4 ms·

Yeah, and we could waste billions of dollars and lives (in the future) on space exploration due to programmer errors. Guess we should stop that too.

brink 5y ago
While space exploration is great, it's not nearly as important as earth conservation; which crypto has also wasted a lot of.
- reedjosh 5y ago
  Fiat finances all wars. Without money printers, people push back against the true levels of taxation involved in modern Geo-politics. US peeps like to mock other currencies that fall to inflation, and how the despotic governments were printing their way out of debts, but refuse to acknowledge money printing is used in much the same way here. We only get away with it as we're currently the top dog. Governmental military industrial complexes spend way more resources than Bitcoin. Bitcoin's energy expenditure is required to keep government's from killing it because of the risk it poses to their fiat based control. Bitcoin's energy expenditure is about reducing democide and drawing down military industrial complexes for a peaceful cooperative future.
  - ivalm 5y ago
    So if we all switch to crypto then the incentives to go to war would go away? How does that even supposed to work? We go to war for 1) land 2) resources 3) religion/various -isms. Crypto solves none of these (well, it potentially makes (2) worse).
    - reedjosh 5y ago
      As I said, it precludes the means of financing wars. If US citizens had to pay for the costs of hegemony directly, people would actually push back. Instead we get ever inflating and impossible to afford housing and a declining standard of living without understanding why.
      - fancifalmanima 5y ago
        I don't think there's anything that would preclude the us government from selling bitcoin treasury bonds (accepting bitcoin with the promise to pay more back at a later date, basically). Even if the block chain didn't support it, the contract (bond) can still exist off-chain. If it took off, and non technical people became more engaged in the space, I really don't see a reason to assume that traditional banks wouldn't accept bitcoin deposits and offer off-chain loans (re-creating the fractional reserve system we have today as well). Unless there was some law preventing it.
      - fancifalmanima 5y ago
        I don't think there's anything that would preclude the us government from selling bitcoin treasury bonds (accepting bitcoin with the promise to pay more back at a later date, basically). Even if the block chain didn't support it, the contract (bond) can still exist off-chain. If it took off, and non technical people became more engaged in the space, I really don't see a reason to assume that traditional banks wouldn't accept bitcoin deposits and offer off-chain loans (re-creating the fractional reserve system we have today as well). Unless there was some law preventing it. I think those two tools together would enable the US government to take on increasing debt loads in bitcoin, and to inflate the currency pool in one of the ways it's able to do with the dollar (the reserve ratio). So I'm sure they'll figure it out.
      - ivalm 5y ago
        Wars and debt happened before fiat money. In fact, all of the biggest wars were without fiat money.
        reedjosh 5y ago
        I was under the impression WW1 & WW2 were fought under fiat monetary regimes in most of the countries involved? I will try to do some reading.
        reedjosh 5y ago
        So far it would seem the US Civil war started on hard money and turned to fiat. > Demands for money in the Civil War rapidly exceeded the availability of specie (gold and silver) and the capacities of the private banking system. The governments in both the North and the South began to print their own currencies as a temporary wartime expedient. In the Union, competing currencies were eventually curtailed by a 10% tax on privately printed notes. Many of the former note-issuing businesses successfully liquidated or amalgamated and others were converted into “national banks” under the National Banking Act of 1863. http://numismatics.org/a-history-of-american-currency/ http://numismatics.org/a-history-of-american-currency/ Clearly that's just one case, but it will take me a while to gather further evidence. Edit: Seems federal reserve bills were in use through both World Wars while silver certificates dwindled out of existence as they were exchanged for silver. > Following the financial panic of 1907, the Federal Reserve banking system was established to provide a safety “buffer” between the government and the economy. A new Federal Reserve Bank Note currency was able to be sustained through the Great Depression of the 1930s while most other forms of American currency were abandoned So from a United States Centric view, fiat took us through some large wars. I'll check on some other countries, but at this point I think it's fair to ask you to provide some evidence to back your statement. > In fact, all of the biggest wars were without fiat money
- Shosty123 5y ago
  Sure, but that's not the point they were trying to make in the post.

