Topic: Bitcoin should remain safe from the paws of people doing business as "the state" (Read 5203 times)

Normally, I would ask you "how exactly do you know that?" but this time I won't.  You are very much wrong when you say that.  Forgive me, but no, states weren't "made" to do "bad things" -- they chose to do these evil things themselves.  You can't sit here and tell me that Hitler's government was somehow "used" to execute the Endlösung, or Stalin was duped into the purges, or Lincoln was bamboozled into executing the Sioux massacres.  I'm not an idiot to believe such an outrageous and nonsensical theory, and neither are the other people in this thread.

"Governments are used by evil people to do bad things" is a false statement of belief, mere and vain apologetics to discharge / disclaim / minimize States' responsibility for the mass murders and other evil things they deliberately chose to do.  The observable reality is that the evil people are in government, that they conceive and carry out their mass murderous agendas, and that you can't deny this.  Your attempt to deny this is a palpable symptom of Livestockholm Syndrome -- "I can't afford to accept the reality that these abusers are actually abusers, so I'm going to invent a reason to believe that they are not."

This reminds me of the good ole' excuse "but my dad didn't know any better, that's why he beat me up" excuse, that lots of people use to apologize for abusive brutes.

This needs to be further up.  Just because the place we live isn't called "The Soviet Union" does not mean that you won't see the same tactics being used.  Governments today already are more intrusive than the Soviet Union -- they're just not as openly violent... yet.

States are big organisations. And a lot of states were used to very bad things (I mean really bad things like genocide or willingly cause mass starvation). A state is not a good nor a bad things per se. So are corporations with which should fill the gap that a eroding state will leave, if you understood you well.
Thats exactly my problem. In contrast to a state a corporation doesn't have any ethical commitment by desgin. Believe it or not, some corporations are even using states to do bad things for their purpose! Because states (at least some) can be held responsible for not following their ethical and institutional agenda I prefer a state to a corporations governed society.

Just for starters how about:
record your internet activity, make the use of strong encryption without key disclosure to the state a crime, secure a warrant for your home/computer/safety-deposit boxes, make the penalty for the refusal to provide passphrase (any passphrase) worse than the underlying crime (i.e. it is 5 years in prison and forfeiture of the value of the bitcoin address for hiding it from the state, but if asked to provide passphrase for an encrypted doc failure to reveal is 30 years in prison and forfeiture of all assets for not providing the passphrase), use enhanced interrogation techniques (a euphemism for torture make no mistake about it), employ the use of drugs to compel you to testify against yourself,  deem your non-compliance an enemy of the state and seize all property and assets even if the underlying crime can't be proven (truthful or not), keep you under surveillance,  compel your neighbors, business associates, or family members to testify against you ...

Worst case scenario, just deem you a national security risk and assassinate you without any due process or trial (he was a terrorist we had to act without trial or he could have gotten away).  While that might not get them your private keys it may make other subjects less likely to hide things from their masters for fear that future "misunderstandings" might result in their extermination (the occasional mis-assassination if useful to ensure the populace doesn't stray to far from the accepted norm).

Not saying the state will do so however the state makes the rules.  The idea that there is a limit to what the state "can" do is just laughable.    Governments have murdered more of their own people (people they exist to protect) than any criminal, terrorist or foreign enemy ever has.

Just some examples:

Note these aren't governments killing "others" (i.e. the United States' extermination of Native Americans, or the number of humans who died under slavery) these are the known accounts of governments killing "self" and just in the last century.   Exact numbers may not ever be known but a pretty conservative number is that ~200 million "citizens" were killed by their own government just in the prior century.  So please don't think there is a limit on what the state can do.

Of course can and will the state force you to reveal at least one adress. But how will they force you to give them all of your adresses you're dealing with?
If theres a way to force you in compliance a state will do so. But I don't see how in this case.

No, I really don't think you mean "convince".

You're talking about governments.  Governments don't "convince".  They threaten with punishment.

Here is an illustrated difference between convincing and what governments do:

- Convincing: Hey mate, can I have your Bitcoin address?  No?  Well, here's an argument.  Still no?  OK.  No problem, carry on.
- What governments do: Hey mate, can I have your Bitcoin address?  No?  Well, here's some papers with orders.  Still no?  OK.  Five years in a cage for resisting the orders in the papers.

