5 ms·

> Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. They got Al Capone for tax evasion,

> Money laundering is an absurd concept. People should be free to transfer money to whoever they like, without permission. They got Al Capone for tax evasion, not any of the other obviously illegal stuff he was doing. I don't know the details, but I imagine it was because he put in effort to create an organization that made it difficult-to-impossible for the law-abiding feds to go after him directly. That's why it's important to also prohibit the ancillary activities of crime. And money laundering isn't an absurd concept, it just means it's additionally illegal to conceal the origin of illicit income. If you want to get all dogmatic against stuff like laws against money laundering, come up with an effective alternative. Otherwise those laws aren't going anywhere and few will care about your objections, because they're unreasonable.

Ekaros 2mo ago
Obvious solution is to make soft drugs like fentanyl fully legal. Just apply sufficient purity to standards as regulation like with any other drug. Issue solved instantly. It is not like other deathly drugs aren't already legal.
- palmotea 2mo ago
  Obvious solution is to make soft drugs like fentanyl fully legal. Just apply sufficient purity to standards as regulation like with any other drug. Issue solved instantly. It is not like other deathly drugs aren't already legal. [emphasis mine] sarcasm or typo?
  - Ekaros 2mo ago
    Just pointing out the double standards and the main funding source being due to illegality. And we all known how many people die due to ethanol each year. But because it is drug of the choice by too many totalitarian fascists it won't get banned like other drugs do.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      > Just pointing out the double standards and the main funding source being due to illegality. And we all known how many people die due to ethanol each year. But because it is drug of the choice by too many totalitarian fascists it won't get banned like other drugs do. Alcohol is a drug with a huge amount of cultural significance going back millennia. Don't be a robot: it's in a different category and not a double standard. Buy yeah, one easy solution to crime problems is just to make everything legal. Sure, it totally misses the point, but it seems very clever to the software engineer mind.
      - Ekaros 2mo ago
        So it clearly is double-standard. Excusing it with "cultural significance" is clear example of something being double standard. And it is one of the worst reasons to have. Genital mutilation of children of both genders is also of "cultural significance" so I take those supporting allowing it are also reasonable? Or is that a different category because it is not your culture? If keeping it illegal is not working clearly best move forward might be to look at making it legal thus solving the issue. And that does not miss a point. Lot of stuff previously illegal has been made legal. So why not drugs like fentanyl?
        palmotea 2mo ago
        > So it clearly is double-standard. Excusing it with "cultural significance" is clear example of something being double standard. And it is one of the worst reasons to have. Genital mutilation of children of both genders is also of "cultural significance" so I take those supporting allowing it are also reasonable? Or is that a different category because it is not your culture? No. Frankly, it just means you're being zealous and small-minded: hyper-focusing on little bits (and feeling very self-righteous as a result) without looking at the whole picture. Demanding the world conform to whatever limited understanding you have of it. I see it all the time. Alcohol is its own category, whether you chose to recognize it or not. That's the truth, so quit whining about it. > If keeping it illegal is not working clearly best move forward might be to look at making it legal thus solving the issue. And that does not miss a point. Lot of stuff previously illegal has been made legal. So why not drugs like fentanyl? Because it opiates being legal and freely available was not working? Ignoring your myopia for a minute, what you're really advocating for is a dumb oscillation between the problems of legalized opiates and illegal opiates, because you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- OutOfHere 2mo ago
  Fentanyl is not a soft drug, but opium, heroin and morphine can be so if administered correctly, and meet the same needs satisfactorily. Fentanyl is extremely deadly if misdosed.
mdp2021 2mo ago
> If you want to get all dogmatic against stuff like laws against money laundering, come up with an effective alternative No, it's not just a matter of alternatives: it is also a matter of principles. For example: in europe, I am unable to make online purchases with electronic money, as all the payment devices are tracked, matched with a personal identity - they cannot be unidentified as they could be only a few years ago. There existed occasional cards for online shopping - now they ask you a local telephone number, identity tied. This under the excuse of "countering money laundering". So there you have "privacy" vs "financial monitoring" - with immensely disproportionate effects in a farcical manouvre.
OutOfHere 2mo ago
> come up with an effective alternative I already did, and noted it in my parent comment if you actually read it. The alternative is crypto. It works. To use your own words back at you, no one who needs to transmit money freely will care about your silly objections, because they're unreasonable. If money laundering is not absurd, then electricity laundering for the purpose of a crime must similarly not be absurd. Everyone must be required to provide documentation of their electricity usage and spikes. After all it could be used to conduct a crime, and we can lower crime by having laws against electricity laundering. /s In truth, many little brains that I am interacting with here seem to be having trouble with letting abstractions be abstractions. A society can be at rest only when it doesn't have to think twice about its abstractions, otherwise it will never know peace. The same people also can't rewind to see how foolish the war on drugs is in the first place.
- palmotea 2mo ago
  >> come up with an effective alternative > I already did, and noted it in my parent comment if you actually read it. The alternative is crypto. No you didn't, you totally misunderstood what I meant. I was not talking about an alternative payment system that "bypasses" anti-money laundering regulations, but alternative regulations. > It works. To use your own words back at you, no one who needs to transmit money freely will care about your silly objections, because they're unreasonable. It doesn't "work." Not wanting to facilitate the transfer of money derived from crime is not a "silly objection." Also you seem to be confused about the difference between the crime of money laundering and anti-money laundering regulations.
  - OutOfHere 2mo ago
    You're seeing it exclusively from the perspective of an oppressive government, not the people. You do not serve the people, only the oligarchs. It is why your argument has no merit to the people who seek freedom. This is not a forum for government propaganda.
    - palmotea 2mo ago
      > You're seeing it exclusively from the perspective of an oppressive government, not the people. No, I'm seeing it from the perspective of the people, who have a legitimate interest in the suppression of organized crime. And I also realize that most social problems don't have neat and tidy solutions that will satisfy this or that myopic dogmatist, and following the dogma is likely to leave everyone less happy (except the dogmatist). Making money laundering a crime and going after the people who do it are important tools in fighting organized crime. Now there's legitimate quibbles in the implementation of anti-money laundering regulations, but just from that to the extreme of "money laundering is an absurd concept" is itself absurd and unreasonable. > You do not serve the people, only the oligarchs. It is why your argument has no merit to the people who seek freedom. This is not a forum for government propaganda. To put it politely: please pull your head out of your butt. You're talking like you're a hero is some black and white drama, the good guy fighting the evil mooks. You're not, that's just distorted thinking.

