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Comment by LudwigNagasena | Hacker News Reader

> Unlike the things you pointed out, Bitcoin will never give dividends or have any assets sold at an auction.

Crypto allowed me to transfer my wealth across border and helped me survive while Visa blocked my cards and local banks harassed me with their KYC/AML requirements and creative nonsense based out of fear of the US and EU sanctions. The utility of that is much higher than any dividends.

> Instead it's a pyramid scheme, easily replaceable by any other shitcoin out there, and the value of it should be close to $1 or less.

Wow, shitcoins sound so much worse than pieces of paper that are propped up by a legal decree, which legitimacy rests solely on the monopoly on violence. Wait, does it actually sound worse?

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I long suspected that "monopoly on violence" is a dog whistle. So I looked it up, and actually it's quite straightforward. If you think about the number of entities in a society that can legitimately control violence, the answer is either zero, one, or many. Zero is a pipe dream. Many is civil war. The only answer that makes sense is one. Thus "monopoly on violence" is just a scary sounding way of saying that a society has a government.

In my view, society is propped up by future expectations. This includes the value of government money.

Monopoly on violence is the defining property of the state according to Max Weber, one of the most famous sociologists. In what way is it a dog whistle?

Because it's only used by people in a tiny little political segment today - far-right-wing libertarians.

No one else denies this or doesn't believe it's true, I hasten to add. For most of us, we think that this is a good thing, but also such an obvious thing that it doesn't need to be mentioned.

The people who keep mentioning it are people who think it's a bad, bad thing. They want everyone to have access to violence at all times.

The sane majority does not.

In the “jungle” you only own what you can protect. Even your life. Violence is natural. Non-violence, property rights and free trade is extremely unnatural, and requires a strong central authority to write the rules and impose them.

Do you think it’s bad to put a teenager in jail for an abortion they did after they had been raped? Or is it also a good (well, it is certainly lawful) use of state monopoly on violence?

if the teenager is woke, its good. and a non woke person would never be prosecuted by any sane government, so your logic game is flawed

> far-right-wing libertarians

No. If your going to targrt political stratas, don't be narrow sighted.

The BLM and Antifa riots of "Defund the police" is exactly about the same concern, and supporters caused widespread violence to prove that point. There's a different reason, but many prominent Democrats urged those protests on, making it more broad than just some leftists commies.

The major difference is that BLM/antifa targeted local police with a national organization and got their way in many places, whereas conservatives are weary of the federal government are just some disorganized people that become easily targeted by the feds.

There is a saying, an armed society is a polite society.

I have no idea where you came up with "Many is civil war". Quite the opposite. Civil war erupts when one entity has a monopoly on violence and enough people decide that they've had quite enough of that, thank you very much.

> There is a saying, an armed society is a polite society.

There are all sorts of sayings. Is this one true?

The United States is the most heavily armed country of any size in the world. It is also more heavily armed than any time in its past.

And yet politeness appears to be at an all-time low. Certainly, a lot of political figures say things that are just astonishingly rude and horrible and false, things that would have destroyed their careers even twenty years ago but seem to make them very popular today.

It seems that saying is wildly false.

> I have no idea where you came up with "Many is civil war".

Probably they are knowledgeable about history, as their statement is simply true.

> Civil war erupts when one entity has a monopoly on violence and enough people decide that they've had quite enough of that, thank you very much.

I'm baffled as to how this makes sense to you.

How exactly do these people "decide they have had enough of that" without abrogating the states monopoly on violence? Surely by the time you get to civil war, there are _two sides fighting_??

It's like you just cut and paste a lot of slogans and stop thinking critically there.

I really suggesting reading some history.

Why did visa and the banks question you? What were you really trying to do?

Most likely leave Russia, Iran, or Venezuela.

Yes crypto has the evil property of bypassing KYC/AML to allow peaceful citizens to escape genocidal kleptocratic governments who seek to draft you to go into war with a WWI era Mosin a feminine hygiene product as a first aid kit and an oversized pair of rotten boots. Once again crypto proves to do nothing but aid and abet criminals such as those who refuse to invade their neighbors.

You are being downvoted but the point you make stands: there are a lot of people here who will jump at the opertunity to proclaim that crypto's only use is a ponzy scheme. That claim is not only objectively false, but they way they usually phrase it also preemptively shuts down any chance proponents of either side coming closer to seeing how this tech is actually used.

Whether it be war, tyranny and unjust sanctions, crashing economies, or just avoiding the arbitrary and often unjust fees, rules, seizures, and bannings imposed by private payment networks and services like paypal or visa, humanity will always need way to exchange cash. I for one am glad crypto (as a means to transfer funds) exists, glad it will continue to exist, and will continue to support it in any way I can.

To me, what it provides to humanity far outweighs the negatives.

