31 ms·

I've never really understood the notion that any one country is better than another one. It just seems way too subjective and people seem to generally favour th

by bapbap 14y ago

I've never really understood the notion that any one country is better than another one. It just seems way too subjective and people seem to generally favour the country they were born or brought up in. I think it's much like picking a car. You can argue the pros/cons all day and night but it just boils down to what you personally prefer and what evidence you feel justifies your decision. Declaring a country is better than any other because it has more money, weapons, CCTV cameras, mountains, lakes just seems silly, no? (I'm discounting countries savaged by war, famine etc because I'd say by most accounts but not necessarily all, they wouldn't be better)

rdl 14y ago
Obviously you need a metric, but mine is "place to start a world-changing technology business."
- bapbap 14y ago
  True. I'm somewhat biased because when someone states their country is the best (I'm thinking of Americans here I'm afraid and I recognise it is a generalisation), it just annoys me. I don't think anyone can be absolutely sure of themselves when making a claim like that. I think that statement is more a state of mind rather than based in fact, which it is often proclaimed to be. I'm sure plenty of Americans would fight me to death to try and prove it though.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Really, primary thing I dislike about the US (relative to other countries) is that we have a huge (and growing) underclass, just like in places like Brazil and Mexico. We need to shrink (ideally, eliminate, at least as a multi-generational thing) that group (there's no single solution -- but blindly cutting down the successful would be worse than what we have now. Some combination of better education and healthcare is part of it, and I support negative population growth in the world in general and the US in specific.) US foreign policy is a bit too interventionist for my taste, but I'd prefer it to pure pacifism. A better-armed UK or France is probably a reasonable compromise for that. However, most US foreign interventions (except Iraq) aren't that horrible for most citizens (and even Iraq wasn't that much worse than Iraq 1991-2003 or 1980-1988) of the foreign countries, certainly compared to invasions and occupations by other countries.
- sneak 14y ago
  For various definitions of "world-changing" (i.e. one disruptive enough), the US is the worst possible place to do it. A fair example being how fucked all the bitcoin startups are going to be once the market is big enough for FinCEN to care about... or e-gold if you want a historical one. The US is fine and dandy... if you don't mind not having privacy, and keep your "world-changing" ideas within the lines of what the military-industrial complex sees as acceptable.
  - khuey 14y ago
    I'm curious: what country do you think would be better than the US for starting a bitcoin startup?
    - rdl 14y ago
      I wouldn't bother with a bitcoin startup, but for a real ecash startup, US for technology development, and then Hong Kong or maybe Singapore for server ops, deployment, and financial backing of currency issues. The key IMO to all of this is separating out software development from server operations from financially backing a currency from applications of the system from auditors from users. Banks suck at software development; developers suck at finance. By separating the concerns, you can do regulatory arbitrage as well as focus on your strengths. (this isn't my idea; I think Ian Grigg of Systemics came up with it in the early 1990s, if not earlier). Fully separate arms-length entities, different people, not the e-gold "offshore, really" approach. You could create a fully anonymous bearer blinded token infrastructure as software, and then have servers for it, where some of the currencies were entirely non-financial and thus non-regulated (distributed locking mechanism for distributed software systems, resource allocation, anti-spam credibility systems, game currencies), and others which were financial currencies issued by real, established financial institutions with KYC (a dollar currency, shares, futures, ...). Same software, so the developers have no legal risks themselves. Luxembourg also works, if you have $3-5mm or so to meet the requirements to issue (at least, that's what it would have cost in the late 1990s when I last looked; you need some connections, but they come with having money and hiring people from the industry). Switzerland and possibly Liechtenstein may work. I'd skip dodgy ee or south pacific places (e.g. Vanuatu, Narau) since correspondent banking relationships would be trivial to sever. If you were totally focused on gambling ("gaming"), some crown colonies (IoM, Gibraltar) might work, or Panama. You could do it in the USA if you met KYC and also treated it as a commodities trading system, regulated under CFTC. You can become a CFTC exchange (like Chicago) for $5-10mm. I'd probably actually do the operations for that in Chicago just to be totally known to all the local regulators, although NYC or SF would also be possible. The thing I absolutely wouldn't do is try to run a payment system which is at all anonymous in the US, and if I did a payment system in the US, it would meet all KYC and MTB requirements. That puts your capitalization required at a few million dollars more than otherwise, but it's not a big deal.
sliverstorm 14y ago
It just seems way too subjective Sure, it's subjective, but humans are generally a lot alike. As with anything, "better" (with the exclusion of "strictly better") is a valuation that 'the typical human will prefer option X', taking into account the trade-offs of option X vs. typical attitudes towards those trade-offs. This is why it is so easy to exclude, as you did, countries ravaged by war et al., because the typical human does not appreciate war and famine enough that few things will make up for it.
Xcelerate 14y ago
I could be wrong here, but I think most people would consider the US a better country than Liberia. You can sort subjective preferences to get an objective rating.