Ekaros 2mo ago

Obvious solution is to make soft drugs like fentanyl fully legal. Just apply sufficient purity to standards as regulation like with any other drug. Issue solved instantly. It is not like other deathly drugs aren't already legal.

palmotea 2mo ago
Obvious solution is to make soft drugs like fentanyl fully legal. Just apply sufficient purity to standards as regulation like with any other drug. Issue solved instantly. It is not like other deathly drugs aren't already legal. [emphasis mine] sarcasm or typo?
- Ekaros 2mo ago
  Just pointing out the double standards and the main funding source being due to illegality. And we all known how many people die due to ethanol each year. But because it is drug of the choice by too many totalitarian fascists it won't get banned like other drugs do.
  - palmotea 2mo ago
    > Just pointing out the double standards and the main funding source being due to illegality. And we all known how many people die due to ethanol each year. But because it is drug of the choice by too many totalitarian fascists it won't get banned like other drugs do. Alcohol is a drug with a huge amount of cultural significance going back millennia. Don't be a robot: it's in a different category and not a double standard. Buy yeah, one easy solution to crime problems is just to make everything legal. Sure, it totally misses the point, but it seems very clever to the software engineer mind.
    - Ekaros 2mo ago
      So it clearly is double-standard. Excusing it with "cultural significance" is clear example of something being double standard. And it is one of the worst reasons to have. Genital mutilation of children of both genders is also of "cultural significance" so I take those supporting allowing it are also reasonable? Or is that a different category because it is not your culture? If keeping it illegal is not working clearly best move forward might be to look at making it legal thus solving the issue. And that does not miss a point. Lot of stuff previously illegal has been made legal. So why not drugs like fentanyl?
      - palmotea 2mo ago
        > So it clearly is double-standard. Excusing it with "cultural significance" is clear example of something being double standard. And it is one of the worst reasons to have. Genital mutilation of children of both genders is also of "cultural significance" so I take those supporting allowing it are also reasonable? Or is that a different category because it is not your culture? No. Frankly, it just means you're being zealous and small-minded: hyper-focusing on little bits (and feeling very self-righteous as a result) without looking at the whole picture. Demanding the world conform to whatever limited understanding you have of it. I see it all the time. Alcohol is its own category, whether you chose to recognize it or not. That's the truth, so quit whining about it. > If keeping it illegal is not working clearly best move forward might be to look at making it legal thus solving the issue. And that does not miss a point. Lot of stuff previously illegal has been made legal. So why not drugs like fentanyl? Because it opiates being legal and freely available was not working? Ignoring your myopia for a minute, what you're really advocating for is a dumb oscillation between the problems of legalized opiates and illegal opiates, because you're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
OutOfHere 2mo ago
Fentanyl is not a soft drug, but opium, heroin and morphine can be so if administered correctly, and meet the same needs satisfactorily. Fentanyl is extremely deadly if misdosed.