No, I think everyone agrees that "evading the law" is another feature of cryptocurrencies. We simply don't think this is a good feature.

Trillions of dollars are stolen from the people by money laundering and tax evasion every year, and cryptocurrencies are one of the ways this is accomplished.

Yes, some people live in countries where the law is hostile. However, your solution, "Let's evade all laws concerning money," is WORSE, not better.

Trillions of dollars are stolen by government officials wastefully spending taxes they collect via mechanisms of force and by people who classify as "money laundering" activities they don't like -- such as people who grow weed and then sell it to a willing adult buyer and have the nerve to actually clean the cash so it can be spent on stuff like buying baby formula or the rent.

If the argument is bad stuff possible then your argument is to abolish government.

We cannot presuppose that breaking the law is necessarily bad or that following the law is not bad.

This argument applies just as much to cash as cryptocurrency and makes no sense.

I was trying to leave Russia.

Society is propped up by legal decree and violence. CryptoKitties didn't change that.

> Society is propped up by legal decree and violence

and a currency whose value approaches zero as time grows. if bitcoin is bad, how is that much better?

The former is actually being used to run businesses and as long as the currency is not a demurrage currency, you are going to have to accept inflation as the thing that keeps money in circulation.

> The former is actually being used to run businesses

run businesses? to say nothing about whether those businesses are sustainable or actually generating wealth & human prosperity. if you look at all the worst aspects of the economy, they're based in expansionary monetary policy and high time preference

> inflation as the thing that keeps money in circulation

it keeps people spending money on usually wasteful things and incentivizes the consumption of cheap goods, if you want an economy built on prosperity and enduring goods, you need to actually incentivize saving (not wasteful consumerism)

Btc is only valuable if you can exchange it to fiat, since your liabilities are still in fiat. You need fiat to buy groceries, pay mortgage, buy energy for mining etc…

> Btc is only valuable if you can exchange it to fiat

surely people value things other than paying off liabilities?

Are you actually using BTC as currency? Have you done anything but traded it? We all know the answer--that's why this meta commentary on money is pointless and pathetic.

> meta commentary on money is pointless and pathetic

why are you getting so defensive about the fact that fiat currency exponentially decreases in value

An interesting read of the quoted text since the topic that is supposedly being defended isn't even mentioned.

This is an attack on this whimsical philosophizing crypto-boosters use as a defense. No one cares about this "what is money" commentary. If you believe in your moon money so much why not just actually use it as money? Of course you'll have to lose those gainz but real money is just worthless paper right?

> If you believe in your moon money so much why not just actually use it as money

I don't buy stuff with it though it's being used to facilitate transactions for people. I route around $40k a month.

> local banks harassed me with their KYC/AML requirements

So you use crypto to break the law, and you believe you are justified in doing that. Thing is, most of the people using crypto for crime are simply using it to not pay taxes.

> Wow, shitcoins sound so much worse than pieces of paper that are propped up by a legal decree, which legitimacy rests solely on the monopoly on violence. Wait, does it actually sound worse?

Yes, it absolutely does sound worse.

On one side, we have the United States - the largest economy in the history of the world, backed by the government with the largest income of any government in history, a court system, the police and their "monopoly on violence".

On the other side, you have a cryptocurrency backed by nothing, created by anonymous individuals, with no form of conflict resolution whatsoever.

Cryptocurrencies have been around for almost as long as the smart phone. You would think one or two of you would have taken even a first year economics course during this time.

> So you use crypto to break the law, and you believe you are justified in doing that. Thing is, most of the people using crypto for crime are simply using it to not pay taxes.

Using it for crime? That just makes crypto even more similar to traditional finance.

> Yes, it absolutely does sound worse.

So you think all countries should switch their currencies to the US dollar? Do you think it is just as good for countries to give up their financial sovereignty as it is for common people?

> Cryptocurrencies have been around for almost as long as the smart phone. You would think one or two of you would have taken even a first year economics course during this time.

I was a teaching assistant for a graduate course in macroeconomics in a top 50 department during my PhD. Arrow-Debreu and all that.

> transfer my wealth

I don't think _anyone_ is against using cryptocurrencies as a way of transferring money. It doesn't make sense to transfer wealth via something that rapidly changes its value, right? Because means of transferring wealth requires preserving the value of the wealth. Bitcoin today does not preserve its value, as evident by the rapid decline in value in the past few days.

The monopoly on violence actually sounds better to me. I am a big fan of violence, when applied against certain types of anti-social people.

My fetish is unnecessarily-superior firepower against people advocating for violence (and also their families)

You are talking about shooting police officers, judges, law enforcement, and the people who support the law, as well as as their families.

I'm not going to pretend to be surprised - many American conservatives have expressed the same sentiments to me. However, I am surprised you post it in a public forum.

I think insurgent is the word, I grew up with conservatives and they are not like this

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