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About this: “The poorest households in the US spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets, showing that you can't legislate people out of misusing their funds.

About this: “The poorest households in the US spend 9% of their income on lottery tickets, showing that you can't legislate people out of misusing their funds.” You’ve explained why it’s urgent that we outlaw lottery tickets. For most of USA history Protestant and Catholic leaders were unified in their opposition to all forms of gambling, and so lottery tickets were unthinkable for most of USA history. And every progressive activist that I know personally would like to see an end to lottery tickets and other forms of de facto regressive taxation. Lottery tickets, like other forms of gambling, tend to undermine habits of thrift and sobriety. I agree with your implied analogy — ICOs are like lottery tickets. That’s why they should be banned.

colechristensen 7y ago
>ICOs are like lottery tickets Not all of them, though maybe nearly all of them. There is nothing at all wrong with using a crypto-system to distribute ownership of your business. The SEC is actively working to make this a reality. It is just a different market to do the same thing. There is however so very much wrong with doing this outside regulation. Black market shares of your company are bad. Making up the nth new coin and selling its nonsense to the unwise in pump and dump schemes is wrong. In order to do so legally you have to be extraordinarily careful to completely divorce yourself from the US financial system and doing business on US soil. Banks themselves are starting to use crypto-coins to operate. They're just a tool, when used in the right way they aren't an exciting anarchist revolution usurping The Man, they're just a different sort of database/API. JPMorgan is setting something up for business-to-business transactions because they think it could be a better replacement for the current complex frameworks they have for keeping track of money. Most ICOs are like bad lottery tickets, but it's not the technology underlying it at fault.
wavefunction 7y ago
People derive enjoyment from lotteries and scratch tickets. I agree that some people exhibit problematic behavior by spending some of their limited funds on these items but that is their right. I'd rather these entertainment sources be captured by the state for the good of all its people than administered privately or clandestinely.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  It would be better for them to derive their enjoyment from participating in an actual investment market. They'll learn something useful instead just refining their superstitious rituals. Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Over-time these small purchases would let them amass a sizeable base of assets, and all the while they'd have a stake in parts of the real economy, which would incentivize them to invest time in learning how it works. The educational value alone would be enormous. Instead we foolishly prohibit people from participating in many of the most lucrative sectors of the economy, which corrals them into low-value dead-end activities like playing the lottos. If you want someone to grow, you don't over-protect them. That applies to raising children, and it applies to governance of the public at large.
  - xwolfi 7y ago
    But you do realize that without the lotto, they'll go to underground poker games, underground lotto games, or drink booze. The gvt lotto was not created before people played lottery, it was invented because people want to play chance games anyway and that's a great way to build roads at the same time.
    - CryptoPunk 7y ago
      Would they? If security issuance wasn't centralized through prohibitions on unregistered offerings, you don't think there would be a vibrant market for micro-cap companies, with extensive retail marketing in places like convenient stores, and with enough upside potential to take market share away from games of pure chance? I think the real market could be potentially more exciting than lottos, if regulations didn't prevent securities from being marketed the way lottos are. In a way, the token sale frenzy demonstrated that.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    > Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Yeah, and in ten years they might get $14, which will just give some extra profit to their creditors when they file for bankruptcy for unpaid medical bills, or be captured in a civil forfeiture. And if somehow they managed to keep it and actually save a couple grand, that just means they'll become ineligible for SNAP and lose much more in benefits. People play the lottery because it represents something more than slaving yourself to make scraps. They are not stupid, and know the system is design to keep you poor, and that hoping to escape by amassing a few bucks is almost as delusional as expecting to win the lottery.
m-i-l 7y ago
> ICOs are like lottery tickets Actually in most countries lotteries are pretty heavily regulated to ensure that they are indeed redistributing a share of ticket sales as winnings and are also fairly selecting winners. ICOs are like unregulated lotteries that might intend to keep the proceeds from all "investments" to themselves and/or unfairly distribute to insiders like the "influencers". Opportunity makes a thief.

colechristensen 7y ago

>ICOs are like lottery tickets Not all of them, though maybe nearly all of them. There is nothing at all wrong with using a crypto-system to distribute ownership of your business. The SEC is actively working to make this a reality. It is just a different market to do the same thing. There is however so very much wrong with doing this outside regulation. Black market shares of your company are bad. Making up the nth new coin and selling its nonsense to the unwise in pump and dump schemes is wrong. In order to do so legally you have to be extraordinarily careful to completely divorce yourself from the US financial system and doing business on US soil. Banks themselves are starting to use crypto-coins to operate. They're just a tool, when used in the right way they aren't an exciting anarchist revolution usurping The Man, they're just a different sort of database/API. JPMorgan is setting something up for business-to-business transactions because they think it could be a better replacement for the current complex frameworks they have for keeping track of money. Most ICOs are like bad lottery tickets, but it's not the technology underlying it at fault.

wavefunction 7y ago

People derive enjoyment from lotteries and scratch tickets. I agree that some people exhibit problematic behavior by spending some of their limited funds on these items but that is their right. I'd rather these entertainment sources be captured by the state for the good of all its people than administered privately or clandestinely.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
It would be better for them to derive their enjoyment from participating in an actual investment market. They'll learn something useful instead just refining their superstitious rituals. Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Over-time these small purchases would let them amass a sizeable base of assets, and all the while they'd have a stake in parts of the real economy, which would incentivize them to invest time in learning how it works. The educational value alone would be enormous. Instead we foolishly prohibit people from participating in many of the most lucrative sectors of the economy, which corrals them into low-value dead-end activities like playing the lottos. If you want someone to grow, you don't over-protect them. That applies to raising children, and it applies to governance of the public at large.
- xwolfi 7y ago
  But you do realize that without the lotto, they'll go to underground poker games, underground lotto games, or drink booze. The gvt lotto was not created before people played lottery, it was invented because people want to play chance games anyway and that's a great way to build roads at the same time.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    Would they? If security issuance wasn't centralized through prohibitions on unregistered offerings, you don't think there would be a vibrant market for micro-cap companies, with extensive retail marketing in places like convenient stores, and with enough upside potential to take market share away from games of pure chance? I think the real market could be potentially more exciting than lottos, if regulations didn't prevent securities from being marketed the way lottos are. In a way, the token sale frenzy demonstrated that.
- icebraining 7y ago
  > Imagine if anyone could buy $5 worth of stock for the product they're buying at 7-11. Yeah, and in ten years they might get $14, which will just give some extra profit to their creditors when they file for bankruptcy for unpaid medical bills, or be captured in a civil forfeiture. And if somehow they managed to keep it and actually save a couple grand, that just means they'll become ineligible for SNAP and lose much more in benefits. People play the lottery because it represents something more than slaving yourself to make scraps. They are not stupid, and know the system is design to keep you poor, and that hoping to escape by amassing a few bucks is almost as delusional as expecting to win the lottery.

m-i-l 7y ago

> ICOs are like lottery tickets Actually in most countries lotteries are pretty heavily regulated to ensure that they are indeed redistributing a share of ticket sales as winnings and are also fairly selecting winners. ICOs are like unregulated lotteries that might intend to keep the proceeds from all "investments" to themselves and/or unfairly distribute to insiders like the "influencers". Opportunity makes a thief.