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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

#181

Post by wyager »

bildung wrote: post #157
wyager wrote: post #101

Why, as a rational actor, would I voluntarily choose this system over one that gives me the freedom to decide what the government sees about my spending?

> Why, as a rational actor, would I voluntarily choose this system over one that gives me the freedom to decide what the government sees about my spending? Because this system ensures fair play of all participants, therefore making cooperative behaviour the rational choice, therefore enabling more efficient solutions on a societal level. Proper game theory (which I assume you were referring to) is bit more complex th…

It doesn't ensure fair play of the most powerful participant (the government), and it doesn't ensure fair play of people who have the knowledge or material means to escape surveillance.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#182

Post by msandford »

afshin wrote: post #155
msandford wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is "The veneer is so civilized! What are you, a savage?" And what he's saying is "The thing underlying the veneer is pretty savage, which taints the idea that everything is so civilized" That's a point you seem to completely miss.

I don't think that's accurate. What I'm saying is "taxes are not collected at gunpoint" and also "you will not be executed for failing to pay your taxes". You might be jailed for not paying your taxes. That's not a death sentence. If the counter-point is that you can escalate the situation by attempting to resist the state's monopoly on violence, then sure. I concede that. I don't believe the thing underlying the ven…

The penalty for rejecting the state's assertion of its authority over you (whether legitimate or not) is generally death. At the hands of whatever agency has noticed your rejection.

So if you think you shouldn't have to pay taxes, because the state isn't a legitimate authority, it's quite likely that you'll end up dying.

Finally while taxes aren't collected directly by a person with a gun, failure to be sufficiently subservient while dealing with the state can result in your death. It's unfortunate that the state grants itself (in all its forms) much, much more privilege or leeway than any non-state actor would enjoy in a similar dispute.

In other words, if you fail to pay a debt to another citizen or non-governmental entity, it's usually handled much, much differently than failing to pay a debt to the government. That double standard definitely doesn't feel right to many folks, and I think that's a very reasonable point to make.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#183

Post by zo1 »

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".

>"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'm of the complete opposite opinion, and am also completely against government due to my ideology.

Basically, while we have a government, I expect them to do their job and to employ any means necessary to do so. We currently task them with keeping us safe, to solving crimes when they do happen, and to enforce the laws we have supposedly all agreed on.

Obviously we have to keep government from doing bad things while in the service of the tasks assigned to it. E.g. unjustified violence of any form.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#184

Post by jakeogh »

Nursie wrote: post #177
jakeogh wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a standard cop-out. "'Merica; leave if you don't like it". Imagine if activists in the 60's had taken that advice. You realize the IRS != US? We got along financially just fine (some would say better) before it.

I guess I'm trying to make a broader point than the IRS here - argue against the IRS and whatever other parts of government you like on a pragmatic basis, that's great. I just get riled up by the "It's wrong! They have no right to tax me! I have property rights!" stance, because it's inconsistent.

Is it possible for a people to decide to make taxation voluntary? If for example country Q's owners (it's people) voted to not enforce taxation with force of any kind?

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#185

Post by Nursie »

jakeogh wrote: post #184
Nursie wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm trying to make a broader point than the IRS here - argue against the IRS and whatever other parts of government you like on a pragmatic basis, that's great. I just get riled up by the "It's wrong! They have no right to tax me! I have property rights!" stance, because it's inconsistent.

Is it possible for a people to decide to make taxation voluntary? If for example country Q's owners (it's people) voted to not enforce taxation with force of any kind?

I don't see why that should be impossible. I have a funny feeling it wouldn't be very practical though!

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#186

Post by rtkwe »

onnoonno wrote: post #180
userulluipeste wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin will never succeed in its current form because its capabilities are limited in a number of ways by design, even if the problem of public's level of expertise goes away. One of such limitations is, even if there are subdivisions down to a "satoshi", "satoshi" level of payments are not currently (and I believe that will not ever be) possible. That is because of another limitation, that is the centralized nature…

Where is the center of the ledger?

I think they're referring to the scalability problem where the number of transactions and size of the blockchain grow to a point where running a full node is prohibitively expensive and leads to a smaller number of miners verifying transactions.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2015/01/blockchain-scalability.html

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#187

Post by rtkwe »

plutooo wrote: post #171
benwerd wrote: post #123

This is the most political open source project I've seen in a while. I love the idea that it's designed to sit inside a progressive society where we all agree we have a social contract to the state. That is very different to a lot of similar efforts, and at the very least it's an important part of the discussion. Right now it's vaporware, but I'm very interested in its release. I'd love to help give it a friendly fac…

Where is this social contract? What are its terms and where is my signature?

In the case of modern countries: The contract is the law + the Constitution (or your local equivalent if not in the US) and your signature is living in and benefiting from the nation/society you live in.

Re: GNU Taler – Electronic payments for a liberal society

#188

Post by paxcoder »

oneJob wrote: post #178
paxcoder wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is completely baseless FUD, I wonder if you actually believe it. P.S. Stallman is a FS advocate, not an OSS advocate.

Ah, trolling a comment that is anti-flamewars. so meta-cool! Sorry, FS, that was indeed my mistake.

You're still not making any sense.
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