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> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don'
by leppr 6y ago
> I believe that everyone has a fundamental right to secure, private communication. Some people may hold the same belief for the right to transfer funds. I don't agree and I suspect many others feel the same.
What are the arguments?
Don't you think that as data becomes more and more valuable, "freedom of transaction" is a natural evolution of "freedom of communication"?
In an environment where only "legally valueless" data circulates freely, the few entities that are actually able to monetize this data become gigantic monopolies (Google, FB, ...), while most individual parties are either forced to play by their rules (Youtube, Patreon, ...) or filtered out by startup costs.
- cdogl 6y agoMy view is that the public in general has a right to universal services that can realistically only be delivered through taxation. That right needs to be balanced against the right to transaction privacy. It's one thing to say that friends should be able to send money to each other privately; it's another to think about bank settlements and international flows of large sums of money not being visible or auditable. The whole issue is a real minefield and I don't have a firm stance. And obviously the fiat money system has gaps and flaws there too. I'm sure much of the HN audience would disagree with me here from a libertarian point of view. But I think it's safe to say that the issue of transaction privacy & freedom is not as straightforward as that of speech (which itself is really not that simple).