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extra risks; like permenentally giving up the ability to have two party value transfers. Your short sighted reasoning is easily applied to the war on crypto, g

extra risks; like permenentally giving up the ability to have two party value transfers. Your short sighted reasoning is easily applied to the war on crypto, general purpose computing and ultimately marking humans to buy and sell.

IAmEveryone 7y ago
What "war on crypto"? Cryptocurrency bros started out with lots of theories how they are the new gold standard and how much politicians (and the "privately owned" Fed) will hate them. But the general reaction at least in democratic countries was... mildly bemused interest? They shut down the third-wave c-list-celebrity-endorsed token scams, yes. And when it became possible to do 6-figure money transfers with limited traceability and across borders, they forced exchanges to follow KYC laws. To the surprise of absolutely no one except people saying "taxation is theft" and thinking they are very clever, laws do apply online. But a "war" it wasn't. The failure of cryptocurrencies to have any meaningful impact on the real world not measurable in cubic feet and degrees Celsius is to be found in its inability to be actually useful. Because the problems it was trying to solve never were problems: nobody needs a zero-trust payment solution because people do trust the banking system, to some degree. Nobody wants a currency completely separate from politics because the decisions of democratically legitimised institutions filled with PhDs tend to be at least slightly better than the arbitrarily set parameters of some algorithm that cannot be changed, or the feudalism of leaving all power in the hands of whoever has the most GPUs.
- bronipstid 7y ago
  Here's what your "democratically-legitimized PhD filled institutions" have cleverly orchestrated. https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/03/fed-announces-program-for-wall-street-banks-to-pledge-plunging-stocks-to-get-trillions-in-loans-at-%c2%bc-percent-interest/ https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/03/fed-announces-program... I'll take the disinterested algorithm please.
- kd5bjo 7y ago
  It’s a war on cryptography, not cryptocurrency. Governments have gotten addicted to being able to intercept communications and feel threatened by any technology that might prevent them from doing that. This leads to all the positive uses being threatened because it’s extremely hard (or maybe impossible) to cripple nefarious uses without collateral damage to legitimate ones.
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    Yeah, I may or may not have made the embarrassing mistake of misinterpreting which definition of “crypto” was intended. Although “encryption” would seem more natural under your interpretation? I’d still object to the overused “war on..” phrasing for what’s a standard disagreement on policy. But substantively it’s obviously hard to deny that at least the US government is working against encryption.
    - majewsky 7y ago
      The word "war on crypto" (or rather, "crypto wars") is well-established and has been for at least 25 years, possibly longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
roenxi 7y ago
There is a middle ground - keep cash as a legal option but put out a general recommendation against it. Banning people doing things is not a great option. Providing information and encouraging them to do things is reasonable.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  And then people/businesses will stop taking cash because it was "recommended" which is almost the same outcome as banning it. You're right that providing information is reasonable, suggesting that people not be given the ability to be private, or force them to essentially have a bank account is not.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    All the businessmen I've talked (tiny sample) to seem to prefer cash. One of my favourite restaurants gives me an extra egg in my soup because I pay cash. It would be surprising if all the businessmen started turning away customers because they didn't pay by card, even with a government recommendation.
unishark 7y ago
Privacy is a solvable problem. I could say your reasoning is the short-sighted one, as you simply presume the next problem is insurmountable. This is how we end up with schools in NYC kept open, flights continuing way too long, people mocked for wearing masks, and other stupid behaviors from agendas overriding caution.
- majewsky 7y ago
  Seeing how there is no strong evidence for cash being a transmission path for the virus, I could use the same argument the other way around and interpret your position as being on an agenda to override the caution of privacy advocates.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

What "war on crypto"? Cryptocurrency bros started out with lots of theories how they are the new gold standard and how much politicians (and the "privately owned" Fed) will hate them. But the general reaction at least in democratic countries was... mildly bemused interest? They shut down the third-wave c-list-celebrity-endorsed token scams, yes. And when it became possible to do 6-figure money transfers with limited traceability and across borders, they forced exchanges to follow KYC laws. To the surprise of absolutely no one except people saying "taxation is theft" and thinking they are very clever, laws do apply online. But a "war" it wasn't. The failure of cryptocurrencies to have any meaningful impact on the real world not measurable in cubic feet and degrees Celsius is to be found in its inability to be actually useful. Because the problems it was trying to solve never were problems: nobody needs a zero-trust payment solution because people do trust the banking system, to some degree. Nobody wants a currency completely separate from politics because the decisions of democratically legitimised institutions filled with PhDs tend to be at least slightly better than the arbitrarily set parameters of some algorithm that cannot be changed, or the feudalism of leaving all power in the hands of whoever has the most GPUs.

bronipstid 7y ago
Here's what your "democratically-legitimized PhD filled institutions" have cleverly orchestrated. https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/03/fed-announces-program-for-wall-street-banks-to-pledge-plunging-stocks-to-get-trillions-in-loans-at-%c2%bc-percent-interest/ https://wallstreetonparade.com/2020/03/fed-announces-program... I'll take the disinterested algorithm please.
kd5bjo 7y ago
It’s a war on cryptography, not cryptocurrency. Governments have gotten addicted to being able to intercept communications and feel threatened by any technology that might prevent them from doing that. This leads to all the positive uses being threatened because it’s extremely hard (or maybe impossible) to cripple nefarious uses without collateral damage to legitimate ones.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  Yeah, I may or may not have made the embarrassing mistake of misinterpreting which definition of “crypto” was intended. Although “encryption” would seem more natural under your interpretation? I’d still object to the overused “war on..” phrasing for what’s a standard disagreement on policy. But substantively it’s obviously hard to deny that at least the US government is working against encryption.
  - majewsky 7y ago
    The word "war on crypto" (or rather, "crypto wars") is well-established and has been for at least 25 years, possibly longer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

roenxi 7y ago

There is a middle ground - keep cash as a legal option but put out a general recommendation against it. Banning people doing things is not a great option. Providing information and encouraging them to do things is reasonable.

RandomBacon 7y ago
And then people/businesses will stop taking cash because it was "recommended" which is almost the same outcome as banning it. You're right that providing information is reasonable, suggesting that people not be given the ability to be private, or force them to essentially have a bank account is not.
- roenxi 7y ago
  All the businessmen I've talked (tiny sample) to seem to prefer cash. One of my favourite restaurants gives me an extra egg in my soup because I pay cash. It would be surprising if all the businessmen started turning away customers because they didn't pay by card, even with a government recommendation.

unishark 7y ago

Privacy is a solvable problem. I could say your reasoning is the short-sighted one, as you simply presume the next problem is insurmountable. This is how we end up with schools in NYC kept open, flights continuing way too long, people mocked for wearing masks, and other stupid behaviors from agendas overriding caution.

majewsky 7y ago
Seeing how there is no strong evidence for cash being a transmission path for the virus, I could use the same argument the other way around and interpret your position as being on an agenda to override the caution of privacy advocates.