4
votes
Bitcoin
Bitcoin doesn't really fit in any of the overall headers; I'm trying it here.
It's the main reason I found tildes.
For me, Bitcoin is both 'tech' and 'politics.' Lol
Bitcoin doesn't really fit in any of the overall headers; I'm trying it here.
It's the main reason I found tildes.
For me, Bitcoin is both 'tech' and 'politics.' Lol
What's the intended purpose of this topic? There doesn't seem to be any sort of information or question in it.
I guess I'm saying: I'm looking forward to more categories, because Bitcoin doesn't fit in any of them. Lol
You can post bitcoin-related topics in ~tech with a "bitcoin" tag (exactly like you did with this topic). If there's demand, we can have a dedicated ~tech.cryptocurrency or ~tech.bitcoin group, but there's no need to split them up yet.
Right, because the US military, which backs the US dollar, is so environmentally friendly Lol
Nor did I say it was. The value of the US dollar, however, is backed up by force.
uh... no it isn't. It's a fiat currency. It has no backing other than people's trust in its value.
in order words, exactly the same backing as pretty much every currency ever (including bitcoin) that doesn't have a commodity backing it.
Only insomuch as society as a whole is insured / underwritten by the threat of force.
In that regard, Bitcoin is absolutely no different.
Does the money from taxation not provide services? How do you think services such as a police department or fire department should be funded? What about utilities, such as water and electricity, where the extremely high barrier to entry makes it impractical to have more than one company? How would these happen without taxation?
While there are some laws that are stupid, there are also laws that are needed. How do you oppose we deal with murders and rapists without a police department?
The thing I fear here is not a lack of efficiency, but one unregulated company with a monopoly over a necessary service. If there is only one company that provides electricity, what stops them from charging 100 or 1000x the current prices? This sort of monopoly would not help anyone but the people who own the company.
I can't watch your video, so I'm just going to address your second point.
Cost. Even with no regulation, you won't find 2 utility companies competing outside high-usage industrial areas because the cost of installing the infrastructure would take too long to get any ROI with a split market. Without taxpayer-funded projects (like the TVA) and government subsidies for power companies in rural areas, rural areas might never have gotten power because a population density of 1-2 people per mile is unlikely to be profitable without serious rate hikes. If there's only one provider in an area (whether it's a natural monopoly or a franchise agreement), regulation ultimately becomes necessary to prevent abuses of power (see: Enron).
Edit: A bit late for an edit, but this just occurred to me. An argument could be made that if people in extremely rural areas want electricity, they should just move to more dense areas- the government shouldn't subsidize their way of life, especially since they survived without it just fine before. But that steers the debate towards "what role should the government play in our society?" People without power are unlikely to know what they're missing out on, so there's not much incentive to go out of their way to travel and "experience" it. Moving costs money, and those with money would move, leaving behind those who cannot afford to. Without power, you won't have telephone lines, meaning no 911. You also won't have cell service, so without crappy solar chargers, nobody will buy one (especially if nobody around you has one, either), meaning rates in the area will be really high.
On a more economic note, infrastructure like highways would be far more expensive to build, because although you don't need street lights on country highways, 24/7 rest areas will be more expensive due to the cost of laying power lines that will be used at 2 buildings on either side of the highway every 35 or 70 miles (depending on the state). Plus, highways create demand for gas stations, hotels, etc. and those will cost more to build and operate (and the need for employees to operate all these will create small towns which will undoubtedly want power as well, in addition to fire protection, sheriffs, etc.).
If the role of government is to help provide opportunities to its citizens (and if you believe government should handle law enforcement, that is providing economic opportunities for LEOs and reassurance to business owners that they don't need to hire private security), electricity is one of the best ways to do it. Not only does it create jobs for the residents, but it also allows highways to be travelled carrying goods since you don't have to worry about the distance between gas stations, thus encouraging commerce (and more efficient routes = more profit). I think that power should be made available to all US residents (even if they have to pay an installation fee), just like the USPS is obligated to deliver to any address, no matter how remote.
Edit 2: Also, we depend on rural farms, cutting them off or charging exorbitant rates for power out there would not be in our best interests (both for the items sold domestically and internationally).
The solution suggested in the video is interesting. I do not have the knowledge to argue about weather it would work or not, so I will not try to do so.
On the electricity company, I think you are understating the price to entry. The amount of capital required to start an electricity company is absurd. A second company would also be discouraged from entering the market because it would have to charge prices much closer to the cost of production. It would be left with huge quantities of debt and little profit, which would quickly destroy it. The other company could even temporarily lower its prices below the cost of producing electricity to force its new competitor out of business.
The objections you listed there are related to how taxes are used, not the principle of taxes. You could just as easily list examples of ways taxes are used to benefit citizens.
How do you build infrastructure on the scale of the US interstates without taxes? How do you ensure the members of the public who can't afford private school tuition get at least a basic education without taxes? Even if you're against the level of funding the military receives, how do you defend the country at all without taxes? How do you fund a police department without taxes?
Even volunteer fire departments have operating costs (equipment, vehicles, maintenance, fuel, electricity for the fire house) that are usually at least partly covered by local taxes, and they rely on infrastructure (roads and fire hydrants, to use two obvious examples) built and maintained using taxpayer money. And despite the name, not all volunteer firefighters are actually unpaid.
