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This slides in the assumption that you need a national currency. No traditional nation-state will _really adopt_ a crypto-currency unless it bakes in some abil

by sj4nz 12y ago

This slides in the assumption that you need a national currency. No traditional nation-state will _really adopt_ a crypto-currency unless it bakes in some ability to seize or inflate it's subject's currency. If that exists in their desired crypto-currency then, of course, no one will ever use it without the threat of violence. Catch-22 for modern nation-states.

anigbrowl 12y ago
By that logic, private ownership of gold should be forbidden. That did happen once, during the Great Depression, but that policy was abandoned in the 1960s and nobody has made any attempt to reinstate it since. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act
- oafitupa 12y ago
  In many countries it's forbidden. Eg: Argentina, Venezuela, etc. The government doesn't like it when their people find ways of escaping inflation.
megoah 12y ago
This is the same reason that no government allows or encourages the large-scale ownership of property, land, minerals, gold, or anything else. Except that they do. All the time. Because governments are not evil machines that only want to steal your money. That's just a Dunning-Kreuger / nutjob interpretation of reality that is often repeated by a certain kind of broken individual.
- entrop13 12y ago
  those arn't liquid assets. who's suffering from dunning-kreuger effects now? nice puppet account you got there with 1 karma. also land and property are taxed so... yea
- shit_parade 12y ago
  shill
- sj4nz 12y ago
  Nice DH1 you've got there. Governments are not evil machines. They're machines staffed by people and people do what people often do: follow the laws blindly because "it's their duty", exploit the existing laws to their advantage "because it's legal", and craft new laws to monkey-patch the flaws in older laws "because it's their job." When two opposing groups of people disagree with each other, they resort to theatrics and name-calling and the machine kind of idles in its current state. The machinery isn't evil and the people aren't evil. This is just how the machine works. If the people operating the machine decide it needs more of a resource, they'll try to get it by any any available means to keep the machine running. Their job, and belief in the machine depend on it. Whether or not the machine gives the world "a better place" is a coincidental side-effect of the machine that happens often, but not always. Adopting a crypto-currency would give this machine less control over resources because it would either have too much transparency (no black budgets or quid-pro-quos) or perfect opacity (no ability to seize funds from victims or punish criminals financially). Elections do not change the machine except in the sense of an oil-change--to optimize its continuous operation. The machine is never replaced. And people who do not believe in the machine are always attacked by the operators with a vested interest in the machine... a certain kind of broken individual.
kiba 12y ago
Nothing prevent nation-states from adopting their own altcoin and altering the supply as they like.
- oafitupa 12y ago
  Except they would have to also create their own mining industry to secure it, or enemy countries could easily attack it.
  - sliverstorm 12y ago
    Why would they allow other actors to be part of their mining?
    - oafitupa 12y ago
      The real question is why would a government use a Bitcoin clone, instead of either traditional fiat or just Bitcoin.
Frondo 12y ago
What threat of violence are you describing?
- leereeves 12y ago
  Taxes.
- krapp 12y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  Some very silly people have concluded that, since ultimately no rule or law can be enforced against the unwilling without some sort of ability to exercise power over them, making a law is logically equivalent to saying that anyone who breaks it should be shot; and, therefore, people who make laws against any but the most extreme crimes are violent thugs. And thus it naturally follows that you shouldn't have to pay taxes. Isn't that convenient? (I think this formulation was originally conceived by anarchists, where it is at least logically consistent, but tax protestors and some libertarians have adopted and deformed it into a convenient catch-all for "anything the government does that I don't like is ZOMGviolence.")
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    AFAIK libertarians have this "principle of non-aggression" which basically defines "anything I don't like" as an attack, and thus pretty much anything that government does becomes violence. But in general, "monopoly on violence" is a legitimate concept and I think it's a requirement for a state-sized group of people to live in (a relative) harmony. You need to have some means to enforce coordination or else people get trapped in various destructive behaviours.
    - skilesare 12y ago
      They also have a tendency to put capitalism up on a pedestal even though it requires the charging of economic rent. Apparently extracting taxes is a crime but extracting economic rent is to be lauded.

