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Even if nothing else pops out, it’s a huge error to point to illegal activity as some kind of bad, irrelevant use case. That smuggles in an assumption that lawb

by gfodor 5y ago

Even if nothing else pops out, it’s a huge error to point to illegal activity as some kind of bad, irrelevant use case. That smuggles in an assumption that lawbreakers are universally evil. There have been plenty of periods in history where those enforcing the law in a given country were the oppressors, and the resistant lawbreakers the innocent. It’s worth considering what the value proposition of crypto looks like if you were to find yourself living under an illegitimate authority. It may be marginal if the authority can stop it, but the more illegal activity we see in crypto the stronger the belief we should hold that it will be hard to suppress.

Daishiman 5y ago
Yes, but you generally can't build a business on top of an illegal industry that's closely scrutinized by law enforcement. Already law enforcement agencies are campaigning hard against ransomware, and central banks and tax agencies investigating how people are using cryptocurrencies to launder money. It doesn't mean it doesn't have value; it's just that the real expected value can't be expected to have legitimate businesses on top.
- gfodor 5y ago
  Certainly. But if one is going to argue about the value proposition of Web3, it may not be insane to postulate that in the future a large % of the world will live under regimes where the ability to interact with others illegally will be a strong value prop. (Not just financially, but in terms of speech, etc.)
daoismyname 5y ago
> It’s worth considering what the value proposition of crypto looks like if you were to find yourself living under an illegitimate authority The cables where communications pass through are protected by armies If crypto eventually could pose a threat to those illegitimate authorities, they would give orders to cut the cables and games would be over. they could also trace them back to your house.
- gfodor 5y ago
  I wrote: > It may be marginal if the authority can stop it Because often the response to claims like the one I made is to just hand wave it away as some kind of Armageddon situation. But it doesn't have to be. The USSR and the modern day CCP operate in an environment where certain levels of criminality are virtuous, but things are not so draconian or suppressive as the environment you state.
  - daoismyname 5y ago
    of course they would not literally cut the cables. they would.block the crypto traffic
- rlt 5y ago
  Give it a decade or two and we’ll have satellites beaming connectivity via lasers to the middle of territory controlled by authoritarian regimes. We’ll probably also have aircraft or satellites run by some of those regimes looking for transmitters, of course.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  If your government was cutting off access to internet over the possibility that people might use it to conduct their business in cryptocurrency, do you think local demand for crypto would increase or decrease? The cable-cut might work for a while, but it wouldn't take too long for partition tolerant crypos emerge. You don't really need global consistency for most things, given that resources tend to be local.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > it wouldn't take too long for partition tolerant crypos emerge Wouldn’t it? This is an unsolved problem and there is nothing that implies it can ‘quickly emerge’. One of the paradoxes about crypto is that all problems with it can be quickly solved in the future, but somehow continue to exist in the present.
    - 5y ago

by gfodor 5y ago

Daishiman 5y ago

Yes, but you generally can't build a business on top of an illegal industry that's closely scrutinized by law enforcement. Already law enforcement agencies are campaigning hard against ransomware, and central banks and tax agencies investigating how people are using cryptocurrencies to launder money. It doesn't mean it doesn't have value; it's just that the real expected value can't be expected to have legitimate businesses on top.

gfodor 5y ago
Certainly. But if one is going to argue about the value proposition of Web3, it may not be insane to postulate that in the future a large % of the world will live under regimes where the ability to interact with others illegally will be a strong value prop. (Not just financially, but in terms of speech, etc.)

daoismyname 5y ago

> It’s worth considering what the value proposition of crypto looks like if you were to find yourself living under an illegitimate authority The cables where communications pass through are protected by armies If crypto eventually could pose a threat to those illegitimate authorities, they would give orders to cut the cables and games would be over. they could also trace them back to your house.

gfodor 5y ago
I wrote: > It may be marginal if the authority can stop it Because often the response to claims like the one I made is to just hand wave it away as some kind of Armageddon situation. But it doesn't have to be. The USSR and the modern day CCP operate in an environment where certain levels of criminality are virtuous, but things are not so draconian or suppressive as the environment you state.
- daoismyname 5y ago
  of course they would not literally cut the cables. they would.block the crypto traffic
rlt 5y ago
Give it a decade or two and we’ll have satellites beaming connectivity via lasers to the middle of territory controlled by authoritarian regimes. We’ll probably also have aircraft or satellites run by some of those regimes looking for transmitters, of course.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
If your government was cutting off access to internet over the possibility that people might use it to conduct their business in cryptocurrency, do you think local demand for crypto would increase or decrease? The cable-cut might work for a while, but it wouldn't take too long for partition tolerant crypos emerge. You don't really need global consistency for most things, given that resources tend to be local.
- zepto 5y ago
  > it wouldn't take too long for partition tolerant crypos emerge Wouldn’t it? This is an unsolved problem and there is nothing that implies it can ‘quickly emerge’. One of the paradoxes about crypto is that all problems with it can be quickly solved in the future, but somehow continue to exist in the present.
  - 5y ago