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Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? I remember that. Governments do stupid things all the time

Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? I remember that. Governments do stupid things all the time, and Crypto currencies is a great technology to keep governments honest. Even if most activity remained illegal (It won't) it would STILL be a beneficent technology. This illegal business is done with or without crypto, regardless.

1ibsq 5y ago
I'd recommend stop using nazi analogies for the most part. Other than that, you need internet for your transactions. Guess who has the power to control the grid? Crypto does not make you independent in absolut terms. There might always be a way to access the internet, but only for those capable - and this won't be the one you're buying food from.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  >Guess who has the power to control the grid? For now. Top level domain registration has already moved to crypto. Elon is working on Starlink. Wireless data transfer technologies are coming for a peer based internet infrastructure.
pcwalton 5y ago
Can someone defend cryptocurrency to me, a person who emphatically does not believe that the government of the United States is comparable to Nazi Germany?
- VRay 5y ago
  It kinda sucks in its current state, but theoretically it has a lot of promise as a cheap and open source alternative to PayPal and a lot of banks’ services At this rate, I don’t know if that’s ever going to come about.. looks like it’s just gotten bogged down in ways to increase its value at the cost of its utility..
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    There are to many powerful people with money tied to crypto currencies for it to end. I would bet there's not one politician (state, or federal) who doesn't have a crypto account. If the USA ever outlaws it like China; I might not be so disenfranchised over our government. (I'm all for using crypto to send private messages. It's the money part that I'm on the fence about. Paypal, Credit Cards, etc. should have had strict limits on fees years ago.)
  - debrice 5y ago
    As of today this is my belief too. It’s reached billions of $ of values,I can’t think of a place to use it and all (absolutely all) the persons I know who owns some look at it as an investment not as a currency
  - creato 5y ago
    > but theoretically it has a lot of promise as a cheap and open source alternative to PayPal and a lot of banks’ services Even theoretically, how can they do this? I don't see it happening, even setting aside the much rehashed mining electricity consumption issue.
    - rich_sasha 5y ago
      There are chains where mining costs a fraction of BTC or ETH, both in terms of money and electricity use. Cardano, Polygon.
    - Hjfrf 5y ago
      You build a second layer. All the hype benefits of pretending to use blockchain, without ever actually using it.
      - danlugo92 5y ago
        For any newbies reading THIS IS FUD. The tldr is thst Lightning is as safe as bitcoin because it uses bitcoin under the hood. https://endthefud.org/ https://endthefud.org/
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  It can allow some pretty cool things. For instance, a end-to-end open source VPN. The nodes are hosted on an open source 'decentralized cloud', that is made possible by crypto, which allows users to know exactly what the server providers are doing with their information and ensures fair play. This is something which you can use right now, and is cheaper (for my use case) than buying a VPN. Here is another notion. If you want to be anonymous you have to use anonymous protocols. If you explicit want to be able to track the movement of the tokens you are providing, like if you are a government who wants to ensure money is not moving to incorrect places, this is enabled easily and openly through crypto protocols. I didn't meant the Nazi Germany thing to be a strawman, I was trying to be humorous while also bringing a historical example of the failings of government that is un-doubtable.
  - debrice 5y ago
    I believe the principle of paying taxes on transactions (aka traceability and accountability) is a way to finance the infrastructure allowing you to safely operate your business (cops, army, schools, roads…). Total anonymity seems like you might try to outsmart society which might not payoff in the long run (not saying all societies are perfect)
    - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
      If you are interested in how game theory might solve the tragedy of the commons, see Vitalik's article: https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html You should keep in mind. Public traceability is the default mode of Crypto. Public ledgering is the foundation of crypto protocols, after all. Only Monero has emerged as a viable anonymous product, and the one most traded on the dark net.
- KMag 5y ago
  I don't think anyone is arguing that the US government is comparable to Nazi Germany. I think the implication is that the Weimar Republic rapidly devolved into Nazi Germany and the Roman Republic rapidly devolved into the Roman Empire. I'm sure I'm missing a few other good examples of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes arising surprisingly quickly from relatively liberal democracies. (In particular, I'm not familiar with how stable or liberal Italy, Spain, or Greece were before their mid-20th century dictatorships.) History has shown that liberal democracies are metastable forms of government, capable of self-correcting moderate pressures toward authoritarianism, but not immune to larger swings. I don't think the US is close to spiraling into authoritarianism within my lifetime or my children's lifetimes, but I would caution against rounding the tail risk to zero. Political change is glacially slow, except when it isn't.
