4 ms·

"Money laundering" is a dysphemism. The proper therm for it is "electronic privacy", or even just privacy.

by bouncycastle 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago
Unless you're an ancap, this argument doesn't actually say anything; you can protect the proceeds of any crime from investigation and impoundment under the aegis of "electronic privacy". When people say "money laundering is a feature of dapps", it's pretty clear that they're referring to organized crime. If you are an ancap, more power to you, but it's useful to have arguments that are persuasive to the huge majority of people who are not.
- bouncycastle 7y ago
  "Money laundering" is also when you conceal the source of funds that haven't been tainted by crime Everyone should have the right to privacy, electronic transactions are no different. Of course, you can use the good old "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" argument, which has already won over...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    That's true, but when people say "Ethereum is used for money laundering", that's not what they mean, so it's not a useful argument. If it helps, just substitute "organized crime" for "money laundering". That's what people mean.
    - bouncycastle 7y ago
      Ethereum doesn't offer any serious financial privacy (yet) so neither does your statement make any sense. Privacy is important though, doesn't matter if it's financial or not. In the future, should more serious privacy options come to Ethereum, then it's important that everyone should be entitled to use it, just like we are allowed to use end-to-end encryption today.
- stale2002 7y ago
  > under the aegis of "electronic privacy". Regardless, that still doesn't mean the electronic privacy is the same as crime. Or, would you be willing to hand over every bit of electronic information about you over to the government? Oh, you don't want that? Well, what do you have to hide then?

4 ms·

"Money laundering" is a dysphemism. The proper therm for it is "electronic privacy", or even just privacy.

by bouncycastle 7y ago

"Money laundering" is a dysphemism. The proper therm for it is "electronic privacy", or even just privacy.

tptacek 7y ago
Unless you're an ancap, this argument doesn't actually say anything; you can protect the proceeds of any crime from investigation and impoundment under the aegis of "electronic privacy". When people say "money laundering is a feature of dapps", it's pretty clear that they're referring to organized crime. If you are an ancap, more power to you, but it's useful to have arguments that are persuasive to the huge majority of people who are not.
- bouncycastle 7y ago
  "Money laundering" is also when you conceal the source of funds that haven't been tainted by crime Everyone should have the right to privacy, electronic transactions are no different. Of course, you can use the good old "if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear" argument, which has already won over...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    That's true, but when people say "Ethereum is used for money laundering", that's not what they mean, so it's not a useful argument. If it helps, just substitute "organized crime" for "money laundering". That's what people mean.
    - bouncycastle 7y ago
      Ethereum doesn't offer any serious financial privacy (yet) so neither does your statement make any sense. Privacy is important though, doesn't matter if it's financial or not. In the future, should more serious privacy options come to Ethereum, then it's important that everyone should be entitled to use it, just like we are allowed to use end-to-end encryption today.
- stale2002 7y ago
  > under the aegis of "electronic privacy". Regardless, that still doesn't mean the electronic privacy is the same as crime. Or, would you be willing to hand over every bit of electronic information about you over to the government? Oh, you don't want that? Well, what do you have to hide then?