Unfortunately this is not one of Stross’s better essays. He’s firing bazookas at a mosquito. I left a more detailed comment on his blog
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Nope, not at all. Just easier, and likely cheaper too.
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So what was the point of your original comment? It seems to have nothing to do with Charlie’s post, since as you now admit, government can seize bitcoin as easily as it can seize conventional money.
Of course you’re not, you just have the think tank, word salad completely memorized. Life is a video game. When every budding libertarian becomes king they can save (buy) the queen and create their own fantasy Waterworld. They’re all potential Peter Thiels… In reality, when things go “free” it’ll be the jocks cramming their heads in the toilet, not the other way around.
MFW people think he’s being serious. I loves you, internets. I loves you.
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I love the “or”, here. The problem is both, and the solution to corruption isn’t full deregulation as the Libertopians suggest.
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Your ranting is really cute. Surely the Democrats and Republicans will save us from all our ills.
I was looking for interesting and informative commentary on Stross’ article, but I see the conversation has degenerated into a slanging match already. Ah well.
What? Government stealing your bitcoins with force is much harder than them editing your bank account at JPMoChase. Pretty simple concept.
Hilariously, the only reason I’m in that twitter thread is that I recommended those writers to Veronica Belmont for season 2 of Sword and Laser. Scalzi then suggested they all go on together and engage in a pie fight, only to find out that Stross had already started an epic pie fight on the internet.
I guess I should finish my NaNoWriMo novel The Guillotine Short while it’s still “ripped from the headlines”, since it’s about what happens when Wall Street inevitably sticks its blood-funnel into Bitcoin.
Has Neil Stephenson ever weighed in on Bitcoin, since so many early adopters of it were inspired by Cryptonomicon?
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It has seemed to me that since Bitcoin’s appearance, two very different properties have been mingled together, and that we’d be a LOT better off if they were separated (again).
- removing control over money flow from banks (and governments) - the ability to make payments without paying fees to intermediaries
- an anonymous digital currency with (most of) the good properties of cash
Speaking personally, only (1) has ever interested me about bitcoin. I consider it vastly more important than (2).
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But “voluntary, non-violent interactions” like taxation or public healthcare or any kind of contract in which the gubbmint is a party are “tyranny” under libertarianism, so there you go. You all seem never to note that a flawed government isn’t necessarily an argument for less or no government because Hayek? Cool, I guess…
Of course wanting my greed enforced isn’t my preference, I know this because I know what’s best for others. If all other philosophies save libertarianism continue to be widely embraced there will certainly be bad outcomes like THE TYRANNY, ideas I read when I was sixteen must be promulgated at all costs! -Clutches copy of Atlas Shrugged-
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You think the Ayn Rand fans will?
No, I know you didn’t say that, but neither did @Ereiamjh say anything about being saved by Democrats or Republicans. Aren’t straw man arguments fun?
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The problem is that libertarians like yourself subscribe to non-standard definitions of terms in which laying someone off or forcing someone out of their home to die of exposure or starvation is a “voluntary, non-violent interaction.” As long as human beings are physical objects with 3-dimensional extension and metabolic requirements I think I’ll find the libertarian definitions of “voluntary, non-violent interactions” to be somewhat wanting.
Getting and keeping a job is exactly as “voluntary” as food, clothing, shelter, or physical security. Because it’s the only way for most people to secure those things.
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Those examples aren’t voluntary or non-violent. What is your point?
Again what are you saying? A flawed government is one which should be modified, changed, or removed just like any other service that doesn’t meet expectations.
Ideologies which require the use of force to implement are, IMO, fatally flawed.
Libertarian ideas can be found in many different types of literature. Science fiction often explores libertarian ideas. I’ve never read Atlas Shrugged, the novel explores ideas, is that threatening? My first thoughts about libertarianism came about while reading Starship Troopers, I found the idea of pay to play interesting. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy was instrumental in my evolving political philosophy, the idea that there could be competing governments was new to me.
You mean like libertarianism which requires the use of force to protect “property rights” – a social construct that is underwritten pretty much entirely by the ability of the government to enforce those rights through the use of force?
Those examples aren’t voluntary or non-violent. What is your point?
If I don’t want to pay my taxes I may emigrate. That is my choice and men with guns will not try to stop me if I do so. How is that any less voluntary or non-violent than quitting a job I don’t like?
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You think the Ayn Rand fans will?
Absolutely not. Alan Greenspan was a miserable failure.
I’m not impressed by ereiamjh’s assertion that libertarians are “the worst people ever”. As if the folks at the DEA that rebuild evidence garnered from NSA’s records aren’t some of the worst individuals on the planet.
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If you had said something like that instead of making a completely stupid straw man argument I probably wouldn’t have criticized your argument.
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How does one own a job? Being laid off just means an employer doesn’t want to associate with you. Should people be forced to associate with others? Who decides?
Sure forcing someone out of their home is an extreme scenario but this happens under every other political system. Positing that this might happen in a libertarian society says nothing interesting. Additionally, if people can be forced out it isn’t their home. I’m against property taxes so government forfeiture wouldn’t exist in the society I would advocate.
So you find coercive, non-voluntary interactions superior? There is no perfect system but starting with the idea that force is OK seems flawed to me. There’s no where to go but down from there.
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‘The expression “x should die in a fire” needs to die in a fire’ should die in a fire.
Your move.
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