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> Warmongering has next to nothing to do with currency. Quite the contrary. You'll find that many currencies were created specifically to support an army or wa

> Warmongering has next to nothing to do with currency. Quite the contrary. You'll find that many currencies were created specifically to support an army or war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_currency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_currency

simiones 6y ago
Oh yes, ~400 years ago many things worked differently. In particular, currencies were less tied with states than they are today, leading to many kinds of financial manipulations that no longer happen, at least outside open conflict zones. If the US government wanted to go to war, was lacking money for this, and for some reason didn't want to seize the entire bitcoin network (which it could pretty easily do, make no mistake), it could simply issue its own cryptocoin, just like in 1652. And people will buy it, because they know the US is good for it, for the same reason that dollars don't particularly devalue even if you print another hundred billion of them today. It's important to understand that you can't fight social problems with technical solutions. The disgusting amounts of power that big states have make it impossible to oppose them with fun projects like bitcoin. If you are truly serious about combatting US imperialism, try reading some Noam Chomsky - that is a man that has spent his life fighting against these things, but also understanding the levers of power. Financial games are in the end games; they may seem important because it is where the rich spend their time, but if push comes to shove and the system is threatened, the game is quickly stopped and any necessary controls is asserted. Just look at what happened with the GME stock (and we haven't even seen the end of that). Make no mistake, if BTC ever becomes a real threat to any monetary system, you will see much worse than that. This can only be combatted in the arena of politics and democratic control, by changing the rules, not playing the game.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  1. Seizing Bitcoin is not as trivial as you think it is. 2. Fiat is not a social problem but a technological one that crypto is well poised to take on. 3. BTC is well on its way to passing gold in aggregate value. It's safe to say, it's no longer a "toy". 4. I'm left of Chomsky but in general, a big fan.
  - simiones 6y ago
    1. It's not trivial, but it's certainly not impossible for the US government. 2. I don't understand how fiat is a technological problem. Fiat was a solution to the problem of a fixed supply (gold-pegged) currency. Crypto is generally a step back. 3. The value of bitcoin is irrelevant to its impact on global financial systems. It can handle 7 transactions per second, while consuming more power than the Czech Republic. That people are willing to bet good money on it for now is does not mean that is should be taken seriously as an alternative to anything in the financial system. 4. Interesting, I honestly expected from your arguments that you were more in the area of a more-socially-conscious-than-average Rand Paul fan, glad to hear I was wrong.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      1. I don't agree, it's also a great justification for why BTC uses so much power: to protect takeover from things like the US government. 2. Fiat is a technological solution, as is Bitcoin. Really though, the dichotomy between "social" and "tech" solutions is false. Technology and society are one and the same. 3. BTC has moved billions of dollars into crypto. That crypto can be pegged in smart contracts on more appropriate tech stacks (like ETH) to enable currency use-cases with alt coins. It's early days here, but very exciting. 4. There's not many leftist libertarians but it is an actual philosophy. Individual liberty + social and humanitarian thinking + acknowledgement of the role racism and exploitation has had in today's power structures. I believe in radical decentralization and leveraging technology and automation to make life better for all.
      - simiones 6y ago
        1. To be clear, I'm not thinking of a 51% attack, I'm thinking of cyberattacks on the miners and exchanges, mining equipment seizures, international warrants etc. 2. I was wrong in my explanation, you're right that fiat is a (social/financial) technology and in principle crypto could be an alternative. What I was thinking of initially is that the problems of the finance system are social, not technological: the incentives in the current system (the rich keeping their richness at the expense of everyone else) are a social problem, which can't be fixed with technology. As long as the rich stay rich and powerful, they will control crypto just as well as they controlled gold and fiat before it. 3. ETH can do, what, 24 TPS? Right now there is no coin that can realistically compete with the global banking system, especially on the last mile. And I don't think PoW or PoSpace will ever get there. And PoStake doesn't seem like it has any real advantages over a trusted distributed DB, to be honest. 4. Those are quite noble goals. Probably a major difference of belief between us is that I don't believe any change towards decentralization can come from (computer) technology, I believe it must be a social movement with democratic power that moves things first and foremost - any kind of purely technological solution will easily be co-opted by the rich and powerful. In this way, crypto should look at what happened with the Internet itself, as Google and Facebook and others slowly absorbed it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