mdp2021 2mo ago

> If you want to get all dogmatic against stuff like laws against money laundering, come up with an effective alternative No, it's not just a matter of alternatives: it is also a matter of principles. For example: in europe, I am unable to make online purchases with electronic money, as all the payment devices are tracked, matched with a personal identity - they cannot be unidentified as they could be only a few years ago. There existed occasional cards for online shopping - now they ask you a local telephone number, identity tied. This under the excuse of "countering money laundering". So there you have "privacy" vs "financial monitoring" - with immensely disproportionate effects in a farcical manouvre.

OutOfHere 2mo ago

> come up with an effective alternative I already did, and noted it in my parent comment if you actually read it. The alternative is crypto. It works. To use your own words back at you, no one who needs to transmit money freely will care about your silly objections, because they're unreasonable. If money laundering is not absurd, then electricity laundering for the purpose of a crime must similarly not be absurd. Everyone must be required to provide documentation of their electricity usage and spikes. After all it could be used to conduct a crime, and we can lower crime by having laws against electricity laundering. /s In truth, many little brains that I am interacting with here seem to be having trouble with letting abstractions be abstractions. A society can be at rest only when it doesn't have to think twice about its abstractions, otherwise it will never know peace. The same people also can't rewind to see how foolish the war on drugs is in the first place.

palmotea 2mo ago
>> come up with an effective alternative > I already did, and noted it in my parent comment if you actually read it. The alternative is crypto. No you didn't, you totally misunderstood what I meant. I was not talking about an alternative payment system that "bypasses" anti-money laundering regulations, but alternative regulations. > It works. To use your own words back at you, no one who needs to transmit money freely will care about your silly objections, because they're unreasonable. It doesn't "work." Not wanting to facilitate the transfer of money derived from crime is not a "silly objection." Also you seem to be confused about the difference between the crime of money laundering and anti-money laundering regulations.
- OutOfHere 2mo ago
  You're seeing it exclusively from the perspective of an oppressive government, not the people. You do not serve the people, only the oligarchs. It is why your argument has no merit to the people who seek freedom. This is not a forum for government propaganda.
  - palmotea 2mo ago
    > You're seeing it exclusively from the perspective of an oppressive government, not the people. No, I'm seeing it from the perspective of the people, who have a legitimate interest in the suppression of organized crime. And I also realize that most social problems don't have neat and tidy solutions that will satisfy this or that myopic dogmatist, and following the dogma is likely to leave everyone less happy (except the dogmatist). Making money laundering a crime and going after the people who do it are important tools in fighting organized crime. Now there's legitimate quibbles in the implementation of anti-money laundering regulations, but just from that to the extreme of "money laundering is an absurd concept" is itself absurd and unreasonable. > You do not serve the people, only the oligarchs. It is why your argument has no merit to the people who seek freedom. This is not a forum for government propaganda. To put it politely: please pull your head out of your butt. You're talking like you're a hero is some black and white drama, the good guy fighting the evil mooks. You're not, that's just distorted thinking.