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I loathe Bitcoin, but that’s vastly wrong. As one counter-example, the Syrian civil war didn’t only displace poor people who never had anything to begin with; i

by fay59 5y ago

I loathe Bitcoin, but that’s vastly wrong. As one counter-example, the Syrian civil war didn’t only displace poor people who never had anything to begin with; it displaced a lot of middle class families, made of engineers and doctors and such, who did have assets to their name but that were almost certainly incapable of taking it out of the country with them. It remains to be seen whether it would have been practical to move money from Syrian liras to Bitcoin. No one wants to buy hyper-inflating currency.

cemerick 5y ago
It is unfortunately quite factual that the vast majority of refugees worldwide functionally have no assets and often end up in debt at the end of their journey from home. Anecdotes of relative handfuls of affluent migrants are hardly compelling vis a vis the utility of e.g. BTC, especially given the lofty claims being made.
- fay59 5y ago
  Outside of whether it would be feasible to move wealth to bitcoin before fleeing, discounting the existence of people who weren't miserable before they had to flee their decent existence due to war is insulting. You insinuated that all people who flee their country were resourceless before their displacement. Confronted with the fact that they aren't, you thought to save your point by declaring them "anecdotal". Not classy.
  - cemerick 5y ago
    I didn't discount anyone's existence, or make any insinuation about "all people" of any description. The claim upthread was that BTC is useful when exfiltrating wealth when emigrating; for that to be a compelling and common use case for BTC, said wealth would need to be common. My pointing out trivially verifiable facts re: the typical (a.k.a. statistically predominant) financial disposition of refugees might not put that claim in a good light, but it's not pejorative or dismissive whatsoever of anyone or their experiences. IMO, the not-classy thing is cryptocurrency advocates constantly trying to leverage the plight of refugees, the unbanked, and those living in locales with constrained economic freedom to underwrite the reputation of a set of technologies that are overwhelmingly used as pernicious speculative vehicles.
glenvdb 5y ago
I'm sorry, are you saying Bitcoin is hyper-inflating? Am I getting my wires crossed or are you confusing terms?

by fay59 5y ago

cemerick 5y ago

It is unfortunately quite factual that the vast majority of refugees worldwide functionally have no assets and often end up in debt at the end of their journey from home. Anecdotes of relative handfuls of affluent migrants are hardly compelling vis a vis the utility of e.g. BTC, especially given the lofty claims being made.

fay59 5y ago
Outside of whether it would be feasible to move wealth to bitcoin before fleeing, discounting the existence of people who weren't miserable before they had to flee their decent existence due to war is insulting. You insinuated that all people who flee their country were resourceless before their displacement. Confronted with the fact that they aren't, you thought to save your point by declaring them "anecdotal". Not classy.
- cemerick 5y ago
  I didn't discount anyone's existence, or make any insinuation about "all people" of any description. The claim upthread was that BTC is useful when exfiltrating wealth when emigrating; for that to be a compelling and common use case for BTC, said wealth would need to be common. My pointing out trivially verifiable facts re: the typical (a.k.a. statistically predominant) financial disposition of refugees might not put that claim in a good light, but it's not pejorative or dismissive whatsoever of anyone or their experiences. IMO, the not-classy thing is cryptocurrency advocates constantly trying to leverage the plight of refugees, the unbanked, and those living in locales with constrained economic freedom to underwrite the reputation of a set of technologies that are overwhelmingly used as pernicious speculative vehicles.

glenvdb 5y ago

I'm sorry, are you saying Bitcoin is hyper-inflating? Am I getting my wires crossed or are you confusing terms?