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> It seems strange to me that there is a consensus on this site that communications privacy is a human right but that financial privacy is a terrible evil Why

by Nursie 4y ago

> It seems strange to me that there is a consensus on this site that communications privacy is a human right but that financial privacy is a terrible evil Why is that strange? Financial 'privacy' allows corporate interests to buy government officials or just buy governments, it allows despots and oligarchs to move money with impunity, allows dictators to steal mercilessly from their people and 'clean' the money in other nations. And yes, it allows terrorists, drug dealers and criminals to go about their business too. These are not identical concerns to privacy of speech. To paint them as such seems overly reductive. > Are we really any safer now than we were then? We are certainly better able to fight corruption and laundering of dirty money in the west than we have been in the past, yes. Are we 'safer'? Who knows, but it's about a lot more than a bit of cocaine, it's about the integrity of democracy itself.

leppr 4y ago
> it's about the integrity of democracy itself. Oh please, this has nothing to do with Democracy. Democracy literally means citizen-power, while this enforcement is removing the power of citizens to come to consensus on which money they want to use. The day there's a fair election at the federal level on any core economy-related topic, then your argument could begin to have something to stand on, but right now it doesn't. This is strictly shifting power away from citizen into the hands of a few.
- Nursie 4y ago
  No, this isn't removing some imaginary consensus process on money, it's sanctioning a criminal money-laundering operation using well established law. > The day there's a fair election at the federal level on any core economy-related topic, then your argument could begin to have something to stand on, but right now it doesn't. Just because your system is already broken doesn't mean it's a good plan to enable it to be outright bought. > This is strictly shifting power away from citizen into the hands of a few. Bullshit. That is exactly what so-called financial privacy does. "The many" are not incentivised to hide their financial movements because they are uninteresting. "The many" are not using ethereum-based money laundering tools, nor will they. Cryptocurrency in general is already a niche activity of techbros and crimininals. The very, very few.
  - leppr 4y ago
    > No, this isn't removing some imaginary consensus process on money > "The many" are not using ethereum-based money laundering tools, nor will they. Cryptocurrency in general is already a niche activity of techbros and crimininals. The very, very few. This consensus process is very real. Money, like language, is something that is only useful when shared, gains importance with increased usage, and eventually becomes unavoidable once it reaches a certain level of adoption. That's why people use dollars, and that's why they may end up using crypto, unless some authoritarian interventions disturb the democratic process of adoption. > it's sanctioning a criminal money-laundering operation The Tornado developers are clearly not criminals, or sponsored by criminals. You can talk to them at technical crypto conferences. This is a very different clique from the shady operators of centralized crypto platforms you likely hear about a lot in the news (Binance, Nexos, ...), who certainly did have many links to criminal organizations, and did intentionally help launder money. And if we disregard intention when calling something a "criminal operation", is the federal reserve criminal for having issued untraceable paper dollars? It's certainly possible to imagine a money system with strict tracing, yet they didn't implement that. It's almost like privacy is not criminal.
    - Nursie 4y ago
      There is no "democratic process of adoption", because switching currency without a managed, centralised process is likely to be catastrophic. > unless some authoritarian interventions disturb the democratic process of adoption. Preventing money-laundering is not an authoritarian intervention, it's the application of well established law. If your imagined process of adoption relies on it there's something very wrong. > The Tornado developers are clearly not criminals I mean, they might well be, as they've provided this service which is not looking very legal right now. > is the federal reserve criminal for having issued untraceable paper dollars I mean... clearly not. 'criminal' is not some sort of moral status that can be waved away by saying "but they mean well", or applied to people doing things you can draw vague parallels with.
      - leppr 4y ago
        > There is no "democratic process of adoption", because switching currency without a managed, centralised process is likely to be catastrophic. Actually this already happens and has happened in many, many countries and time periods. Cities, even private companies, used to mint their own currencies. Nowadays many countries' people use the USD informally. Touristic spots often accept many different currencies. Bitcoin has been accessible to anyone on Earth for almost 13 years. There's nothing catastrophic about it, this is just how the world works. > I mean... clearly not. 'criminal' is not some sort of moral status that can be waved away by saying "but they mean well", or applied to people doing things you can draw vague parallels with. The comparison between a service that allows anyone to anonymize traceable-by-default currency (Tornado), and issuers of an anonymous untraceable-by-default currency (the FED) isn't a "vague parallel", it's fundamental. Both were legal at the time of their creation, one got declared illegal, allegedly because it got popular with North Korean hackers.

