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Why are arguments of this form so pervasive? Cryptocurrency is bad and must be banned because ransomware. Encryption is bad because pedos, let’s ban Tor and Si

Why are arguments of this form so pervasive? Cryptocurrency is bad and must be banned because ransomware. Encryption is bad because pedos, let’s ban Tor and Signal. We need a permanent surveillance state and forfeit most of our rights to privacy because terrorists bad, what do you have to hide? Is it an appeal to emotion? Fear?

jodrellblank 5y ago
Why are comments in the form of putting words into someone's mouth which they didn't say, so pervasive? The blog says "reign in and regulate", not "ban". But, to address your point, because they're good arguments. "We need to regulate $thing" has saved lots of lives. No longer can you sell plain river water to drink, dump sewage directly back into rivers, dump industrial waste into rivers, build houses which collapse, build hotels with no fire consideration, build using asbestos, make buildings with electric wiring without circuit breakers, adulterate food with sawdust and plaster, sell products with lead paint, burn leaded gasoline in places where people breathe, and on and on and on. That's progress; try things, filter out the things which are badder than they are good.
- robot_no_419 5y ago
  The author has multiple articles calling for an outright blanket ban on all cryptocurrencies. So in the author's own words, he is calling for a ban on all cryptocurrency.
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    In this article being discussed the author's own words are: "'legislation and intervention in the financial system at only the level nation states can act. The free flow of money from US banks to cryptocurrency exchanges is the root cause and needs to halt'" Which is a call for regulating, not banning. If you want to use something different which the author said somewhere else, to back some other point and say that it outweighs what the author says here, then actually do all those things. What are the author's own words elsewhere, where, and what point are you trying to make by vaguely gesticulating towards them?
    - robot_no_419 5y ago
      How about this article, titled "The Political Case for a Blanket Cryptocurrency Ban"? https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/banbitcoin.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/banbitcoin.html The author is extremely prolific and vocal about his support for outright banning cryptocurrency. It's all over his blog, it's all over his Twitter. He is proud to admit it. It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance.
      - jodrellblank 5y ago
        That article doesn't call for a ban? It says: The most expedient actions would be fourfold: Halt all wire transfers of dollars in and out of cryptocurrency exchanges. Halt foreign entities trading in dollar cash-equivalent crypto assets. Add Chinese and other foreign cryptocurrency exchanges hiding in tax-havens to sanctioned entities lists. Regulate the sale of any existing cryptocurrency assets to US persons by classifying them as securities investment contracts moving forward. If you can still sell existing cryptocurrency assets, and exchanges still exist, that's not banned, is it? > "It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance." I'm asking what relevance your comment has. "He calls for a ban" - so what? Make a point.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        robot_no_419 5y ago
        Here is a tweet where he literally says "crypto should be outright banned": https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1391655510760431617 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1391655510760431617 There, can you stop being so obtuse now? You are wrong. My point is that the author is calling for a ban and that nobody was putting words in his mouth, as you suggested.
        jodrellblank 5y ago
- scg 5y ago
  > reign in and regulate Crypto is heavily regulated at least in the US, Western Europe and huge swaths of Asia. Exchanging to/from fiat can only be done through entities subject to KYC, AML laws, and OFAC regulations. Additional regulations are coming - see "travel rule". Bitcoin is infinitely more traceable than cash. Here's one of the most popular software routinely used by law enforcement to trace crypto payments: https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/. Tumblers / mixers, etc. have only limited cloaking power.
  - VectorLock 5y ago
    >Crypto is heavily regulated at least in the US Most of these criminals perpetrating ransomeware aren't in the US or Western Europe.
capableweb 5y ago
It's pretty obvious. Imagine that someone comes to you and shows you a cube. This cube has lightning inside of it, and you can press a button and it creates lightning. This cube can also program software, so if you feed it user stories, it outputs SaaS businesses. You try to understand how this magic lightning works, but to no avail, it's simply too complicated for you to understand. Your first emotion is most likely fear. Like how the hell does that thing does it, how does it's magic work? This is how many people see cryptocurrencies. Something "magic" that just somehow is used as money for some people, but it's still just ones-and-zeroes, how does anything make sense?! First reaction is to be careful around it, and try to "protect" yourself from it. We saw the same thing with the internet initially, until it gradually sucked us all in. We saw the same thing with social media initially, until it gradually sucked most of us in.
TheBill 5y ago
It's an appeal to authoritarianism. The author wants "someone" with power to tell everyone what they're allowed, and not allowed to do. " The free flow of money from US banks to cryptocurrency exchanges is the root cause and needs to halt. " Direct quote. Author is in London, but believes that #TeamAmericaWorldPoliece needs to step in because the only viable on/off ramp to cryptocurrencies is the US Bank System. The article has the veneer of being well thought out, however if you look at their other writing & twitter there's definitely a I think I'm smart & didn't invent/make money/gain referential power from crypto so it's a scam & they now have ego tied up in being right/seeing the state clamp down on it.
- headmelted 5y ago
  Not to speak to the author or the article, as I’m not familiar with their other writing, but this exact argument is why I think this battle for free speech ultimately gets lost. Given two options A and B: Option A) Status quo stays as is. Option B) Legally ban end-to-end encryption. My experience has been that most tech people advocate for A. Personally, I have no desire to have every conversation I expect to be private with the government watching over my shoulder, but that’s exactly where we’re headed if the tech community’s response to the problem of perverts/pedos/launderer/druglords boils down to “oh well gotta break a few eggs”. Techies can balk all day long at the idea of the government legislating away end-to-end encryption but the voting public won’t (and I don’t blame them, given the tech community’s response of ignoring this issue so far). Now, you might be thinking “but it doesn’t make sense! if you ban encryption, evildoers will still use it, and everyone else will have lost their privacy for nothing”. True. The tech community needs to find an Option C that resolves criminality before Option B is forced on everyone. (I have no suggestions for this, and doubt it’s possible, but maybe there’s a novel idea no-one has thought of.)
alfor 5y ago
1- Crypto is made to evade government control. 2- Government are there to ensure law and order. Result: Crypto is a great tool to evade law and order Governments will have to control crypto or governments will stop working
- rawtxapp 5y ago
  I'd say crypto is made to remove government control on money, not to evade law and order. That's certainly doable, but you can also evade law and order with normal fiat currency (ex: HSBC laundering billions of dollars for cartels).
- syshum 5y ago
  >>governments will stop working hmm... seems like all positive to me
  - Agathos 5y ago
    Yay, anarchy. The half-life of anarchy is measured in hours. Then the gangs show up. Gangs are basically governments, except even less responsive to your needs and more openly committed to enriching their own leadership.
    - syshum 5y ago
      You got the first part right... Governments are gangs.... However I have to completely disagree that governments are responsive to anyone needs, or that they are not committed to their own enrichment
Siira 5y ago
Perhaps the key is that most people do not perceive huge benefits from these, but they perceive huge danger from the downsides. People usually both underestimate their own downstream benefits because of large inferential distance between the thing (encryption) and themselves, and overestimate the dangers of the downsides. Then we'd have the ages-old dynamic that something that benefits everyone a bit but harms a minority a lot will be pushed out by people.

