Topic: Are Bitcoiners Neoliberals? - page 9. (Read 9255 times)

There is a middle-ground where Bitcoin doesn't "get the credit" for replacing the dollar & collapsing governments, but simply gives people a way to (partially) escape the paper-money system. Eventually, the old, corrupt system will be completely broken and the Libertarian Coin Nuts can take over. 

Bitcoin itself is a protocol and software program that is not political.  It may be used in a variety of different ways for a variety of purposes who have a political agenda but that is different then claimin that is what Bitcoin is.

People like Erik Vorhees who claim to know what Bitcoin is have latched onto the technology as a way of promoting his personal agenda and promoting himself.  He tries to misrepresent what Bitcoin is because he uses it as a bully pulpit because very few listen to his over-the-top nonsense.  His arguments consist of sound bytes and meme's.  Not that I totally disagree with the basic ideas of limited government but the way it is presented ranges from incredibly poor to ridiculous.  The same thing happened when the Internet was starting, all these people claimed the Internet was for freedom and it will end government corruption and give power to the people, yada yada yada.  Well guess what, it is now a tool for governments to spy on their citizens as well as a tool for freedom fighters.  The term most often used who go around claiming Bitcoin will replace the dollar, collapse governments, and end wars is "Pseudo-Libertarian" but I prefer "Bitcoin Wing Nut."

The bitcoin community makes up people from all walks and talks of life. I've met a broad spectrum of people in my travels.

Bitcoiners are not a monolith.

You'll see people from all over the political spectrum, this is a technology.

Ummm.... Yeah. I especially like how your 'definition' freely intermixes testable assertions of fact with opinion, and even a healthy dose of scorn.

I find this to be a pretty clear, compelling, and consistent definition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muHg86Mys7I

To make it even shorter, I believe in having the freedom to do what you want, but not the freedom to do what you want at the expense of somebody else's freedom.  I think that's the only way to be consistent about it.


They certainly do but most such debates honestly do not affect most of us on a daily basis.

Plus, freedom still offers some compelling answers.  Suppose you believe abortion is murder and should be prosecuted.  If we are all free and I do not believe in prosecuting abortion, then you don't have the freedom to prosecute abortion at my expense.  That would greatly curtail your ability to cause trouble on the subject.  Meanwhile, those who do not believe abortion is murder might very well believe in providing free aid to those who are prosecuted for it, so you might want to count your costs before you get into a war on the subject.

There comes a point where you have to start questioning whether or not you should be trying to right every wrong, with the use of force, using everyone else's resources as your bank account.

How do you define "freedom"?
There is nothing complex about it....
Debates about abortion (for example) can make a "proponent of freedom" quickly run into some complexity.

I don't believe in selling state "owned" enterprises, goods, and services, because it would not be right for the state to profit from theft.  A better strategy would be abandonment, in which case the services and property could usually be claimed by those who are actually working with it.  Sounds a little bit Marxian, but it was actually proposed by Murray Rothbard, among others.  I saw a variant of this in the fascinating novel Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt, and I believe about 4-5 years ago there were several hypothetical "end of the state" articles on strike-the-root.com which featured accounts of former state employees homesteading abandoned sate resources and putting them to productive use.

Before discovering the idea of the state simply abandoning its ill gotten gains, my personal preference was that the state should auction off all of its goods for fiat money and then destroy the fiat money.  That idea might hold some interest for Bitcoiners.

I don't think this thread really belongs under "Bitcoin discussion" when there is a politics forum.

I'd say that's putting it in the most negative way possible. How about we try rephrasing some of that:

THE RULES OF THE MARKET: All goods and services, including labor, are traded using the rules of supply and demand. Employees are expected to stick up for themselves when they are being mistreated by employers but should respect the fact that they're often being paid what their job is worth.

CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Instead of paying taxes, families can choose to use their money for the goods and services they use every day, including choosing which from a list of schools you send your children to. You get sick of that pothole in the road, you can make voluntary contributions to a fund that will fill it. You use the city bus, you're the one who pays the fare. There are charities that feed and house the poor that you can donate to. As for corporations, it's the rules of the marketplace again. If you don't want the goods and services they provide, if you prefer to have a solar panel and a well instead of paying for public utilities for instance, that's your business.

DEREGULATION: Buy the more efficient light bulb for the savings on your electric bill. Buy the fuel-efficient car or get around on a bicycle. Go freelance if you feel unsafe at your job. I've heard of joes with a welding license opening up shop in their garage. It's the free market again.

PRIVATIZATION: Tough one, but I like the idea of having several private schools competing for tuition dollars. Check out the MOOCs sometime and you'll see how easy it is to get a cheap education outside of public school. Electricity? Install solar panels. Fresh water? The ones who don't live in the desert can collect rain water, and the ones who live near a coastline can check out this Youtube video to see how to get fresh water from the ocean. Really! I think people are more clever about getting life's essentials than you give them credit for. It'll be a shakeup if governments privatize their assets all at once, but survivors know how to adapt.

I am not seeing how "individual responsibility" is a bad thing. Really a lot of the problems I see in America have to do with the fact that not enough people do the "individual responsibility" thing. Tell me you've never seen pictures of welfare queens with two brats and a third on the way. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be on the dust heap of failed businesses. Honestly, it's not the 19th century anymore. Most poor folks have a laptop or a friend with a laptop and one condition for being on welfare should be that they should demonstrate a new employable skill that they learned from Youtube lesson videos within three months, and have a new job within six.

not neoliberals,because if  let BTC success, it avoid  need current economic and financial system  support.

After having a few tweets with Erik Voorhees today, rather than going through yet another libertarian debate, I figured- let's get tactical.

The bitcoin political ideology has been identified before.  It's called Neoliberalism.

do bitcoiners call themselves Neoliberals?



sounds familiar don't it?

-bm



edit: mispelled Erik's name.  Dutch names arghhh