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If the person purchases goods or services with, or holds said token during a period in which a government devalues or confiscates their other stores of value to

If the person purchases goods or services with, or holds said token during a period in which a government devalues or confiscates their other stores of value to a greater degree, then I think it’s fair to say they are less oppressed.

lottin 4y ago
Can you give a concrete example (even a hypothetical one)? I'm a little lost.
- mypastself 4y ago
  A government might: block sending or receiving remittances; track or prohibit purchases of goods and services it considers immoral; devalue the official currency to a significant degree; easily confiscate gold, land or other traditional stores of value. Some or all of these could be considered opressive, depending on the context. A medium of exchange that can circumvent unjust laws could be said to decrease repression. Not sure how much better I can explain it.
  - lottin 4y ago
    Literally all governments have capital controls and ban certain goods and services. Devaluation of a currency is not oppression either. Economic persecution is oppression. Let's say they fabricate a legal case against you and make you pay a big fine. How is bitcoin helping you being less oppressed in these circumstances? Feel free to come with another example, where bitcoin would help. I can't think of any. That's why I'm asking.
    - mypastself 4y ago
      > Literally all governments have capital controls and ban certain goods and services. Hence my “depending on the context” qualifier. E.g. a ban on the purchase and sale of alcohol could be consider oppressive, as it’s an example of moral issue codified into law. If the government tracks all transactions that involve its official currency, using an anonymous or pseudonymous one instead could circumvent the oppressive law. Similarly, anonymous use of the Internet could bypass blanket laws prohibiting pornography. It might also bypass more reasonable laws, but in the former case, you could say its use resulted in decreased oppression. > Devaluation of a currency is not oppression either. If a government wishes to finance an unjust war, rather than levying unpopular taxes, it might print vast quantities of money, resulting in its citizens’ real (if not nominal) savings being reduced significantly. This falls under economic persecution by definition. Storing your value in a different form, one that’s not pegged to said currency, could lessen the effect. > Economic persecution is oppression. Let's say they fabricate a legal case against you and make you pay a big fine. How is bitcoin helping you being less oppressed in these circumstances? I haven’t argued for that particular issue as I don’t necessarily think cryptocurrency can directly resolve it, but it’s easy to imagine. If you had managed to store your wealth in the form of a less inflated currency, you’d preserve it better. Hence the magnitude of the fine on diminishing your savings would be reduced. Also, the state might not be able to prove you own enough assets to pay the fine and might have no means of confiscating them. > Feel free to come with another example, where bitcoin would help. I can't think of any. That's why I'm asking. Your original commented argued against a “digital token”. But it’s irrelevant what form of money you use, if it helps circumvent unfair laws, it reduces oppression. It can even be beanie babies or tulips, as long as others are willing to exchange them for goods and services. Cryptocurrency just makes the process easier than those particular assets do.
      - lottin 4y ago
        Okay, but a tool that enables individuals to bypass unjust laws, also enables them to bypass just laws. Therefore it's not clear how the potential for decreasing injustice by allowing individuals to circumvent unjust laws is not counterbalanced by an equal (or greater) potential for increasing injustice by enabling them to circumvent just laws. The other objection is that, even if you believe that it's a good thing that individuals are able to circumvent laws with impunity, crypto-currencies are not great at that except perhaps when it comes to financial crimes. Because, for example, purchasing illegal goods remains equally difficult regardless of what you use to pay for them. In some circumstances it could be marginally easier if you use a crypto-currency, but claiming that crypto-currencies solve "the problem" of purchasing illegal goods is far fetched to say the least. Finally, another problem that crypto-currencies also claim to solve, which is that of hyperinflation (or some times just inflation), has nothing to do with oppression or injustice in my opinion. At any rate, I think it's hard to say with a straight face that crypto-currencies are a good store of vale or a hedge against inflation. The evidence overwhelmingly shows they're high-volatility assets and therefore not much of a store of value, let alone a hedge against anything.
        mypastself 4y ago
        If, as you said, an asset has some degree of: > potential for decreasing injustice by allowing individuals to circumvent unjust laws then I don’t think this claim can hold simultaneously: > Someone who lives under an oppressive government is not going to be less oppressed just because they gain the ability to send digital tokens around without government interference. Setting aside utilitarian arguments for the moment, on an individual level, such and asset can clearly still be of some help to a person in an oppressive society. > In some circumstances it could be marginally easier if you use a crypto-currency, but claiming that crypto-currencies solve "the problem" of purchasing illegal goods is far fetched to say the least. Back to the utilitarian/counterbalancing argument, if it’s true that crypto only marginally facilitates crime, then perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss it as an overall negative in our cost/benefit analysis. > The evidence overwhelmingly shows they're high-volatility assets and therefore not much of a store of value, let alone a hedge against anything. This is why I’ve used terms like “for a period of time” and “comparatively”. A stablecoin like DAI has mostly maintained its peg to the USD for the past five years, during which time the Turkish Lira’s value declined by 300% or thereabouts. Note that I’m neither advertising that particular stablecoin, nor any other token or cryptocurrency. Yes, the vast majority of them are highly volatile, which makes them unsuitable as a longer-term store of value for the time being. One argument states that with high enough adoption, the ratio of crypto held in wallets compared to the amounts being transacted will be so great that the volatility will diminish. Of course, that is not the case with most cryptocurrencies at the moment, as adoption is still fairly low, as is transaction throughput. It’s questionable if the issues are ever going to be resolved. But I don’t think we should use that as an argument against the very concept of using decentralized “digital tokens” as money.

