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GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

taler.net

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Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#41

Post by afshin »

oberstein wrote: post #23
msandford wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the false dichotomy, either we have to accept ALL of the State as it is today, or we don't get roads to drive on.

We never had roads before the 19th century when personal income tax was introduced.

Regardless of the type of tax, roads have been built by governments using tax revenue since history began. [1] Is your grievance with personal income tax in particular or taxes in general? Because for taxes to work at all, there needs to be some way for governments to have some visibility on the flow of cash in the economy, right?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road#History

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#42

Post by mindcrime »

oberstein wrote: post #23
msandford wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the false dichotomy, either we have to accept ALL of the State as it is today, or we don't get roads to drive on.

We never had roads before the 19th century when personal income tax was introduced.

You mean "we never had government roads before..."

Obviously people managed to move themselves from place to place prior to the 19th century... roads are far, far older than that.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#44

Post by jessaustin »

oberstein wrote: post #23
msandford wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the false dichotomy, either we have to accept ALL of the State as it is today, or we don't get roads to drive on.

We never had roads before the 19th century when personal income tax was introduced.

We never had roads before the 19th century...

How did people get around? Hot-air balloons?

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#45

Post by atmosx »

I have this strange idea that once the government-agents really understand what e-payments, even block-chain-powered e-currencies bring to the table, in terms of money control, they'll embrace it. It's a no-brainer.

That said, taxes are not inherently bad. Governments on the other hand... Have an awfully bad track-record of power abuse.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#46

Post by Spivak »

evanpw wrote: post #29
rodgerd wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will take nonsense like this seriously when its proponents no longer avail themselves of the benefits of assets created through taxation. Which would be never.

This is just the reverse of the (also bad) argument that people who advocate for higher taxes shouldn't be taken seriously unless they voluntarily donate some of their income to the government. For example: http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/04/want-higher-tax... .

Thus taxes should never change as people would rationally never want to pay more nor receive less benefits. Hence we must have exactly the right amount of taxation at all times.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#47

Post by mindcrime »

afshin wrote: post #41
oberstein wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We never had roads before the 19th century when personal income tax was introduced.

Regardless of the type of tax, roads have been built by governments using tax revenue since history began. [1] Is your grievance with personal income tax in particular or taxes in general? Because for taxes to work at all, there needs to be some way for governments to have some visibility on the flow of cash in the economy, right? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road#History

roads have been built by governments using tax revenue since history began

Some roads have been built by government... not all where, and not all are even now. I'll posit that a significant number of Americans drive on at least one private road every single day. Chances are, if you live in any kind of suburban housing subdivision, the road right in front of your house actually wasn't created, and isn't maintained, by the State.

There are, of course, other privately built roads:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_highways_in_the_United...

Basically, the old (trite) saw that "I want roads, therefore we need government" is pretty much bullshit. Never mind the fact that one person's desire for a road hardly justifies their putting a gun in the face of everyone else around and demanding that they pay for said road.

Again.. we're hackers, we can do better. And I'm not saying I have all the answers, sitting here today. I'm saying that if we put our minds to it, we can come up with a way to achieve positive ends without resorting to violence. Why anybody on this thread would argue against that is hard to imagine? Are you people saying you like violence?

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#48

Post by ForHackernews »

choffman wrote: post #25

No thank you. With regards to my government, I would like to see more privacy rather than less. This seems to give me less. I do like the idea of complete transactional privacy between end users and/or merchants. But we already have this today with CryptoNote based cryptocurrencies like Monero - with optional transparency through "view keys".

> When you pay with Taler, your identity does not have to be revealed to the merchant. The bank, government and mint will also never learn how you spent your electronic money. However, you can prove that you paid in court if necessary.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#49

Post by [deleted] »

limmeau wrote: post #30
pakled_engineer wrote: post #16

Uses GNUnet's crypto library to generate keys. Biggest problem I've found is fraud potential, the mint operator can run a fractional reserve since it relies on "government authorities doing regular audits" and also that it touts turning Mastercard/Visa into Taler. Carders will become their own merchants, card a mint to get Taler and then cash it all out before anybody knows what happened. You also can't transfer Tale…

Does it use GNUnet? I only see them mention REST here, HTTPS there. As to the carder-friendlyness: credit card companies are known to treat payment aggregators with lots of suspicion, so I suppose there just won't be many credit-card-to-Taler "banks".

[deleted]

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#50

Post by toomuchtodo »

atmosx wrote: post #45

I have this strange idea that once the government-agents really understand what e-payments, even block-chain-powered e-currencies bring to the table, in terms of money control, they'll embrace it. It's a no-brainer. That said, taxes are not inherently bad. Governments on the other hand... Have an awfully bad track-record of power abuse.

Several central banks are interested in cryptocurrencies because it allows them to devalue the currency from a central point. Cash is hard because it can be hoarded, therefore indirect measures are taken to devalue said currency.

http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=27870

http://in.rbth.com/economics/finance/2015/09/21/rusias-bitru...

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115312/azerbaijan-mulls-its-ow...

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