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You assume that government is good and prohibited uses are bad. But your gov banned wikileaks bank accounts in the past and that is the perfect example of the

You assume that government is good and prohibited uses are bad. But your gov banned wikileaks bank accounts in the past and that is the perfect example of the case when the gov is definitely is a malicious actor (while their behaviour perfectly rational from their side of things). Govs do war crimes, mass espionage and human rights violations. That should be addressed as well.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Yes, but it should be addressed democratically - protests, lobbying your representatives, even voting. Inventing a new currency that is, for a little while, hard to track by the government isn't a real solution, it's just pretending the problem doesn't exist. The government is persecuting WikiLeaks financially because that is easy to do. Even if a cryptocurrency were to take off as a currency and still be untraceable, the government would just move on to some other form of persecution. The real problem to be addressed is the persecution of a useful legitimate organization by an ostensibly democratic government. The form that persecution takes is secondary.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  > it should be addressed democratically - protests, lobbying your representatives, even voting. That hasn't worked yet for Wikileaks. If this worked and/or was the best way to deal with the types of problems Wikileaks is exposing, there would be no need for Wikileaks to exist. The reason Wikileaks does exist is because, typically, when we attempt to address atrocities "democratically" we get nowhere. On the other hand... > Inventing a new currency that is, for a little while, hard to track by the government This _has_ worked for Wikileaks in the past. When the US persecuted Wikileaks, Bitcoin helped to heavily negate the immediate impact of this action. > The form that persecution takes is secondary. In that case, why can't the form that Wikileaks' solutions take be secondary as well? If we are in agreement that Wikileaks is an important organization, then when addressing atrocities "democratically" fails, what would be wrong with short-term innovation?
oblio 6y ago
If you're assuming that you can work around an imperfect government, which you don't think can be fixed democratically, through cryptocurrency, especially for a core statehood domain, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you :-)
UncleMeat 6y ago
> You assume that government is good and prohibited uses are bad. Not quite. We assume that government is controlled by the people and thus I have some influence in its operation. The state often does truly horrible things, but so do plenty of organizations that I cannot control at all. I'll take the one that I have some degree of influence on.

tsimionescu 6y ago

Yes, but it should be addressed democratically - protests, lobbying your representatives, even voting. Inventing a new currency that is, for a little while, hard to track by the government isn't a real solution, it's just pretending the problem doesn't exist. The government is persecuting WikiLeaks financially because that is easy to do. Even if a cryptocurrency were to take off as a currency and still be untraceable, the government would just move on to some other form of persecution. The real problem to be addressed is the persecution of a useful legitimate organization by an ostensibly democratic government. The form that persecution takes is secondary.

AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
> it should be addressed democratically - protests, lobbying your representatives, even voting. That hasn't worked yet for Wikileaks. If this worked and/or was the best way to deal with the types of problems Wikileaks is exposing, there would be no need for Wikileaks to exist. The reason Wikileaks does exist is because, typically, when we attempt to address atrocities "democratically" we get nowhere. On the other hand... > Inventing a new currency that is, for a little while, hard to track by the government This _has_ worked for Wikileaks in the past. When the US persecuted Wikileaks, Bitcoin helped to heavily negate the immediate impact of this action. > The form that persecution takes is secondary. In that case, why can't the form that Wikileaks' solutions take be secondary as well? If we are in agreement that Wikileaks is an important organization, then when addressing atrocities "democratically" fails, what would be wrong with short-term innovation?

oblio 6y ago

If you're assuming that you can work around an imperfect government, which you don't think can be fixed democratically, through cryptocurrency, especially for a core statehood domain, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you :-)

UncleMeat 6y ago

> You assume that government is good and prohibited uses are bad. Not quite. We assume that government is controlled by the people and thus I have some influence in its operation. The state often does truly horrible things, but so do plenty of organizations that I cannot control at all. I'll take the one that I have some degree of influence on.