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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

#91

Post by ijktdot »

zerebubuth wrote: post #84
ijktdot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a global racket in market data mining too, to track demographics and see what they are buying. This system defeats any large payment entity from payment tracking. Taler can also compete with Ukash, since it's free/open any merchant can implement their own Taler for cash business without signing large exclusive contracts with Ukash or waiting a month to be settled by them, as you can freely choose which Mint t…

> This system defeats any large payment entity from payment tracking. Merchants of physical goods must know the identity and delivery address of their customers in order to deliver them. Given how easy many companies find it to embed 3rd party trackers or adverts on their site, it seems reasonable to believe that they will also find it easy to sell this data ("to help detect and prevent fraud") to the payment process…

True, but at least Taler allows for the consumer to chose merchants who specify they don't sell data. Right now I can't buy anything online and not be tracked by the payment provider unless I use bitcoin. The prepaid credit cards here all require online registration and in store identification, Visa/Mc/Amex then track my purchases. If I show ID to buy $200 worth of Taler in a 7-11, there's no way for my Taler provider to see what I used it for.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#92

Post by yongjik »

mindcrime wrote: post #47
afshin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It might be an interesting thought experiment to build a country entirely using private roads, but I find it pretty confusing that one could rail against the government "taking money at gunpoint" and at the same time hold up private roads as an alternative example. How do you think private roads make money? Asking people nicely if they could donate money if they are so inclined?

Yeah, maybe you could say "If you don't want to pay for a private road, don't drive on it. Simple as that." And exactly how do you plan to enforce the "don't drive on it" part?

And mind you, in an alternative universe where every road is private, a poor Joe who has to drive ten miles to work to feed his family will take the road, whether he can pay the toll or not. And if he finds using a gun is cheaper than paying tolls he will absolutely do so, because (in a society where the government can't point guns at employers' head and demand to pay minimum wage) if he doesn't he will be priced out by his neighbors who are willing to use the gun and drive cheaply.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#93

Post by blumkvist »

omouse wrote: post #64
jerguismi wrote: post #40

Taxable & anonymous at the same time? The marketing of this sounds shady. I don't know if the "inventors" or whatever really know what they are doing...

It's in development at a university that's known for its computer science research and work: http://www.inria.fr/ For example, Facebook has partnered with the university and it's also the birthplace of the OCAML language. They have some sharp people doing research work there, if this was a VC-backed company or a kickstarter, I would be much more skeptical and think it's shady. However, the bar at a university is much…

TU Munich too!

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#94

Post by dnautics »

room271 wrote: post #90
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".

As far as I understand it, Taler seems to be great for privacy and society (ensuring income is taxable). Governments can't see how you spend your money, but they can see who receives payments. Bitcoin and others will never succeed because they are too friendly towards illicit behaviour. Taler seems to strike a genuinely interesting and ethical balance here.

The underlying assumption is that governments don't care about how you spend money. This is patently untrue, because "liberal" governments explicitly use taxation as global social modification schemes, for all sorts of things beyond income redistribution - from minimizing percieved vices (alcohol, tobacco) to minimizing environmental footprint, etc.

The idea that this sort of activity is able to be decoupled from surveillance is one of the more unfortunate delusions in politics.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#96

Post by oneJob »

Much love and respect to Richard Stallman / the GNU Project for all the pioneering work and advocacy they did in OSS, but I personally don't want them near my $s. The number of religious / flame wars persistently raging in OSS circles just can not, would not be tolerated in this domain.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#97

Post by icebraining »

Jtsummers wrote: post #67
icebraining wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I steal your car and leave you a bike, are you an hypocrite if you use the bike while condemning theft? I am not saying taxes are theft, but if one does believe so, I don't think it's hypocrisy to try to at least get some of it back.

Weird analogy. But if you want it to be more accurate: If the government takes your bike and gives it to me after taking my car, I'd be hypocritical to condemn theft and retain your bike. I have no claim to your property under my anti-theft ethics, therefore I should return it to you.

Sure. Except in this case you can't return most of it to me (kinda hard to return "use of roads" or "police protection" to someone); all you could do is return it to the thief. Moreover, since most voters approve of the theft, they are not innocent victims who deserve the bike back.

So following your logic of returning the bike, what one should do is to take as much money as they can from the government services and give it away to other taxation-is-theft people :)

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#100

Post by wyager »

room271 wrote: post #90
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".

As far as I understand it, Taler seems to be great for privacy and society (ensuring income is taxable). Governments can't see how you spend your money, but they can see who receives payments. Bitcoin and others will never succeed because they are too friendly towards illicit behaviour. Taler seems to strike a genuinely interesting and ethical balance here.

I find it fascinating that you think taxation can be generally described as "ethical" without serious qualication; what about taxation by an unethical government, like a dictatorship or a government that uses the money to murder people?

Is cash also unethical because the government doesn't have absolute surveillance on cash spending?

What the project claims is a "liberal" tool can very easily become a very unethical tool of oppression.

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