4 ms·

It's fine to want a different society/policies, but you need to expand on how that new society should look like then: How would sanctions work, for example? Or

It's fine to want a different society/policies, but you need to expand on how that new society should look like then: How would sanctions work, for example? Or if there are none, will there be other means of defense/offense? Who would set the rules of the monetary system and what would give legitimacy to those rule setters? How to move from the old system to the new without (too much) disruption? ... The endings of proper monarchies weren't always simple and nice events - if that is the magnitude of change you have in mind.

silentsea90 4y ago
Sanctions don't stem from the existence of Fiat currency (at least directly), and may still exist depending on power dynamics. The move is on the way and will continue. It will be disruptive but I'm not sure exactly how it'll go. Regular military offense and defense systems will exist but just not ones where the US say prints infinite money for war and incurs sovereign debt. Wars might be a lot smaller scale then. Old world wars required rulers to raise money, taxation etc. They didn't print out of thin air, or bankrupt entire nations (eg Weimar Germany) Non Fiat money has been the norm pre unpegged Fiat. It's been around for 2-3k years at least, whereas unpegged Fiat is 50 years old. I'm surprised we find the fall of Fiat as hard to imagine:)
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  How is crypto not another fiat? It is not backed by convertability into a commodity either. It's (currently typically) not issued by a state actor but otherwise just like a typical fiat currency brought into being by something akin to a (community) decree. I know from the US perspective often legal tender concepts are brought into the definition of fiat but the legal tender concept doesn't quite exist in the same way in a lot of other countries.
  - silentsea90 4y ago
    It's true that it's not backed, and that's a pro (we'll get to that), but Bitcoin is better than Fiat for many reasons: 1) impossible to confiscate 2) fixed supply and issuance rate - can't just print it away when the fed wants 3) instant permissionless transfer so the government can't interject. If you think they can be trusted, might want to read about executive order 6102 4) not backed by another asset eg gold (say). This is great because gold is extremely hard to transfer physically and easy to confiscate. Read about how Nixon refused to allow dollar convertibility for gold for foreign nations which was the condition for Bretton woods agreement ie where all nations agreed to use dollar as a global reserve freely exchangeable for gold. Also read about how FDR outlawed private ownership of gold when the US had printed more money than their gold reserves and needed to fix their books. Decentralized community decree is awesome. You don't have a central actor making rules that support themselves. Christine Lagarde has no way to get the euro out of the deficit hole. See this snippet from an interview: https://youtu.be/p-X-mIuDYFw https://youtu.be/p-X-mIuDYFw. In a balanced system, the debt would be loaned from and owed to a market participant who cares about their money being returned, not this bizarre broken system where central banks print and then owe to themselves
    - RandomLensman 4y ago
      We'll find out if these things are seen as advantageous by enough or not. I don't necessarily agree that the points are all just pros, but I am open to democratic changes of monetary systems.
      - silentsea90 4y ago
        Agreed. The jury isn't out on Austrian v/s Keynesian economics. We've not had the former play out organically in recent history without Govt. intervention transforming it into the latter. I remain hopeful that there is change enough that technology imposes hard rules (fixed supply, fixed issuance, only taxation no printing etc.). Rules that nations earlier used to comply with (~approximately) with the gold peg but no longer do.

silentsea90 4y ago

Sanctions don't stem from the existence of Fiat currency (at least directly), and may still exist depending on power dynamics. The move is on the way and will continue. It will be disruptive but I'm not sure exactly how it'll go. Regular military offense and defense systems will exist but just not ones where the US say prints infinite money for war and incurs sovereign debt. Wars might be a lot smaller scale then. Old world wars required rulers to raise money, taxation etc. They didn't print out of thin air, or bankrupt entire nations (eg Weimar Germany) Non Fiat money has been the norm pre unpegged Fiat. It's been around for 2-3k years at least, whereas unpegged Fiat is 50 years old. I'm surprised we find the fall of Fiat as hard to imagine:)

RandomLensman 4y ago
How is crypto not another fiat? It is not backed by convertability into a commodity either. It's (currently typically) not issued by a state actor but otherwise just like a typical fiat currency brought into being by something akin to a (community) decree. I know from the US perspective often legal tender concepts are brought into the definition of fiat but the legal tender concept doesn't quite exist in the same way in a lot of other countries.
- silentsea90 4y ago
  It's true that it's not backed, and that's a pro (we'll get to that), but Bitcoin is better than Fiat for many reasons: 1) impossible to confiscate 2) fixed supply and issuance rate - can't just print it away when the fed wants 3) instant permissionless transfer so the government can't interject. If you think they can be trusted, might want to read about executive order 6102 4) not backed by another asset eg gold (say). This is great because gold is extremely hard to transfer physically and easy to confiscate. Read about how Nixon refused to allow dollar convertibility for gold for foreign nations which was the condition for Bretton woods agreement ie where all nations agreed to use dollar as a global reserve freely exchangeable for gold. Also read about how FDR outlawed private ownership of gold when the US had printed more money than their gold reserves and needed to fix their books. Decentralized community decree is awesome. You don't have a central actor making rules that support themselves. Christine Lagarde has no way to get the euro out of the deficit hole. See this snippet from an interview: https://youtu.be/p-X-mIuDYFw https://youtu.be/p-X-mIuDYFw. In a balanced system, the debt would be loaned from and owed to a market participant who cares about their money being returned, not this bizarre broken system where central banks print and then owe to themselves
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    We'll find out if these things are seen as advantageous by enough or not. I don't necessarily agree that the points are all just pros, but I am open to democratic changes of monetary systems.
    - silentsea90 4y ago
      Agreed. The jury isn't out on Austrian v/s Keynesian economics. We've not had the former play out organically in recent history without Govt. intervention transforming it into the latter. I remain hopeful that there is change enough that technology imposes hard rules (fixed supply, fixed issuance, only taxation no printing etc.). Rules that nations earlier used to comply with (~approximately) with the gold peg but no longer do.