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We are now somewhen in the 90s, somewhere in the US. Welcome. People are getting scammed when buying things online. The elderly are sending money to Nigerian p
by throwaway66666 8y ago
We are now somewhen in the 90s, somewhere in the US. Welcome.
People are getting scammed when buying things online. The elderly are sending money to Nigerian princes. There are rapists and murderers on chatrooms preying for victims. Kids addicted to online games drop out of school. There is deviant pornography turning young men and girls into perverts or enticing them to post nudity online.
I strongly believe we must protect the public, and we must put severe regulations on the internet.
Noone should be able to just set up a website or online business. It is far too dangerous. Aspiring e-entrepreneurs must be required to file a goverment-reviewed application, and be represented by an attorney throughout the whole process, as well as undergo background checks and pay various fees to state and federal agencies.
If all goes well, within 1-2 years (depending on backlog) they can have permission to put up a website. Every year they must renew their website license, and according to what kind of content they wish to host they will need different licenses (eg different if you want to serve video, different if you want to have chat) /s
Makes sense right? The internet seemed like a weird crazy unregulated space back then. Except that.... that would have killed all of the amazing innovation that happened in the past 25 years in the US.
My point is. We must protect the public, of course. But it is never as simple as pulling out the torches and pitchforks screaming "BAN BITCOIN. BAN THE DARKWEB. STOP ICOs". We cannot risk stifling innovation. Because if we do - innovation will still happen just... somewhere else in the world. And no government wants that.
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EDIT: FYI - in case you think I am exaggerating, the scenario I described above is similar to today's internet situation in mainland China. You need an ICP license (granted by the government and renewed yearly) in order to be able to have a publicly accessible domain name. If you want to serve back visual content (images/video) and user-to-user communication (chat or public text posts) you need to undergo extra delays and checks to prove that you are trustworthy and can censor content. Certain websites from outside of China (eg google, fb) are just banned.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> it is never as simple as pulling out the torches and pitchforks screaming "BAN BITCOIN. BAN THE DARKWEB. STOP ICOs" Straw man [1]. Nobody serious suggests banning any of these. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
- throwaway66666 8y agoplease check the comments at this very page. Some people claim that everyone involved is a charlatan, one specifically says "F... ICOs" and someone else that all ICOs could disappear and no value would be lost. EDIT: I agree with you that they are not serious opinions worthy of consideration, so your point might stand.
- comex 8y agoSaying "Fuck ICOs" or "ICOs have no value" is not the same as saying the government should ban them. And even if you do think the government should ban them, that's very different from wanting to ban Bitcoin or the dark web; although there are certainly people out there with various reasons they think both of those should be banned, the chief argument against ICOs (that most of them are scams) doesn't really translate to either.
- throwaway37585 8y agoUh, yes they do.
- yzmtf2008 8y ago>in case you think I am exaggerating, the scenario I described above is similar to today's internet situation in mainland China. I don't disagree with this or condone excessive regulation. However, if what you said is true, innovation would not happen in China. Turns out, the startup scene is just fine in China, and innovations are not happening just... somewhere else in the world. Bad example.
- throwaway66666 8y agoChina was severely impacted. Their big web companies are so far almost all based on US products that were banned in China. They also failed to capture any international audience and are mostly only successful within China. Baidu, a copy of google. Weibo, a clone of twitter. QQ a clone of Facebook. WeChat a clone of Messenger. Alibaba a clone of Amazon. Etc etc China started properly innovating, countering brain-drain, and going beyond copying what was successful in the west only in the recent years.