by sj4nz 12y ago

anigbrowl 12y ago

By that logic, private ownership of gold should be forbidden. That did happen once, during the Great Depression, but that policy was abandoned in the 1960s and nobody has made any attempt to reinstate it since. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Reserve_Act

oafitupa 12y ago
In many countries it's forbidden. Eg: Argentina, Venezuela, etc. The government doesn't like it when their people find ways of escaping inflation.

megoah 12y ago

This is the same reason that no government allows or encourages the large-scale ownership of property, land, minerals, gold, or anything else. Except that they do. All the time. Because governments are not evil machines that only want to steal your money. That's just a Dunning-Kreuger / nutjob interpretation of reality that is often repeated by a certain kind of broken individual.

entrop13 12y ago
those arn't liquid assets. who's suffering from dunning-kreuger effects now? nice puppet account you got there with 1 karma. also land and property are taxed so... yea
shit_parade 12y ago
shill
sj4nz 12y ago
Nice DH1 you've got there. Governments are not evil machines. They're machines staffed by people and people do what people often do: follow the laws blindly because "it's their duty", exploit the existing laws to their advantage "because it's legal", and craft new laws to monkey-patch the flaws in older laws "because it's their job." When two opposing groups of people disagree with each other, they resort to theatrics and name-calling and the machine kind of idles in its current state. The machinery isn't evil and the people aren't evil. This is just how the machine works. If the people operating the machine decide it needs more of a resource, they'll try to get it by any any available means to keep the machine running. Their job, and belief in the machine depend on it. Whether or not the machine gives the world "a better place" is a coincidental side-effect of the machine that happens often, but not always. Adopting a crypto-currency would give this machine less control over resources because it would either have too much transparency (no black budgets or quid-pro-quos) or perfect opacity (no ability to seize funds from victims or punish criminals financially). Elections do not change the machine except in the sense of an oil-change--to optimize its continuous operation. The machine is never replaced. And people who do not believe in the machine are always attacked by the operators with a vested interest in the machine... a certain kind of broken individual.

kiba 12y ago

Nothing prevent nation-states from adopting their own altcoin and altering the supply as they like.

oafitupa 12y ago
Except they would have to also create their own mining industry to secure it, or enemy countries could easily attack it.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Why would they allow other actors to be part of their mining?
  - oafitupa 12y ago
    The real question is why would a government use a Bitcoin clone, instead of either traditional fiat or just Bitcoin.

Frondo 12y ago

What threat of violence are you describing?

leereeves 12y ago
Taxes.
krapp 12y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
Some very silly people have concluded that, since ultimately no rule or law can be enforced against the unwilling without some sort of ability to exercise power over them, making a law is logically equivalent to saying that anyone who breaks it should be shot; and, therefore, people who make laws against any but the most extreme crimes are violent thugs. And thus it naturally follows that you shouldn't have to pay taxes. Isn't that convenient? (I think this formulation was originally conceived by anarchists, where it is at least logically consistent, but tax protestors and some libertarians have adopted and deformed it into a convenient catch-all for "anything the government does that I don't like is ZOMGviolence.")
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  AFAIK libertarians have this "principle of non-aggression" which basically defines "anything I don't like" as an attack, and thus pretty much anything that government does becomes violence. But in general, "monopoly on violence" is a legitimate concept and I think it's a requirement for a state-sized group of people to live in (a relative) harmony. You need to have some means to enforce coordination or else people get trapped in various destructive behaviours.
  - skilesare 12y ago
    They also have a tendency to put capitalism up on a pedestal even though it requires the charging of economic rent. Apparently extracting taxes is a crime but extracting economic rent is to be lauded.