211–220 of 611 posts
Maybe in 2028 a presidential candidate can run with removing the Patriot Act as one of their campaign points. I suspect the world will be very different then. The America I knew, remembered, and loved started dying with the passage of the Patriot Act.
I might turn out to vote if there was a candidate whose sole platform plank was to repeal as many existing laws as possible.
Now we get to see how enforceable it is (and I suspect it's more enforceable than people wanted to assume... They can jail you indefinitely for refusing to divulge a password if the court finds it is not a violation of your Fifth Amendment rights to divulge it. https://xkcd.com/538/).
I think the case for why strong encryption is important is much clearer than why untraceable financial instruments are important and I don't think it's super compelling to argue that these things are actually the same, even if your opposition to government control is the same. I think it's actually pretty clear that almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an…
Whether that's cash or cryptocurrency doesn't seem to matter since your argument would also apply to cash.
Well, hopefully this will help prevent Bitcoin's biggest use case, which is criminal finance and money laundering. Why wouldn’t we want that?
Bitcoin maximalists are learning that having a non-fungible and fully traceable ledger might be a problem. Even Satoshi called this out! As is, BTC is somewhat of a privacy nightmare. All of your transactions are on the public ledger for anyone with basic knowledge of statistics to correlate and see all of your transactions. Blockchain Analytics is big business! All the things the Treasury is considering to be "suspi…
If Monero ever came close to Bitcoin's popularity, it would be outlawed. Plain as that. You can't get freedom through technology.
I'd argue the opposite - if Bitcoin had been created with secure private transactions (untraceability) it would be in the same popular position it is today, but the attacks on it (chain analysis etc) would be failing instead of inevitably marching forward.
Your argument seems to rely on an assumption that the insecurity of Bitcoin has been legible and apparent to the [greater] government for most of Bitcoin's life, and so the government allowed it to gain popularity knowing those insecurities would eventually make it succumb to government control. But in general government sees any lack of identification/data as a problem to be rectified, and the popular wisdom for quite some time has been that Bitcoin is "anonymous". so I'd say the government acted as quick as it would have regardless of the actual security properties. It feels like any holding off had more to do with financial lucrativeness rather than an understanding of its long term security flaws.
Now that we're here though, Bitcoin does seem like a very strong inoculation against financial privacy technology. Government is now well aware that software/cryptography can be used for money, and the first question asked is why isn't your new niche system grokkable to chain analysis?
I think the case for why strong encryption is important is much clearer than why untraceable financial instruments are important and I don't think it's super compelling to argue that these things are actually the same, even if your opposition to government control is the same. I think it's actually pretty clear that almost all people are not capable of secure and reliable self-custody and would be better off with an…
Yes, it might be true that most people aren't willing to keep their money under their beds for security reasons. But it shouldn't be illegal or somehow indicative of criminality. Same thing with self custody of crypto.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spot on. Some think we need financial freedom, but in reality it's the freedom to fund scams and malware, launder money, dodge taxes, and buy stuff that’s illegal. That won't become legal just because you use "Monero" or whatever. Obviously we can't have privacy for financial transactions.
You forgot a few things on that list that people would like freedom for: advocating for (or against) trans rights, protesting against the deportation of migrants, advocate against gun-control, and donating to (anti) palestinian causes Are just a few things that people would like the freedom to do. The point being, financial privacy is an important part of having a functioning democracy. But at the same time, financia…
No, I don't think it is. Perhaps privacy for speech and voting are.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My big ask is, was it always this stupid? Like, all these huge historical events and figures, did it all go down as stupidly and clownishly as the modern USA? Was there an early 20th century fascist Europe equivalent to a man named Big Balls being beat up by children and a fascist police action being triggered as a result? Was there a Napeolonic era equivalent to a media figure known for making light of school shooti…
[flagged]
Not what you meant, but that evil army is called ICE.