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this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity? best of luck to yo

by pyvpx 3y ago

this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity? best of luck to your imagined future; but it reads very naive to me.

amjnsx 3y ago
So what, it's "play by our rules or get bombed" ?
- ibz 3y ago
  It is. It always was.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Bitcoin equalises this. USD is going to hyper-inflate to 0 relative to bitcoin, and bitcoin will ultimately be the world reserve asset.
    - bobim 3y ago
      And mostly all in the pockets of a few whales.
      - pixelpoet 3y ago
        As opposed to the US dollar, or euro, or ruble or ...? I will never understand how people fault crypto for not somehow magically solving the world's financial ills, as if humanity has ever had another (successful) plan for wealth distribution. How's that communism working out? Crypto is meant to solve the trustless distributed ledger problem, nothing more, nothing less. Expecting human nature to somehow change because of this technology is ridiculous.
        bobim 3y ago
        Exactly the point, it’s not bringing any value to the society beyond what any currency is already providing.
        pixelpoet 3y ago
        Simply asserting something doesn't make it true; concretely, before crypto, we had no means to trustlessly distribute a ledger, now we do and could start working towards a practical solution that doesn't let random banks and governments mess with currencies as much as they like. I'm not an economist but that seems like a pretty big deal. I'm not a bitcoin proponent by the way, and am well aware that it has massive downsides like the proof of work energy usage (addressed by proof of stake but often ignored because of bitcoin always taking the spotlight). I'm just sick of people naysaying without understanding the fundamental problem it actually does solve, and pretending there's no value or potential in the technology at all.
        npoc 3y ago
        Proof of stake is not really any different to fiat. History has proven time and time again that sound money requires equivalent work to create.
        kaycey2022 3y ago
        With the USD, Euro etc it’s in the hands of bloodthirsty warlords. This has always been the case so it’s mundane and kind of tolerable. With BTC otoh the “whales” are actually a bunch of fat neck beards who have no real power of their own. That is intolerable. I mean I would rather the world be ruled by a violent psychopath than it be ruled by some nerd.
        pixelpoet 3y ago
        Wow...
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > world reserve asset. Except it's extremely unsuited for this purpose despite of what some delusional people might be thinking. No (at at least semi stable) country ever will use bitcoin as their primary reserve asset...
      - npoc 3y ago
        Because you say so?
        qwytw 3y ago
        My argument is just as substantive as the pro-bitcoin ones and spending any meaningful amount of effort arguing with these people is just like fighting windmills. But no, not because I say so but because it's obvious if you have at least a cursory understanding of the international monetary system works.
        npoc 3y ago
        Fair enough - your "no" vote is duly counted. > But no, not because I say so but because it's obvious Okay, so not because you say so but because you think so :)
        qwytw 3y ago
        > Okay, so not because you say so but because you think so :) Well.. I mean it's a bit like the "climate change is fake" or "5G causes cancer" people. Getting into a serious argument with them only legitimizes their viewpoints and makes them seem just as valid for not good reason..
        ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
        - climate change is fake - 5G causes cancer - bitcoin is a scam Your substantive and well-reasoned argument fits right in with that list ;)
- gpderetta 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
roenxi 3y ago
The US really dropped the hammer on Russia last year and yet Russian troops kept advancing. There isn't much proof-in-the-pudding right now that they can stop a top-10 global economy. This isn't the 90s and it isn't clear how much the US can throw their weight around.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > Russian troops kept advancing Did they? The war is in a stalemate. Militarily this isn't that different than the proxy wars of the Cold War EXCEPT Russia has suffered more casualties by a magnitude or two than the USSR did in Afghanistan or the US in Vietnam. For the Russian regime this war is now 100% an existential threat. For the US from an entirely a real-politik point of view, if the end goal is to defeat Russia dragging the war on might even be a preferable option. After this is over Russian will be militarily crippled for the next 10-20 years due to massive and unsustainable manpower and economic costs. The balance of power will tip even further towards NATO making any further Russian expansion in Eastern Europe impossible (especially now that Finland and Sweden have joined). Of course Ukraine is caught in between...
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > For the Russian regime this war is now 100% an existential threat. For everyone this war is an existential threat. It is unusual for governments that come in after a revolution to be more stable than their predecessors and any successor to Putin will still have the worlds largest nuclear weapons stockpile. There is an outside chance of a literal replay of Germany WWI -> WWII if the Russians collapse. Not to mention the risk of armageddon from the current war; I'd still expect to get another Able Archer style story to add to the near misses out of this conflict. And from a realpolitik perspective, sure the US is coming off better than Russia here. But the US isn't coming off well; it's military looks a bit wheezy through all this. If they can't deter the world's 11th largest economy from going to war in NATO's sphere of influence; what can they deter? If they can't muster the resources to turn back the Russians in 2023, what are they going to be able to pull in Africa, the middle east and APAC region? EDIT Bearing in mind we're talking about someone trading Bitcoin in a way they don't like. "this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity?" is just bunk. They don't have that sort of power these days.
ericd 3y ago
What do you imagine the US could do with its weapons cache to demand global compliance? Even extremely authoritarian governments that have tried to stamp out crypto usage internally have been unsuccessful, so it's not like the USG could just lean on other governments to demand compliance.
- pyvpx 3y ago
  any sovereign state or multinational needs to deal in dollars. and the USG controls that rail. well. call me when you can trade and refine oil purely in bitcoin. no one accepting bitcoin to buy things is holding that bitcoin. I beg every blockchain as money people to please, please obsess over monetary theory first!!
  - ericd 3y ago
    I don't think the person you were replying to was saying that it was going to take over as the primary reserve currency, do you? So the US controls those international settlement rails, what does it do with that power to control BTC? Like I said, they can lean on governments, but those governments don't really have the power to ban it internally, so what can it really do with that leverage?