by bapbap 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

Obviously you need a metric, but mine is "place to start a world-changing technology business."

bapbap 14y ago
True. I'm somewhat biased because when someone states their country is the best (I'm thinking of Americans here I'm afraid and I recognise it is a generalisation), it just annoys me. I don't think anyone can be absolutely sure of themselves when making a claim like that. I think that statement is more a state of mind rather than based in fact, which it is often proclaimed to be. I'm sure plenty of Americans would fight me to death to try and prove it though.
- rdl 14y ago
  Really, primary thing I dislike about the US (relative to other countries) is that we have a huge (and growing) underclass, just like in places like Brazil and Mexico. We need to shrink (ideally, eliminate, at least as a multi-generational thing) that group (there's no single solution -- but blindly cutting down the successful would be worse than what we have now. Some combination of better education and healthcare is part of it, and I support negative population growth in the world in general and the US in specific.) US foreign policy is a bit too interventionist for my taste, but I'd prefer it to pure pacifism. A better-armed UK or France is probably a reasonable compromise for that. However, most US foreign interventions (except Iraq) aren't that horrible for most citizens (and even Iraq wasn't that much worse than Iraq 1991-2003 or 1980-1988) of the foreign countries, certainly compared to invasions and occupations by other countries.
sneak 14y ago
For various definitions of "world-changing" (i.e. one disruptive enough), the US is the worst possible place to do it. A fair example being how fucked all the bitcoin startups are going to be once the market is big enough for FinCEN to care about... or e-gold if you want a historical one. The US is fine and dandy... if you don't mind not having privacy, and keep your "world-changing" ideas within the lines of what the military-industrial complex sees as acceptable.
- khuey 14y ago
  I'm curious: what country do you think would be better than the US for starting a bitcoin startup?
  - rdl 14y ago
    I wouldn't bother with a bitcoin startup, but for a real ecash startup, US for technology development, and then Hong Kong or maybe Singapore for server ops, deployment, and financial backing of currency issues. The key IMO to all of this is separating out software development from server operations from financially backing a currency from applications of the system from auditors from users. Banks suck at software development; developers suck at finance. By separating the concerns, you can do regulatory arbitrage as well as focus on your strengths. (this isn't my idea; I think Ian Grigg of Systemics came up with it in the early 1990s, if not earlier). Fully separate arms-length entities, different people, not the e-gold "offshore, really" approach. You could create a fully anonymous bearer blinded token infrastructure as software, and then have servers for it, where some of the currencies were entirely non-financial and thus non-regulated (distributed locking mechanism for distributed software systems, resource allocation, anti-spam credibility systems, game currencies), and others which were financial currencies issued by real, established financial institutions with KYC (a dollar currency, shares, futures, ...). Same software, so the developers have no legal risks themselves. Luxembourg also works, if you have $3-5mm or so to meet the requirements to issue (at least, that's what it would have cost in the late 1990s when I last looked; you need some connections, but they come with having money and hiring people from the industry). Switzerland and possibly Liechtenstein may work. I'd skip dodgy ee or south pacific places (e.g. Vanuatu, Narau) since correspondent banking relationships would be trivial to sever. If you were totally focused on gambling ("gaming"), some crown colonies (IoM, Gibraltar) might work, or Panama. You could do it in the USA if you met KYC and also treated it as a commodities trading system, regulated under CFTC. You can become a CFTC exchange (like Chicago) for $5-10mm. I'd probably actually do the operations for that in Chicago just to be totally known to all the local regulators, although NYC or SF would also be possible. The thing I absolutely wouldn't do is try to run a payment system which is at all anonymous in the US, and if I did a payment system in the US, it would meet all KYC and MTB requirements. That puts your capitalization required at a few million dollars more than otherwise, but it's not a big deal.

sliverstorm 14y ago

It just seems way too subjective Sure, it's subjective, but humans are generally a lot alike. As with anything, "better" (with the exclusion of "strictly better") is a valuation that 'the typical human will prefer option X', taking into account the trade-offs of option X vs. typical attitudes towards those trade-offs. This is why it is so easy to exclude, as you did, countries ravaged by war et al., because the typical human does not appreciate war and famine enough that few things will make up for it.

Xcelerate 14y ago

I could be wrong here, but I think most people would consider the US a better country than Liberia. You can sort subjective preferences to get an objective rating.