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Highly recommend episode #231 of Lex Fridman talking to Alex Gladstein - it's a long but interesting discussion on human rights, democracy, totalitarianism, and

Highly recommend episode #231 of Lex Fridman talking to Alex Gladstein - it's a long but interesting discussion on human rights, democracy, totalitarianism, and how money fits into the picture. Alex describes BTC as a trojan horse, a "number go up" technology that attracts buyers by being the best performing asset (certainly a tautology, it keeps performing well because it's been performing well) - once it becomes the currency du jour of dictators, those very dictators that instituted it as currency may find that they've lost control of their citizens, since they can more easily exfiltrate their wealth. (my answer to your question is, people value money that is not controlled by their government, and also serious Fear-Of-Missing-Out) Don't come counter-arguing to me tho, I'm not the Chief Strategy Officer of the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein is, he makes the argument better than I.

mohanmcgeek 5y ago
> people value money that is not controlled by their government. And that's how banknotes came into being Reserve banks are banks, not their respective countries governments
- wnkrshm 5y ago
  That's not how a quick read of the wikipedia page on the history of bank notes reads. It reads like bank notes were the result of the shortcomings of coins, i.e. that you had to have actual precious metal to mint them. And the first bank notes as currency were used within the national governments' jurisdictions and juristically established as currency. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote#History
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    The current currency system that we have doesn't go back to Yuan China. It goes to 17th century Europe. The currency that we have today in major economies _not_ controlled by the government. If the government created money, there would be no need for them to tax people/issue bonds

mohanmcgeek 5y ago

> people value money that is not controlled by their government. And that's how banknotes came into being Reserve banks are banks, not their respective countries governments

wnkrshm 5y ago
That's not how a quick read of the wikipedia page on the history of bank notes reads. It reads like bank notes were the result of the shortcomings of coins, i.e. that you had to have actual precious metal to mint them. And the first bank notes as currency were used within the national governments' jurisdictions and juristically established as currency. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote#History
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  The current currency system that we have doesn't go back to Yuan China. It goes to 17th century Europe. The currency that we have today in major economies _not_ controlled by the government. If the government created money, there would be no need for them to tax people/issue bonds