simiones 6y ago

Oh yes, ~400 years ago many things worked differently. In particular, currencies were less tied with states than they are today, leading to many kinds of financial manipulations that no longer happen, at least outside open conflict zones. If the US government wanted to go to war, was lacking money for this, and for some reason didn't want to seize the entire bitcoin network (which it could pretty easily do, make no mistake), it could simply issue its own cryptocoin, just like in 1652. And people will buy it, because they know the US is good for it, for the same reason that dollars don't particularly devalue even if you print another hundred billion of them today. It's important to understand that you can't fight social problems with technical solutions. The disgusting amounts of power that big states have make it impossible to oppose them with fun projects like bitcoin. If you are truly serious about combatting US imperialism, try reading some Noam Chomsky - that is a man that has spent his life fighting against these things, but also understanding the levers of power. Financial games are in the end games; they may seem important because it is where the rich spend their time, but if push comes to shove and the system is threatened, the game is quickly stopped and any necessary controls is asserted. Just look at what happened with the GME stock (and we haven't even seen the end of that). Make no mistake, if BTC ever becomes a real threat to any monetary system, you will see much worse than that. This can only be combatted in the arena of politics and democratic control, by changing the rules, not playing the game.

solosoyokaze 6y ago
1. Seizing Bitcoin is not as trivial as you think it is. 2. Fiat is not a social problem but a technological one that crypto is well poised to take on. 3. BTC is well on its way to passing gold in aggregate value. It's safe to say, it's no longer a "toy". 4. I'm left of Chomsky but in general, a big fan.
- simiones 6y ago
  1. It's not trivial, but it's certainly not impossible for the US government. 2. I don't understand how fiat is a technological problem. Fiat was a solution to the problem of a fixed supply (gold-pegged) currency. Crypto is generally a step back. 3. The value of bitcoin is irrelevant to its impact on global financial systems. It can handle 7 transactions per second, while consuming more power than the Czech Republic. That people are willing to bet good money on it for now is does not mean that is should be taken seriously as an alternative to anything in the financial system. 4. Interesting, I honestly expected from your arguments that you were more in the area of a more-socially-conscious-than-average Rand Paul fan, glad to hear I was wrong.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    1. I don't agree, it's also a great justification for why BTC uses so much power: to protect takeover from things like the US government. 2. Fiat is a technological solution, as is Bitcoin. Really though, the dichotomy between "social" and "tech" solutions is false. Technology and society are one and the same. 3. BTC has moved billions of dollars into crypto. That crypto can be pegged in smart contracts on more appropriate tech stacks (like ETH) to enable currency use-cases with alt coins. It's early days here, but very exciting. 4. There's not many leftist libertarians but it is an actual philosophy. Individual liberty + social and humanitarian thinking + acknowledgement of the role racism and exploitation has had in today's power structures. I believe in radical decentralization and leveraging technology and automation to make life better for all.
    - simiones 6y ago
      1. To be clear, I'm not thinking of a 51% attack, I'm thinking of cyberattacks on the miners and exchanges, mining equipment seizures, international warrants etc. 2. I was wrong in my explanation, you're right that fiat is a (social/financial) technology and in principle crypto could be an alternative. What I was thinking of initially is that the problems of the finance system are social, not technological: the incentives in the current system (the rich keeping their richness at the expense of everyone else) are a social problem, which can't be fixed with technology. As long as the rich stay rich and powerful, they will control crypto just as well as they controlled gold and fiat before it. 3. ETH can do, what, 24 TPS? Right now there is no coin that can realistically compete with the global banking system, especially on the last mile. And I don't think PoW or PoSpace will ever get there. And PoStake doesn't seem like it has any real advantages over a trusted distributed DB, to be honest. 4. Those are quite noble goals. Probably a major difference of belief between us is that I don't believe any change towards decentralization can come from (computer) technology, I believe it must be a social movement with democratic power that moves things first and foremost - any kind of purely technological solution will easily be co-opted by the rich and powerful. In this way, crypto should look at what happened with the Internet itself, as Google and Facebook and others slowly absorbed it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]