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How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

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Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#461

As an outsider, it's strange that nobody here seems to question whether the referendum really makes sense. Forgetting about Catalonia for a moment, isn't it fundamentally amoral that a part of the country where prosperity has (by mere chance) concentrated suddenly wants to split off? Isn't this taking wealth-inequality to the next level? Of course the people in a prosperous part of the country want to split off. Abso…

It depends. Is Catalonia rich because the federal government pumped money and resources into it? If so, then I would say yes, it's wrong to try to break off. But, if Catalonia is rich due to their own industriousness, and effectively prop up other parts of the nation by sending more of their own money to the federal government, then no, I don't think there is a problem with trying to break off.

They were basically granted monopolies by law, and it's industry priorized over other regions, when not directly pouring money into it. That was while the spanish little industrial revolution and even the francoist regime.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#462

As an outsider, it's strange that nobody here seems to question whether the referendum really makes sense. Forgetting about Catalonia for a moment, isn't it fundamentally amoral that a part of the country where prosperity has (by mere chance) concentrated suddenly wants to split off? Isn't this taking wealth-inequality to the next level? Of course the people in a prosperous part of the country want to split off. Abso…

>Of course the people in a prosperous part of the country want to split off. Absolute democracy seems to result in an undesirable situation, because do we really want to live in a world that converges towards little selfish islands? Did you ever consider the possibility that maybe the people in Catalonia somehow work harder/smarter/better than in the other regions of Spain? In which case the rest of Spain would be th…

Well, if you know a bit about the economical history of Spain you could clearly see what happend here, which is not a case of selfishness but planned economy, keeping some regions down in favour of others.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#463
post #79

It seems shocking that Spain a member of the EU is resorting to these tactics. Can you discuss some of their justifications for doing so?

At first yeah, I'm surprised too. Is the Catalan government a private organization? Or is it technically a part of the Spanish state. Private organizations can organize, fund, and promote whatever referendums they want. And the Spanish govt. would just say they don't recognize the result. But if the organizer is not a private organization, but instead a public institution, then it's likely abuse of authority and fund…

Spain has a constitution, trying to break it up is not "constitutional", even if you do it from Madrid. Saying that without taking sides. Its not a public/private debate, its all very much public. If you play divide and conquer long enough you end up on your own.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#464
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the US has precedent on banning speech that will "incite imminent lawless action". And compared to countries like the UK or Germany they are a bastion of free speech. I agree free speech laws in pretty much every country are unethical because they are arrayed in a way to ban speech that might risk the dissolution of the nation, but every single country has those laws because its governments trying to protect the…

"And compared to countries like the UK or Germany they are a bastion of free speech." Care to elucidate me on what basis that statement lies? I am a UKoGBnNI citizen who has also lived in DE for a few years in the West Germany part in the 70's and 80's and have friends who are native to DE. In the UK we have laws banning inflammatory speech of various types that are clearly categorised and so does Deutschland. Both c…

No, you do not have as much freedom of speech in the UK or Germany. If you tweet something offensive about e.g. Muslims, or anything else that the police deem to be "hate speech", you will be arrested. And British police have in fact been aggressively enforcing this. In Germany, the restrictions are even more severe. Both German and British governments claim and exercise the power to scrub the internet of extremism, to "protect" citizens from certain viewpoints.

You misunderstand the nature of the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech in the United States. The Bill of Rights are in the federal constitution and are enforceable in the federal courts, against any level of government (federal, state, or local).[1]

One of the central free speech doctrines in the United States is the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination. That means that our laws cannot treat any viewpoint differently than any other. If you are allowed to stand in front of the courthouse and scream anti-racist slogans, then you must be allowed to stand in front of the courthouse and spew all the racist hatred that your heart desires. Communists, fascists, anarchists, democrats, republicans, racists, reverse-racists, white supremacists, black supremacists, holocaust deniers, and even people calling for the overthrow of the US government, they can all speak their minds in America. There is no jurisdiction in the world that guarantees free speech as totally and absolutely as the United States does.

Americans are self-governing people. We don't need someone to tell us what we're allowed to think.

