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Comment by monktastic1 | Hacker News Reader

You could say that humanity has repeatedly and organically come to a solution broadly known as government and regulation.

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Worked great in 2008.

It's like people assume the current financial system is perfect and bitcoin is not. Bitcoin never pretended to be, it's still an experiment 10 years in, but its a fun expierment.

It’s fun while it’s worth a bucketload. When people start losing their shirts and dumpster loads of ASICS are being burned for cooking fires... less fun.

(Some hyperbole engaged above)

There's a massive difference in crypto over fiat. In the US, if you have a debt they can take back your home, you can get harassed and taken to court.

The stakes are not that high for crypto wealth. Its unenforceability makes the stakes a lot lower for tragedy.

You know what? It did. You still have running water. Government employees like cops and firefighters and teachers are getting paid (sometimes not enough).

So yeah, it worked great.

"People in Africa are starving, so you're having a great day!"

Bullshit argument, I'm sorry.

I didn't say it was perfect. I doubt that whatever "organic" solution we're hoping the crypto community will self-enforce will be either.

If something bad happens, it will be the will of the 51%, not the .01%.

It actually did. The market was on it's way to crashing harder than the great depression, but it didn't, probably thanks in some part to government being able to intervene and control monetary policy

Have you ever heard of the phrase "kicking the can down the road"?

You can play this argument ad infinitum without actually adding anything of value to this conversation.

Central banking is not perfect, but it has a better track record of stability and growth than any other system that’s been tried at a large scale. Try and remember that the alternatives aren’t optimal economic systems that are immune to bubbles, recessions, depressions, hyperinflation, corruption and manipulation.

If anything the Bitcoin experiment is reinforcing why we have existing regulations in place.

How do you know that it has a better track record of "stability" and "growth" than any other system at a large scale? Much of America's growth in the late 19th happened without any central banks in 1913. Most of "depressions" happened prior to that -- and there were 4 such major ones in the 19th century and many of them were directly caused by the govt policy changes -- were nowhere as severe as the Great Depression occurred after the creation of the central banking in the US.

You mean the gov't regulation prevented the GD that it created?

A very large amount of Bitcoiners absolutely insisted we were headed towards hyperinflation due to QE back then. In fact that was the very reason a lot of them were interested in Bitcoin in the first place.

Interesting how things have worked out. They were right about Bitcoin's value, but badly wrong on all of the economic related predictions.

Holder, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, after, well, not doing his job prosecuting banks: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”

Soon after he was done with his effective regulation, according to you, he returned to his job...defending large financial institutions...at Covington & Burling LLP, D.C. law firm.

It did and it didn't. On one hand, we stopped a panic that would have led to a true depression. On the other hand we did so by actually increasing the power and wealth of many of the people and organizations responsible for creating the conditions that led to the panic.

Do that long enough and you get a civilization run by overconfident incompetents and shielded fraudsters. That build up of delusional bozos at the top is one of the things that eventually leads to collapse.

Bitcoin was in some ways a protest in code form. Why can't we create a software defined monetary system that is transparent and where corrupt and incompetent human orgs can be replaced by algorithms?

I like that idea, but Bitcoin itself was really just a proof of concept. We're not there yet. In the meantime we've gotten a silly bubble that's starting to look like a parody of the project's original goals.

>> You could say that humanity has repeatedly and organically come to a solution broadly known as government and regulation.

> Worked great in 2008.

Wasn't 2008 at least partially the result of having banking regulations withdrawn/weakened over the prior decades?

If so, isn't it pretty bogus and misleading judge the effectiveness of financial regulation from that event? It's like saying airbags don't help in a crashes, because yours was removed and you smacked your face against the steering wheel in a crash.

You still had a system that decided removing airbags was a good idea. Then, when getting smacked in the face, doing nothing to the people involved in removing the airbags or causing the face smacking.

That doesn't really reflect on the suitability or effectiveness of regulation to address the problem. Greedy, ignorant people who failed to study and learn from the past can be the decision-makers, too.

