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Please don't make this a case for bitcoin. This is much more serious and complicated issue and will not get solved just by using bitcoin. I think you are over-r

Please don't make this a case for bitcoin. This is much more serious and complicated issue and will not get solved just by using bitcoin. I think you are over-romanticising the use of bitcoin, nothing else... Just saying,..

brokenmusic 13y ago
All I said that NSA, Drones and imprisonment of the population for victimless crimes requires money. I would also claim that if taxes were not collected (or would be impossible to collect) with a threat of force, very little number of people would pay them voluntarily. Also, if people were not forced by law to use national currencies for exchanging goods and services, they wouldn't be subject to hidden taxes, such as inflation. Bitcoin makes taxes prohibitively expensive to collect and inflation impossible. How is it an oversimplification then?
- rpicard 13y ago
  > hidden taxes, such as inflation. Maybe it was a typo, but I think you should double check what inflation means.
  - Roboprog 13y ago
    The effect of the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply, and making it available to favored banks and the US Treasury at low rates helps cause inflation and has about the same effect as a tax: your holdings are worth less, and somebody else, albeit indirectly, is able to tap into the value that those dollars held.
    - rpicard 13y ago
      Sounds like a pretty big stretch to call it a tax in my opinion.
      - nthj 13y ago
        The government has more money and I have less. I'd be interested to hear your suggestions for a better descriptor?
        rpicard 13y ago
        I'm not convinced that the government gets more money when inflation goes up. I've only taken an introductory level economics course, but I'm pretty sure the value of a currency goes down for everyone - government included - when inflation rises.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  If it was not forced by law there would be no private property at all.
  - whiddershins 13y ago
    empirically not true: http://www.eleuthera.it/files/materiali/David_Graeber_Fragments_%20Anarchist_Anthropology.pdf http://www.eleuthera.it/files/materiali/David_Graeber_Fragme...
    - Joeri 13y ago
      Please make a proper argument, nobody is going to read through all of that.
      - whiddershins 13y ago
        TLDR; Anarchist systems have existed throughout history both alongside and within, and most certainly in awareness of hierarchical systems which they often explicitly reject. Most assertions about the nature of those societies are based on ignorance. Most relevant to your comment, they tend(ed) to maintain rules, conventions, personal property, arbitrate disputes, take care of the weak, and do any number of other things considered impossible without government. Various types of egalitarian social order have existed, it isn't one monolithic concept, and it certainly doesn't necessarily result in chaos or might-makes-right. If you want specific examples and actual information, take the time to read the pdf. It is written by an anthropologist, so it is his gig to footnote all this stuff.
        mpyne 13y ago
        How have these anarchist societies fared after hierarchically-driven societies came through? I don't seem to recall it working out well in Africa, Asia, North America, or South America.
        whiddershins 13y ago

brokenmusic 13y ago

All I said that NSA, Drones and imprisonment of the population for victimless crimes requires money. I would also claim that if taxes were not collected (or would be impossible to collect) with a threat of force, very little number of people would pay them voluntarily. Also, if people were not forced by law to use national currencies for exchanging goods and services, they wouldn't be subject to hidden taxes, such as inflation. Bitcoin makes taxes prohibitively expensive to collect and inflation impossible. How is it an oversimplification then?

rpicard 13y ago
> hidden taxes, such as inflation. Maybe it was a typo, but I think you should double check what inflation means.
- Roboprog 13y ago
  The effect of the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply, and making it available to favored banks and the US Treasury at low rates helps cause inflation and has about the same effect as a tax: your holdings are worth less, and somebody else, albeit indirectly, is able to tap into the value that those dollars held.
  - rpicard 13y ago
    Sounds like a pretty big stretch to call it a tax in my opinion.
    - nthj 13y ago
      The government has more money and I have less. I'd be interested to hear your suggestions for a better descriptor?
      - rpicard 13y ago
        I'm not convinced that the government gets more money when inflation goes up. I've only taken an introductory level economics course, but I'm pretty sure the value of a currency goes down for everyone - government included - when inflation rises.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
If it was not forced by law there would be no private property at all.
- whiddershins 13y ago
  empirically not true: http://www.eleuthera.it/files/materiali/David_Graeber_Fragments_%20Anarchist_Anthropology.pdf http://www.eleuthera.it/files/materiali/David_Graeber_Fragme...
  - Joeri 13y ago
    Please make a proper argument, nobody is going to read through all of that.
    - whiddershins 13y ago
      TLDR; Anarchist systems have existed throughout history both alongside and within, and most certainly in awareness of hierarchical systems which they often explicitly reject. Most assertions about the nature of those societies are based on ignorance. Most relevant to your comment, they tend(ed) to maintain rules, conventions, personal property, arbitrate disputes, take care of the weak, and do any number of other things considered impossible without government. Various types of egalitarian social order have existed, it isn't one monolithic concept, and it certainly doesn't necessarily result in chaos or might-makes-right. If you want specific examples and actual information, take the time to read the pdf. It is written by an anthropologist, so it is his gig to footnote all this stuff.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        How have these anarchist societies fared after hierarchically-driven societies came through? I don't seem to recall it working out well in Africa, Asia, North America, or South America.
        whiddershins 13y ago