France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra • Hacker News Board

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#701

Post by kzrdude » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 12:21 PM UTC

aeyes wrote: post #565

freeflight wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on your bank, it's quite the opposite, particularly when you want to draw cash from an ATM. With a Girocard, you have to go to a specific brand of bank or hope they are in your "cash group" or else you will pay a hefty fee. But some banks offer to withdraw from any ATM using their VISA CC with no fees at all. For years I've been using this to get cash without much of a hassle and pay for stuff I'd otherwise…

Most of these "credit cards" in Germany aren't really credit cards though. They take the money from your account immediately instead of sending you a monthly statement and letting you decide how much you want to pay towards your credit.

In general they are debit cards, yes, and I think that everyone means is debit or credit cards or equivalent.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#702

Post by denton-scratch » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

ismail wrote: post #469

dantheman wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to a 'modern war' without armies? I'm interested in what you actually think a war is?

Not op but will take a stab. The comment was in response to: “This is hyperbole at best. Facebook does not have an army” Op was pointing out that power != war with guns “Facebook is the most powerful private entity on the earth right now” The comment was how power could be achieved via other methods of warfare-including the ability to shape conversations. Another word for this would be competition. He has a point.

Negative, Spock.

The ability to shape conversations or to compete is not the same as making war (or you are relying on an idiosyncratic definition of "war").

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#703

Post by matcheek » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…

Interesting. But contrary to how you sell it it's the big German state that again knows better what's good for people. With that said it's not an opposite vector to some foobar from the past. It's the same foobar as it was in the past. No kidding. The big state is a problem. State having less and less control over people liberties would be the right direction and the opposition to that foobar. And not state telling people what currency they should use. Definitely not. I have spent past few years in fintech, mostly in crowdfunding. The lesson learned is that state is the biggest problem in many countries. Free People should have an option to make mistakes. If people are naive enough to buy shaky crypto they should be allowed to do it. And most countries at least don't penalize crypto. Here the problem is not the good of German citizens but who controls value flow . With this huge consortium behind libra, not just Facebook, it would be the first time in the crypto world where crypto would have a real chance of being used for transaction and not for investments, which may go totally in the interest of most Germans. All but the people that benefit on the endless quantitative easing cycles that Germany controlled ECB keeps injecting. Average German folks will lose on this ban.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#704

Post by nsai » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:17 PM UTC

what does facebook's libra have to offer that current cryptocurrencies don't already?

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#705

Post by cynusx » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…

Yes, distributism has been a founding principle of post-war europe. Not just in Germany but in all of western europe.

That said, the governance of Libra is setup with distributism in mind. Facebook has set it up explicitly so they don't control the currency, a founding group of 100 corporations will control the reserve (one vote each) and they are explicit about accepting new qualifying members.

If it takes off, it will attract a lot more corporations/institutional investors leading to free market control.

However, I don't see the point why governments are afraid of it because the monetary policy mechanisms requires a fractional reserve banking system to enact its effects.

Libra is fully asset-backed and wouldn't have an impact on any monetary policy.

I think what most people don't understand is that monetary policy doesn't work by devaluing cash, it works by making debt cheaper leading to companies end individuals to take out more debt to invest and as a consequence push up aggregate demand.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#706

Post by denton-scratch » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:24 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #612

downandout wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing you provided is evidence that any Facebook activity has ever swung any election. The very people that paid Cambridge Analytica for their services in 2016 said that the company’s strategies were ineffective at best, referring to it as “snake oil” [1]. You have provided evidence that people attempted to use Facebook to swing an election. Those two things are not the same. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news…

They have tried to swing elections and broke electoral law in UK. How could anyone besides them prove effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this campaign? I don't think it's possible. At the very least, the side they supported won (Brexit) and they should not be trusted.

You may believe Faceache broke electoral law in the UK; but they have neither been charged nor convicted. So your belief would be false.

Leave.UK was accused of violating electoral law. I believe the Electoral Commission has now dropped its investigation.

Incidentally, to break UK law, you usually have to perform the violating act in the UK (we have a few laws that involve extraterritoriality, but they are far and few).

Faceache barely does anything in the UK. They apparently make no money here; they don't sell stuff (not even advertising - that would be the Republic of Ireland). CA collected data on US citizens; that's legal here (and would have been of very little interest to Brexit campaigners). As far as I know, nothing CA did violated UK or EU law.

You say "the side they supported won (Brexit)". Do you mean that Faceache supported Brexit? I don't think they had a dog in the race at all. Or do you mean CA? It's been argued that CA took money to provide services to Leave.UK, but that's not the same as saying they supported Brexit.

Trying to "swing elections" is legal in the UK. In fact it is encouraged; people who successfully swing elections often get appointed to important positions such as Prime Minister. It's completely legal to hire polling companies to help you better understand the voters. It's completely legal to hire advertising companies to promote the electoral outcome you want promoted.

Now you are speaking of trust; of course, I trust neither CA (now defunct) nor Faceache. But Faceache did not drag my country into wars in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Faceache did not have that much power. The UK joined those wars largely because of diplomatic pressure from the USA - a much more powerful entity than this rather tedious online advertising company.

From what I have read, and despite their bragging, CA wasn't even helpful to the Leave.UK campaign. Their data wasn't relevant, and anyway Leave.UK didn't have the organisational capacity to make use of whatever data they could offer.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#707

Post by NeedMoreTea » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:28 PM UTC

denton-scratch wrote: post #706

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have tried to swing elections and broke electoral law in UK. How could anyone besides them prove effectiveness or ineffectiveness of this campaign? I don't think it's possible. At the very least, the side they supported won (Brexit) and they should not be trusted.

You may believe Faceache broke electoral law in the UK; but they have neither been charged nor convicted. So your belief would be false. Leave.UK was accused of violating electoral law. I believe the Electoral Commission has now dropped its investigation. Incidentally, to break UK law, you usually have to perform the violating act in the UK (we have a few laws that involve extraterritoriality, but they are far and fe…

Leave.EU was found guilty, and fined at least once:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/11/leaveeu-fin...

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#708

Post by DSingularity » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

cynusx wrote: post #705

blackbrokkoli wrote: post #225

I'm of course not familiar with the specific mindsets and the history of this decision, but I want to share a bit of cultural perspective from Germany that is so far not really considered in this comment section: Germany is very, very keen on preventing powerful entities from acting outside of regulation and similarly, if not more, on preventing a single entity to get in control of everything. This is largely due to…

Yes, distributism has been a founding principle of post-war europe. Not just in Germany but in all of western europe. That said, the governance of Libra is setup with distributism in mind. Facebook has set it up explicitly so they don't control the currency, a founding group of 100 corporations will control the reserve (one vote each) and they are explicit about accepting new qualifying members. If it takes off, it w…

I don’t want corporations controlling the reserve. I want democratic controls.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#709

Post by denton-scratch » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

lol768 wrote: post #304

ralusek wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'd also like to mention that certain entities operating outside of the state are precisely the sort of thing that can prevent the sort of tyranny that Germany enacted during the 20th century.…

> Germany is obviously somewhat keen on letting single entities get control of everything, as the EU is in many ways an extension primarily of Germany, and the closest entity I'm aware of that could be said to be doing just that. I'm not sure a union with a democratically elected parliament is comparable to a social media corporation which answers to its shareholders?

Why can other people not make that comparison? You seem to be doing just that -

A has a democratically elected parliament

B answers to its shareholders

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#710

Post by p0nce » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

As a french, this is exactly what I expect from my government. Libra is a putsch by a (vampiric) private sector entity that want to concentrate powers.