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Protesters migrate to crypto fundraising platform following GoFundMe ban

49 points by SQL2219 5y ago

janandonly 5y ago
Why was my submission some days ago about this same subject flagged, but this one makes it to spot #39 ? My submission was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270288
- finiteseries 5y ago
  Not News: GoFundMe just proved Bitcoin’s use case News: Protesters migrate to crypto fundraising platform following GoFundMe ban
janandonly 5y ago
This once again proves a use case for unstoppable digital cash: the fact that if you don’t like it, you can not stop it. In a world of free speech, and more Importantly, freedom of movement, this is the kind of money you need. What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?
- krapp 5y ago
  >What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? They still escape with their lives. This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries - they arrived at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase and still managed, or jumped a wall or snuck across a border with just the clothes on their back.
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    There seems to have been an informal requirement [1] to have $25 to pass through Ellis Island less they become a burden on the public system. Adjust for 1909 dollars, that's $700 today...or 0.02 BTC. "Many families sold everything they had". Unfortunately, escaping regimes is expensive. Many Americans today would not be able to pay this fee. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=QjA_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=ellis+island+$25+requirement&source=bl&ots=JVNFZ-M0ZS&sig=ACfU3U0TmMGpDH37FKf_xOlhoyz8Tnq2dw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2v4P1_vf1AhX1IEQIHWHhCQUQ6AF6BAgyEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=QjA_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=P...
    - magicjosh 5y ago
      Now I'm wondering if the cost of escaping regimes is actually part of the reason regimes persist. This may be more obvious to others, appreciate other perspectives here.
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    One would hope in 2022 we could have better options than arriving at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on your back.
    - mythrwy 5y ago
      Yes, but then how would we get all the stories about going on to form a fortune 500 company or some other high achievement? Because many of those seem to start with "nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on their back".
  - medo-bear 5y ago
    > This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries just curious, are you grandstanding or have you (or even your close relatives) been through such a situation? with statements like this it can only be one or the other. also it does not have to be escaping a "scary regime". it can be escaping war for example
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      > What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? >>> This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries Clearly saving your life is sufficient reason to escape. Not optimal, but certainly enough reason. Are you claiming you would rather you and your family die than lose your money?
      - medo-bear 5y ago
        are you saying that taking your money with you is not important? and since you asked, i know a lot of people who did not leave major conflict zones because they would have nothing. for example one person very close to me sent his children and wife overseas when fighting in former yugoslavia started while he stayed to protect their house from looters. next day he was kidnapped but luckily he survived and reunited with his family. shared this story only for sake of a different perspective
        s1artibartfast 5y ago
        >are you saying that taking your money with you is not important? Not at all, and I don't think the original person you responded to was either. I am just saying that there are times you would want to flee even if it means loosing your wealth. This should be obvious, but someone didn't get it. >What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?
        medo-bear 5y ago
        the parent to whom i was responding to said it is sufficient. it is sufficient only in retrospect at which point it is a truism. the point i trying to make is that even in places where there is major conflict a lot of people do not realize that they will make a right decision. having a mechanism to move their money might help them to make a safer decision
- JeremyBanks 5y ago
- dumdumdumdum 5y ago
  > What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? What if unstoppable digital cash makes it easier to setup a "scary regime" in the first place? Where do we escape to when every place is run by such people? How would we reign-in the power that such individuals would have?
  - medo-bear 5y ago
    scary regimes seem to exist without digital cash. nk does pretty fine just with barter
dghlsakjg 5y ago
This… isn’t a good thing. The official stated goal of this protest was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Canada. They put it in writing on their website. Their protesters have used their trucks to ram counter protesters. Their are literally hundreds of criminal investigations around this, including hate crime investigations. And that is considering that the police have adopted a soft touch. The reason that the courts shut it down is that no one knows where the money is coming from, but it is very clear that a significant percentage of it is coming from outside the country. A commercial vehicle isn’t speech. Money isn’t speech. If you want to wave a swastika flag around, go for it. If you want to use a 10 ton machine to disable infrastructure and threaten people, that’s not free speech. Put another way: do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement?
- jdhn 5y ago
  >do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement? Yes.
- flyingfences 5y ago
  > do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement? Yes, we do, because the alternative, no matter how they may try to sugar-coat it, is the establishment choosing their opposition.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    The unstated part of what I'm trying to read in good faith is that you are saying that money is speech? I understand that in theory, but I also think that in practice, we have proven that money does not tend to flow evenly to just causes. As an extension of that, look what western governments have funded covertly, and what it has wrought, especially since the start of the 20th century. I really doubt that this will be limited to individuals donating to a populist cause (which to be clear, all three major parties, and a HUGE majority of Canadians don't support). I don't see that being the majority of it. I suspect that intelligence agencies, and corporate interests will be far more likely to be the ones that use the unlimited untraceable money to destabilize social systems.
magicjosh 5y ago
The article is a few days old. The site has since raised over 21 BTC (>$900k USD): https://tallyco.in/s/lzxccm/ https://tallyco.in/s/lzxccm/