jodrellblank 5y ago

Why are comments in the form of putting words into someone's mouth which they didn't say, so pervasive? The blog says "reign in and regulate", not "ban". But, to address your point, because they're good arguments. "We need to regulate $thing" has saved lots of lives. No longer can you sell plain river water to drink, dump sewage directly back into rivers, dump industrial waste into rivers, build houses which collapse, build hotels with no fire consideration, build using asbestos, make buildings with electric wiring without circuit breakers, adulterate food with sawdust and plaster, sell products with lead paint, burn leaded gasoline in places where people breathe, and on and on and on. That's progress; try things, filter out the things which are badder than they are good.

robot_no_419 5y ago
The author has multiple articles calling for an outright blanket ban on all cryptocurrencies. So in the author's own words, he is calling for a ban on all cryptocurrency.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  In this article being discussed the author's own words are: "'legislation and intervention in the financial system at only the level nation states can act. The free flow of money from US banks to cryptocurrency exchanges is the root cause and needs to halt'" Which is a call for regulating, not banning. If you want to use something different which the author said somewhere else, to back some other point and say that it outweighs what the author says here, then actually do all those things. What are the author's own words elsewhere, where, and what point are you trying to make by vaguely gesticulating towards them?
  - robot_no_419 5y ago
    How about this article, titled "The Political Case for a Blanket Cryptocurrency Ban"? https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/banbitcoin.html https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/banbitcoin.html The author is extremely prolific and vocal about his support for outright banning cryptocurrency. It's all over his blog, it's all over his Twitter. He is proud to admit it. It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance.
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      That article doesn't call for a ban? It says: The most expedient actions would be fourfold: Halt all wire transfers of dollars in and out of cryptocurrency exchanges. Halt foreign entities trading in dollar cash-equivalent crypto assets. Add Chinese and other foreign cryptocurrency exchanges hiding in tax-havens to sanctioned entities lists. Regulate the sale of any existing cryptocurrency assets to US persons by classifying them as securities investment contracts moving forward. If you can still sell existing cryptocurrency assets, and exchanges still exist, that's not banned, is it? > "It could have taken you 30 seconds to verify what I was saying, but instead you chose to double down on your ignorance." I'm asking what relevance your comment has. "He calls for a ban" - so what? Make a point.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - robot_no_419 5y ago
        Here is a tweet where he literally says "crypto should be outright banned": https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1391655510760431617 https://twitter.com/smdiehl/status/1391655510760431617 There, can you stop being so obtuse now? You are wrong. My point is that the author is calling for a ban and that nobody was putting words in his mouth, as you suggested.
        jodrellblank 5y ago
scg 5y ago
> reign in and regulate Crypto is heavily regulated at least in the US, Western Europe and huge swaths of Asia. Exchanging to/from fiat can only be done through entities subject to KYC, AML laws, and OFAC regulations. Additional regulations are coming - see "travel rule". Bitcoin is infinitely more traceable than cash. Here's one of the most popular software routinely used by law enforcement to trace crypto payments: https://www.chainalysis.com/ https://www.chainalysis.com/. Tumblers / mixers, etc. have only limited cloaking power.
- VectorLock 5y ago
  >Crypto is heavily regulated at least in the US Most of these criminals perpetrating ransomeware aren't in the US or Western Europe.