by pyvpx 3y ago

amjnsx 3y ago

So what, it's "play by our rules or get bombed" ?

ibz 3y ago
It is. It always was.
- npoc 3y ago
  Bitcoin equalises this. USD is going to hyper-inflate to 0 relative to bitcoin, and bitcoin will ultimately be the world reserve asset.
  - bobim 3y ago
    And mostly all in the pockets of a few whales.
    - pixelpoet 3y ago
      As opposed to the US dollar, or euro, or ruble or ...? I will never understand how people fault crypto for not somehow magically solving the world's financial ills, as if humanity has ever had another (successful) plan for wealth distribution. How's that communism working out? Crypto is meant to solve the trustless distributed ledger problem, nothing more, nothing less. Expecting human nature to somehow change because of this technology is ridiculous.
      - bobim 3y ago
        Exactly the point, it’s not bringing any value to the society beyond what any currency is already providing.
        pixelpoet 3y ago
        Simply asserting something doesn't make it true; concretely, before crypto, we had no means to trustlessly distribute a ledger, now we do and could start working towards a practical solution that doesn't let random banks and governments mess with currencies as much as they like. I'm not an economist but that seems like a pretty big deal. I'm not a bitcoin proponent by the way, and am well aware that it has massive downsides like the proof of work energy usage (addressed by proof of stake but often ignored because of bitcoin always taking the spotlight). I'm just sick of people naysaying without understanding the fundamental problem it actually does solve, and pretending there's no value or potential in the technology at all.
        npoc 3y ago
        Proof of stake is not really any different to fiat. History has proven time and time again that sound money requires equivalent work to create.
      - kaycey2022 3y ago
        With the USD, Euro etc it’s in the hands of bloodthirsty warlords. This has always been the case so it’s mundane and kind of tolerable. With BTC otoh the “whales” are actually a bunch of fat neck beards who have no real power of their own. That is intolerable. I mean I would rather the world be ruled by a violent psychopath than it be ruled by some nerd.
        pixelpoet 3y ago
        Wow...
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > world reserve asset. Except it's extremely unsuited for this purpose despite of what some delusional people might be thinking. No (at at least semi stable) country ever will use bitcoin as their primary reserve asset...
    - npoc 3y ago
      Because you say so?
      - qwytw 3y ago
        My argument is just as substantive as the pro-bitcoin ones and spending any meaningful amount of effort arguing with these people is just like fighting windmills. But no, not because I say so but because it's obvious if you have at least a cursory understanding of the international monetary system works.
        npoc 3y ago
        Fair enough - your "no" vote is duly counted. > But no, not because I say so but because it's obvious Okay, so not because you say so but because you think so :)
        qwytw 3y ago
        > Okay, so not because you say so but because you think so :) Well.. I mean it's a bit like the "climate change is fake" or "5G causes cancer" people. Getting into a serious argument with them only legitimizes their viewpoints and makes them seem just as valid for not good reason..
        ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
        - climate change is fake - 5G causes cancer - bitcoin is a scam Your substantive and well-reasoned argument fits right in with that list ;)
gpderetta 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy

