Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/10/someone-made-a-single-bitcoin.html
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If Bitcoin did fold I can see at least a billion reasons someone would be very sad.
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Again: I’d love someone to explain how Bitcoin is not solely for illegal activity, baseless idiotic speculation, or tax evasion, and then explain why it is we even allow it as part of a civilized, interconnected society.
Because all I see is criminality, evasion and deceit with a convenient handle attached for pickup.
I’d love to hear a smart, reasonable reason for why we have Bitcoin. And I’ve never, ever gotten one that doesn’t boil down to some Libertarian tantrum (but I repeat myself).
Anyone wanna rationalize this nonsense for me?
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I’m sure he / she earned every penny of it.
[note sarcasm]
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So…organized crime, terrorism or gov intelligence operation?
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Why not all three?
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Kinda my thought.
Current working hypothesis: a state level actor paying off a ransomware infection.
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Because its for unregulated commodity speculation of course!
We allow it because something something rational markets regulation bad.
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Yeah, I hate bafflegab, too. And markets are only as rational as the people in them.
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I paid my therapist in Bitcoin, once. It wasn’t hard to print out a new paper wallet, transfer a small fraction of a BTC to it, and give it to her. It was mostly an experiment just to see how to do it, but it helped me see how easy it was, and how potentially useful. Currently, its price volatility and immaturity help make it too challenging to use for a regular currency, but those could change. Personally, I am a big fan of a grassroots, decentralized currency system which a single government can’t easily manipulate in order to fund wars or similar unilateral actions. The fact that it is used for illegal activity isn’t too compelling for me, because any currency is used for illegal activity, and the concept of what constitutes “illegal” has (in my mind) an unfortunate amount to do with what governments find inconvenient for a top-down agenda.
Words can be used for hate speech, communication, and art…I don’t think words should be regulated or censored. Maybe it’s a bad analogy.
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There’s a number (perhaps even a large number) of things that many people find morally perfectly acceptable even if they’re illegal.
And honestly, if we’re living online why should we have to rely on banks and credit processors to handle our transactions? Why shouldn’t we be able to pay for things as anonymously and personally as cash online?
What if I want to buy cheap insulin from Canada? That’s technically illegal, but how is it morally wrong when it’s hundreds of dollars here in the US but quite cheap in a non shithole country?
Seems like the market solution (if we’re going to insist on a market solution instead of actually creating a real healthcare system) is “piracy”.
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Yeah, it’s a bad analogy.
Also, if you drive on roads and use the water system, then you’re already benefiting from a government’s ‘unilateral action.’ If you don’t like how your taxes are spent, you’re not Nina Simone or Joan Baez; either pay them and vote for people who would spend them differently, or don’t pay them, cheat your fellow citizens of a working government, and then go to jail.
“Currently, its price volatility and immaturity help make it too challenging to use for a regular currency, but those could change.”
Uh, you’re confusing a feature with a bug. People want Bitcoin volatile because that makes scams easier. Plain and simple. People also want it immature, but in reality, any fortune in bitcoin is backed up by some words and a wish – in other words, even less than any government-issued paper financial instrument.
Also, when you say “The fact it is used for illegal activity doesn’t bother me,” that’s a bit specious, as well – you sound like some gunthusiast stroking their AR-15 and saying how they’d never, never shoot up a school, but the fact other people do doesn’t especially bother them.
" The fact that it is used for illegal activity isn’t too compelling for me, because any currency is used for illegal activity, and the concept of what constitutes “illegal” has (in my mind) an unfortunate amount to do with what governments find inconvenient for a top-down agenda."
Yeah, the fact murder is illegal is a real intrusion by the government onto our rights, as they find murder so inconvenient to their nefarious agenda. Same for those laws against libel, fraud and other crimes. I mean, I like reading about Anarchy as much as the next person, but I also appreciate being part of a functioning society which we are all in together.
I asked for good reasons for Bitcoin to exist; thanks for not providing any.
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So that Deutsche Bank and HSBC have competition.
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You’re right, banking as we know it is not perfect. But it’s better than having a bunch of melonfarmers with graphics cards cheat, swindle and bone each other over by selling vaporware phaux-money to each other.
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Every single time I’ve asked the same question, the answers I’ve gotten have either been pure snark or started with “Well, let me explain the concept of the blockchain…” and devolved into techno-libertarian-babble.
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Yeah, Blockchain is waaaaay more interesting intellectually* than bitcoin – and Blockchain doesn’t require bitcoin.
*Seriously, if I knew how to do Blockchain programming, I know there’s a make-a-mint application for it in my field.
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I can’t,but I can give you an argument against crypto-currencies by real anarchists (not Ayn-caps)
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Maybe, but it is, more or less, the basis for Citizens United: money is speech.
But
You lost me. Therapy is not, usually, illegal.
Cash is also used for illegal activity and tax evasion. Neither needs to be. Currency in general is used for speculation - lots of people looking to make money guessing right on Brexit these days.
What would you ban, exactly? Bartering in general?
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My undestanding of the post 2008 economy, is that every economy has historically held a criminal element (the iron price) and a legitimate element (the gold price). During times of legitimate economic expansion; real value is being created, peoples lives get better, and the legitimate economy is pretty much all anyone sees.
That’s for certain values of legitimacy, naturally. Importing/exporting slaves used to be legitimate, juat as buying and selling unburnt carbon emissions is now.
But when the good times inevitably wind down, then redistribution of existing wealth becomes far more lucrtitive than creating actual wealth. Las Vegas can out-“produce” Detroit, even though no real value is being created.
Criminal economies still have downturns themselves. Being a mafia boss doesnt make you immune to supply and demand.
At some point in the mid-distant future, it will be cost effective to audit the world’s gold stockpile, and find out how much of that gold is really gold, and how much of it is fairy money. I think this will also be the time that legitimate users of electricity-people who use it for moving and making and heating and cooling stuff- stop subsidizing miners of bitcoin.
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