They view it as a feature, but for all the reasons this poster pointed out, the rest of us view it as an anti-feature.
That's not how currency works, people have to want your coins for you to spend them. At best, having this perspective relegates Bitcoin to be nothing more than a speculative asset/investment. But if you want it to be more than that and you're just scoffing at normal people who point out why they don't want to transact with you, well then... surprise, they won't want to accept your currency for transactions.
Popularity actually matters for a currency.
If your perspective is that Bitcoin isn't going to be a ubiquitous alternative to the USD for general purchases until after the government collapses and no longer has the political power to prop up the dollar, then I have bad news for you about your currency's usefulness as an anti-authoritarian weapon/tool.
Before that, gold and silver were often used as lowest common denominators internationally. See The power of gold: the history of an obsession by Bernstein for that. However metals weren't used everywhere: e.g., China used paper currencies for many years, and giant rocks where used in Micronesia:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
Money: the true story of a made-up thing by Goldstein has a good pop-history overview.
Power often didn't come into play for currency choice, and neither did things "implode" as opposed to a gradual shifting in preference amongst currency users.
Power comes into play as to dictating what currency people are forced to use. That the old coins had to be handed back in or dictating the adaptation. They implode when there is nothing backing it what so ever. At its core its Greshams law at work, with currencies or with other store of values.
If i am not mistaken Graeber has quite a few examples of this mechanism.
The year is 2011. Visa and Mastercard have denied everyone the ability to donate money to wikileaks, despite the fact that they were not charged with any crimes.
And yet, back then, I could still send them bitcoin.
So yes, actually, even though only a small subset of people actually used bitcoin (especially back then!), it provided a very real and immediate usecase, for people who wanted to achieve that usecase of sending money to a charity that broke no laws, that the credit card companies were block payments so.
Everything that you are saying, is immediately counteracted and proven wrong by actual real world examples of people using crypto currencies.
A point that's been raised multiple times elsewhere on this page is that Bitcoin has no backup strategy for when exchanges start getting targeted. It's not a good anti-authoritarian tool because the ability for it to be converted into a usable form exists at the pleasure of governments, who are increasingly looking at regulating exchanges.
Sure, you can send Bitcoin to people who want Bitcoin. Great. The question is, who is going to want Bitcoin under an authoritarian regime if it can't be easily converted into a spendable currency for real goods and services? Does Bitcoin survive when it has to be spendable on its own? Because at that point it's not just Wikileaks that has to accept it, the people/businesses that Wikileaks is buying from and transacting with have to accept it as well.
There's a difference between a currency and transfer mechanism. Bitcoin right now works (somewhat, kinda) as a transfer mechanism because exchanges exist and because people trust it as a transfer mechanism for other currencies.
Involuntary adaptation historically leads to drastic inflation with the trust in the purchasing power degrading. If you are forced to accept it despite low trust, you are motivated to exchange it for any other store of value. And are reluctant to produce stuff for which you have to accept a degrading currency. Both of which harms the actual economy.
Right, and the issue here is that Bitcoin is not spendable without first being converted to a better currency that normal merchants like your grocer will accept. That's Bitcoin's weak point, you clamp down on exchanges and suddenly it can't be used with most merchants.
> Involuntary adaptation historically leads to drastic inflation with the trust in the purchasing power degrading.
I don't mean to jump between threads here, but didn't you just finish telling me elsewhere that Bitcoin would be accepted once people had no better choice of other currencies to use, and that's why it didn't matter whether or not it was a currently attractive currency for my local grocer?
That sounds a lot like involuntary adoption to me.
To the other point, i described the mechanism of adaptation. If the current mechanism of transfer stops working people historically fall back to anything else that works. They have to use something, trade must go on so they choose the next best thing till something better emerges. The involuntary pressure on the value then starts over when that emerging currency is blocked by force again.
Its all just the description of peoples behavior. People dont like loosing money and will act to prevent it.
It's not completely clear to me that Bitcoin would even work for drugs or ransomware if those people weren't then converting Bitcoin into local currencies. This argument really undervalues the role that exchanges play in this process. I can earn a dollar, spend it on something, and the person I give it to as payment can spend that same dollar somewhere else. It never really needs to be converted. Sure I can convert that to other currencies if I want or if I'm trying to bridge the gap between economies in different countries, but importantly there's a rather large section of the economy that works just with dollars.
That's not really what's happening with Bitcoin even on the drug market. People pay Bitcoin for drugs, that gets mixed up to try and preserve anonymity, and then it gets cashed out into other currencies.
> To the other point, i described the mechanism of adaptation. If the current mechanism of transfer stops working people historically fall back to anything else that works.