[1] This wasn't always the case, but the Supreme Court has held since the 1920s that the 14th Amendment "incorporated" the Bill of Rights to the states. Before this, most or all states had free speech provisions in their own constitutions anyway, but enforcement was not uniform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded the Bitcoin mining app in 2010, opened it once, got bored of waiting for it to sync with some server, then shut and forgot about it for a few years. It might be a funny story to tell my grandkids if BTC is still around

If Bitcoin is around when your grandkids are of age, even this minute might be a great time to buy Bitcoin. Why miss the same boat twice?

Like they say; "The best time to buy bitcoin was yesterday. The next-best time to buy bitcoin is now."

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#466
post #2

Author here. I've tried to keep the article as apolitical as possible, while giving some context to provide the setting. Anyway, I'm very interested in knowing if the used crypto is sound or not, and stirring a discussion around possible alternative approaches. Ask me anything if you want to know further!

Thanks for the article. After reading it, I went and added an IPFS node to my Kubernetes deployment on Google Cloud and then mapped the /ipfs and /ipns endpoints through Kong so they would be served by /" rel="nofollow">https://api.wisdom.sh/ / . This effectively gives people yet another domain they can use which doesn't require installing the IPFS client. Any IPFS site wil work through the proxy, but here's the site…

It took a very long time to load the page. Consider implementing some caching if you haven't already.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that relevant when we talk about GDP ? Even if little money flows from Barcelona to the central government (I don't know if this is or is not the case, since I don't live in Spain), that shouldn't make a difference, since "GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services - that is, those that are bought by the final user - produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year)."[1] Ma…

There are 16 billion per year going from Catalonia to Spain without return. But not only that, the centralisation of government powers and agencies have created a problem where many big companies have to be in Madrid even if most their operations are in other parts of the country. That makes their taxes to be paid in Madrid instead of e.g. Valencia, Bilbao or Barcelona. The amount of taxes lost because of this is HUG…

Just curious, do you have a reliable source for the 16 billion per year?

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#468
post #411

As an outsider, it's strange that nobody here seems to question whether the referendum really makes sense. Forgetting about Catalonia for a moment, isn't it fundamentally amoral that a part of the country where prosperity has (by mere chance) concentrated suddenly wants to split off? Isn't this taking wealth-inequality to the next level? Of course the people in a prosperous part of the country want to split off. Abso…

As a german i find the economic reasons of "why should we pay for the poor people" highly ironic... That's what we all founded europe for... stronger together!

EU was formed for opening up the market in a way that the economic benefit will be more for richer countries. In return, there are many benefits for other countries, but lifting up poor country was not that much of an aim.

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want us to be in Spain, please seduce us Yeah, the tiresome "seduce us (with mo' fresh money)" argument again. I have a better idea, why you don't try to seduce me instead to call me thief (Spain stole us) and abuser (Spain oppress us and do not let us be free) and hit me all the time with a new surrealist occurrence (don't buy spanish products, here are a list of the evil companies that you must avoid if yo…

> In the last 60 years, you have been offered a lot of gifs and privileges (that by the way, I don't enjoy), and is never enough. Name three "gifts/privileges" that Catalonia has been given/granted and you don't enjoy, please.

[deleted]

Re: How the Catalan government uses IPFS to sidestep Spain's legal block

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you want us to be in Spain, please seduce us Yeah, the tiresome "seduce us (with mo' fresh money)" argument again. I have a better idea, why you don't try to seduce me instead to call me thief (Spain stole us) and abuser (Spain oppress us and do not let us be free) and hit me all the time with a new surrealist occurrence (don't buy spanish products, here are a list of the evil companies that you must avoid if yo…

> In the last 60 years, you have been offered a lot of gifs and privileges (that by the way, I don't enjoy), and is never enough. Name three "gifts/privileges" that Catalonia has been given/granted and you don't enjoy, please.

I don't need to, neither feel particularly inclined this afternoon to teach you about how VAT is spent, exemption of taxes since 1518, or tricks of our democracy to allow some parties to have one deputy by each 50.000 votes whereas other parties need to be supported by 500.000 voters to obtain the same results in the same election

Just google it, spend a few hours reading legal documents and history of the country and will find the answer by yourself.

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