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The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

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Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#91

Post by ersii »

matt4077 wrote: post #85
tudorconstantin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What exactly is that killer app of bitcoin that so frightens the establishment?" Right now in order to spend ones bitcoins (with a few exceptions) one has to change them into fiat currency and that's where the establishment can monitor and control the money flow. What will happen when a critical mass of service providers and product sellers will gladly accept crypto coins? That's when one can hide his cash reserves…

Yes, probably. It's just slightly insane to think you can opt-out of paying taxes via technology, or that taxes are somehow for the benefit of some nebulous "establishment". That's empirically true, for only a tiny sliver of very strange people still fantasise about some Randian utopia of every-man-for-himself. And it's logically inescapable, since there's no way to sustain today's societies without the cooperation e…

Why do you consider it to be (just?) slightly insane to think that one could opt-out of paying taxes with technology?

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#92

Post by ehrtt »

Another prescient text about how the internet and cryptography will change the logic behind the existence of nation states as we know them today is: The Sovereign Individual (James Dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg) - highly recommend it, I felt like I was pulling back the curtain on the true workings of the world.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#93

Post by mempko »

FooHentai wrote: post #88
mempko wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes,the last one was a typo. Phone input. My argument is bitcoin relies on a consistent ledger to function. It relies on a distributed system to compute the ledger, but it depends on consistency to function. This makes it ACT like a centralized system and therefore it functionally IS one. A real decentalized system functions with inconsistency.

So then to track that argument down to an absurdity - The objections you raise could equally be applied to language, or mathematics.

Language does not have to be consistent and mathematics are a game we play. Bitcoin is a single global public ledger created in a distributed system. To call it decentralized is strange since all transactions must go into the central ledger to be valid. In other words, decentralized systems function perfectly fine with inconsistency. Bitcoin does not pass that test.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#94

Post by KGIII »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #49

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hbis7/us_congress... TLDR; There's currently a bill to make cryptocurrencies illegal. (and other stuff that the government can't control)

Alright, I waded through the salient sections. It doesn't appear to be making it illegal, at least not outright prohibiting it. It also includes some verbiage for some research to be done - basically a feasibility study.

It looks like they're going to treat cryptocurrencies like cash. Somehow, it looks like they think they are going to be able to detect it at the border. I have no idea how they think they are going to do that. If you want to get around it, just don't leave evidence of it on your devices when you cross the border. Dropbox exists.

Other than that, they've already made it so that it is illegal to do certain transactions, over $10,000, without notifying the government. My understanding is that exchanges already follow this rule, but I bet there are some .onion sites that beg to differ, just a hunch.

But, it doesn't look like they are making them illegal. It almost looks like they are recognizing it as legitimate. If you read the proposal, treat it like a find/replace. It is modifying existing laws.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#95

Post by INTPenis »

davidw wrote: post #19

If you haven't read it, there are some great bits in Cryptonimicon that kind of captures the spirit of some of that crowd. Great book in any event.

What gets me is that I read that book before I discovered bitcoin. So when bitcoin was brand new and worth only cents I looked at it like sci-fi and doubted it would ever take off.

I'm still kicking myself over that.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#96

Post by INTPenis »

DonCarlitos wrote: post #75

And still, the rich get richer, the powerful even more so... cutting barbed wire hasn't changed anything. Casts some serious shade on the power of crypto-anarchy to change anything. Anarchy, like libertarianism, are lovely notions with no direct roots in reality. Here's hoping blockchain democratizes and makes more transparent at least part of the puzzle.

I believe it is changing things but far away from western society.

I believe that instead of using force on nations in the middle east for example you only need to use information. The people will seek out information and this will cause them to question the status quo simply by comparing their lifestyle and culture to someone elses.

Deep down most people all want the same things.

Bombing them into oblivion only hurts this because they distrust any information coming from the aggressors.

Looking at western, developed societies - what I like to refer to as e-nations instead of i-nations - I don't believe it has changed much. You can look back before the information age in Europe and still find the same basic elements in society. People with so much freedom that they can travel the world or volunteer in other parts of the world to make a difference. Altruism in other words.

But in many other parts a larger portion of the population are still living hand to mouth and without any safety nets. Simply spreading information about the world to them will cause them to question their situation.

This is likely what caused the arab spring. People in those nations were connected to the rest of the world and refused to accept what previous generations had taken for granted.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#97

Post by declan »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #49

Relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hbis7/us_congress... TLDR; There's currently a bill to make cryptocurrencies illegal. (and other stuff that the government can't control)

Not quite illegal, but not quite legal (in the current relatively unregulated sense) either. I did a writeup of the Senate bill in the HN thread on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14567005

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#98

Post by TeMPOraL »

kortex wrote: post #84
duncan_bayne wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard is I think the same as the standard for voting; if you're enfranchised, you would be eligible for selection by sortition. If you're arguing that this may lead to the selection of unqualified representatives, yes, that's certainly a risk. But the very same people are already voting in the current system. They may not become representatives themselves, but they're certainly choosing them. If your society c…

There is a profound amount of stuff in our political system which is necessary to the everyday running of the country, and yet is profoundly boring. There are a huge number of people for which having to participate in reading and debating law is untenable for one or more reasons. Hell, the politicians PAID to do this don't read all the things they are supposed to. Hell, half of Americans can't be bothered to vote . H…

I think it would be fine to just replace the elected stuff with sortition. I mean, all the administrative staff doing the actual work, the necessary and boring work, are unelected staff anyway.

Re: The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto (1988)

#100

Post by webmaven »

mirimir wrote: post #90
webmaven wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information "wants" to be gratis only in the sense that water "wants" to flow downhill. It turns out that devices that impede that flow (like a cup) are useful. The corollary then to your particular analogy is that since anonymity on the internet was the default, it turned out that much of the commercial value eventually accrued to companies that correlated online activities with each other (searches, clicks, posts,…

The Internet was never anonymous. Especially not at the start, when every computer had its own IP address.

First, IP address assignment for dial-up users was generally random from a pool, and ISPs usually only kept logs long enough to be useful for troubleshooting purposes.

But ignoring the IP address assignment issues, do you remember what website log analysis tools (eg. http://www.webalizer.org/) were like back then? Most encouraged dumping the raw logs and just keeping the summarizing reports.

As a result, for most intents and purposes the data on nearly all user information consumption and interaction was ephemeral.

These New Yorker cartoons sum up the situation then and now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_dog.jpg#/media/F...

http://68.media.tumblr.com/7a8daddf2030b685e5e776eb9af7a6ac/...

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