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If we're going to follow this analogy, what are the beneficial side effects from bitcoin? Better ASICs that do nothing but calculate sha256 hashes? Easier mone

If we're going to follow this analogy, what are the beneficial side effects from bitcoin? Better ASICs that do nothing but calculate sha256 hashes? Easier money-laundering? New venues for tax evasion? I guess censorship-resistant online value transfer is worth something, but I'm not sure it outweighs all the negatives.

dave_sullivan 6y ago
Some people think the internet should be beyond the control of a single government, and perhaps by extension so too should the financial system. There are a lot of caveats to this idea.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Even for those that do, a network capable of handling maybe a few million transactions per day while consuming more energy than many small countries is so obviously useless in that regard that it should be abandoned entirely.
  - dave_sullivan 6y ago
    I don't disagree with the weaknesses you point out, but I do think "abandon entirely" is an extreme stance. It's completely possible for bitcoin to lose while some other crypto (or basket of crypto coins) wins.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      It's important to remember that Bitcoin (and other proof-of-work coins) have a very real and direct environmental cost. Given the state of global warming and how urgent it is to stop it, I believe that letting miners continue to waste energy is a much more extreme stance than stopping them today (with some kind of compensation program for their and others' investments in bitcoin, of course you can't just delete a trillion dollars worth of people's money in a minute).
nx7487 6y ago
Forcing budget reform because the government wouldn't be able to rely on printing money.
- pjc50 6y ago
  .. but should instead increase austerity, cut social programs, and raise taxes? Besides, the seignorage revenue is pretty tiny in western economies..
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  You would still need a lending infrastructure outside of bitcoin to handle the economy, and then it would be trivial to return to fractional reserve banking with bitcoin instead of dollars. As long as people don't all call in their debts at the same time, which would be catastrophic either way, the system would work with bitcoin just like it works today (if bitcoin weren't so ridiculously slow and expensive to register a transaction, that is) .
jeofken 6y ago
Power over other people is intoxicating. It attracts those who value it over virtue, and the virtuous reject it. For their wicked thirst for power, some will do anything. In our age there is an unholy alliance between the worlds greatest power ever and its military industrial complex, where the incentives for government leaders is to wage war in strange faraway lands, and to bribe the population at home with dependence on the state, in exchange for votes. This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. In effect, this is devaluing the salaries and savings of anyone who earns their living, and who can not do anything about it, as they are forced to trade in this currency created by fiat. By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner. A sound system of ethics must contain the right to ownership of your property - you body, your money, and other possessions. Bitcoin practically gives us this in the Information Age.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  > This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. > By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner. Utter bullshit. The power of the US government doesn't stem from its ability to print money. Rather, it's the other way around essentially: its ability to print money stems from its power. The US government controls the most successful economy and army in the world's history, by far. If it had a reason to, the US government could, with resources it entirely owns, out-mine the entire bitcoin network and print its own bitcoin as well, in violation of the protocol. What's more, assuming it were done publicly and with a commitment to maintain it, people all over the world would use the newly printed US-bitcoin. More realistically, it could easily lend bitcoin that don't exist yet and create a fractional-reserve system right on top of bitcoin. The problems of today's economy stem much more from "free market" systems like the officially-sanctioned speculation happening every second on Wall Street. Workers are hurt much more by so-called "free trade" agreements that allow US companies to own other parts of the world and exploit those for cheap labor at the cost of both US workers and the foreign economy. And wars get started not because the US has money, but because the US doesn't allow enough democratic control of its workings.
primitivesuave 6y ago
From the ASIC perspective, what I see personally is a massive waste of engineering talent. Why build ASICs for boring but important tasks (especially bioinformatics) when you can cash in on Bitcoin mining while the going is good. With regards to tax evasion, my opinion is that it will simply force taxation to occur in other ways like VAT. People are quite capable of evading taxes in the present system, so wide adoption of online value transfer would simply democratize access to tax evasion (and force governments to rethink how they collect taxes). Money laundering makes me think of the dangerous flip side, where anyone can covertly accumulate and use resources without scrutiny - e.g. Ali Alexander using Bitcoin to finance the transport and lodging of groups that took part in the January 6th riot.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