by Nursie 4y ago

leppr 4y ago

> it's about the integrity of democracy itself. Oh please, this has nothing to do with Democracy. Democracy literally means citizen-power, while this enforcement is removing the power of citizens to come to consensus on which money they want to use. The day there's a fair election at the federal level on any core economy-related topic, then your argument could begin to have something to stand on, but right now it doesn't. This is strictly shifting power away from citizen into the hands of a few.

Nursie 4y ago
No, this isn't removing some imaginary consensus process on money, it's sanctioning a criminal money-laundering operation using well established law. > The day there's a fair election at the federal level on any core economy-related topic, then your argument could begin to have something to stand on, but right now it doesn't. Just because your system is already broken doesn't mean it's a good plan to enable it to be outright bought. > This is strictly shifting power away from citizen into the hands of a few. Bullshit. That is exactly what so-called financial privacy does. "The many" are not incentivised to hide their financial movements because they are uninteresting. "The many" are not using ethereum-based money laundering tools, nor will they. Cryptocurrency in general is already a niche activity of techbros and crimininals. The very, very few.
- leppr 4y ago
  > No, this isn't removing some imaginary consensus process on money > "The many" are not using ethereum-based money laundering tools, nor will they. Cryptocurrency in general is already a niche activity of techbros and crimininals. The very, very few. This consensus process is very real. Money, like language, is something that is only useful when shared, gains importance with increased usage, and eventually becomes unavoidable once it reaches a certain level of adoption. That's why people use dollars, and that's why they may end up using crypto, unless some authoritarian interventions disturb the democratic process of adoption. > it's sanctioning a criminal money-laundering operation The Tornado developers are clearly not criminals, or sponsored by criminals. You can talk to them at technical crypto conferences. This is a very different clique from the shady operators of centralized crypto platforms you likely hear about a lot in the news (Binance, Nexos, ...), who certainly did have many links to criminal organizations, and did intentionally help launder money. And if we disregard intention when calling something a "criminal operation", is the federal reserve criminal for having issued untraceable paper dollars? It's certainly possible to imagine a money system with strict tracing, yet they didn't implement that. It's almost like privacy is not criminal.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    There is no "democratic process of adoption", because switching currency without a managed, centralised process is likely to be catastrophic. > unless some authoritarian interventions disturb the democratic process of adoption. Preventing money-laundering is not an authoritarian intervention, it's the application of well established law. If your imagined process of adoption relies on it there's something very wrong. > The Tornado developers are clearly not criminals I mean, they might well be, as they've provided this service which is not looking very legal right now. > is the federal reserve criminal for having issued untraceable paper dollars I mean... clearly not. 'criminal' is not some sort of moral status that can be waved away by saying "but they mean well", or applied to people doing things you can draw vague parallels with.
    - leppr 4y ago
      > There is no "democratic process of adoption", because switching currency without a managed, centralised process is likely to be catastrophic. Actually this already happens and has happened in many, many countries and time periods. Cities, even private companies, used to mint their own currencies. Nowadays many countries' people use the USD informally. Touristic spots often accept many different currencies. Bitcoin has been accessible to anyone on Earth for almost 13 years. There's nothing catastrophic about it, this is just how the world works. > I mean... clearly not. 'criminal' is not some sort of moral status that can be waved away by saying "but they mean well", or applied to people doing things you can draw vague parallels with. The comparison between a service that allows anyone to anonymize traceable-by-default currency (Tornado), and issuers of an anonymous untraceable-by-default currency (the FED) isn't a "vague parallel", it's fundamental. Both were legal at the time of their creation, one got declared illegal, allegedly because it got popular with North Korean hackers.