4 ms·

Problem is that what "doing illegal things" mean changes over time, and in different places. What someone assumes to be legal everywhere, could be illegal in mo

Problem is that what "doing illegal things" mean changes over time, and in different places. What someone assumes to be legal everywhere, could be illegal in most places, and vice-versa

arcticbull 7y ago
Luckily for us, most "western" jurisdictions don't allow for ex post facto prosecutions. They're actually unconstitutional in the United States. And when they are incidentally permitted outside the US, it's usually for something egregious. Further, if something's illegal in a different jurisdiction than you are in, you aren't usually exposed to any liability, as any tourist to Amsterdam will tell you. And not having a payment record doesn't change the fact you did it and will undoubtably have left other evidence. Once again, these are social problems that magic beans won't solve.
- aianus 7y ago
  > Further, if something's illegal in a different jurisdiction than you are in, you aren't usually exposed to any liability, as any tourist to Amsterdam will tell you. You may not be exposed to liability back in the US, but that doesn't mean your Visa/Mastercard will necessarily work if you're doing something illegal in the US: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/square-canada-1.5303143 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/square-canada-1.53031...
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Definitely, but that wasn't the question. For instance, I wouldn't expect UnionPay to allow me to fund pro-democracy organizations. I similarly wouldn't expect Visa and MasterCard to allow me to buy drugs legal in Canada or Portugal. These are again, very much, social and not technological problems that require cryptocurrency. In Canada for instance, you can easily get a merchant account with Moneris (a Canadian payment processor) and take card transactions over Interac (the Canadian debit network). Yeah, Square's bound by their US banks, because they're a US company with an overwhelmingly US product being sold internationally.
    - aianus 7y ago
      > I similarly wouldn't expect Visa and MasterCard to allow me to buy drugs legal in Canada Ironically the government here in Ontario will sell you marijuana by mail and they accept Visa and Mastercard! The rules must be very vague and inconsistent.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Many years ago I was going to be traveling to Europe, and I thought to self, "Self, Cuban cigars are not illegal there. Maybe you could see what the big deal is." My mental model was like yours, and like friends in college who fantasized about road trips to another state or Canada to find a bar that would serve 19 year olds. Not all laws are about the location of the act. Countries can and occasionally do bar their citizens from doing things anywhere, as was the case of Cuban goods. There's also some weird extradition stuff that's been floating around lately that I can't make heads or tails of. There's definitely some fearmongering going on around it but I don't know if that means I should be concerned or dismissive. And then there's one little idea. This may be crazy, but if the citizens of your country generally agreed that something was dirtbag behavior, you going somewhere where there is no law against it still makes you a dirtbag. Just a law-fearing dirtbag.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      In the case of Cuba, Canada has laws to the effect that they must help someone from the US violate US sanctions on Cuba. International trade gets very hard when your company has offices in more than one country. I can't export things to my counterpart in Canada if it is going to Cuba, but if I ask is the product going to Cuba my counterpart is legally required to lie to me. (fortunately I don't deal in international shipping so I don't have to figure out how to deal with that)
  - bluGill 7y ago
    That depends. For drugs you can generally get away with breaking laws back home while abroad. However the US (and most other countries) will prosecute you for human trafficking even if you only do it in countries where it is legal. Assuming they catch you of course.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      To be fair I'm very okay with that.
- hinkley 7y ago
  There's a lot of boundary testing going on lately around the Rule of Law. And of course there's the whole era of McCarthyism, which is sort of the poster child for being mindful of what things go on your permanent record. Ex post facto requires maintenance and vigilance, like any piece of safety equipment. Don't just count on it always being there. We all have to work at it.
- shawnz 7y ago
  > Once again, these are social problems that magic beans won't solve. So because the root cause is a (probably unsolvable) societal problem, we should just forget about technical workarounds like Bitcoin?
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    All societal problems are solvable. Bitcoin is by no means a silver bullet. It requires 600kWh and 95g of e-waste per transaction (and rising). It allows all sorts of transactions we don't want including avoiding sanctions, funding terrorism, wealth accretion by rogue states, extortion scams -- the cost of which far outweighs the transactions we do want but can't have under our current system. It's not the answer to this question, or any other IMO.
    - TurkishPoptart 7y ago
      I hadn't heard about these e-waste and energy statistics, can you provide a source?
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [2] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-electronic-waste-monitor https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-electronic-waste-monitor [3] https://www.cbeci.org/ https://www.cbeci.org/
- dottrap 7y ago
  In California, marijuana is legal now, but credit card networks will not accept transactions because marijuana is still against federal law. Dispensaries that risk taking credit cards also risk all their bank assets being frozen and seized.

