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Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
71–80 of 104 posts
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#72"which, for many of its libertarian-anarchist advocates, is the whole idea" The politics the community built around is for me the only reason why it sucks right now, the idea is interesting and it can certainly have some use. Selling all that I have. TL;DR: Well, the link speaks for itself: http://imgur.com/r/cringepics/gkLJswu EDIT: Ultimately what I hate about it is that the almost anywhere you go do discuss it the…
Fail.
“It’s very attractive to the libertarian viewpoint if we can explain it properly. I’m better with code than with words though.”
Satoshi Nakamoto 14 Nov 2008
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
That law would fail because there's no way to prove the transaction didn't come from someone who wants to cause trouble for the registered person but whom the person doesn't actually know. Suppose you are angry at a merchant who takes bitcoin: 1. Create new bitcoin address. 2. Receive bitcoins from someone for cash. 3. Send them to merchant's public address.
If it's money they're not expecting, no problem: they just declare and forfeit it to the tax authorities, like a bag of cocaine-drenched cash that was found in their store. If it's money given to them in payment for goods/services, they reject it as non-legal tender. "I'm sorry, sir, we can't take that form of payment, do you have another?" Software makes this very easy... even automatic.
Wouldn't this open up the possibility of a DDoS-type attack performed by having millions of transactions of 1 satoshi (0.00000001 BTC) in dirty coins flung at the merchant by someone's botnet? It would force the merchant to reject each one at a computational cost, whether by giving the money back or by transferring it to the government.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#74Well the so-called "Modern Liberal State" is an existential threat to humanity, so it seems fair to me.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#75FTA: Taxation: How do governments collect taxes on transactions in Bitcoin? The answer is they don't, and they can't. Though many Bitcoin fans don't quite realize it, Bitcoin's radical transparency could in fact be a tax-collector's wet dream. Every public-key, balance, and transaction is public. A government that wants to coopt and efficiently tax Bitcoin could announce the following policy, based on the idea of 'ta…
Excellent points. This would, of course, lead to any individual, or entity, simply keeping 2 sets of keys. One legit, taxed, & one gray/untracked. That way, they could play either the clean or dirty markets. But, they still couldn't launder, or cross between dirty & clean easily. They'd still need a collaborative cleaner in between... Such cleaners are easily built in the model you mention. (Out of country, with hand…
You'd still need a good excuse for receiving money from out of country.
"Sold a drawing of my cat on Etsy for $1000" will only work so many times.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you do, you can file a disclosure with 30 days, identifying the origin and nature of the transaction I smell a Fifth Amendment issue with doing this in the US.
The IRS already requires this for cash today.
I assume they simply take the money by force if you don't comply?
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can the government stop me from buying something with USD? Not a chance. What? Of course they can. They can get a warrant and bust into your house and put you in jail if they have basis to believe you have bought something they think you shouldn't have (drugs, child porn, slaves, and tons of other things).
Sure, they can penalize me after, but they can't actually stop me from buying something I shouldn't have. Precisely the same with bitcoin.
You're implying that there are always back channels?
What if they could effectively limit the supply of something? Can you buy a live sample of measles?
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, they can penalize me after, but they can't actually stop me from buying something I shouldn't have. Precisely the same with bitcoin.
You're implying that there are always back channels? What if they could effectively limit the supply of something? Can you buy a live sample of measles?
You're getting way off track here. The assertion was that the government is afraid that it can't stop you from spending bitcoins, the implication being that it can with cash. Bitcoin vs. USD doesn't solve your ability to purchase weaponized measles.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#79FTA: Taxation: How do governments collect taxes on transactions in Bitcoin? The answer is they don't, and they can't. Though many Bitcoin fans don't quite realize it, Bitcoin's radical transparency could in fact be a tax-collector's wet dream. Every public-key, balance, and transaction is public. A government that wants to coopt and efficiently tax Bitcoin could announce the following policy, based on the idea of 'ta…
It's even more simple than that: There's nothing about paper money that enables tax collection either. And yet somehow, taxes continue to exist. Bitcoin is only a currency, not an entire financial system. It is a replacement for pieces of paper or shiny metal with doodles of George Washington stamped on them. It is not a replacement for banks, or credit cards, most other ephemera that people have constructed on top o…
> My gut is that two parallel economies is an unstable situation
Parallel economies are not only inevitable, they can be long-term stable whenever you can't deal in some (desirable) goods in the legitimate economy. Black markets are very difficult to root out and always have been.
> the shadow-economy would not receive must traction compared to the legitimized one.
Depends on how essential the black market is to getting what people view as the essentials of life. In middle-class First World countries, it's pretty marginal, because most salarymen don't really want heroin that badly. In the 1970s Soviet Union, if you didn't trade on the black market you simply could not get certain goods Americans would regard as utterly mundane, such as bananas. The USSR had a horrible time with black markets and goods disappearing from store shelves and being hoarded in peoples' apartments.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Existential Threat to the Modern Liberal State
#80FTA: Taxation: How do governments collect taxes on transactions in Bitcoin? The answer is they don't, and they can't. Though many Bitcoin fans don't quite realize it, Bitcoin's radical transparency could in fact be a tax-collector's wet dream. Every public-key, balance, and transaction is public. A government that wants to coopt and efficiently tax Bitcoin could announce the following policy, based on the idea of 'ta…
This must be why hackers never write these kind of polemics. If they take such a strong position on something like this, they end up seeing other perspectives which falsifies that position. They would have to tack on a "...Maybe" at the end of their title, rework their premise or otherwise end up sabotaging their article's readership.
It reminds me of this Calvin & Hobbes: http://jurassikparc.tumblr.com/image/8226642015