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China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

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341–350 of 386 posts

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#341
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. You certainly frame your definition as if you believe it to be the only one. I believe that libertarians often frame their arguments as concerning freedom, as we in the west tend to believe freedom is unequivocally the best thing. It's the hidden assumptions and definitions about freedom as defined in libertarian thought which I find interesting, and biased.

free·dom ˈfrēdəm/ noun the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. "we do have some freedom of choice"

Sure, now looking at property rights where it comes to land, if I want to set up house in your wheat field, and you stop me, are you not impinging on my freedom?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#342
post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who needs reputation or the long run if you can net a decent amount as a one-off?

I was referring to this: >>It is impossible to be serious in a space dominated by liars as they will outcompete you every time. And making the point that the space will be dominated by the competent and honest in the long run if left to its own devices. My comment was explaining why I believe that would be the long-term outcome.

It may, or it may collapse under the weight of the less scrupulous.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience at the farmer's market is surely equivalent to what most people would experience in Walmart. Many humans will do anything it takes to make a profit and not care about who they are screwing over. If you think that's okay that's fine, but then go to Somalia and see how a lawless country works in practice. Food safety in particular was mandated by populae request. I cannot wrap my head around free market…

Any market given the space to develop becomes highly vetted. Somalia's during its civil war didn't work because there was no central authority providing security and preventing raiders from pillaging markets, so markets didn't have the opportunity to become highly developed. There is no chance that supermarket shelves would be stocked with toxic/fraudulent food products in our world of secure private property rights,…

I recommend that you realise your arguments for a totally free market are exactly as useful as the arguments for a state controlled economy. It doesn't work because people will always screw each other over. This is the reason communism is not viable, and it is the reason libertarianism is not viable either.

I hope you realise that todays "strict" food safety laws were born out of a world where people did exactly what you say they wouldn't. They cut bread with sawdust to make money. They skimped on hygiene. They advertised other meats than they used etc etc etc. Today these things have real consequences. You're saying we should just let people do that? I cannot fathom what drives you to that position.

"Oh, but people won't buy their products as soon as they have been ousted as being cheats" yeah well. People don't buy Nestle products even though they use child slavery and caused mass malnutrion of poor children? It's just so naive to think that this actually happens.

We can mostly agree what is good and bad, but as soon as you have to pay 20 cents extra for fairtrade bread that goes out the window. You know it.

>Somalia's during its civil war didn't work because there was no central authority providing security and preventing raiders from pillaging markets, so markets didn't have the opportunity to become highly developed.

So there was no central authority and therefore the system failed. Isn't a weaker central authority what you want? Governments generally want stability, and guess what. Regulating markets helps stability.

Anyway, this discussion is pointless if you cannot see that total free market idealism is as extreme as pure communism and equally flawed. The optimum is somewhere in the middle.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#344
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you can't name a single legitimate business that's doing an ico?

filecoin. storj. factom, ripple, omega one. golem, iconomi there are tons of them.

Those companies have products available that consumers pay real money for?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#345

Why don't rich people need protection? Here's the answer: this is their protection. It reduces their competition. Seriously, these securities rules keep people like me from investing in AirBnB and Uber (two that I caught very early and wanted into)... but we can all go to Vegas and lose $100k in a single weekend. But putting $10k into Uber's seed round is somehow a crime I need to be protected from? Truth of the matt…

Did they do this to "protect" people, or for more control?

Almost any ban can be said to be done to protect people.

Cant have them reading some books for their own good!

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#346
post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attacker = Overreeaching Govt/Collectivism. Victim = Individual. > how does that respond to my point? You just asked an individual to justify why its not okey for govt/people to interfere between two consenting adults. But then I think the debate would turn into battle of axioms which is pointless. The question should be, can/how would people with contradictory political axioms co-exist ? I think its not possible, pe…

Ah, I understand. I disagree with the analogy then. If the two consenting adults are not harming each other they can still be a liability to other people. Risk can be introduced indirectly even if no individual is directly harmed. How can you adjust your analogy to account for that?

As I said this is battle of axioms. The issue cannot be solved with debate.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that companies doing ICOs aren't Uber. Peek your head into /r/ethtrader. You will find people putting their retirement savings, mortgaging houses, etc and these people aren't technically savvy and can be easily taken for a ride. While you might have good apples, there are going to be tons of bad apples, people just coming with a white paper and asking for millions of dollars. Coming back to your questi…

That's your presumption. You think they aren't technically savvy. Hell, I think some of them aren't myself, but it's not my right, and it's not your right, to say what they can or cannot do with their property. And a lot of those non-"savvy" people have outperformed me, for instance by buying ETH at the ICO. You guys keep presuming that the only choice is "people losing all their money" and that these regulations sto…

you assume that 1) most people are rational and 2) irrational behaviors of others costs you and everyone else nothing (in dollars or utility).

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#348
This will probably slow down the ICOs. Smuggling money out of China is one of the main functions of crypto currencies these days. Edit: Bloomberg just reported Bitcoin has dropped 11% on the news, so far.

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#349
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

filecoin. storj. factom, ripple, omega one. golem, iconomi there are tons of them.

Those companies have products available that consumers pay real money for?

Some of them do, like factom. others are raising money through the ICO to build those products. Is that a bad thing ?

Re: China's Central Bank Bans ICOs

#350

Why don't rich people need protection? Here's the answer: this is their protection. It reduces their competition. Seriously, these securities rules keep people like me from investing in AirBnB and Uber (two that I caught very early and wanted into)... but we can all go to Vegas and lose $100k in a single weekend. But putting $10k into Uber's seed round is somehow a crime I need to be protected from? Truth of the matt…

I don't understand why you're talking about Uber and regulations, when this is China we're talking about. You seem to be on a completely different subject, because the article says nothing about law, and says its a decision by China's Central Bank.

"Ultimately this stuff keeps grandmas poor."

Again, completely off topic to the post. But, when you talk about 'regulations', you should be making yourself clear, because you're covering massive territory and calling it all 'bad' with that statement, which is certainly not true.

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