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> not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision I think Monsieur Macron has put this onto the agenda when Libra was announced. I'm n

> not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision I think Monsieur Macron has put this onto the agenda when Libra was announced. I'm not disagreeing with the decision and have similar concerns as you, but I'm still uncertain whether the state should even have the ability to block these and other things in general. Most of all, I miss a British voice here (as, sadly, not very much longer an EU member), and see this as a preview for where things are going with France getting more weight as the UK is leaving.

arethuza 7y ago
"not very much longer an EU member" I don't think there is much chance of Brexit this year, and a pretty good chance that it will never happen. Mind you - always a chance that we'll simply get thrown out for being incompetent at running a country...
- eloff 7y ago
  The chance of the latter seems to be rising, EU leaders seem to be running out of patience with making Brexit extensions.
- scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
  Yeah it is very peculiar how the British elites was able to establish the Mandate for Palestine to give Jewish people their own state but haven't been able to establish something giving British people their own state even after it was explicitly requested.
  - withoutboats 7y ago
    Mods: This user's posting history makes clear they are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Why have you not banned them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028
    - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
      Please assume good faith and discuss the topics directly. What is it that you find debatable about my comment? I've always made good faith efforts at productive conversation whether someone agrees or disagrees with me on something
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        “Assume good faith” doesn’t mean “ignore evidence of bad faith”.
        scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
        What evidence of bad faith are you referring to? Interesting how you and "other people" going through my comments have no actual objections to the content of what I say. Hard to have a productive conversation when all you have are dismissive remarks and insults.
        erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Sure, I will try to unpack my thoughts. You go after Jewish people as a class, rather than specific institutions controlled by Jewish people, which I think is bad faith argumentation. If you criticized Israel, for example, or some specific set of banks I would be ok with that. I admit I would not have the same reaction against another person criticizing “white people” as a class. But I believe I am justified in that because whiteness is not an ethnicity, it is the practice of denial of ethnicity. That makes it a specific institution not a group of people. I am vulnerable also to accusations of hypocrisy because I sometimes criticize men as a class. Maybe that should be out of bounds, (probably is out of bounds on HN) as men are clearly a real biological group and not a concept. However, masculinity (as opposed to manhood) is not a biological reality, it is a system of identity constructed to hold childbearing women in a sex class (i.e. submitting to control of their bodies). So to the extent that men identify with masculinity as opposed to just having a penis and some hormones, I would say we are also open to being attacked as a class, and lose our protected status as an actual “tribe” of people. Although as a side note, I do suspect that when masculinity was originally invented it was quite possibly an identity constructed for the protection of men as an actual ethnographic class of underserved people. Pregnancy does confer actual power and patriarchy I suspect was invented to counterbalance that. However I don’t believe it functions that way today. I suppose you could argue that Jewishness has crossed that rubicon but I don’t see how you could credibly do without getting into holocaust denial which I would also put in the bad faith category. Serious apologies to any Jewish people reading this who may feel by engaging these questions I am being blasé about the threat of antisemitism. I really don’t want to do that, but I also want to hold a hand out for people who are having a hard time understanding the reasoning behind the rules of liberal discourse.
espadrine 7y ago
> I'm still uncertain whether the state should even have the ability to block these My reading of ECB publications makes me believe that they don’t want to block these. Ultimately, governments are mandated to protect the wealth of their electorate. A system in which they have no recourse, even indirectly, against volatility (the preservation of wealth) and stability (the preservation of payment services) is one that they must supersede. SWIFT was forced to block transfers to Iran. Libra is like SWIFT, but with more control, as they also act as the RTGS (real-time gross settlement system). Imagine if your country’s currency stopped working because it was added to sanctions lists. Or got increased fees. A private company is ultimately subdued by the government of the countries it is incorporated in. They apply laws and executive orders against them. This kind of power asymmetry between countries is dangerous.
- insulanus 7y ago
  That's a good point. Besides the potential dangers of allowing a tech company (one with no ties to your country) to run the money supply, there is also the understanding that you (as a smaller country) are inviting even more U.S. monetary policy into your country. People may decide against that.
glitchc 7y ago
The primary purview of the state is geography (borders) and taxation (monetary policy). Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy.
- bko 7y ago
  > Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy. Who said anything about a primary medium of exchange? Should dollars be disallowed as well? How about bitcoin? Starbucks gift cards?
  - gjulianm 7y ago
    Let's be honest, if Libra takes hold as Facebook wants it to, given the power Facebook already has over communications, ads and social networks, it very well could affect the capability of states to exert their own monetary policy. Not a single one of the examples you made had such a real possibility of being as big as Libra could be.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      It won’t. Germany already doesn’t have control of the monetary policy for the currency it uses (the Euro). Monetary policy != taxation.
      - gjulianm 7y ago
        It has control as Germany is part of the Eurozone, the ECB is subjected to the EU treaty, operating under its guidelines, and is accountable to the European Parliament, in which the people of Germany have a say. Maybe it is not as accountable as we wish it were, but it is far from what Facebook would be.
        erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Is “a vote in” and “control” really the same thing?
NicoJuicy 7y ago
To be honest, although i think it's sad that Britain left. They were never fully in on the EU as France and Germany are ( i'm Belgian). So i'm not sure if a agree as much with your opinion as you want :)
lostjohnny 7y ago
> as, sadly, not very much longer an EU member it could have been a better, less irrational, EU partner (it was never a full member)

arethuza 7y ago

"not very much longer an EU member" I don't think there is much chance of Brexit this year, and a pretty good chance that it will never happen. Mind you - always a chance that we'll simply get thrown out for being incompetent at running a country...

