3 ms·

There must be some reason why people would prefer the currency of one club over another. Maybe it's because in "the Bitcoin club" no one tells you what you can

by snitko 13y ago

There must be some reason why people would prefer the currency of one club over another. Maybe it's because in "the Bitcoin club" no one tells you what you can do with your money, no one devalues your money at will and no one steals from you and says it's "legitimate taxation" because you allegedly signed some social contract you've never actually seen.

lukifer 13y ago
In fairness, the concepts of money and ownership could also be argued to the products of a social contract, and that the inability to beat someone over the head and take their stuff is an abridgment of freedom.
- snitko 13y ago
  There exists no such thing as social contract. It's made up. Can you prove its existence?
  - lukifer 13y ago
    Of course not. But codes of behavior clearly exist. Even without invoking laws, people in a civilized society will patiently stand in line rather than attempt to fight for first place. Money is similar: it does not exist, except in our imaginations. We invented the idea, along with ideas like "fairness", "justice" and "ownership". They are not perfect inventions, and they are illusory and ephemeral, but they nonetheless shape human behavior. "You're not allowed to take what's mine" is every bit a product of an illusory code of behavior as taxation, laws, etc. It does not exist in nature intrinsically. If you honor other people's ownership and expect them to honor yours, you are participating in following these unwritten rules.
    - snitko 13y ago
      And why do you suppose people decide to stand in line without anyone actually forcing them to do so? It must be because they know that if a couple of them decide to break the line and go ahead of everyone else, then everyone else would do the same, this would create chaos and no one's gonna get anywhere. With so called social contract everything falls apart rather fast when you remove force from the picture. How many people, do you think, would keep paying taxes if they knew no IRS agent is ever going to show up on their doorstep? You see, you confuse what's really a universal behavior and codes with something that's imposed upon us by a threat of force. No one forces people to use Bitcoin or Gold. But people are forced to use USD. No one us forced to donate to charities, but people are forced to pay taxes. Every time you look at something that you think is a product of society, please ask yourself: would this thing exist if no central force, like government, was applied? For instance, would property exist if no government was enforcing it? Some would say no, but of course it's not true, since territorial behavior is present even in animals.
      - lukifer 13y ago
        > And why do you suppose people decide to stand in line without anyone actually forcing them to do so? It must be... This doesn't follow intrinsically. The threat of violence is absolutely present in line-standing scenarios (imagine starving people in a bread-line; the biggest reason not to cheat is that fellow line-standers would kick your ass). > But people are forced to use USD. Sort of, in the same sense that one is "forced" to engage in voluntary labor in order to survive. If one were to go live in the woods, they could hunt and forage without ever touching a greenback. However, to nearly everybody, the benefits of USD (and labor) outweigh the costs, or at least they act that way. Obviously, many of our existing social structures are backed by centralized violence, both at the nation-state and community levels. But my point is that this is just as true of gold or BitCoin as it is of USD and taxes. While common decency will prevent most people from taking your stuff, at the end of the day, the threat of violence is what keeps someone from stealing your gold, or beating you with a wrench until you give up your BTC encryption key. There is no reality in which there is not an incentive to use violence, even if only to stop other violence. Clearly, "social contract" is a broken metaphor: none of us signed a goddamn thing simply from being born. It bothers me as well that I effectively have no say in the matter, and that I am tacitly complicit in the various injustices of the state. I would vastly prefer opt-in distributed nation-tribes, such as Neal Stephenson's "phyles". But at the same time, there is a strong possibility that if governments were to evaporate tomorrow, we would revert first to "nature red in tooth and claw", eventually giving way to networks of feudalistic allegiances, in both cases, backed by extreme violence. Should we invent new post-national social structures (perhaps with actual social contracts that people choose voluntarily)? Of course, the sooner the better! But in the meantime, we all get 30% (or whatever) stolen in order to not have to worry about 100% getting stolen. It sucks, but it could be a lot, lot worse. Civilization is a non-trivial problem.

by snitko 13y ago

lukifer 13y ago

In fairness, the concepts of money and ownership could also be argued to the products of a social contract, and that the inability to beat someone over the head and take their stuff is an abridgment of freedom.

snitko 13y ago
There exists no such thing as social contract. It's made up. Can you prove its existence?
- lukifer 13y ago
  Of course not. But codes of behavior clearly exist. Even without invoking laws, people in a civilized society will patiently stand in line rather than attempt to fight for first place. Money is similar: it does not exist, except in our imaginations. We invented the idea, along with ideas like "fairness", "justice" and "ownership". They are not perfect inventions, and they are illusory and ephemeral, but they nonetheless shape human behavior. "You're not allowed to take what's mine" is every bit a product of an illusory code of behavior as taxation, laws, etc. It does not exist in nature intrinsically. If you honor other people's ownership and expect them to honor yours, you are participating in following these unwritten rules.
  - snitko 13y ago
    And why do you suppose people decide to stand in line without anyone actually forcing them to do so? It must be because they know that if a couple of them decide to break the line and go ahead of everyone else, then everyone else would do the same, this would create chaos and no one's gonna get anywhere. With so called social contract everything falls apart rather fast when you remove force from the picture. How many people, do you think, would keep paying taxes if they knew no IRS agent is ever going to show up on their doorstep? You see, you confuse what's really a universal behavior and codes with something that's imposed upon us by a threat of force. No one forces people to use Bitcoin or Gold. But people are forced to use USD. No one us forced to donate to charities, but people are forced to pay taxes. Every time you look at something that you think is a product of society, please ask yourself: would this thing exist if no central force, like government, was applied? For instance, would property exist if no government was enforcing it? Some would say no, but of course it's not true, since territorial behavior is present even in animals.
    - lukifer 13y ago
      > And why do you suppose people decide to stand in line without anyone actually forcing them to do so? It must be... This doesn't follow intrinsically. The threat of violence is absolutely present in line-standing scenarios (imagine starving people in a bread-line; the biggest reason not to cheat is that fellow line-standers would kick your ass). > But people are forced to use USD. Sort of, in the same sense that one is "forced" to engage in voluntary labor in order to survive. If one were to go live in the woods, they could hunt and forage without ever touching a greenback. However, to nearly everybody, the benefits of USD (and labor) outweigh the costs, or at least they act that way. Obviously, many of our existing social structures are backed by centralized violence, both at the nation-state and community levels. But my point is that this is just as true of gold or BitCoin as it is of USD and taxes. While common decency will prevent most people from taking your stuff, at the end of the day, the threat of violence is what keeps someone from stealing your gold, or beating you with a wrench until you give up your BTC encryption key. There is no reality in which there is not an incentive to use violence, even if only to stop other violence. Clearly, "social contract" is a broken metaphor: none of us signed a goddamn thing simply from being born. It bothers me as well that I effectively have no say in the matter, and that I am tacitly complicit in the various injustices of the state. I would vastly prefer opt-in distributed nation-tribes, such as Neal Stephenson's "phyles". But at the same time, there is a strong possibility that if governments were to evaporate tomorrow, we would revert first to "nature red in tooth and claw", eventually giving way to networks of feudalistic allegiances, in both cases, backed by extreme violence. Should we invent new post-national social structures (perhaps with actual social contracts that people choose voluntarily)? Of course, the sooner the better! But in the meantime, we all get 30% (or whatever) stolen in order to not have to worry about 100% getting stolen. It sucks, but it could be a lot, lot worse. Civilization is a non-trivial problem.