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The government, and all of its institutions, are indeed a third party. The government is not some representative of the collective will. Thomas Sowell provides

The government, and all of its institutions, are indeed a third party. The government is not some representative of the collective will. Thomas Sowell provides his experience at the Department of Labor in 1960 as a poignant demonstration of the fallacy of that notion: https://youtu.be/v6PDpCnMvvw?t=38 https://youtu.be/v6PDpCnMvvw?t=38 Another example would be the latest $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill. It was 1,500 pages long and no legislator read even an appreciable fraction of it. There were provisions in it that the public was discovering a week before it was voted on, like one threatening to classify cryptocurrency nodes as brokers with KYC requirements for any transaction they processed. Apparently Treasury had worked behind the scenes to get this provision in the bill, to give DeFi the Patriot Act treatment: https://twitter.com/jswihart/status/1422785103386669058?s=20 https://twitter.com/jswihart/status/1422785103386669058?s=20

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nefitty 5y ago
1500 pages to govern 330 million people. Was there ever a time in history when an individual understood all the laws of a country? The fact that the provision you mentioned was discovered is an argument FOR this system. The fourth and fifth estates need to play precisely this role, of parsing and communicating the actions of government and business. Living up to the unfortunate pun, cryptocurrencies make crypto-fascists giddy. No accountability. No transparency. No arbiters of justice. Every segment of society decouples from accountability to any other: individuals hide from governments, governments hide from the press, business hides from government... What exactly is the argument that you think would make that a worthwhile future to pursue?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  One government should not be governing at such a micro-level for 330 million people. It's absurd and in practice becomes totally corrupt and undemocratic. >>The fact that the provision you mentioned was discovered is an argument FOR this system Being discovered a week before the vote meant that there was no time for all those affected to study its effects, let alone to negotiate an amendment for it, and furthermore, that it came within a hair's breadth of NOT being discovered. Other very worrying provisions were only discovered after the law's passing. >>Living up to the unfortunate pun, cryptocurrencies make crypto-fascists giddy. No accountability. No transparency. No arbiters of justice. Crypto systems are opt in. The government mandates are violently enforced on those who would prefer to opt out. This sophomoric socialist argument that private enterprise is fascist is totally shallow.
notahacker 5y ago
The difficulty of parsing a 1500 page infrastructure bill isn't exactly reduceed by expressing each of its provisions and exceptions in a Turing complete programming language though...
- immibis 5y ago
  True, but maybe we could run some analysis tools against it.
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Agreed

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nefitty 5y ago

1500 pages to govern 330 million people. Was there ever a time in history when an individual understood all the laws of a country? The fact that the provision you mentioned was discovered is an argument FOR this system. The fourth and fifth estates need to play precisely this role, of parsing and communicating the actions of government and business. Living up to the unfortunate pun, cryptocurrencies make crypto-fascists giddy. No accountability. No transparency. No arbiters of justice. Every segment of society decouples from accountability to any other: individuals hide from governments, governments hide from the press, business hides from government... What exactly is the argument that you think would make that a worthwhile future to pursue?

CryptoPunk 5y ago
One government should not be governing at such a micro-level for 330 million people. It's absurd and in practice becomes totally corrupt and undemocratic. >>The fact that the provision you mentioned was discovered is an argument FOR this system Being discovered a week before the vote meant that there was no time for all those affected to study its effects, let alone to negotiate an amendment for it, and furthermore, that it came within a hair's breadth of NOT being discovered. Other very worrying provisions were only discovered after the law's passing. >>Living up to the unfortunate pun, cryptocurrencies make crypto-fascists giddy. No accountability. No transparency. No arbiters of justice. Crypto systems are opt in. The government mandates are violently enforced on those who would prefer to opt out. This sophomoric socialist argument that private enterprise is fascist is totally shallow.

notahacker 5y ago

The difficulty of parsing a 1500 page infrastructure bill isn't exactly reduceed by expressing each of its provisions and exceptions in a Turing complete programming language though...

immibis 5y ago
True, but maybe we could run some analysis tools against it.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
Agreed