  - vmilner 5y ago
    > Roman Republic rapidly devolved into the Roman Empire Well, after 500 years...
    - KMag 5y ago
      It was pretty stable for hundreds of years. My understanding is that the collapse of the republic was pretty rapid.
- atweiden 5y ago
  There used to be a cryptocurrency called Freicoin, which charged its holders X% per annum, deducting the proceeds directly from user savings and funneling the proceeds into charity “for the greater good”. Freicoin failed to gain any appreciable adoption on the open market. Despite what people claim — e.g. “currency is supposed to be inflationary, cuz greater good” — when it’s their money on the line, they never choose inflationary money if they can easily opt out of it. The failure of Freicoin underscores the reality that inflation is an anti-feature of money. No one actually wants inflation — if they have better options, they avoid it every time. When the US government went off the gold standard, they doomed themselves to a Bitcoin future, because suddenly everyone could see the government’s money was backed by nothing. And if US dollars are backed by nothing, what stops a software developer from launching a competing money which is also backed by nothing? They removed all barriers to entry. Now that everyone knows government money is backed by nothing, every available currency in this world has become an embarassingly hollow confidence racket. It’s merely a matter of whether you believe private sector confidence games made by competent engineers deliver superior technical/economic qualities compared to government confidence games. Really, why would you want to hold a money in which a tiny group of people fully control the extent to which your money is debased year after year, when you could instead rely on an apolitical computer algorithm not controlled by anyone with a supply schedule known fully in advance which is auditable in real time using freely available open source software? Doesn’t that sound like a better form of money to you? Visit “WTF Happened in 1971” [1] for another look at the impact of inflationary economics and currency debasement on middle and lower class people. [1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    > No one actually wants inflation — if they have better options, they avoid it every time. I don't like taxes either, but I also like living in a developed country. Inflation is a kind of tax, so nobody likes it, but at the same time pretty much everyone likes having what this tax provides (in the case of growing money supply, it's the ability to have money at all in circulation in the economy for the layperson).
    - 5y ago
himinlomax 5y ago
> Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? A government once made being a Jew illegal and that was bad. Therefore any government making anything illegal is bad. That appears to be your logic, or am I missing something?
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  Yes, you are missing the part where a small group of person making things illegal based on very limited information instead of relying on the total computational system of the human organism is a bad things. Why are drugs illegal? In a large part because black people used them. Also in part, because it threatened the traditional American way of life people were attached to.
hluska 5y ago
Remember when someone made a stupid Nazi analogy when the situations are completely different?? It’s incredibly hard to take anything you said after that seriously. Heck, you just made the exact same logical leap that anti-vaxxers are using to oppose vaccine mandates in Canada. That’s not good…either for dialogue or humanity.
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  I don't think the situation is so different from pre-World War 1 Germany that we shouldn't be vigilant. You have to consider that, in the 1930s, we thought WW1 was so horrific that there would never be war again. There are concentration camps in China (A developed nation!) right now, for the Uighurs, yet you still don't see the horrors of WW2 as a possibility? >Heck, you just made the exact same logical leap that anti-vaxxers are using to oppose vaccine mandates in Canada. At least I'm consistent then. Can you point out where my logical leap is?
  - hluska 5y ago
    Sure, it's simple. The Nazi party tried to systematically exterminate Jewish, Roma, gay and disabled people. They stole all their possessions, used them as slave labour and then murdered them in death camps. You're comparing that to the possibility of banning a currency? There are no parallels between this and the Holocaust. You're consistent, but you're still wrong.
    - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
      It was not my intention to compare the magnitudes, you silly head
      - hluska 5y ago
        Really?? If that’s the case, you’re unbelievably bad at writing. And the silly head thing makes you seem unbelievably immature. Good for you - you’re bad at communicating and lash out like a child when you’re called out. You’re basically the stereotype of the average cryptocurrency user, and frankly dude, cats like you are why there’s no adoption. You can’t just default to offensive and think people will trust your silly financial ideas. It’s usually the opposite. Good job promoting your ideas.

