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Why Monero

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Re: Why Monero

#151

Post by InvertedRhodium »

colinmhayes wrote: post #134
InvertedRhodium wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can anyone think this is a good thing? Easily - I value my ability to remain private more than I do your ability to enforce laws.

> This is a blindness that can only come from a lifetime of extreme privilege.

I guess extreme privilege is a relative concept, so depending on where you sit it might very well appear that way to you.

The beauty of that particular accusation is that you can't really defend against it - as any disagreement can simply be used to infer an even higher degree of privilege.

Re: Why Monero

#152

Post by rajamaka »

arcticbull wrote: post #137
SXX wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Doors and curtains also support crime, but somehow some basic privacy is fundamental human right. For now... Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.

This is a common trope, but incorrect. Cash is really hard to do crime with. You can't actually get any meaningful quantity of it without having a SAR or CTR filed on you (or the person obtaining it). It's big and bulky, it's uniquely numbered and traceable. You can't deposit any meaningful quantity without having a SAR or CTR filed. Converting it back into something digital, anonymously/untraceably requires launderi…

You still need to convert crypto to clean money to actually spend it, which is equally as difficult to do as cash.

Re: Why Monero

#153

Post by scoofy »

enriquec wrote: post #125
scoofy wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm for expansive, but limited versions of these things. I think your love letters should be private from the gov't, I don't think your income should be private from the gov't. I think nearly everyone should be able to own a rifle, but I don't think any private citizen should be able to own a tank. There are many aspects of life where I think the costs outweigh the benefits for citizen in society. Since there are tri…

how much damage is and has been done through the traditional institutions/methods/tracking/privacy-invasion you are advocating in totalitarian regimes today and throughout history?

Historical institutions are totalitarian monarchies. The modern democratic institutions are the exception, not the rule.

I'm not saying Monero shouldn't exist, I'm saying those of us in a free society should want it to be illegal in our free society. Again, it's legality in an unfree society is essentially irrelevant to it's practicality.

Re: Why Monero

#154

Post by colinmhayes »

InvertedRhodium wrote: post #151
colinmhayes wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a blindness that can only come from a lifetime of extreme privilege.

I guess extreme privilege is a relative concept, so depending on where you sit it might very well appear that way to you. The beauty of that particular accusation is that you can't really defend against it - as any disagreement can simply be used to infer an even higher degree of privilege.

Which financial crimes have you been a victim of?

Re: Why Monero

#155

Post by sub7 »

This, like the rest of crypto, enables the world's worst humans.

Also, the founder (who loves telling people to stay poor online) is in jail for fraud. I'm shocked.

I really hope Gensler and co sack up and shut down these wannabe pirate losers.

Re: Why Monero

#156

Post by frank_nitti »

mattwilsonn888 wrote: post #138
cowpig wrote: post #57

How can anyone think this is a good thing? At least other crypto projects have a degree of transparency going for them. I don't understand how people can possibly think that identity obfuscation at scale is a good thing for a financial system. The rule of law and democracy are far from perfect, but it is unquestionably the safest, cushiest time to be alive in human history right now for the average human being. Let's…

You must be ignorant to how crypto currencies and Monero in particular as a project is structured. Monero as a financial system is not as you say "completely opaque" - that's laughable. All the code that runs every Monero client is completely open source. Now some more savvy people will still complain: "If we can't see any of the balances then how do we know """they""" aren't minting coins out of thin air or defraudi…

Clearly they are not questioning the ingenuity of the authors of the source code, that seems like an attempt to misrepresent their position. In fact, they are directly calling out the "transaction privacy" component as a net negative for modern civilization, since it effectively facilitates transactions among criminal enterprises.

Re: Why Monero

#157

Post by deft »

colinmhayes wrote: post #154
InvertedRhodium wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess extreme privilege is a relative concept, so depending on where you sit it might very well appear that way to you. The beauty of that particular accusation is that you can't really defend against it - as any disagreement can simply be used to infer an even higher degree of privilege.

Which financial crimes have you been a victim of?

This line of questioning is pretty silly. Of course your pet cause needs to be solved through legislation immediately.

Re: Why Monero

#158

Post by ajkdhcb2 »

ryan_lane wrote: post #102
ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not safe to use Bitcoin and other traceable cryptocurrencies. I for one don't want to be tortured with a drill and there is a long list of such events: https://github.com/jlopp/physical-bitcoin-attacks Some people say the same things about encryption, but it is a very accurate parallel that it actually makes society safer, and the technology can't be taken from "criminals" so you just have to deal with its exis…

Use a bank account, then?

Unnecessary intermediaries should be removed. Especially intermediaries with a horrendous corruption track record that coerce you to let them hold your money. Money that can be printed at will by some people in power is also quite a joke; cryptocurrency provides a new unit of account in addition to a payment system.

Re: Why Monero

#159

Post by SXX »

arcticbull wrote: post #137
SXX wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monero supports crime as much as cash supports crime. Doors and curtains also support crime, but somehow some basic privacy is fundamental human right. For now... Also in some countries police still don't just scan all your bank transactions 24/7 and there is presumption of innocence in criminal law.

This is a common trope, but incorrect. Cash is really hard to do crime with. You can't actually get any meaningful quantity of it without having a SAR or CTR filed on you (or the person obtaining it). It's big and bulky, it's uniquely numbered and traceable. You can't deposit any meaningful quantity without having a SAR or CTR filed. Converting it back into something digital, anonymously/untraceably requires launderi…

You do have valid points, but again it's all about cost of doing business. Fortunatrly majority of criminals are just people making money and not just crazy who want to watch world burn. So if their ROI is 1000% and they're okay with the risks they still gonna run their shady businesses even if cost of doing business will double or triple.

War on drugs has proven that it's impossible to fight this kind of activity no matter how much resources you throw at it. And running scams / botnets / extortion on internet is way less risky criminal activity than selling drugs.

> The US draws the right balance

Unfortunately it doesn't work like this in most of the world and US isn't about to invite remaining 95% of world population to join the party.

It's not that I support criminals, but majority of crime on internet (not counting actually selling drugs) is either scams, botnets or extortion. IMHO they all can only be solved by combination of educating people better and improving systems security overall.

Instead western government promise to solve crime with surveillance, draconian AML policies and censorship. After all it worked so well in authoritarian countries all around the world. /s

Re: Why Monero

#160

Post by robot_no_419 »

wyager wrote: post #58

“Scalability” by constantly increasing the block size isn’t really scalability. If monero ever sees high network usage, expanding blocks will push node storage requirements so high that only a small number of nodes will continue to run, destroying decentralization.

I don't have the math at hand but I'm pretty sure at the rate the blockchain is growing and the rate that disk space cost is decreasing, this should not be an issue for quite a few years. I do agree that it will eventually be a problem; at some point, all blockchains will have to move to layer 2 solutions for real scaling.
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