It seems odd to simultaneously say that Bitcoin will be adopted because people won't have any other options (not because they like how it works), and also that people needing to use currencies that they don't trust leads to inflation and economic harm. Do you expect drastic inflation to happen if Bitcoin becomes the only viable currency for people to use?
It might boil down to the same in the big picture (people having to use it) but people react differently in the two described situations. One is somebody trying to tax you through inflation, one is using something that is tiresome to use. You will be a lot more motivated to find an alternative for the former then the later.
To the other point, bitcoin being exchanged into other currencies is caused in the expectation of what will in the future be exchangeable for goods and services. IE Adaption. At the end of the day its the transfer of credit. Me paying the supermarket in fiat doesnt speak for an intrinsic value in the pieces of paper, but the expectation, that i worked for those tokens in the past or promised to work for them in the future. Thats all currencies are, what we use is determined by force (government pressure), ease of use and adaption.
I hope we are not talking in circles here, i am trying to get across that its important to look at what actually drives peoples behavior.
1) Inflation is inflation expectation, which just means a loss of trust. You expect to get less for it in the future and if everyone does, it happens.
1a) No individual wants to hold their savings in devaluing stores of value. There is a fear of value loss that drives behavior and Greshams law sets in
1b) Nobody wants to produce for a loss. If you pay more then you can expect to get, you might not do it if you are not allowed to raise prices.
1c) Forcing people to accept it (ie price dictates) doesnt really work, see 1b.
2) You need some transfer medium. Our economy works by me having worked or having promised to work for what i buy in the supermarket. Just because one currencies is buged or exploited doesnt mean i no longer have to buy stuff. Adaption is then driven by market chains. I pay the supermarket in those tokens they pay their suppliers who they in turn can exchange for what they need. Those tokens are generally the ones the government wants for taxes and forces people to use, but if governments fuck up to badly, people still have to eat. Same story over and over again.
Currencies are a con game. They are the best thing we have to keep tab of who gets what in what we produce daily. If it gets exploited (me promising to work in the future every day in the supermarket while never doing it), people tend to realize that sooner or later. If you cant cut off the individual doing it the currency gets devalued over time which triggers psychological effects. Modern monetary theory is the assumption that while you cant force people to use it, it wont devalue if people have no other store of value to flee into. I think thats very optimistic if you look at stock prices (another store of value with even less practicality for daily exchange).
At the end of the day, all crypto needs to be is something any market chain can fall back on once the current one is broken so baldy that the chain halts. (Producers stopping to produce)
Governments trying to ban exchanges falls into the same category as dictating that a farmer has to accept fiat for his stuff. If its not profitable, the farmer will stop and i will still have to eat. Adoption of literally any other functioning store of value then gets forced Which leads us to the second theory behind modern monetary theory. That we are technologically far enough to prevent off book transactions. Which would however still trigger the dont produce for a loss part.
In short, printing money wont work forever, as it only works as long as people believe it to. That sets a mechanism in motion that requires another means of exchange. Who ever has something working will get the job to keep the economy running. All crypto have to be is less bad then trust people have in the governments ability to manage the currency.
The rest of us probably actually want an anonymous, "like cash" crypto currency that is resilient against theft (which basically implies some sort of non-repudiation and compensating transactions).
But, such a currency probably wouldn't be great for speculation or black market transactions, which are the killer use cases for bitcoin.
> Chaum published the idea of anonymous electronic money in a 1983 paper;[1] eCash software on the user's local computer stored money in a digital format, cryptographically signed by a bank. The user could spend the digital money at any shop accepting eCash, without having to open an account with the vendor first, or transmitting credit card numbers. Security was ensured by public key digital signature schemes. The RSA blind signatures achieved unlinkability between withdrawal and spend transactions. Depending on the payment transactions, one distinguishes between on-line and off-line electronic cash: If the payee has to contact a third party (e.g., the bank or the credit-card company acting as an acquirer) before accepting a payment, the system is called an on-line system.[2] In 1990, Chaum together with Moni Naor proposed the first off-line e-cash system, which was also based on blind signatures.[3]
All laws and regulations necessarily take freedom away. That is the basis of the social contract: you aren’t free to harm others.
It is nakedly authoritarian for the government to restrict, at the point of a gun, consenting adults from choosing their own method of transaction.
This doesn’t check out. The existence of good laws doesn’t preclude the existence of (other) bad laws.
> It is nakedly authoritarian for the government to restrict, at the point of a gun, consenting adults from choosing their own method of transaction.
This doesn’t factor in negative externalities (e.g. climate impact).
Thats a bad case of framing. Contract implies willing participants and free choice. You have a story which with you justify forcing people around.