1ibsq 5y ago

I'd recommend stop using nazi analogies for the most part. Other than that, you need internet for your transactions. Guess who has the power to control the grid? Crypto does not make you independent in absolut terms. There might always be a way to access the internet, but only for those capable - and this won't be the one you're buying food from.

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
>Guess who has the power to control the grid? For now. Top level domain registration has already moved to crypto. Elon is working on Starlink. Wireless data transfer technologies are coming for a peer based internet infrastructure.

pcwalton 5y ago

Can someone defend cryptocurrency to me, a person who emphatically does not believe that the government of the United States is comparable to Nazi Germany?

VRay 5y ago
It kinda sucks in its current state, but theoretically it has a lot of promise as a cheap and open source alternative to PayPal and a lot of banks’ services At this rate, I don’t know if that’s ever going to come about.. looks like it’s just gotten bogged down in ways to increase its value at the cost of its utility..
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  There are to many powerful people with money tied to crypto currencies for it to end. I would bet there's not one politician (state, or federal) who doesn't have a crypto account. If the USA ever outlaws it like China; I might not be so disenfranchised over our government. (I'm all for using crypto to send private messages. It's the money part that I'm on the fence about. Paypal, Credit Cards, etc. should have had strict limits on fees years ago.)
- debrice 5y ago
  As of today this is my belief too. It’s reached billions of $ of values,I can’t think of a place to use it and all (absolutely all) the persons I know who owns some look at it as an investment not as a currency
- creato 5y ago
  > but theoretically it has a lot of promise as a cheap and open source alternative to PayPal and a lot of banks’ services Even theoretically, how can they do this? I don't see it happening, even setting aside the much rehashed mining electricity consumption issue.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    There are chains where mining costs a fraction of BTC or ETH, both in terms of money and electricity use. Cardano, Polygon.
  - Hjfrf 5y ago
    You build a second layer. All the hype benefits of pretending to use blockchain, without ever actually using it.
    - danlugo92 5y ago
      For any newbies reading THIS IS FUD. The tldr is thst Lightning is as safe as bitcoin because it uses bitcoin under the hood. https://endthefud.org/ https://endthefud.org/
WhisperingShiba 5y ago
It can allow some pretty cool things. For instance, a end-to-end open source VPN. The nodes are hosted on an open source 'decentralized cloud', that is made possible by crypto, which allows users to know exactly what the server providers are doing with their information and ensures fair play. This is something which you can use right now, and is cheaper (for my use case) than buying a VPN. Here is another notion. If you want to be anonymous you have to use anonymous protocols. If you explicit want to be able to track the movement of the tokens you are providing, like if you are a government who wants to ensure money is not moving to incorrect places, this is enabled easily and openly through crypto protocols. I didn't meant the Nazi Germany thing to be a strawman, I was trying to be humorous while also bringing a historical example of the failings of government that is un-doubtable.
- debrice 5y ago
  I believe the principle of paying taxes on transactions (aka traceability and accountability) is a way to finance the infrastructure allowing you to safely operate your business (cops, army, schools, roads…). Total anonymity seems like you might try to outsmart society which might not payoff in the long run (not saying all societies are perfect)
  - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
    If you are interested in how game theory might solve the tragedy of the commons, see Vitalik's article: https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2019/12/07/quadratic.html You should keep in mind. Public traceability is the default mode of Crypto. Public ledgering is the foundation of crypto protocols, after all. Only Monero has emerged as a viable anonymous product, and the one most traded on the dark net.
KMag 5y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing that the US government is comparable to Nazi Germany. I think the implication is that the Weimar Republic rapidly devolved into Nazi Germany and the Roman Republic rapidly devolved into the Roman Empire. I'm sure I'm missing a few other good examples of authoritarian/totalitarian regimes arising surprisingly quickly from relatively liberal democracies. (In particular, I'm not familiar with how stable or liberal Italy, Spain, or Greece were before their mid-20th century dictatorships.) History has shown that liberal democracies are metastable forms of government, capable of self-correcting moderate pressures toward authoritarianism, but not immune to larger swings. I don't think the US is close to spiraling into authoritarianism within my lifetime or my children's lifetimes, but I would caution against rounding the tail risk to zero. Political change is glacially slow, except when it isn't.
- vmilner 5y ago
  > Roman Republic rapidly devolved into the Roman Empire Well, after 500 years...
  - KMag 5y ago
    It was pretty stable for hundreds of years. My understanding is that the collapse of the republic was pretty rapid.
atweiden 5y ago
There used to be a cryptocurrency called Freicoin, which charged its holders X% per annum, deducting the proceeds directly from user savings and funneling the proceeds into charity “for the greater good”. Freicoin failed to gain any appreciable adoption on the open market. Despite what people claim — e.g. “currency is supposed to be inflationary, cuz greater good” — when it’s their money on the line, they never choose inflationary money if they can easily opt out of it. The failure of Freicoin underscores the reality that inflation is an anti-feature of money. No one actually wants inflation — if they have better options, they avoid it every time. When the US government went off the gold standard, they doomed themselves to a Bitcoin future, because suddenly everyone could see the government’s money was backed by nothing. And if US dollars are backed by nothing, what stops a software developer from launching a competing money which is also backed by nothing? They removed all barriers to entry. Now that everyone knows government money is backed by nothing, every available currency in this world has become an embarassingly hollow confidence racket. It’s merely a matter of whether you believe private sector confidence games made by competent engineers deliver superior technical/economic qualities compared to government confidence games. Really, why would you want to hold a money in which a tiny group of people fully control the extent to which your money is debased year after year, when you could instead rely on an apolitical computer algorithm not controlled by anyone with a supply schedule known fully in advance which is auditable in real time using freely available open source software? Doesn’t that sound like a better form of money to you? Visit “WTF Happened in 1971” [1] for another look at the impact of inflationary economics and currency debasement on middle and lower class people. [1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > No one actually wants inflation — if they have better options, they avoid it every time. I don't like taxes either, but I also like living in a developed country. Inflation is a kind of tax, so nobody likes it, but at the same time pretty much everyone likes having what this tax provides (in the case of growing money supply, it's the ability to have money at all in circulation in the economy for the layperson).
  - 5y ago

