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Ah, articbull as usual! Given our past interactions and your posting history, it's clear you have a strong dislike for crypto. However, your opinion (or mine)

by 1996 6y ago

Ah, articbull as usual! Given our past interactions and your posting history, it's clear you have a strong dislike for crypto. However, your opinion (or mine) will be irrelevant. > They'll take your knee caps, your finger nails, your life, or the entire nation's internet service down They totally can! The only problem is they eventually run out of people or things the country can sell. And in the meantime, even before reaching that ultimate point, they destroy the economy by destroying hope: forced labor is less productive that voluntary labor. That's because it's hard to rule people who don't care anymore. Even the threat of death may not cut it: just look at the risks people took to flee the soviet block! A good tyrant applies just a sprinkle of violence. > Technically correct is not the best kind of correct in this situation. Indeed. And you are correct the government monopoly of violence keeps people in-line. But it's not without end: a tyrannical government survive only so long as the population is willing to tolerate it. As the person you replied to tried to explain, civil disobedience happens. If you need current examples, look no further than people not wearing masks, or the riots that happened on the 2nd lockdown of Europe: the more force you apply, the more resistance you get. I don't believe governments will find the "ideal" amount of violence to keep people in-line - not for something like money. The blue dollar in Argentina, the existence of a cash economy etc. - there are too many signs that show this can't be done. Same as for drug or alcohol: the prohibition failed. The war on drugs is currently failing. Yet it's clear that crypto will not operate in a wild west forever: just like the internet, some rules will be added, to tax it. But it won't go away, as governments prefer taxing to killing! Sorry to break your dream of crypto becoming illegal and drying, but that ship has sailed.

arcticbull 6y ago
I don’t think crypto should be illegal. I think it should be regulated like everything else in the space, and it’s horrifying externalities like energy consumption and criminality should be internalized via taxation. Once it has the same constraints as traditional finance it offers nothing of value, and will wilt away on its own. Or it won’t. Whatever. Makes no difference to me, once the harms are mitigated. JMHO. My point as always is if you trust your government you don’t need crypto - as trust is a massive optimization - and if you don’t, you have much bigger problems. Just ask the North Koreans. The rest is but a fictional dramatization of what life under authoritarianism might be like, just you, your MacBook Pro and your GPU cluster against the man, smashing TVs, killing TV repair men and scribbling down hashes. It just doesn’t reflect any reality I know of. I’d watch an HBO series based on it though! Maybe a modern reimagining of 1984 combined with Escape from Tarkov; we all know how 1984 ended yeah?
- 1996 6y ago
  > horrifying externalities like energy consumption and criminality Opinion varies. For many people, being able to access drugs outside of government control (cancer patient victims of the opioid crisis), or receiving donations (wikileaks) is worth a lot more that the small drawbacks. Same as due process and the "fruit of a poisonous tree" legal doctrine - it lets bad people walk out of jail, but overall I think it does more good than harm to society. > Once it has the same constraints as traditional finance it offers nothing of value, and will wilt away on its own Actually, at the bare minimum, it removes political control of the monetary supply, leaving only fiscal policy, which may enable better long term control of public deficit by implementing a Milton Friedman like rule (whether it's constant inflation, deflation, or nothing, all is good as long as it remains constant and predictable) Given the long term inefficiency of the Phillips curve, and a lot of economic similar concepts, most economists would think it's for the better. See also the founder charter of the ECB, which enshrined similar policies until politicians made it dance to their tune. This shows the problem isn't our lack of understanding, but our lack of self control and long term motivation- just like kids with a cookie jar: we can't help it! > if you trust your government you don’t need crypto Hackers often fall prey to black-and-white thinking. Trust isn't binary, because you can't fully trust an organization made of people, regardless of how "good" they are, or which legal constraints they have. If anything, look at HIPAA laws: even without them, you should be able to trust your healthcare provider, but if there're things you don't want out ever, you better not share them with your health provider regardless of the laws protecting the confidentiality. Because leaks happen, even for whole countries sometimes (look at Finland mental health leaks) This doesn't mean you have "0 trust", just 0.7 or something non binary. We both know the ideal medical file would be encrypted with the patient private key, or would have some other mechanism of plausible deniability - just like how DKIM was denounced recently. It wasn't possible or even imaginable before we had the technology. Now that we do, it may take a while to get there, and the world will be a slightly better place. Crypto is a similar small step for finance, and it may also enable most countries to use the same coin (because once monetary policy is out, there's little reason to use your own thing) > we all know how 1984 ended yeah It didn't end: we're right inside. > Whatever. Makes no difference to me, once the harms are mitigated. JMHO. You are so close to understanding, yet so far. I hope eventually you'll admit more complexity in your reasoning.