lottin 4y ago

Can you give a concrete example (even a hypothetical one)? I'm a little lost.

mypastself 4y ago
A government might: block sending or receiving remittances; track or prohibit purchases of goods and services it considers immoral; devalue the official currency to a significant degree; easily confiscate gold, land or other traditional stores of value. Some or all of these could be considered opressive, depending on the context. A medium of exchange that can circumvent unjust laws could be said to decrease repression. Not sure how much better I can explain it.
- lottin 4y ago
  Literally all governments have capital controls and ban certain goods and services. Devaluation of a currency is not oppression either. Economic persecution is oppression. Let's say they fabricate a legal case against you and make you pay a big fine. How is bitcoin helping you being less oppressed in these circumstances? Feel free to come with another example, where bitcoin would help. I can't think of any. That's why I'm asking.
  - mypastself 4y ago
    > Literally all governments have capital controls and ban certain goods and services. Hence my “depending on the context” qualifier. E.g. a ban on the purchase and sale of alcohol could be consider oppressive, as it’s an example of moral issue codified into law. If the government tracks all transactions that involve its official currency, using an anonymous or pseudonymous one instead could circumvent the oppressive law. Similarly, anonymous use of the Internet could bypass blanket laws prohibiting pornography. It might also bypass more reasonable laws, but in the former case, you could say its use resulted in decreased oppression. > Devaluation of a currency is not oppression either. If a government wishes to finance an unjust war, rather than levying unpopular taxes, it might print vast quantities of money, resulting in its citizens’ real (if not nominal) savings being reduced significantly. This falls under economic persecution by definition. Storing your value in a different form, one that’s not pegged to said currency, could lessen the effect. > Economic persecution is oppression. Let's say they fabricate a legal case against you and make you pay a big fine. How is bitcoin helping you being less oppressed in these circumstances? I haven’t argued for that particular issue as I don’t necessarily think cryptocurrency can directly resolve it, but it’s easy to imagine. If you had managed to store your wealth in the form of a less inflated currency, you’d preserve it better. Hence the magnitude of the fine on diminishing your savings would be reduced. Also, the state might not be able to prove you own enough assets to pay the fine and might have no means of confiscating them. > Feel free to come with another example, where bitcoin would help. I can't think of any. That's why I'm asking. Your original commented argued against a “digital token”. But it’s irrelevant what form of money you use, if it helps circumvent unfair laws, it reduces oppression. It can even be beanie babies or tulips, as long as others are willing to exchange them for goods and services. Cryptocurrency just makes the process easier than those particular assets do.
    - lottin 4y ago
      Okay, but a tool that enables individuals to bypass unjust laws, also enables them to bypass just laws. Therefore it's not clear how the potential for decreasing injustice by allowing individuals to circumvent unjust laws is not counterbalanced by an equal (or greater) potential for increasing injustice by enabling them to circumvent just laws. The other objection is that, even if you believe that it's a good thing that individuals are able to circumvent laws with impunity, crypto-currencies are not great at that except perhaps when it comes to financial crimes. Because, for example, purchasing illegal goods remains equally difficult regardless of what you use to pay for them. In some circumstances it could be marginally easier if you use a crypto-currency, but claiming that crypto-currencies solve "the problem" of purchasing illegal goods is far fetched to say the least. Finally, another problem that crypto-currencies also claim to solve, which is that of hyperinflation (or some times just inflation), has nothing to do with oppression or injustice in my opinion. At any rate, I think it's hard to say with a straight face that crypto-currencies are a good store of vale or a hedge against inflation. The evidence overwhelmingly shows they're high-volatility assets and therefore not much of a store of value, let alone a hedge against anything.
      - mypastself 4y ago
        If, as you said, an asset has some degree of: > potential for decreasing injustice by allowing individuals to circumvent unjust laws then I don’t think this claim can hold simultaneously: > Someone who lives under an oppressive government is not going to be less oppressed just because they gain the ability to send digital tokens around without government interference. Setting aside utilitarian arguments for the moment, on an individual level, such and asset can clearly still be of some help to a person in an oppressive society. > In some circumstances it could be marginally easier if you use a crypto-currency, but claiming that crypto-currencies solve "the problem" of purchasing illegal goods is far fetched to say the least. Back to the utilitarian/counterbalancing argument, if it’s true that crypto only marginally facilitates crime, then perhaps we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss it as an overall negative in our cost/benefit analysis. > The evidence overwhelmingly shows they're high-volatility assets and therefore not much of a store of value, let alone a hedge against anything. This is why I’ve used terms like “for a period of time” and “comparatively”. A stablecoin like DAI has mostly maintained its peg to the USD for the past five years, during which time the Turkish Lira’s value declined by 300% or thereabouts. Note that I’m neither advertising that particular stablecoin, nor any other token or cryptocurrency. Yes, the vast majority of them are highly volatile, which makes them unsuitable as a longer-term store of value for the time being. One argument states that with high enough adoption, the ratio of crypto held in wallets compared to the amounts being transacted will be so great that the volatility will diminish. Of course, that is not the case with most cryptocurrencies at the moment, as adoption is still fairly low, as is transaction throughput. It’s questionable if the issues are ever going to be resolved. But I don’t think we should use that as an argument against the very concept of using decentralized “digital tokens” as money.