capableweb 5y ago

It's pretty obvious. Imagine that someone comes to you and shows you a cube. This cube has lightning inside of it, and you can press a button and it creates lightning. This cube can also program software, so if you feed it user stories, it outputs SaaS businesses. You try to understand how this magic lightning works, but to no avail, it's simply too complicated for you to understand. Your first emotion is most likely fear. Like how the hell does that thing does it, how does it's magic work? This is how many people see cryptocurrencies. Something "magic" that just somehow is used as money for some people, but it's still just ones-and-zeroes, how does anything make sense?! First reaction is to be careful around it, and try to "protect" yourself from it. We saw the same thing with the internet initially, until it gradually sucked us all in. We saw the same thing with social media initially, until it gradually sucked most of us in.

TheBill 5y ago

It's an appeal to authoritarianism. The author wants "someone" with power to tell everyone what they're allowed, and not allowed to do. " The free flow of money from US banks to cryptocurrency exchanges is the root cause and needs to halt. " Direct quote. Author is in London, but believes that #TeamAmericaWorldPoliece needs to step in because the only viable on/off ramp to cryptocurrencies is the US Bank System. The article has the veneer of being well thought out, however if you look at their other writing & twitter there's definitely a I think I'm smart & didn't invent/make money/gain referential power from crypto so it's a scam & they now have ego tied up in being right/seeing the state clamp down on it.

headmelted 5y ago
Not to speak to the author or the article, as I’m not familiar with their other writing, but this exact argument is why I think this battle for free speech ultimately gets lost. Given two options A and B: Option A) Status quo stays as is. Option B) Legally ban end-to-end encryption. My experience has been that most tech people advocate for A. Personally, I have no desire to have every conversation I expect to be private with the government watching over my shoulder, but that’s exactly where we’re headed if the tech community’s response to the problem of perverts/pedos/launderer/druglords boils down to “oh well gotta break a few eggs”. Techies can balk all day long at the idea of the government legislating away end-to-end encryption but the voting public won’t (and I don’t blame them, given the tech community’s response of ignoring this issue so far). Now, you might be thinking “but it doesn’t make sense! if you ban encryption, evildoers will still use it, and everyone else will have lost their privacy for nothing”. True. The tech community needs to find an Option C that resolves criminality before Option B is forced on everyone. (I have no suggestions for this, and doubt it’s possible, but maybe there’s a novel idea no-one has thought of.)

alfor 5y ago

1- Crypto is made to evade government control. 2- Government are there to ensure law and order. Result: Crypto is a great tool to evade law and order Governments will have to control crypto or governments will stop working

rawtxapp 5y ago
I'd say crypto is made to remove government control on money, not to evade law and order. That's certainly doable, but you can also evade law and order with normal fiat currency (ex: HSBC laundering billions of dollars for cartels).
syshum 5y ago
>>governments will stop working hmm... seems like all positive to me
- Agathos 5y ago
  Yay, anarchy. The half-life of anarchy is measured in hours. Then the gangs show up. Gangs are basically governments, except even less responsive to your needs and more openly committed to enriching their own leadership.
  - syshum 5y ago
    You got the first part right... Governments are gangs.... However I have to completely disagree that governments are responsive to anyone needs, or that they are not committed to their own enrichment

Siira 5y ago

Perhaps the key is that most people do not perceive huge benefits from these, but they perceive huge danger from the downsides. People usually both underestimate their own downstream benefits because of large inferential distance between the thing (encryption) and themselves, and overestimate the dangers of the downsides. Then we'd have the ages-old dynamic that something that benefits everyone a bit but harms a minority a lot will be pushed out by people.