49 points by SQL2219 5y ago

Why was my submission some days ago about this same subject flagged, but this one makes it to spot #39 ? My submission was: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30270288

finiteseries 5y ago
Not News: GoFundMe just proved Bitcoin’s use case News: Protesters migrate to crypto fundraising platform following GoFundMe ban

janandonly 5y ago

This once again proves a use case for unstoppable digital cash: the fact that if you don’t like it, you can not stop it. In a world of free speech, and more Importantly, freedom of movement, this is the kind of money you need. What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?

krapp 5y ago
>What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? They still escape with their lives. This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries - they arrived at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase and still managed, or jumped a wall or snuck across a border with just the clothes on their back.
- magicjosh 5y ago
  There seems to have been an informal requirement [1] to have $25 to pass through Ellis Island less they become a burden on the public system. Adjust for 1909 dollars, that's $700 today...or 0.02 BTC. "Many families sold everything they had". Unfortunately, escaping regimes is expensive. Many Americans today would not be able to pay this fee. [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=QjA_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=ellis+island+$25+requirement&source=bl&ots=JVNFZ-M0ZS&sig=ACfU3U0TmMGpDH37FKf_xOlhoyz8Tnq2dw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi2v4P1_vf1AhX1IEQIHWHhCQUQ6AF6BAgyEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=QjA_AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA77&lpg=P...
  - magicjosh 5y ago
    Now I'm wondering if the cost of escaping regimes is actually part of the reason regimes persist. This may be more obvious to others, appreciate other perspectives here.
- lp0_on_fire 5y ago
  One would hope in 2022 we could have better options than arriving at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on your back.
  - mythrwy 5y ago
    Yes, but then how would we get all the stories about going on to form a fortune 500 company or some other high achievement? Because many of those seem to start with "nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on their back".
- medo-bear 5y ago
  > This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries just curious, are you grandstanding or have you (or even your close relatives) been through such a situation? with statements like this it can only be one or the other. also it does not have to be escaping a "scary regime". it can be escaping war for example
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    > What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? >>> This was sufficient for people escaping scary regimes for centuries Clearly saving your life is sufficient reason to escape. Not optimal, but certainly enough reason. Are you claiming you would rather you and your family die than lose your money?
    - medo-bear 5y ago
      are you saying that taking your money with you is not important? and since you asked, i know a lot of people who did not leave major conflict zones because they would have nothing. for example one person very close to me sent his children and wife overseas when fighting in former yugoslavia started while he stayed to protect their house from looters. next day he was kidnapped but luckily he survived and reunited with his family. shared this story only for sake of a different perspective
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        >are you saying that taking your money with you is not important? Not at all, and I don't think the original person you responded to was either. I am just saying that there are times you would want to flee even if it means loosing your wealth. This should be obvious, but someone didn't get it. >What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him?
        medo-bear 5y ago
        the parent to whom i was responding to said it is sufficient. it is sufficient only in retrospect at which point it is a truism. the point i trying to make is that even in places where there is major conflict a lot of people do not realize that they will make a right decision. having a mechanism to move their money might help them to make a safer decision
JeremyBanks 5y ago
dumdumdumdum 5y ago
> What good is it to a person if he can escape a scary regime but can’t take his lives savings with him? What if unstoppable digital cash makes it easier to setup a "scary regime" in the first place? Where do we escape to when every place is run by such people? How would we reign-in the power that such individuals would have?
- medo-bear 5y ago
  scary regimes seem to exist without digital cash. nk does pretty fine just with barter

dghlsakjg 5y ago

This… isn’t a good thing. The official stated goal of this protest was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Canada. They put it in writing on their website. Their protesters have used their trucks to ram counter protesters. Their are literally hundreds of criminal investigations around this, including hate crime investigations. And that is considering that the police have adopted a soft touch. The reason that the courts shut it down is that no one knows where the money is coming from, but it is very clear that a significant percentage of it is coming from outside the country. A commercial vehicle isn’t speech. Money isn’t speech. If you want to wave a swastika flag around, go for it. If you want to use a 10 ton machine to disable infrastructure and threaten people, that’s not free speech. Put another way: do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement?

jdhn 5y ago
>do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement? Yes.
flyingfences 5y ago
> do we really want the ability for anyone anywhere to anonymously fund any political movement? Yes, we do, because the alternative, no matter how they may try to sugar-coat it, is the establishment choosing their opposition.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  The unstated part of what I'm trying to read in good faith is that you are saying that money is speech? I understand that in theory, but I also think that in practice, we have proven that money does not tend to flow evenly to just causes. As an extension of that, look what western governments have funded covertly, and what it has wrought, especially since the start of the 20th century. I really doubt that this will be limited to individuals donating to a populist cause (which to be clear, all three major parties, and a HUGE majority of Canadians don't support). I don't see that being the majority of it. I suspect that intelligence agencies, and corporate interests will be far more likely to be the ones that use the unlimited untraceable money to destabilize social systems.

magicjosh 5y ago

The article is a few days old. The site has since raised over 21 BTC (>$900k USD): https://tallyco.in/s/lzxccm/ https://tallyco.in/s/lzxccm/