himinlomax 5y ago

> Remember when I a certain notorious government from the 20th century made being born a Jew illegal? A government once made being a Jew illegal and that was bad. Therefore any government making anything illegal is bad. That appears to be your logic, or am I missing something?

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
Yes, you are missing the part where a small group of person making things illegal based on very limited information instead of relying on the total computational system of the human organism is a bad things. Why are drugs illegal? In a large part because black people used them. Also in part, because it threatened the traditional American way of life people were attached to.

hluska 5y ago

Remember when someone made a stupid Nazi analogy when the situations are completely different?? It’s incredibly hard to take anything you said after that seriously. Heck, you just made the exact same logical leap that anti-vaxxers are using to oppose vaccine mandates in Canada. That’s not good…either for dialogue or humanity.

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
I don't think the situation is so different from pre-World War 1 Germany that we shouldn't be vigilant. You have to consider that, in the 1930s, we thought WW1 was so horrific that there would never be war again. There are concentration camps in China (A developed nation!) right now, for the Uighurs, yet you still don't see the horrors of WW2 as a possibility? >Heck, you just made the exact same logical leap that anti-vaxxers are using to oppose vaccine mandates in Canada. At least I'm consistent then. Can you point out where my logical leap is?
- hluska 5y ago
  Sure, it's simple. The Nazi party tried to systematically exterminate Jewish, Roma, gay and disabled people. They stole all their possessions, used them as slave labour and then murdered them in death camps. You're comparing that to the possibility of banning a currency? There are no parallels between this and the Holocaust. You're consistent, but you're still wrong.
  - WhisperingShiba 5y ago
    It was not my intention to compare the magnitudes, you silly head
    - hluska 5y ago
      Really?? If that’s the case, you’re unbelievably bad at writing. And the silly head thing makes you seem unbelievably immature. Good for you - you’re bad at communicating and lash out like a child when you’re called out. You’re basically the stereotype of the average cryptocurrency user, and frankly dude, cats like you are why there’s no adoption. You can’t just default to offensive and think people will trust your silly financial ideas. It’s usually the opposite. Good job promoting your ideas.