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The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

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Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#361

Post by bsenftner »

acaloiar wrote: post #209
bsenftner wrote: post #167

I have a grad school professor that owes me $1M dollars on a bet that the Patriot Act would never end. I told him he was painfully naive and not suitable to each graduate school economics with such thinking.

Unless you used different language for the bet, you lost it the moment it was made. "Never" may be falsified by "at least once", but affirmed only by "never". So I'm afraid only you could have ever been on the hook for the $1M, and may still be! Your prof made a good bet.

The wording was that the Patriot Act would not be temporary, and it will not be receded, and in fact would be strengthened.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#362

Post by klondike_klive »

deadbabe wrote: post #329
TheGRS wrote: post #315

I have deep disagreements with my father on this subject. He worked as a federal agent for 30 years, mostly in digital forensics. He does not believe in the right to privacy in any of the same ways I do. Whereas I believe a right to privacy in your tools and communication is essential, he believes they infringe on the government's ability to catch criminals. Classic justification of "if you're not a bad guy, what do…

No one ever answers the “what do you have to hide” question, which is a little sus.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic but imo the lack of answers is because the phrasing begs the question. If you change "hide" to "protect" it suddenly becomes a bit more of a different proposition.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#364

Post by xp84 »

yujzgzc wrote: post #318
TheGRS wrote: post #315

I have deep disagreements with my father on this subject. He worked as a federal agent for 30 years, mostly in digital forensics. He does not believe in the right to privacy in any of the same ways I do. Whereas I believe a right to privacy in your tools and communication is essential, he believes they infringe on the government's ability to catch criminals. Classic justification of "if you're not a bad guy, what do…

Actually that's a problem for a lot of libertarian minded tech, it starts being thought of as enabling freedom from oppressive governments and ends up being adopted by criminals - Bitcoin, Tor, etc. In the tech industry you also find a bend of very economically self interested version of privacy, which is that giving privacy to your users is a great way to claim you didn't know anything bad was happening. I'm pretty…

> starts being thought of as enabling freedom from oppressive governments and ends up being adopted by criminals - Bitcoin, Tor, etc

Yes. Both are real facets of this type of tech. For all the handwringing about "but what if fascism" that we have here in the US, I'm pretty sure 90% of the actual worries American cryptocurrency users have in their hearts is either about tax evasion, money laundering, or using crypto to buy/sell something illegal (Granted, there are some things illegal to buy/sell that there could be an ethical argument shouldn't be illegal -- probably certain drugs for instance). If someone has made bitcoin transactions to say, donate to EFF, Planned Parenthood or ACLU, I would take a bet of 5 Bitcoin that he isn't going to be imprisoned for that fact in this country. Yes, even though Trump is President.

But I think we who believe in privacy make ourselves look bad if we try to pretend that there isn't a ton of that stuff going on.

It's a reasonable opinion to say that privacy is good, but I think the thing to argue and "prove" is that it outweighs the fact that this technology also enables all this bad stuff. Which is a value judgment and thus you need to convince people, rather than just point to the word "Freedom" and assert.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#365

Post by Freedom2 »

integralid wrote: post #354
tormeh wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of stupid people out there waiting for someone who knows how to speak to them. Sounding like a country bumpkin and being unimpressive to the elites is probably good qualities if you want to be that sort of person.

>a lot of stupid people I mean not being condescending to them would go a long way.

How else do you describe people who didn't know what a tariff was, didn't care to check how it works, blindly believes that other countries will pay for it (especially after Mexico didn't really pay for the wall the first time around?), and will likely still believe whatever misinformation they're fed next time?

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#366

Post by efeqasfcadvxcv »

jmyeet wrote: post #297

Bitcoin is a perfect microcosm for the tech sector in what happens when people who don't know how something works and refuse to understand it, try to replace it. Every aspect of the modern financial system exists for a reason. It evolved over time to deal with problems. Things like reversible transactions are a feature not a bug. Bitcoin is where all the gold bugs went who lamented the end of the gold standard. Most…

Rethink your ideas, you are very wrong here.

It is a fantastic escape from debasement of fiat, and always has been an escape from the perils of fiat currencies. It was created for this very purpose in 2009, and has absolutely achieved this goal. A 2019 $ vs a 2025 $ are significantly different purchasing power. Yet a 2019 BTC vs a 2025 BTC shows remarkable capital appreciation. You can pick any time scale you like, and except for very specific edge cases, it has in general been a great hedge against debasement of fiat, and will continue to be.

I have been able to preserve the purchasing power of my savings for over a decade now, and still keep buying every week.

Why would this be any different the next decade? (beyond the attenuation effect from more capital flowing into the space?).

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#369

Post by godelski »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #337
jordanb wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever leftists say that "Trump is a symptom of an illness that has been metastasizing for a long time" this is what we mean.

> Whenever leftists say that "Trump is a symptom of an illness that has been metastasizing for a long time" this is what we mean. It's also the thing I don't understand about party loyalty. When candidate George W. Bush was running for President, he was saying all kinds of things about how big government is bad and regulation destroys small businesses etc. Clearly not consistent with what he did once he was in office…

  > get your state to use STAR voting instead of first past the post and you get more than two choices, and then liars can be evicted even if their state/district goes >60% to the left or right.
This. Or any cardinal voting, such ask approval, ends up being a huge win.

The system is flawed from its roots. People need a voting system that allows them to specify their conscious, not vote on strategy only. The latter only leads to a race to the bottom. Unfortunately ranked voting systems do not allow for this, and we've seen those predictions come true in places like New York.

  > It's also the thing I don't understand about party loyalty.
What I don't understand is how a lot of people will state both parties are corrupt and then also be party loyal. My parents are some of these types of people, but it is also pretty common. Together we'll happily criticize any member of the left, we'll happily criticize the abstract notion of politicians, but as soon as a name like Donald Trump leaves my mouth there's accusations of communism. I've literally had conversations where we both agree Biden is too old, we both agree that the country shouldn't be run by geriatrics or anyone over 60, but as soon as the next part is mentioned about how this means I don't want Trump then they start talking about how he's a special case and will contradict everything that they said before. They literally cannot understand how I voted Biden but also happily criticize him and state that I think he was unfit to be president.

We've turned politics into religion. It's not just the right (though I'd argue it's more common), but so many people love to paint everything as black and white. Anyone who thinks the world isn't full of shades of gray is a fucking zealot and we've let that go on for too long.

Re: The treasury is expanding the Patriot Act to attack Bitcoin self custody

#370

Post by [deleted] »

stavros wrote: post #236
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're incredibly lucky the 'just an acronym' ended that way then. Had they named it the 'Joining and Reinforcing the Nation by Satisfying Liberties and Guaranteeing Efficient Control Over Surveillance' we would have ended with the JRN SLGECOS Act.

Apparently I forgot to close my sarcasm tag.

[deleted]
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