speculative technologies. Elon Musk's Hyperloop concept of using a railgun to pull a passenger compartment in a low pressure tube at several hundred kilometers per hour was rejected: "I'm not sure that the Hyperloop concept makes sense ", he said. . "Make security is difficult." But Gates was optimistic about the general direction of technology, dismissing fears that increasing automation could have negative consequences for the economy in general, and citing natural language understanding as the most promising technology for the next decade. To learn more about this type of cryptocurrency news just visit https://cryptonewstrends.com/ https://cryptonewstrends.com/