It's not a matter of efficiency. There are things that it is definitively in the public's best interest to have available to everyone, such as infrastructure, education, health care, and emergency services. Private individuals or companies will usually not have both the means and the motivation to provide these things to everyone, and society as a whole will suffer. That's why we need a government, and that government needs funds to operate. Taxation isn't theft, it's the price of living in a civilized society.
If the state is plagued by corruption, then removing the corruption is the answer, not doing away with the state.
No you can’t, I don’t carry paper currency. But the same thing applies if you carry around bitcoin on a thumb drive or whatever.
As for your violence and taxes thing... yah yah. All society is underpinned by the threat of violence. Not just the financial system, but the educational system, all of it. From the police, from the military, from your parents.
This isn’t an edgy point of view. It’s also not in favor of bitcoin. You and your family can be violently tortured just the same if you have bitcoin wealth, dollar wealth or even real estate.
When the US government spends more US dollars into existence (in its capacity to do so as a monetary sovereign, much like any other monetary sovereign with its own currency), it does not inherently contribute to the destruction of the environment. The creation of US dollars is a policy decision by the government, and is as complicated as adding some extra numbers to an account (i.e. as trivial as a penstroke). Sidenote: this is also why fearmongering over US debt is unfounded and why you should never trust the economic positions of anyone who does so.
Someone consuming electricity to solve a Bitcoin into existence (or any other coin which requires computational work to create) is fundamentally different from the creation of sovereign currency. So in addition to being a terrible currency because you can't apply fiscal or monetary policy to it in a meaningful or useful way, and also being a currency that serves no genuine unavoidable purpose (unlike sovereign currency which is generally the only valid way with which to pay taxes owed to the state that issues it), the computational work to create a Bitcoin ALSO HANDILY CONTRIBUTES to the casual destruction of the environment by way of unsustainably driving up demand for electricity (which encourages and forces the usage of fossil fuel based energy generation).
edit: sidenote sidenote, the Greece/Eurozone crisis is an example of what happens when a country gives up its ability to manage its own currency and then runs into financial trouble.
I mean, you're wrong, but okay. At the federal level, taxes destroy money to prevent inflation of the money supply.
All systems which rely on private finance and property to determine the distribution of goods are inherently coercive.
Taxes aren't theft. Property is theft.
Property is incompatible with revolution. Any system which retains property will inevitably redevelop the base tyrannies inherent to the present economic structure, because private capital is the structural raison d'être of capitalism.
The enactment of property is a theft from the common inheritance of mankind:
-Pyotr Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread
Redistributing power from the state to owners of capital is no victory at all for the vast majority of people - it is a victory only for capital itself. But capital can never be rid of the state, because the state is necessary to property's existence from the masses who would see it redistributed or abolished, and to peacably adjudicate disputes over property between owners of it.
The only way to truly destroy central authority is to destroy the notion of private property and allow all people to commonly hold mankind's capacity to create and enjoy wealth. Anything less requires an authority to secure society's restriction of ownership to individuals.
edit: quotation insert
It's worth mentioning the difference between Private Property (owning businesses, machinery, or 'the means of production') and Personal Property (personal items like clothes, books, your car, or 'your stuff'). That seems to be a distinction a lot of people get caught up on.
Edit: It seems you expanded upon your original post with an edit
Yes, this distinction is important and people like me tend to forget it too often because we're surrounded by environs which casually understand the distinction and don't need it pointed out.
So thanks for the mention. The reminder to do so is always useful.
lol this entire bit is just begging the question
it's nice to know that the inevitable justification for capital at the base always devolves into false dilemma thought experiments with faulty premises
The argument against is the amount of suffering that such a shift would cause. There's no such thing as an orderly revolution, and there are huge numbers of people who rely on things running smoothly (or at least the impression of smoothly that they run at now) to even survive.
I'd rather fix the system than tear it all down and hope for the best.
While I disagree with your point, your reasoning behind it is also flawed.
Just because there's bad alternatives doesn't mean everything is bad and therefore acceptable. It would be much more positive for the discussion to come up with possible answers, instead of dismissing the alternatives because they're also bad.
I think Bitcoin is much worse for the environment in the current day than "the US dollar, backing the US military". I think Bitcoin (and most applications of blockchain in general) are undoing decades of trying to preserve energy for future generations.
FWIW: My personal opinion is that the gold standard is still the best we have, and that we should revert back to it.
I always find this argument a little dishonest. What about the energy powering all the banks and transactions in the world? The amount of resources and human labor that is used to make an international transaction secure? Bitcoin doesn't need all of that.
In 2017, bitcoin mining consumed more electricity that Ireland. In 2018, it is currently estimated to use more than twice that amount. While I do not know for certain, I think that all the banks in the world use less than twice the electricity of Ireland.
I would be interested in the amount of power used for HFT, though. Lower, presumably, but I'm uncertain as to how much.
I would assume that it is several times lower, simply because of the sheer scale of bitcoin farms.
I wish I bought bitcoin, I almost did as a joke when it was like 15 dollars.
Don't beat yourself up over it. Everyone says the same thing about anything worth money now.
When would you have sold it, though? $50? $100?
Bitcoin isn't politics.
The value where you can buy things with it?