I repeat: that’s the definition of the social contract. You are forced, by threat of violence, not to engage in harmful activities.
1) Contract implies consenting parties. Using the word in another capacity is a frame. It being a popular one doesnt change that.
2) Your actions entailing a lot more then just your declared intentions. As in your definition of harmful being quite broad.
Or differently put, you have a story which with you justify forcing people around.
As an example, if you enter into a legal contract, that contract is backed up by the threat of litigation (and by extension, force). If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be any incentive to obey it.
And yes, I do believe that the consensus is that activities with an outsized climate impact are harmful.
And if it were consensus you wouldnt have to force it.
Both "contract" and "consensus" are nice frames for forcing people to do what you think is right. At least be honest about it.
If you instead hold the view that _every single individual_ should be able to opt out of the contract (i.e. should be able to choose not to be subject to the rule of law), then you go back to ‘anarchism is the only form of free government’, which is where we started this discussion 6 comments ago. QED.
For the individual there is no contract and no consensus, you just said so. For the individual its do as you are told at the threat of violence.
Differently put, you just repeated a story which with you justify forcing other individuals around.
You not liking this framing doesnt change that.
edit: I am not repeating myself for fun here. Once we agree that your "consensus based societal contract" is code for "forcing other individuals to do as you tell them at the threat of force", we can look at what anarchists actually say and how much better of a story they have.
How much better is "being born into an involuntary "contract" that dictates your actions at the threat of violence" described as slavery vs "consensual contract"?
All completely unrelated to the implications. Facts generally dont care for implications. You not wanting to hear them dont make them go away.
It seems that we are in agreement on this point?
If so, I'm really not sure on which point you're disagreeing with me (with a healthy amount of sneering, nonetheless, which I might remind you is against HN guidelines).
Is it that the term 'social contract' offends you? You may also replace 'contract' with 'flubbitz' in my argument; the argument still holds. I used the term 'social contract' because it's a well-understood term in the English language ('high school level' according to Dictionary.com).
You argument is that my assertion cant be true because it would mean Anarchism to be the only form of government.
I think this is intellectually dishonest, you dont end up at it as a logical conclusion, after all, there are some practical problems with Anarchism that dont just disappear. If i had to guess why you might think this, it might be caused by you wanting to look favorably on your worldview? (no offense intended, its an honest guess that might help to self reflect)
The description of reality is however absolutely unrelated to the implications drawn from it. Just because you think there is a logical conclusion doesnt change the basic facts and i think we should communicate them plainly. Because doing so might show errors in what conclusions you drew from it.
My initial statement is true unrelated to its implications. I tried getting away from the individual vocabulary to the meaning behind it so we dont get hung up on the wording.
What you describe here (yes i heard of societal contracts before) is the justification of why this is a good and necessary flubbitz. I point out that this is a bit dishonest, because on paper the Flubbitz you describe is a lot closer to slavery then to a consensual contract. You just think its necessary because of (story + implications) which makes your use a common but dishonest frame. You could make a good argument, that "Good and necessary type of slavery" is an equally fitting description, after all, you agree that it entails not giving individuals a choice and forcing them to comply by force. We by no means have to agree on it being slavery but think about the structure we exist in. So:
Statement 1, calling that a consensual contract is a frame aimed at making it more palpable because of (implications + intentions). It is still forcing individuals to do something they never had the chance to disagree with
Your answer to this is repeating the intentions and implications you see. You dont disagree over the basics, just argue that it is necessary.
All of the above might be seen as just an annoying attempt of smearing a righteous worldview. However, my argument is that this dishonesty has substantial implications. Namely
Statement 2, the wording of the contract being quite broad and exploitable. Not just are you stuck in a good Flubbitz, there exist a power structure that has the ability to redefine its terms how it sees fit.
Saying that this would would mean we had to start anarchism is no different then saying due to problems with capitalism we now have to start communism. The problems still exist and have to be dealt with them. Sugarcoating to feel better about a bad situation is counterproductive. Politics is an ugly business, maybe we should think about where the terms of the Flubbitz get interpreted to broadly, no? After all, its not as cuddly and innocent as it sounds.
Re: statement 1, if any single individual were able to disagree, a murderer could just say 'I don't consent with the social contract, because I believe it's within my rights to murder'. At that point, I don't see how you can describe it any other way than 'anarchism', as anybody can then choose the rules that apply to themselves without regard to other members of society.
Re: statement 2, the terms aren't set in stone, they can be changed by the people, i.e. via democratic processes or via revolution.
Anyway, we are going in circles here, and you are also continuing to call my attempt at a good-faith discussion 'dishonest', so this will be my last comment on the topic. Have a good day.