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France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

reuters.com

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Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#91

Post by olivierduval »

justinzollars wrote: post #78
aazaa wrote: post #27

> “no private entity can claim monetary power, which is inherent to the sovereignty of nations” What a bizarre statement. Providing for security is also inherent to sovereignty of nations, but private security firms flourish. It's also odd in the context of Germany in particular where a private currency has been used for many years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiemgauer I suspect there's a lot more behind this sta…

We need more financial freedom in the west. Facebook is right to allow its users the ability to protect their assets with Libra - backed by a basket of currencies. I'm very excited about this idea; of course Governments are not going to be comfortable with something they can not control. Whey they go to the printing press to pay for their deficits I certainly want the ability to protect my assets with a stronger curr…

Not sure to be more comfortable to rely more on the interests of a private US company that has already been proven un-ethical several times than to trust an elected (so revokable) governement ;-)

But in Europe, we have more trust in our own governement and less in corporation than in the US, where it seem to be the opposite

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#92

Post by atq2119 »

logicchains wrote: post #79
ben_w wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that a bad thing? Regardless of the fraction, if something really does cause more harm than benefit, we will by definition be better off without it, no?

>more harm than benefit The "harm" Facebook causes is subjective. Some people actually get a lot of pleasure out of it; not everybody is an introverted, neurotic techie.

The studies linking Facebook usage to unhappiness don't restrict their samples to "neurotic techies".

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#93

Post by WanderPanda »

Avamander wrote: post #26
aniforprez wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AH the bit about the goal being to make payments fast makes a ton of sense. The rest of the world has left the US in the dust with extremely fast payments systems. In India, the UPI system has taken the country by storm with direct,instant bank-to-bank money transfers which take seconds to complete and have no fees attached for the consumer

Europe has SEPA (Instant). The Chinese have WeChat Pay and similar? I'm curious, what other solutions other countries have?

SEPA ist anything but instant for me. A transfer takes a day most of the time

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#94

Post by WanderPanda »

logicchains wrote: post #89
grezql wrote: post #3

I wish they just blocked facebook altogether. It has caused people more pain than good

Citation needed? Most people I know happily use it to communicate and post funny (or at least trying to be funny) posts, or are older people who post lots of family pictures. The views of people on Hackernews don't seem very representative of those of the general population, maybe because hating on Facebook is an excellent excuse for people to feel superior to the general population. "I know better than those ignoran…

You nail it

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#96

Post by walshemj »

moksly wrote: post #15
noisem4ker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking a communication platform doesn't sound right in a free society. There's nothing inherently wrong with connecting people. On the other hand, there should be heavy regulation and enforcement in place so that users don't get their data unknowingly exploited for commercial interest.

Facebook has turned out to be a potential threat to free society. I’m not just talking about the mass manipulation that goes on mostly unregulated, but also the fact that it has quite a lot of personal information on our citizens. Maybe that wouldn’t be an issue if Europe was the best of friends with America, but as that’s obviously not the case. I don’t think our relationship will fully deteriorate, but we can’t ign…

By your argument you would ban newspapers owned and controlled by individuals - that is what caused the Brexit mess

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#97

Post by WanderPanda »

luckydata wrote: post #52
koboll wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you banned everything that causes people more pain than good, half the economy would evaporate overnight.

I thought the economy existed in the service of human happiness, not the other way around.

Just because something makes you unhappy, doesn't mean it serves the economy.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#98

Post by atq2119 »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #65
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Murder is also immoral. Libra is hardly morally questionable. If you want a better comparison take (software) piracy. Piracy is illegal and while I'm sure Steam, Spotify, and Netflix has reduced it a lot it is still thriving and many people break the law if not daily at least monthly. Best thing you can do is to make a law that forces banks to prevent payments to known Libra sellers, but again if there is value in Li…

If murder is immoral, what are death penalty and soldiers killing other soldiers (when it's not civilians)? Besides the context (and the legal aspect), they are the same act, homicide with intent. Their morality seem to be different depending who you ask. And as for Libra being made illegal, I don't see what value it provides in EU to make it worth breaking the law.

Many, probably most people would argue that the death penalty is immoral. Similarly, soldiers killing soldiers is generally seen as immoral unless it happens as part of a genuine war of defense. On both accounts you can twist the numbers using framing, but there's really no inconsistency here.

Re: France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra

#99

Post by WanderPanda »

dannyr wrote: post #90

I dislike Facebook but I kind of feel sorry for them now because any ambitious thing that they'll attempt will probably be blocked by governments now. Facebook and Zuckerberg deserves it though.

They probably should have started it without that huge buzz and in a couple of selected countries.
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