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Although similar they are not the same. The government must still, in most states, have charges on the books or more to seize anything and there is generally re

Although similar they are not the same. The government must still, in most states, have charges on the books or more to seize anything and there is generally recourse if not suing for your assets back then voting or running for office to change laws. Google is far less likely to ever let you tell them what they can or can't do, even as a regulator. The government is you, fundamentally, while Google is not.

nine_k 7y ago
Market forces work where there is a market. When the nature of the problem is such that rational customer behavior leads to one player taking all, the market deteriorates, and customers lose the benefits of competition. This is a problem that the anti-monopoly laws exist to solve. Another body of law prevents the federal government from seizing all the power, and to keep different branches on power competing without mergers and acquisitions of each other. An anarchist / libertarian approach would work if minting your own interoperable coin was possible and reasonable. With gold coins, it is (was) technically trivial. Digital currency has still to solve this.
- bobthepanda 7y ago
  The other problem with minting your own currency is that it has to be worth something to someone, and it’s basically just bartering with more steps. Not only that, but all these self-cryptos would be backed by the word of the person, and people lie, so you could potentially just end up with a whole bunch of crypto coins worth nothing in the end.
  - nine_k 7y ago
    Indeed. Gold has some intrinsic value (you can make stuff out of it at least). Same for makeshift currencies like the Tide detergent. US dollars are backed by US industrial and military power. Random crypto tokens have about as much value as paper money: they are relatively hard to produce, but not very much so. They need to be backed by a power / reputation of some kind, or a directly consumable resource of some kind, to be widely usable.
    - charwalker 7y ago
      My big worry with crypto is as soon as it loses legitimacy or security like via a large hack or hijacked transfer the trust is shot and the value is gone. It may rebuild trust over time, but it could also keep falling as it goes out of use or hodlers see it as a losing investment vs real world assets and cash out. If the USD has $1TT stolen or an anti-counterfeit measure is bypassed, the US government could step in and support use of the dollar with some guarantee or security advancement like better counterfeiting protections or freezing stolen assets then (as bad as it is often seen) printing replacement bills or something. Some of this is already ongoing with the Mint developing anti-counterfeit measures for each new bill released. Crypto can't do that, it's just a volatile stock like commodity with no underwritten assets or real world backing. There's no centralized backer that can prop it up in crisis. That's risky.

nine_k 7y ago

Market forces work where there is a market. When the nature of the problem is such that rational customer behavior leads to one player taking all, the market deteriorates, and customers lose the benefits of competition. This is a problem that the anti-monopoly laws exist to solve. Another body of law prevents the federal government from seizing all the power, and to keep different branches on power competing without mergers and acquisitions of each other. An anarchist / libertarian approach would work if minting your own interoperable coin was possible and reasonable. With gold coins, it is (was) technically trivial. Digital currency has still to solve this.

bobthepanda 7y ago
The other problem with minting your own currency is that it has to be worth something to someone, and it’s basically just bartering with more steps. Not only that, but all these self-cryptos would be backed by the word of the person, and people lie, so you could potentially just end up with a whole bunch of crypto coins worth nothing in the end.
- nine_k 7y ago
  Indeed. Gold has some intrinsic value (you can make stuff out of it at least). Same for makeshift currencies like the Tide detergent. US dollars are backed by US industrial and military power. Random crypto tokens have about as much value as paper money: they are relatively hard to produce, but not very much so. They need to be backed by a power / reputation of some kind, or a directly consumable resource of some kind, to be widely usable.
  - charwalker 7y ago
    My big worry with crypto is as soon as it loses legitimacy or security like via a large hack or hijacked transfer the trust is shot and the value is gone. It may rebuild trust over time, but it could also keep falling as it goes out of use or hodlers see it as a losing investment vs real world assets and cash out. If the USD has $1TT stolen or an anti-counterfeit measure is bypassed, the US government could step in and support use of the dollar with some guarantee or security advancement like better counterfeiting protections or freezing stolen assets then (as bad as it is often seen) printing replacement bills or something. Some of this is already ongoing with the Mint developing anti-counterfeit measures for each new bill released. Crypto can't do that, it's just a volatile stock like commodity with no underwritten assets or real world backing. There's no centralized backer that can prop it up in crisis. That's risky.