by 1996 6y ago

arcticbull 6y ago

I don’t think crypto should be illegal. I think it should be regulated like everything else in the space, and it’s horrifying externalities like energy consumption and criminality should be internalized via taxation. Once it has the same constraints as traditional finance it offers nothing of value, and will wilt away on its own. Or it won’t. Whatever. Makes no difference to me, once the harms are mitigated. JMHO. My point as always is if you trust your government you don’t need crypto - as trust is a massive optimization - and if you don’t, you have much bigger problems. Just ask the North Koreans. The rest is but a fictional dramatization of what life under authoritarianism might be like, just you, your MacBook Pro and your GPU cluster against the man, smashing TVs, killing TV repair men and scribbling down hashes. It just doesn’t reflect any reality I know of. I’d watch an HBO series based on it though! Maybe a modern reimagining of 1984 combined with Escape from Tarkov; we all know how 1984 ended yeah?

1996 6y ago
> horrifying externalities like energy consumption and criminality Opinion varies. For many people, being able to access drugs outside of government control (cancer patient victims of the opioid crisis), or receiving donations (wikileaks) is worth a lot more that the small drawbacks. Same as due process and the "fruit of a poisonous tree" legal doctrine - it lets bad people walk out of jail, but overall I think it does more good than harm to society. > Once it has the same constraints as traditional finance it offers nothing of value, and will wilt away on its own Actually, at the bare minimum, it removes political control of the monetary supply, leaving only fiscal policy, which may enable better long term control of public deficit by implementing a Milton Friedman like rule (whether it's constant inflation, deflation, or nothing, all is good as long as it remains constant and predictable) Given the long term inefficiency of the Phillips curve, and a lot of economic similar concepts, most economists would think it's for the better. See also the founder charter of the ECB, which enshrined similar policies until politicians made it dance to their tune. This shows the problem isn't our lack of understanding, but our lack of self control and long term motivation- just like kids with a cookie jar: we can't help it! > if you trust your government you don’t need crypto Hackers often fall prey to black-and-white thinking. Trust isn't binary, because you can't fully trust an organization made of people, regardless of how "good" they are, or which legal constraints they have. If anything, look at HIPAA laws: even without them, you should be able to trust your healthcare provider, but if there're things you don't want out ever, you better not share them with your health provider regardless of the laws protecting the confidentiality. Because leaks happen, even for whole countries sometimes (look at Finland mental health leaks) This doesn't mean you have "0 trust", just 0.7 or something non binary. We both know the ideal medical file would be encrypted with the patient private key, or would have some other mechanism of plausible deniability - just like how DKIM was denounced recently. It wasn't possible or even imaginable before we had the technology. Now that we do, it may take a while to get there, and the world will be a slightly better place. Crypto is a similar small step for finance, and it may also enable most countries to use the same coin (because once monetary policy is out, there's little reason to use your own thing) > we all know how 1984 ended yeah It didn't end: we're right inside. > Whatever. Makes no difference to me, once the harms are mitigated. JMHO. You are so close to understanding, yet so far. I hope eventually you'll admit more complexity in your reasoning.