Then you have a systemic problem allowing greedy ignorant people to be decision makers. Not sure how to fix this, but I believe there is a solution.

I disagree vehemently to this proposition. I have never agreed or voted to get those regulations in place. They are not voluntary. But anyone falling for tether today is making an individual decision.

Just because you personally weren't consulted on those regulations doesn't mean that they weren't come to by people who were democratically elected. And you agreed to abide by the laws of a jurisdiction by living there. Otherwise, what's to stop you from saying, "I never agreed not to kill people"?

> And you agreed to abide by the laws of a jurisdiction by living there. Otherwise, what's to stop you from saying, "I never agreed not to kill people"?

Nobody agreed to not kill people either. Thats why killing is also legal in many circumstances. Also arguing that we all agreed to the rules there in would mean that if slavery were legal it would be ok, becase we all agreed to it. But thats another topic.

The point is that if I believe in an institution without regulation the option between me and that institution is severed by an unrelated third party. I dont want to ask the SEC any permission to buy tethers.

"Also arguing that we all agreed to the rules there in would mean that if slavery were legal it would be ok, becase we all agreed to it"

No. That's a poor argument that, in this case, falsely equivocates slavery with financial regulation.

"I dont want to ask the SEC any permission to buy tethers."

That's not what's happening in the least. But if Tether is a scam, then it will be shut down, as it should be. And no amount of "freedom" will justify running a scam on other people.

> No. That's a poor argument that, in this case, falsely equivocates slavery with financial regulation.

You say its a poor argument, but you dont say why.

> That's not what's happening in the least. But if Tether is a scam, then it will be shut down, as it should be. And no amount of "freedom" will justify running a scam on other people.

Tether will crash itself if it doesnt have the money its supposed to have, we don't need the sec for that ,the same way the SEC didnt start the 2008 meltdown or Enron's demise. Its even more egregious if you consider tether is not in the US and affects non-US citizens the most. So why has the SEC the power to intervene in other countries with people that haven't elected them?

Its purely an act on a position of power, not on agreed rules, and thats some of the spirit that sorrounds crypto. Crypo will be more mature if it deals with this problems without government intervention.

> I disagree vehemently to this proposition.

I haven't made a proposition. I just pointed out that historically, when societies have made decisions about this sort of thing, they've generally decided that such individuals require protection via regulations.

In general, most of the laws we are expected to follow are not ones we personally agreed to or voted on. I'm not sure that makes them less "organic." If you're arguing that you should not be expected to follow laws that you didn't personally agree to, I think that's a bigger conversation.

Actually, historically all governments started through conquest (military victory), not social contracts. Societies didn't make any decision - governments did, and societies accepted the status quo.

But governments didn't invent society from atomized individuals through conquest. All government did was add another layer in addition to the organically developed pre-existing social contracts.

>> You could say that humanity has repeatedly and organically come to a solution broadly known as government and regulation.

> I disagree vehemently to this proposition. I have never agreed or voted to get those regulations in place. They are not voluntary. But anyone falling for tether today is making an individual decision.

Nevertheless, you benefit from them. It's not like you have to sign up to the regulation that makes your murder illegal. Don't you think it would be foolish to expect every generation to have to rediscover, through trial and error, the benefits of society and government?

An important distinction has to be made between law abiding and regulation.

Law against murder is: if you do it, you will be jailed.

Regulation against murder is: you cant have anything that harms another human being, and we need to check you up regularly to make sure you haven't killed anyone.

Regulation is not abiding for the law. Thats what lawsuits are about. Regulation is about preventing law to be broken with preventive measures.

> Don't you think it would be foolish to expect every generation to have to rediscover, through trial and error, the benefits of society and government?

I wish we had that, but we can't, we have to live entire generations with laws designed by previous ones. Isn't the drug war on the US a prime example of that? If you put it up for a vote, the majority would vote to make it legal or not prosecute it.