Do you see what I mean now?

I was answering to your three letters question and took some time to give your reasons for my opinion. It would help when you would do the same even though it may look absolutely evident that you don't need to argue about that. So why don't you tell me why you think so?

Also regarding this argument I would like to hear what you're thinking, not that I'm just on the wrong side.

No, I mean really convice. How could you force someone to give out not just n bitcoin adresses but all of the adresses that you're in possession?

By "convince" you mean threaten with punishment (caging, ruin, death), right?

Yes, it is.  <- Notice that I used the present tense there.  I did so intentionally.


Well, I've got some bad news for you then, because by my reconning, we are going to get a real free market within a decade whether we as a people are prepared for that or not.

I do think that there are some tasks that are better performed by the market and some that are better performed by a state. Was it a good thing when firefighters were private enterprises and your house would just burn down if you weren't able to buy their services?
If you lower all the taxes (health care, social security, etc) especially poor workers wont get more for their work since the market will immediatly adopt to the situation and lower wages to the new level of minimum accepteable compensation. Taxes on wages are also a gurantee for a minimum of social security.
Taxes colected are bad managed in a degree that is unbearable. But I'm not ready to abandon the concept for a "If we just would have the REAL market" idea.

Why?

First of all, I'm part of the apparently small minority (if existent), that is not totaly abandoning the state as a concept.
The state could try to convience you to give out an "official" bitcoin adress where your payroll and any financial transaction of reasonable size could be tracked to collect VAT and other taxes. These "official" adresses would be mandatory to be stated in any contract and receipt.
Once received with a official adress it would be as hard to get your coins out of sight as it is today to launder your money the traditional way.
I do not like the imagination of such a concept but I rather prefer it to a total capitalism.

First, thanks for sharing your feelings with us.

Second, perhaps you feel like Bitcoin is an example of people working "for the common good".  While I'm pretty sure that lots of people share your feelings, note that neither you nor the article author actually define what "the common good" is.

So, understandably, it might very well be the case that "the common good" for the corrupt (bankers, politicians, bureaucracy, their praetors) is a completely different thing that "the common good" is for you.  You can then understand how the corrupt (whose interests are threatened by Bitcoin) would consider Bitcoin to be the antithesis of "the common good", while you would see the actions of the corrupt trying to suppress Bitcoin as the antithesis of "the common good".

In other words: what the article author is saying is that "the common good" is merely an opinion with no intersubjectively verifiable basis, that there are thousands of different and conflicting opinions on what constitutes "the common good", and that what appears (to many people) to be "working for the common good" is merely groups of people working together aligned by a common interest.  That is exactly what public choice theory says, and the people working for and against Bitcoin are perfect examples that proves public choice theory.

And that's exactly what the author is saying here:


We both like Bitcoin.  You are helping me to live in accordance with my value system.  I am helping you live in accordance with your value system.

While the net result of a truly free market must tend toward increasing the common welfare, the individual market players most certainly do not participate in the interests of the common good.  The net result is due to the fact that all free trades (truly in the absence of coersion) must be in the best interests of those involved.  Thus, in the aggregate, the results of those millions of free trades must be in the best interests of the society as a whole, even if the outcome may not be 'optimal' from a particular ideological viewpoint.  The "prisoner's delimma" argument does not exist outside of the context of a coercive theird party; be that the prison itself or coercive governments at large.

In short, Bitcoin does not refute the above quoted statement, but still tends toward that result.

I disagree with this view:
"Their (sic) is no such thing as people working for the common good."

I feel that Bitcoin itself is an example that refutes that. 

DannyM, tell us more.  How would that work on the registration and on the tax collection side?

We need to be prepared.

Maybe linking bitcoin addresses and transactions to taxpayers for tax enforcement purposes.

I have no idea.  What ways do feds use cash beyond manipulation of the economy?  Maybe the CIA will switch to bitcoins to pay for all that heroin, once the hillbilies in Afganastan catch on to their game.

What ways do you see this type of use occurring?