eloff 7y ago
The chance of the latter seems to be rising, EU leaders seem to be running out of patience with making Brexit extensions.
scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
Yeah it is very peculiar how the British elites was able to establish the Mandate for Palestine to give Jewish people their own state but haven't been able to establish something giving British people their own state even after it was explicitly requested.
- withoutboats 7y ago
  Mods: This user's posting history makes clear they are an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. Why have you not banned them? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20972062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20918028
  - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
    Please assume good faith and discuss the topics directly. What is it that you find debatable about my comment? I've always made good faith efforts at productive conversation whether someone agrees or disagrees with me on something
    - erikpukinskis 7y ago
      “Assume good faith” doesn’t mean “ignore evidence of bad faith”.
      - scoobyyabbadoo 7y ago
        What evidence of bad faith are you referring to? Interesting how you and "other people" going through my comments have no actual objections to the content of what I say. Hard to have a productive conversation when all you have are dismissive remarks and insults.
        erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Sure, I will try to unpack my thoughts. You go after Jewish people as a class, rather than specific institutions controlled by Jewish people, which I think is bad faith argumentation. If you criticized Israel, for example, or some specific set of banks I would be ok with that. I admit I would not have the same reaction against another person criticizing “white people” as a class. But I believe I am justified in that because whiteness is not an ethnicity, it is the practice of denial of ethnicity. That makes it a specific institution not a group of people. I am vulnerable also to accusations of hypocrisy because I sometimes criticize men as a class. Maybe that should be out of bounds, (probably is out of bounds on HN) as men are clearly a real biological group and not a concept. However, masculinity (as opposed to manhood) is not a biological reality, it is a system of identity constructed to hold childbearing women in a sex class (i.e. submitting to control of their bodies). So to the extent that men identify with masculinity as opposed to just having a penis and some hormones, I would say we are also open to being attacked as a class, and lose our protected status as an actual “tribe” of people. Although as a side note, I do suspect that when masculinity was originally invented it was quite possibly an identity constructed for the protection of men as an actual ethnographic class of underserved people. Pregnancy does confer actual power and patriarchy I suspect was invented to counterbalance that. However I don’t believe it functions that way today. I suppose you could argue that Jewishness has crossed that rubicon but I don’t see how you could credibly do without getting into holocaust denial which I would also put in the bad faith category. Serious apologies to any Jewish people reading this who may feel by engaging these questions I am being blasé about the threat of antisemitism. I really don’t want to do that, but I also want to hold a hand out for people who are having a hard time understanding the reasoning behind the rules of liberal discourse.

espadrine 7y ago

> I'm still uncertain whether the state should even have the ability to block these My reading of ECB publications makes me believe that they don’t want to block these. Ultimately, governments are mandated to protect the wealth of their electorate. A system in which they have no recourse, even indirectly, against volatility (the preservation of wealth) and stability (the preservation of payment services) is one that they must supersede. SWIFT was forced to block transfers to Iran. Libra is like SWIFT, but with more control, as they also act as the RTGS (real-time gross settlement system). Imagine if your country’s currency stopped working because it was added to sanctions lists. Or got increased fees. A private company is ultimately subdued by the government of the countries it is incorporated in. They apply laws and executive orders against them. This kind of power asymmetry between countries is dangerous.

insulanus 7y ago
That's a good point. Besides the potential dangers of allowing a tech company (one with no ties to your country) to run the money supply, there is also the understanding that you (as a smaller country) are inviting even more U.S. monetary policy into your country. People may decide against that.

glitchc 7y ago

The primary purview of the state is geography (borders) and taxation (monetary policy). Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy.

bko 7y ago
> Allowing foreign money to be the primary medium of exchange directly challenges monetary policy. Who said anything about a primary medium of exchange? Should dollars be disallowed as well? How about bitcoin? Starbucks gift cards?
- gjulianm 7y ago
  Let's be honest, if Libra takes hold as Facebook wants it to, given the power Facebook already has over communications, ads and social networks, it very well could affect the capability of states to exert their own monetary policy. Not a single one of the examples you made had such a real possibility of being as big as Libra could be.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    It won’t. Germany already doesn’t have control of the monetary policy for the currency it uses (the Euro). Monetary policy != taxation.
    - gjulianm 7y ago
      It has control as Germany is part of the Eurozone, the ECB is subjected to the EU treaty, operating under its guidelines, and is accountable to the European Parliament, in which the people of Germany have a say. Maybe it is not as accountable as we wish it were, but it is far from what Facebook would be.
      - erikpukinskis 7y ago
        Is “a vote in” and “control” really the same thing?

NicoJuicy 7y ago

To be honest, although i think it's sad that Britain left. They were never fully in on the EU as France and Germany are ( i'm Belgian). So i'm not sure if a agree as much with your opinion as you want :)

lostjohnny 7y ago

> as, sadly, not very much longer an EU member it could have been a better, less irrational, EU partner (it was never a full member)