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I'm sure the government would love to throw Edward Snowden in jail, but he is out of their reach. They would love to shut down Wikileaks and Sci-Hub too. On the
by Acrobatic_Road 5y ago
I'm sure the government would love to throw Edward Snowden in jail, but he is out of their reach. They would love to shut down Wikileaks and Sci-Hub too. On the other hand, governments can very easily weaponize financial services to deny people the ability to send individuals and organizations money - which is how Wikileaks found itself digitally embargoed by Visa, PayPal and Mastercard. Not so with cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies can also provide anonymity to financial donors who would otherwise be targeted themselves for sending money to a party like Wikileaks.
- seoaeu 5y agoYes, cryptocurrencies are good if you want to finance illegal activity. However, since the vast majority of people are unable or unwilling to become international fugitives like Snowden, cryptocurrencies aren't especially useful as a way to post freely on twitter while retain your money against seizure by a hypothetical dystopian government.
- Acrobatic_Road 5y agoYou're assuming that financial censorship primarily targets illegal activity - it doesn't. The vast majority of financial censorship targets legal activity and persons, businesses and corporations who have not been charged by any government with any crime. And it's done by corporations pursuing political interests.
- seoaeu 5y agoThat's a long way from the claim that started this chain: > in a slightly more dystopian reality -e.g. when we are forced to use CBDCs- the government might choose to block you from using your hard earned money because you posted a criticism of the president on twitter.