dave_sullivan 6y ago

Some people think the internet should be beyond the control of a single government, and perhaps by extension so too should the financial system. There are a lot of caveats to this idea.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Even for those that do, a network capable of handling maybe a few million transactions per day while consuming more energy than many small countries is so obviously useless in that regard that it should be abandoned entirely.
- dave_sullivan 6y ago
  I don't disagree with the weaknesses you point out, but I do think "abandon entirely" is an extreme stance. It's completely possible for bitcoin to lose while some other crypto (or basket of crypto coins) wins.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    It's important to remember that Bitcoin (and other proof-of-work coins) have a very real and direct environmental cost. Given the state of global warming and how urgent it is to stop it, I believe that letting miners continue to waste energy is a much more extreme stance than stopping them today (with some kind of compensation program for their and others' investments in bitcoin, of course you can't just delete a trillion dollars worth of people's money in a minute).

nx7487 6y ago

Forcing budget reform because the government wouldn't be able to rely on printing money.

pjc50 6y ago
.. but should instead increase austerity, cut social programs, and raise taxes? Besides, the seignorage revenue is pretty tiny in western economies..
tsimionescu 6y ago
You would still need a lending infrastructure outside of bitcoin to handle the economy, and then it would be trivial to return to fractional reserve banking with bitcoin instead of dollars. As long as people don't all call in their debts at the same time, which would be catastrophic either way, the system would work with bitcoin just like it works today (if bitcoin weren't so ridiculously slow and expensive to register a transaction, that is) .

jeofken 6y ago

Power over other people is intoxicating. It attracts those who value it over virtue, and the virtuous reject it. For their wicked thirst for power, some will do anything. In our age there is an unholy alliance between the worlds greatest power ever and its military industrial complex, where the incentives for government leaders is to wage war in strange faraway lands, and to bribe the population at home with dependence on the state, in exchange for votes. This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. In effect, this is devaluing the salaries and savings of anyone who earns their living, and who can not do anything about it, as they are forced to trade in this currency created by fiat. By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner. A sound system of ethics must contain the right to ownership of your property - you body, your money, and other possessions. Bitcoin practically gives us this in the Information Age.

tsimionescu 6y ago
> This is all funded by printing money - inflating its supply. > By creating Bitcoin, Satoshi took gold to the internet, and we can now trade in a currency which no one can inflate to fund wars, or to in essence steal productivity from every earner. Utter bullshit. The power of the US government doesn't stem from its ability to print money. Rather, it's the other way around essentially: its ability to print money stems from its power. The US government controls the most successful economy and army in the world's history, by far. If it had a reason to, the US government could, with resources it entirely owns, out-mine the entire bitcoin network and print its own bitcoin as well, in violation of the protocol. What's more, assuming it were done publicly and with a commitment to maintain it, people all over the world would use the newly printed US-bitcoin. More realistically, it could easily lend bitcoin that don't exist yet and create a fractional-reserve system right on top of bitcoin. The problems of today's economy stem much more from "free market" systems like the officially-sanctioned speculation happening every second on Wall Street. Workers are hurt much more by so-called "free trade" agreements that allow US companies to own other parts of the world and exploit those for cheap labor at the cost of both US workers and the foreign economy. And wars get started not because the US has money, but because the US doesn't allow enough democratic control of its workings.

primitivesuave 6y ago

From the ASIC perspective, what I see personally is a massive waste of engineering talent. Why build ASICs for boring but important tasks (especially bioinformatics) when you can cash in on Bitcoin mining while the going is good. With regards to tax evasion, my opinion is that it will simply force taxation to occur in other ways like VAT. People are quite capable of evading taxes in the present system, so wide adoption of online value transfer would simply democratize access to tax evasion (and force governments to rethink how they collect taxes). Money laundering makes me think of the dangerous flip side, where anyone can covertly accumulate and use resources without scrutiny - e.g. Ali Alexander using Bitcoin to finance the transport and lodging of groups that took part in the January 6th riot.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]