4 ms·

> Because this is irrelevant. I made the point in a bit of a flippant way, but the strong authoritarian leanings of the people who dislike crypto are not an ir

> Because this is irrelevant. I made the point in a bit of a flippant way, but the strong authoritarian leanings of the people who dislike crypto are not an irrelevant point to me. Why are the people who seem to like telling others what to do the most also the ones who hate crypto the most? This pattern really activates my almonds. > Any usecases crypto tries to provide or replace is never any better than the current financial system. We have UPI which launched in 2016 with already over hundreds of millions of active users using it for P2P payments, a goal that Bitcoin was supposed to achieve but completely failed in doing so. Anything Bitcoin can do, the current financial system can do it already or even better, safer with less energy needed. No matter how you dress it up, Bitcoin and all the other cryptos have no legitimate usecase whatsoever. 1) Once again, you're literally responding to a story where a non-profit allegedly got their money stolen by a mega-corporation. How did the current financial system protect them? (even if this case isn't accurate, you could substitute many other news cases. Just search for "paypal stole" in HackerNews for a pile of examples, just from one company) 2) I assume you're referring to India's UPI. I'm sure that this kind of financial infrastructure works phenomenally, just until the point that you're a political adversary and the government decides that it wants to mess with your ability to transact to stifle your voice. For people on society's margins who speak inconvenient truths, crypto's inability to easily get shut down is an advantage that the existing financial infrastructure cannot offer.

colesantiago 4y ago
1) The money is not actually 'stolen' this is an extreme exaggeration it's still in PayPal and just held for 180 days. > For people on society's margins who speak inconvenient truths, crypto's inability to easily get shut down is an advantage that the existing financial infrastructure cannot offer. 2) You mean like criminals, drug dealers? As I can only see this group being on 'the margins of society' being empowered by crypto. Just because one system is imperfect, does not mean you replace it with a completely worse system that doesn't work for anybody.
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  > 1) The money is not actually 'stolen' this is an extreme exaggeration it's still in PayPal and just held for 180 days. Holy Gaslighting Batman, this is on another level. Imagine what you'd think if somebody grabbed something you needed and while he was running down the street, told you that it's not stolen because he pinky swears to give it back in half a year. The belief that it might be returned later is immaterial to the concept of theft. If you can't do what you want with your own property, is it not stolen? You keep talking about being against criminals, but are willfully ignoring a theft that's right in front of you. > 2) You mean like criminals, drug dealers? As I can only see this group being on 'the margins of society' being empowered by crypto. Just because one system is imperfect, does not mean you replace it with a completely worse system that doesn't work for anybody. Whenever governments want to enact something dystopian, they always justify it by claiming that it's going to fight the worst person they can think of to get popular sentiment on their side: like terrorists and murderers. Those kinds of criminals are very easy to spot. But what happens when governments declare it a crime to speak out against the government?Those people are also labeled criminals, and have their funding seized. This isn't a theoretical discussion: this happens every time authoritarians take power. They of course seize any funds from protestors to limit any political opposition. This isn't even limited to some 3rd world countries, but also happens in prosperous Western countries.
  - colesantiago 4y ago
    You're the only person in this thread strawmanning and talking about the funds being 'stolen' which is an exaggeration and is completely false. The correct term that PayPal has done is that they froze the account and it's held for 180 days. So it isn't really theft at all if PayPal still holds the funds. If the funds are completely out of PayPal's hands and not in your account, then it is stolen. In fact, should we compare to crypto sector, once you money is stolen or sent to the wrong address, there is NOBODY you can ask to get your money back, ever. This is what I mean by you trying to augment or replace the current financial system with an even worse completely libertarian and utopianist system and whatever you say on 'dystopian governments' doesn't change this fact. Even if we take your 'dystopian governments' view, when they control the crypto exchanges, there will be no way you can swap or or anyone to accept your worthless magic beans to fiat when this will be made illegal.

colesantiago 4y ago

1) The money is not actually 'stolen' this is an extreme exaggeration it's still in PayPal and just held for 180 days. > For people on society's margins who speak inconvenient truths, crypto's inability to easily get shut down is an advantage that the existing financial infrastructure cannot offer. 2) You mean like criminals, drug dealers? As I can only see this group being on 'the margins of society' being empowered by crypto. Just because one system is imperfect, does not mean you replace it with a completely worse system that doesn't work for anybody.

logicalmonster 4y ago
> 1) The money is not actually 'stolen' this is an extreme exaggeration it's still in PayPal and just held for 180 days. Holy Gaslighting Batman, this is on another level. Imagine what you'd think if somebody grabbed something you needed and while he was running down the street, told you that it's not stolen because he pinky swears to give it back in half a year. The belief that it might be returned later is immaterial to the concept of theft. If you can't do what you want with your own property, is it not stolen? You keep talking about being against criminals, but are willfully ignoring a theft that's right in front of you. > 2) You mean like criminals, drug dealers? As I can only see this group being on 'the margins of society' being empowered by crypto. Just because one system is imperfect, does not mean you replace it with a completely worse system that doesn't work for anybody. Whenever governments want to enact something dystopian, they always justify it by claiming that it's going to fight the worst person they can think of to get popular sentiment on their side: like terrorists and murderers. Those kinds of criminals are very easy to spot. But what happens when governments declare it a crime to speak out against the government?Those people are also labeled criminals, and have their funding seized. This isn't a theoretical discussion: this happens every time authoritarians take power. They of course seize any funds from protestors to limit any political opposition. This isn't even limited to some 3rd world countries, but also happens in prosperous Western countries.
- colesantiago 4y ago
  You're the only person in this thread strawmanning and talking about the funds being 'stolen' which is an exaggeration and is completely false. The correct term that PayPal has done is that they froze the account and it's held for 180 days. So it isn't really theft at all if PayPal still holds the funds. If the funds are completely out of PayPal's hands and not in your account, then it is stolen. In fact, should we compare to crypto sector, once you money is stolen or sent to the wrong address, there is NOBODY you can ask to get your money back, ever. This is what I mean by you trying to augment or replace the current financial system with an even worse completely libertarian and utopianist system and whatever you say on 'dystopian governments' doesn't change this fact. Even if we take your 'dystopian governments' view, when they control the crypto exchanges, there will be no way you can swap or or anyone to accept your worthless magic beans to fiat when this will be made illegal.