The Complete Argument Against Crypto | Hacker News Reader

The Complete Argument Against Crypto

stephendiehl.com

32 pointssfg9 comments

This is a really bad article. It screams from the hilltops that crypto is bad because it doesn’t support the author’s statist/authoritarian worldview.

For example one of the article’s first points is that crypto is bad because it makes it harder for countries to enforce sanctions while ignoring that sanctions are acts of economic war and without recognizing that they have been horribly abused by governments in the past. (See Madeleine Albright defending her sanctions against Iraq which directly led to the deaths of 1.5 million women and children)

The author goes on to regurgitate every standard criticism against cryptocurrencies but in the shallowest of ways and without bringing anything new to the table.

I’ve seen many far better critiques of crypto. This article falls far short.

his point is not that sanctions or good or bad, but rather that the people doing the sanctioning were elected by the people. Albright was appointed by a president who won in a democratic referendum and was confirmed by senators who too were elected by the people in their respective states. There is accountability there. If you don’t like the leaders you can vote them out and replace them with new leaders. The American republic is by no means a perfect system, but it has a lot more accountability built into it than allowing private entities to control whether or not a foreign entity is sanctioned. Moving to a system where unelected billionaires have control of sanctioning powers with no accountability to the people is less desirable and offers less accountability

War crimes committed by democratically elected officials are still war crimes. I don’t see a compelling argument in giving Bush and Blair total control to decide the economic fate of nations who didn’t elect them is justifiable. Crypto is partly about separating money from state so democratically elected governments such as Canada cannot unilaterally delete people from the banking system without due process.

My original argument stands. The author’s primary argument is that crypto is bad for authoritarians/statists as it allows the subverting of state power. He is not wrong on that point, but he is viewing the issue from a one-sided perspective and his arguments are tired.

How does content like this end up here? I like to think HN does more than just read the headlines to confirm personal biases

It may not be the best written post (it's a bit rabid, jumps around, makes logical leaps) but he makes a whole series of clear and difficult to argue against points.

It will be very unpopular on Hacker News (which seems loaded with pro-gee-whiz people) but that doesn't make Diehl's points any less valid.

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