brink 5y ago

While space exploration is great, it's not nearly as important as earth conservation; which crypto has also wasted a lot of.

reedjosh 5y ago
Fiat finances all wars. Without money printers, people push back against the true levels of taxation involved in modern Geo-politics. US peeps like to mock other currencies that fall to inflation, and how the despotic governments were printing their way out of debts, but refuse to acknowledge money printing is used in much the same way here. We only get away with it as we're currently the top dog. Governmental military industrial complexes spend way more resources than Bitcoin. Bitcoin's energy expenditure is required to keep government's from killing it because of the risk it poses to their fiat based control. Bitcoin's energy expenditure is about reducing democide and drawing down military industrial complexes for a peaceful cooperative future.
- ivalm 5y ago
  So if we all switch to crypto then the incentives to go to war would go away? How does that even supposed to work? We go to war for 1) land 2) resources 3) religion/various -isms. Crypto solves none of these (well, it potentially makes (2) worse).
  - reedjosh 5y ago
    As I said, it precludes the means of financing wars. If US citizens had to pay for the costs of hegemony directly, people would actually push back. Instead we get ever inflating and impossible to afford housing and a declining standard of living without understanding why.
    - fancifalmanima 5y ago
      I don't think there's anything that would preclude the us government from selling bitcoin treasury bonds (accepting bitcoin with the promise to pay more back at a later date, basically). Even if the block chain didn't support it, the contract (bond) can still exist off-chain. If it took off, and non technical people became more engaged in the space, I really don't see a reason to assume that traditional banks wouldn't accept bitcoin deposits and offer off-chain loans (re-creating the fractional reserve system we have today as well). Unless there was some law preventing it.
    - fancifalmanima 5y ago
      I don't think there's anything that would preclude the us government from selling bitcoin treasury bonds (accepting bitcoin with the promise to pay more back at a later date, basically). Even if the block chain didn't support it, the contract (bond) can still exist off-chain. If it took off, and non technical people became more engaged in the space, I really don't see a reason to assume that traditional banks wouldn't accept bitcoin deposits and offer off-chain loans (re-creating the fractional reserve system we have today as well). Unless there was some law preventing it. I think those two tools together would enable the US government to take on increasing debt loads in bitcoin, and to inflate the currency pool in one of the ways it's able to do with the dollar (the reserve ratio). So I'm sure they'll figure it out.
    - ivalm 5y ago
      Wars and debt happened before fiat money. In fact, all of the biggest wars were without fiat money.
      - reedjosh 5y ago
        I was under the impression WW1 & WW2 were fought under fiat monetary regimes in most of the countries involved? I will try to do some reading.
        reedjosh 5y ago
        So far it would seem the US Civil war started on hard money and turned to fiat. > Demands for money in the Civil War rapidly exceeded the availability of specie (gold and silver) and the capacities of the private banking system. The governments in both the North and the South began to print their own currencies as a temporary wartime expedient. In the Union, competing currencies were eventually curtailed by a 10% tax on privately printed notes. Many of the former note-issuing businesses successfully liquidated or amalgamated and others were converted into “national banks” under the National Banking Act of 1863. http://numismatics.org/a-history-of-american-currency/ http://numismatics.org/a-history-of-american-currency/ Clearly that's just one case, but it will take me a while to gather further evidence. Edit: Seems federal reserve bills were in use through both World Wars while silver certificates dwindled out of existence as they were exchanged for silver. > Following the financial panic of 1907, the Federal Reserve banking system was established to provide a safety “buffer” between the government and the economy. A new Federal Reserve Bank Note currency was able to be sustained through the Great Depression of the 1930s while most other forms of American currency were abandoned So from a United States Centric view, fiat took us through some large wars. I'll check on some other countries, but at this point I think it's fair to ask you to provide some evidence to back your statement. > In fact, all of the biggest wars were without fiat money
Shosty123 5y ago
Sure, but that's not the point they were trying to make in the post.