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I think the biggest lesson here is that people really, really love unregulated gambling. The same way they love doing drugs, making narcotics an extremely profi

by nikanj 5y ago

I think the biggest lesson here is that people really, really love unregulated gambling. The same way they love doing drugs, making narcotics an extremely profitable business. If we don’t legalize the things our population deeply desire, the criminal elements are more than happy to step up and provide said services.

motohagiography 5y ago
The authors example use cases about a database doing everything except crime summarizes it well. One persons crime is another persons freedom. If you rephrased it as saying, the only thing blockchains provide that a database doesn't is freedom, I think the resounding response would be: Yes. What I think anti-crypto people object to is the freedom of others, because it represents a limit and undermines the necessary absolute and total Hobbesian sovereignty and dominion of the systems that provide them with their own status, which is based on something other than consent and desire, and when I read these objections, most of what I interpret is that implicit humiliation. Gambling provides opportunity for people to live independent of being subordinate to an employer, as if your employees suddenly don't have to work for you, it's hard to build and scale social stability and wealth. I sympathize with the morality of reducing gambling as being appropriate for over a thousand years ago, but today? You also can't use shame to control people who can afford to walk away. The current financial system is designed by-and-for creditors as a means of leverage over debtors, and crypto is explicitly not. The only problems of gambling are really problems with debts, and better laws limiting the power of creditors would solve that. The interests behind the criticisms are clear, but to me dressing them up and carting them around as moral is a bit much.
- nikanj 5y ago
  The very same people complain about Nanny State when they’re stopped from getting scammed, and scream for justice and legal action once they manage to get scammed after all. See also: people getting absolutely furious when the bank stops them from wiring money to Nigerian scammers for their million-dollar lottery win - and then demanding the same bank reverses the transactions after the jig is up. They want to freely gamble with cryptos now that everything is going to the moon, but are going to be demanding answers once the bubble pops and the casino takes their life savings
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    That sensibility is captured well by Jenny Holzer's statement, "Protect me from what I want", which neglects responsibility and puts it on other people whether they want it or not. It's a human personality anti-pattern we generally just tolerate. Cryptocurrencies represent a respite from the logic of that idea and allow for mutual tolerance, presumably as an alternative to organizing and fighting. It's not so much a nanny state as a mad aunt in the attic state. (e.g. MMT) Nanny state is an oddly gendered trope, but it's meant to represent not just oversight, but Animus. My argument is essentially that most anti-crypto articles I've read are an expression of ideas that originate from a neurotic animus and an affected condescention that the rest of us just don't buy.
- MrMan 5y ago
  The problem of gambling is ruin maybe

by nikanj 5y ago

motohagiography 5y ago

The authors example use cases about a database doing everything except crime summarizes it well. One persons crime is another persons freedom. If you rephrased it as saying, the only thing blockchains provide that a database doesn't is freedom, I think the resounding response would be: Yes. What I think anti-crypto people object to is the freedom of others, because it represents a limit and undermines the necessary absolute and total Hobbesian sovereignty and dominion of the systems that provide them with their own status, which is based on something other than consent and desire, and when I read these objections, most of what I interpret is that implicit humiliation. Gambling provides opportunity for people to live independent of being subordinate to an employer, as if your employees suddenly don't have to work for you, it's hard to build and scale social stability and wealth. I sympathize with the morality of reducing gambling as being appropriate for over a thousand years ago, but today? You also can't use shame to control people who can afford to walk away. The current financial system is designed by-and-for creditors as a means of leverage over debtors, and crypto is explicitly not. The only problems of gambling are really problems with debts, and better laws limiting the power of creditors would solve that. The interests behind the criticisms are clear, but to me dressing them up and carting them around as moral is a bit much.

nikanj 5y ago
The very same people complain about Nanny State when they’re stopped from getting scammed, and scream for justice and legal action once they manage to get scammed after all. See also: people getting absolutely furious when the bank stops them from wiring money to Nigerian scammers for their million-dollar lottery win - and then demanding the same bank reverses the transactions after the jig is up. They want to freely gamble with cryptos now that everything is going to the moon, but are going to be demanding answers once the bubble pops and the casino takes their life savings
- motohagiography 5y ago
  That sensibility is captured well by Jenny Holzer's statement, "Protect me from what I want", which neglects responsibility and puts it on other people whether they want it or not. It's a human personality anti-pattern we generally just tolerate. Cryptocurrencies represent a respite from the logic of that idea and allow for mutual tolerance, presumably as an alternative to organizing and fighting. It's not so much a nanny state as a mad aunt in the attic state. (e.g. MMT) Nanny state is an oddly gendered trope, but it's meant to represent not just oversight, but Animus. My argument is essentially that most anti-crypto articles I've read are an expression of ideas that originate from a neurotic animus and an affected condescention that the rest of us just don't buy.
MrMan 5y ago
The problem of gambling is ruin maybe