But this is not a topic about the mere existence of government, its about an ecosystem that was born and fueled about how the government and the banks crap on people, and trying to make it better with banks and government is going the other way.

I think you're confused about the differences between a law and a regulation. As I understand it, at least in the US context, regulations are rules specify the finer details of the implementation of a law. You can be jailed for the violation of a regulation [1].

> I wish we had that, but we can't, we have to live entire generations with laws designed by previous ones.

There's an expression that describes your attitude, it's "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." The thing about "the laws designed by previous [generations]" is that most of them are good, and the ones that aren't will eventually be abolished or modified, in a democratic society.

> and trying to make it better

The attempt is ignorant "disruption" that's repeating, word for word many of the long-solved mistakes of the past. If you want to make something better, you can't focus on the just problems of the current solution, but you also have to focus on all the problems the current solution already solved. To do otherwise is foolishness.

[1] For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_... lists several instances.

> I think you're confused about the differences between a law and a regulation. As I understand it, at least in the US context, regulations are rules specify the finer details of the implementation of a law. You can be jailed for the violation of a regulation [1].

Sure, but violating the regulation has no victim. If you sold lemonade on a stand in california, you would be breaking regulations but there is no victim that would ever sue you for damages.

Regulations, at least in general, about preventing something from happening by restricting action. Legal action is about responsibility: if something happens you are going to be accountable for that which happened.

Tether deserves a lawsuit on fraud, because they committed fraud. But we don't need the sec for that.

> There's an expression that describes your attitude, it's "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." The thing about "the laws designed by previous [generations]" is that most of them are good, and the ones that aren't will eventually be abolished or modified, in a democratic society.

Tell that to all the people doing 25+y for doing or dealing pot. They must agree with you!

> For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_.... lists several instances.

I'm no expert on arms dealing but isnt the US Gov the one that gives out the most weapons to radicals? I thought the US as a successful exporter of weapons..and certainly of violence!

Don't miss the fact that regulation is excercised by people with the same incentives as anybody else, but with more power.

> Tell that to all the people doing 25+y for doing or dealing pot. They must agree with you!

> I'm no expert on arms dealing but isnt the US Gov the one that gives out the most weapons to radicals? I thought the US as a successful exporter of weapons..and certainly of violence!

I feel like you're just going for cheap points, but the thing is you don't even get those if you can't stay on topic. It's kinda pointless to talk with you if you keep running off on random tangents. Aren't we talking about financial regulation?

Actually, I'm not even sure if there's anything to your comments beyond an emotional hostility to the concept of regulation or something represented by it, so maybe we're not even communicating at all.

I didnt bring guns and arms dealing into the debate, that was you. I mentioned the war on drugs as an example of old laws that would not be voted on today, and the argument of keeping them because they must be good is destroying lives today.

The SEC is killing people today as well. Its barring most of the world on investing in the US on startups that could lift people out of poverty, increase quality of life and even help in fields like medicine, etc. And the ICO market is an example of how much demand for investment there is. The lesson is not that unregulated markets have scam artists and fraudsters, that we always knew, what is new is that the regulated market is silently opressing.

And to add insult to injury, the most egregious cases of mis-regulation have made the regulators screw over the general population instead of the institutions they failed to regulate.

On this very site ,most people can invest in the startups they read about everyday and work for everyday.

> I mentioned the war on drugs as an example of old laws that would not be voted on today, and the argument of keeping them because they must be good is destroying lives today.

You're arguing with a straw man of your own design.

> The SEC is killing people today as well. Its barring most of the world on investing in the US on startups that could lift people out of poverty

Jesus, that's the most ridiculous, hyperbolic thing I've read this month.

> Jesus, that's the most ridiculous, hyperbolic thing I've read this month.

Its basic microeconomics. You will learn a lot of read about it!

> Its basic microeconomics....!

Ah, that explains it. You know just enough to be dangerous.

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