4 ms·

That's exactly it (and thank you for putting it better than I probably would have). I don't want to be callous towards the abuelitas and students and remote-wo

by pavlov 4y ago

That's exactly it (and thank you for putting it better than I probably would have). I don't want to be callous towards the abuelitas and students and remote-working developers and so forth. I understand that their local currency regime is unfair and having such limited access to the global system is frustrating. I just don't think Bitcoin-type solutions are really solving anything because they start from an ideological free-for-all that works for maybe five minutes until the criminals take notice and rush in, and then it's a slow descent into a haphazardly patched system that ends up re-enacting the worst abandoned ideas of the old financial system along the way. I'm all for a better designed system that takes this reality into account and doesn't pretend that libertarianism will surely work if only Everybody Does It Right This Time (the same cycle as with communism).

noduerme 4y ago
Even if you do manage to "change the government" in your country to prevent all financial crime and enable all legitimate business people to trade without graft or fear of criminals, I don't see how you can possibly accomplish doing that in some other country where things have been on the same cycle of graft and corruption for 150 years. Do you think that before Bitcoin, criminals had no access to the international banking system? My family's gold tooth fillings in a swiss bank vault would like a word. You believe you smash graft by smashing the means, but you don't stop it. It's the same with Americans who think that by banning firearms, they'll stop criminals from shooting people. Quite the opposite is the result. Ban guns, and you end up with an unfree society and the criminals have all the weapons. Ban cash and ban crypto, and you end up with an unfree society in which the ruling class are the criminals, and they have all the levers to control and steal the wealth of individuals. Look, I'm not making this up. Check out the litany of polities that restricted the movement of money (or the ownership of firearms) in the 20th Century. They can be ranked on this axis alone as a reasonable proxy for their degree of totalitarianism. Let's say from the outright banning of money under Pol Pot up to the Cultural Revolution under Mao, Stalin simply deporting millions of people who had any money at all... And guns are just a sideshow. Money is the individual's only defense against the State, and against the state of nature that exists in the vacuum where the State does not exist.
- lottin 4y ago
  Ransomware attacks, for example, are only viable thanks to cryptocurrencies. I will also point out that limiting the movement of money, goods and people is not a characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Every single country has such restrictions.
subsistence234 4y ago
>I don't want to be callous towards the abuelitas and students and remote-working but their suffering is a sacrifice you are willing to make for the good of our blessed tax authorities.

by pavlov 4y ago

noduerme 4y ago

Even if you do manage to "change the government" in your country to prevent all financial crime and enable all legitimate business people to trade without graft or fear of criminals, I don't see how you can possibly accomplish doing that in some other country where things have been on the same cycle of graft and corruption for 150 years. Do you think that before Bitcoin, criminals had no access to the international banking system? My family's gold tooth fillings in a swiss bank vault would like a word. You believe you smash graft by smashing the means, but you don't stop it. It's the same with Americans who think that by banning firearms, they'll stop criminals from shooting people. Quite the opposite is the result. Ban guns, and you end up with an unfree society and the criminals have all the weapons. Ban cash and ban crypto, and you end up with an unfree society in which the ruling class are the criminals, and they have all the levers to control and steal the wealth of individuals. Look, I'm not making this up. Check out the litany of polities that restricted the movement of money (or the ownership of firearms) in the 20th Century. They can be ranked on this axis alone as a reasonable proxy for their degree of totalitarianism. Let's say from the outright banning of money under Pol Pot up to the Cultural Revolution under Mao, Stalin simply deporting millions of people who had any money at all... And guns are just a sideshow. Money is the individual's only defense against the State, and against the state of nature that exists in the vacuum where the State does not exist.

lottin 4y ago
Ransomware attacks, for example, are only viable thanks to cryptocurrencies. I will also point out that limiting the movement of money, goods and people is not a characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Every single country has such restrictions.

subsistence234 4y ago

>I don't want to be callous towards the abuelitas and students and remote-working but their suffering is a sacrifice you are willing to make for the good of our blessed tax authorities.