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If the internet was clearly winning this fight I would agree. I still partly do since if you had to pick something to do a trial run, this is a decent fit. The

If the internet was clearly winning this fight I would agree. I still partly do since if you had to pick something to do a trial run, this is a decent fit. The legislators and pro-censorship international treaty writers are also getting a lot of practice. And they seem to be innovating faster and winning more battles than the internet.

noonespecial 14y ago
I think they're just teaching a lesson that the internet has until recently been slow to learn. Centralization is bad. Single-pass bottle-necks like Paypal are worse. Bitcoin is crazy until it isn't. Its a lot of effort and risk to buy access to a forum that has a few silly TV shows. Not so much when its a patented drug you need to survive that's only available in rich countries to the "right" people.
- freshhawk 14y ago
  Hmm, I think I'm just more pessimistic than you are. I agree except for the part where you implied that the internet has recently been learning anything. Centralization is the big new thing. People talk about the solutions but none of them are really succeeding. Bitcoin has a serious fight ahead of it. The US does not treat alternative currencies well historically once they cause any kind of trouble. It would likely have already happened if there was any single group or person that could be arrested to shut it down.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    >It would likely have already happened if there was any single group or person that could be arrested to shut it down. Exactly.
    - freshhawk 14y ago
      That's it's best defense sure, but there are other approaches that will be tried. It could quickly be illegal to accept bitcoins or exchange them or perhaps to convert them to dollars or vice versa. They hit liberty dollars with counterfeiting, wire fraud, mail fraud and all sorts of barely-applicable charges. Bitcoin will always survive internationally but it can pretty easily be blocked from being a useful factor in this issue in the US. Historical precedent tells me that's extraordinarily likely. Hopefully I'm just too cynical.

noonespecial 14y ago

I think they're just teaching a lesson that the internet has until recently been slow to learn. Centralization is bad. Single-pass bottle-necks like Paypal are worse. Bitcoin is crazy until it isn't. Its a lot of effort and risk to buy access to a forum that has a few silly TV shows. Not so much when its a patented drug you need to survive that's only available in rich countries to the "right" people.

freshhawk 14y ago
Hmm, I think I'm just more pessimistic than you are. I agree except for the part where you implied that the internet has recently been learning anything. Centralization is the big new thing. People talk about the solutions but none of them are really succeeding. Bitcoin has a serious fight ahead of it. The US does not treat alternative currencies well historically once they cause any kind of trouble. It would likely have already happened if there was any single group or person that could be arrested to shut it down.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  >It would likely have already happened if there was any single group or person that could be arrested to shut it down. Exactly.
  - freshhawk 14y ago
    That's it's best defense sure, but there are other approaches that will be tried. It could quickly be illegal to accept bitcoins or exchange them or perhaps to convert them to dollars or vice versa. They hit liberty dollars with counterfeiting, wire fraud, mail fraud and all sorts of barely-applicable charges. Bitcoin will always survive internationally but it can pretty easily be blocked from being a useful factor in this issue in the US. Historical precedent tells me that's extraordinarily likely. Hopefully I'm just too cynical.