roenxi 3y ago

The US really dropped the hammer on Russia last year and yet Russian troops kept advancing. There isn't much proof-in-the-pudding right now that they can stop a top-10 global economy. This isn't the 90s and it isn't clear how much the US can throw their weight around.

qwytw 3y ago
> Russian troops kept advancing Did they? The war is in a stalemate. Militarily this isn't that different than the proxy wars of the Cold War EXCEPT Russia has suffered more casualties by a magnitude or two than the USSR did in Afghanistan or the US in Vietnam. For the Russian regime this war is now 100% an existential threat. For the US from an entirely a real-politik point of view, if the end goal is to defeat Russia dragging the war on might even be a preferable option. After this is over Russian will be militarily crippled for the next 10-20 years due to massive and unsustainable manpower and economic costs. The balance of power will tip even further towards NATO making any further Russian expansion in Eastern Europe impossible (especially now that Finland and Sweden have joined). Of course Ukraine is caught in between...
- roenxi 3y ago
  > For the Russian regime this war is now 100% an existential threat. For everyone this war is an existential threat. It is unusual for governments that come in after a revolution to be more stable than their predecessors and any successor to Putin will still have the worlds largest nuclear weapons stockpile. There is an outside chance of a literal replay of Germany WWI -> WWII if the Russians collapse. Not to mention the risk of armageddon from the current war; I'd still expect to get another Able Archer style story to add to the near misses out of this conflict. And from a realpolitik perspective, sure the US is coming off better than Russia here. But the US isn't coming off well; it's military looks a bit wheezy through all this. If they can't deter the world's 11th largest economy from going to war in NATO's sphere of influence; what can they deter? If they can't muster the resources to turn back the Russians in 2023, what are they going to be able to pull in Africa, the middle east and APAC region? EDIT Bearing in mind we're talking about someone trading Bitcoin in a way they don't like. "this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity?" is just bunk. They don't have that sort of power these days.

ericd 3y ago

What do you imagine the US could do with its weapons cache to demand global compliance? Even extremely authoritarian governments that have tried to stamp out crypto usage internally have been unsuccessful, so it's not like the USG could just lean on other governments to demand compliance.

pyvpx 3y ago
any sovereign state or multinational needs to deal in dollars. and the USG controls that rail. well. call me when you can trade and refine oil purely in bitcoin. no one accepting bitcoin to buy things is holding that bitcoin. I beg every blockchain as money people to please, please obsess over monetary theory first!!
- ericd 3y ago
  I don't think the person you were replying to was saying that it was going to take over as the primary reserve currency, do you? So the US controls those international settlement rails, what does it do with that power to control BTC? Like I said, they can lean on governments, but those governments don't really have the power to ban it internally, so what can it really do with that leverage?