Problem is that what "doing illegal things" mean changes over time, and in different places. What someone assumes to be legal everywhere, could be illegal in most places, and vice-versa

arcticbull 7y ago

Luckily for us, most "western" jurisdictions don't allow for ex post facto prosecutions. They're actually unconstitutional in the United States. And when they are incidentally permitted outside the US, it's usually for something egregious. Further, if something's illegal in a different jurisdiction than you are in, you aren't usually exposed to any liability, as any tourist to Amsterdam will tell you. And not having a payment record doesn't change the fact you did it and will undoubtably have left other evidence. Once again, these are social problems that magic beans won't solve.

aianus 7y ago
> Further, if something's illegal in a different jurisdiction than you are in, you aren't usually exposed to any liability, as any tourist to Amsterdam will tell you. You may not be exposed to liability back in the US, but that doesn't mean your Visa/Mastercard will necessarily work if you're doing something illegal in the US: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/square-canada-1.5303143 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/square-canada-1.53031...
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Definitely, but that wasn't the question. For instance, I wouldn't expect UnionPay to allow me to fund pro-democracy organizations. I similarly wouldn't expect Visa and MasterCard to allow me to buy drugs legal in Canada or Portugal. These are again, very much, social and not technological problems that require cryptocurrency. In Canada for instance, you can easily get a merchant account with Moneris (a Canadian payment processor) and take card transactions over Interac (the Canadian debit network). Yeah, Square's bound by their US banks, because they're a US company with an overwhelmingly US product being sold internationally.
  - aianus 7y ago
    > I similarly wouldn't expect Visa and MasterCard to allow me to buy drugs legal in Canada Ironically the government here in Ontario will sell you marijuana by mail and they accept Visa and Mastercard! The rules must be very vague and inconsistent.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Many years ago I was going to be traveling to Europe, and I thought to self, "Self, Cuban cigars are not illegal there. Maybe you could see what the big deal is." My mental model was like yours, and like friends in college who fantasized about road trips to another state or Canada to find a bar that would serve 19 year olds. Not all laws are about the location of the act. Countries can and occasionally do bar their citizens from doing things anywhere, as was the case of Cuban goods. There's also some weird extradition stuff that's been floating around lately that I can't make heads or tails of. There's definitely some fearmongering going on around it but I don't know if that means I should be concerned or dismissive. And then there's one little idea. This may be crazy, but if the citizens of your country generally agreed that something was dirtbag behavior, you going somewhere where there is no law against it still makes you a dirtbag. Just a law-fearing dirtbag.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    In the case of Cuba, Canada has laws to the effect that they must help someone from the US violate US sanctions on Cuba. International trade gets very hard when your company has offices in more than one country. I can't export things to my counterpart in Canada if it is going to Cuba, but if I ask is the product going to Cuba my counterpart is legally required to lie to me. (fortunately I don't deal in international shipping so I don't have to figure out how to deal with that)
- bluGill 7y ago
  That depends. For drugs you can generally get away with breaking laws back home while abroad. However the US (and most other countries) will prosecute you for human trafficking even if you only do it in countries where it is legal. Assuming they catch you of course.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    To be fair I'm very okay with that.
hinkley 7y ago
There's a lot of boundary testing going on lately around the Rule of Law. And of course there's the whole era of McCarthyism, which is sort of the poster child for being mindful of what things go on your permanent record. Ex post facto requires maintenance and vigilance, like any piece of safety equipment. Don't just count on it always being there. We all have to work at it.
shawnz 7y ago
> Once again, these are social problems that magic beans won't solve. So because the root cause is a (probably unsolvable) societal problem, we should just forget about technical workarounds like Bitcoin?
- arcticbull 7y ago
  All societal problems are solvable. Bitcoin is by no means a silver bullet. It requires 600kWh and 95g of e-waste per transaction (and rising). It allows all sorts of transactions we don't want including avoiding sanctions, funding terrorism, wealth accretion by rogue states, extortion scams -- the cost of which far outweighs the transactions we do want but can't have under our current system. It's not the answer to this question, or any other IMO.
  - TurkishPoptart 7y ago
    I hadn't heard about these e-waste and energy statistics, can you provide a source?
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [2] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-electronic-waste-monitor https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-electronic-waste-monitor [3] https://www.cbeci.org/ https://www.cbeci.org/
dottrap 7y ago
In California, marijuana is legal now, but credit card networks will not accept transactions because marijuana is still against federal law. Dispensaries that risk taking credit cards also risk all their bank assets being frozen and seized.