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Then you're listening to the wrong people. The world's currencies are being weaponized against other countries and against citizens. It's a project decades in t

Then you're listening to the wrong people. The world's currencies are being weaponized against other countries and against citizens. It's a project decades in the making. You may not feel part of that yet, but if you express any opinion in public you may. Centralization of money is "evil" because it sooner or later you're going to find yourself on the list of undesirables. When you do, centralization (and the technology that goes with it) makes it as easy as flicking a switch to economically banish you.

grey-area 5y ago
Money has always been owned by and manipulated by the powerful. That is not a project decades in the making, it's a natural consequences of our power relations. There are lots of reasons to want a decentralised currency system or at least one not run by nation states but Bitcoin is a terrible example of one with so many flaws, and 'defi' and 'crypto' is plagued by hucksters and scams. I'd rather the devil I know at this point thanks (inflation and monetary repression) vs outright fraud and shills.
- pezzana 5y ago
  > Money has always been owned by and manipulated by the powerful. You're fighting a strawman. What I said was that money was being weaponized. Examples: - currency-driven economic sanctions (other countries) - civil asset forfeiture (citizens) These are new developments enabled by the dollar standard (1971), payment technologies (2000-), and the ever expanding power of government (particularly US, post-9/11). The advent of the hydrogen bomb (1952) means that countries can no longer contemplate direct warfare and have been turning toward economic warfare increasingly in the last several decades.
  - grey-area 5y ago
    These are not new developments, and diplomacy has always been war by other means, including using currency as a weapon of war against external and internal enemies. Currency has always been a system of control and has frequently been weaponised in the past, it has certainly always been a tool of the ruling class. To provide some examples - Executive Order 6102 confiscated gold, the government then revalued it. During the American civil war could counterfeited currency was used to undermine currency, in WW2 the Nazis did the same to Britain. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/a-counterfeiting-conspiracy/ https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/a-counterfe... You have never owned your money, it is simply a promissory note from a national bank, and it has always been valued according to what the government thinks is appropriate. Even money made from precious metals was the same, and was changed or devalued at the rulers whim. The same holds for unregulated crypto currencies, but instead of a government you have a cartel of miners and a small governing body of developers and stakeholders.

grey-area 5y ago

Money has always been owned by and manipulated by the powerful. That is not a project decades in the making, it's a natural consequences of our power relations. There are lots of reasons to want a decentralised currency system or at least one not run by nation states but Bitcoin is a terrible example of one with so many flaws, and 'defi' and 'crypto' is plagued by hucksters and scams. I'd rather the devil I know at this point thanks (inflation and monetary repression) vs outright fraud and shills.

pezzana 5y ago
> Money has always been owned by and manipulated by the powerful. You're fighting a strawman. What I said was that money was being weaponized. Examples: - currency-driven economic sanctions (other countries) - civil asset forfeiture (citizens) These are new developments enabled by the dollar standard (1971), payment technologies (2000-), and the ever expanding power of government (particularly US, post-9/11). The advent of the hydrogen bomb (1952) means that countries can no longer contemplate direct warfare and have been turning toward economic warfare increasingly in the last several decades.
- grey-area 5y ago
  These are not new developments, and diplomacy has always been war by other means, including using currency as a weapon of war against external and internal enemies. Currency has always been a system of control and has frequently been weaponised in the past, it has certainly always been a tool of the ruling class. To provide some examples - Executive Order 6102 confiscated gold, the government then revalued it. During the American civil war could counterfeited currency was used to undermine currency, in WW2 the Nazis did the same to Britain. https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/a-counterfeiting-conspiracy/ https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/a-counterfe... You have never owned your money, it is simply a promissory note from a national bank, and it has always been valued according to what the government thinks is appropriate. Even money made from precious metals was the same, and was changed or devalued at the rulers whim. The same holds for unregulated crypto currencies, but instead of a government you have a cartel of miners and a small governing body of developers and stakeholders.