Topic: Bitcoin vs. War: Can Bitcoin Reduce Wars? - page 3. (Read 15747 times)
U put two types of ppl together and they will always fight.. Even if they are family. There are just a bunch of dooches out there that dont really think things thru properly before emotions get the best of them. So extrapolating there will be wars just because of the sheer number of douches and hogh chance of govt officials being them
Bitcoin can also be bad too as terrorists can move around funds with ease, anonymously.
Sure, Bitcoin and fiat can both be used for good and evil. Fiat can be spent just as anonymously as Bitcoin or more so.
The difference between the two though is with fiat citizens are forced to pay for murder, torture, and terrorism and with Bitcoin states, gangs, terrorists, and corrupt individuals cannot support their unethical actions by socializing those costs across the whole population.
No, but we can. Empathy can.
Some are the biggest war happening right now are by the people consent and support(the war on terror eg).I'm pretty sure if the government ask for donation to invade another alleged terrorist harboring country, large swath of the public would gladly donate their bitcoin for it.
Sure, many support the "war of terror" but humans tend to be hypocrites. The amount of donations people would choose to make would amount to the amount of donations people make to politicians for fundraising which would be a small fraction of the amount these wars actually cost.
Demanding war and socializing the costs is one thing, but what would happen if everyone used Bitcoin instead of Government fiat, and thus governments would need to propose legislation to fund a war through bonds or taxes instead of simply inflating the monetary supply? From what I understand about human nature we tend to be selfish and hypocrites who prefer other people to pay for our wishes and often have higher priorities than war to spend our bitcoins on.
Some are the biggest war happening right now are by the people consent and support(the war on terror eg).I'm pretty sure if the government ask for donation to invade another alleged terrorist harboring country, large swath of the public would gladly donate their bitcoin for it.
As long as humans live, war will continue, because there will always be conflict. War never changes.
War can be bloodless and cold."Every battle is won before it's ever fought." - Sun Tzu
I don't think it can. For me I think it might be rather opposite due to its anonymity prospect.
As long as humans live, war will continue, because there will always be conflict. War never changes.
Bitcoin can also be bad too as terrorists can move around funds with ease, anonymously.
Sure, Bitcoin and fiat can both be used for good and evil. Fiat can be spent just as anonymously as Bitcoin or more so.
The difference between the two though is with fiat citizens are forced to pay for murder, torture, and terrorism and with Bitcoin states, gangs, terrorists, and corrupt individuals cannot support their unethical actions by socializing those costs across the whole population.
Bitcoin can also be bad too as terrorists can move around funds with ease, anonymously.
Sure, Bitcoin and fiat can both be used for good and evil. Fiat can be spent just as anonymously as Bitcoin or more so.
The difference between the two though is with fiat citizens are forced to pay for murder, torture, and terrorism and with Bitcoin states, gangs, terrorists, and corrupt individuals cannot support their unethical actions by socializing those costs across the whole population.
Bitcoin can also be bad too as terrorists can move around funds with ease, anonymously.
Hmm, maybe if you check out the financial terrorism that occurs here and there. Not sure what, but there's an angle here, I'll be back!
Countries started printing money to fund wars so if they don't have a way to create huge amounts of money out of thin air to fund a campaign of destruction then that could put a stop to most of the foolish military adventurism going on. The best way to prevent wars is to vote in politicians who can actually negotiate with each other instead of causing wars but we never do that, instead we vote in falsely heroic populist frauds who don't even try to negotiate and just dictate terms to each other under threat of war.
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A poignant response. Additionally, there are many other factors that make invading a anarchistic and decentralized culture difficult and undesirable by states.
1) Unwilling tax base
2) No centralized databases and communications to take over
3) Sometimes guerrilla warfare isn't even needed to resist occupiers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolution
4) Propaganda wouldn't be very effective
"Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.
Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions. " - The Art of War
From the game-theoretic point of view this is dubious. Assume the existence of two alliances: B & F. Alliance B uses Bitcoin-based financial system without fractional reserve. Alliance F uses the conventional debt-based financial system.
F issues war bonds to finance war of aggression against B. Because B is not capable of financing its own defense it gets easily conquered by F. F then subjugates the people of B and robs their natural resources to pay off the war bonds issued. By demolishing all B's massive mining farms it also significantly increases the availability of cheap electricity.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
Ok F land takes B land, but then what?F issues war bonds to finance war of aggression against B. Because B is not capable of financing its own defense it gets easily conquered by F. F then subjugates the people of B and robs their natural resources to pay off the war bonds issued. By demolishing all B's massive mining farms it also significantly increases the availability of cheap electricity.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
1. They can't raise taxes because everyone hates them and are hiding their transactions using Bitcoin.
2. Oppressing peoples is historically insanely expensive, the ONLY "successful" examples I know are
the Romans, Arabs, Mongols and other such empires that brought new organization and tech with them
- not just oppression.
3. Funding a purely defensive military is also way cheaper than actual wars, any small fortifications,
armed militias or one or two deterring weapons like 1 nuke, 1 dirty bomb or 1 bio weapon would drive the
cost/risk of invasion through the roof.
4. They need the local work force of the nation to get the resources - no Americans are willingly gonna dig for coal
in Africas mines! Their ENTIRE modus operandi for achieving this has been putting the country deep in debt and corruption -
which becomes very difficult with a B land based on open voluntary P2P structures and no debt.
Russias method has been convincing them they're Russian.. a method which has its limits.
In any case a decentralized B nation is difficult to control through capturing 2 or 3 central authority buildings.
5. What about REAL war then? Exterminate a people, move your own in and straight up take it all? Very risky in todays world -
everyone and their grandmother has a nuke/bio weapon - and you just became the international bad guy that its okay to bomb/"liberate".
Why do you think Putin cares about the medias perception when he could just roll in? This is why.
From the game-theoretic point of view this is dubious. Assume the existence of two alliances: B & F. Alliance B uses Bitcoin-based financial system without fractional reserve. Alliance F uses the conventional debt-based financial system.
F issues war bonds to finance war of aggression against B. Because B is not capable of financing its own defense it gets easily conquered by F. F then subjugates the people of B and robs their natural resources to pay off the war bonds issued. By demolishing all B's massive mining farms it also significantly increases the availability of cheap electricity.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
F issues war bonds to finance war of aggression against B. Because B is not capable of financing its own defense it gets easily conquered by F. F then subjugates the people of B and robs their natural resources to pay off the war bonds issued. By demolishing all B's massive mining farms it also significantly increases the availability of cheap electricity.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
Your actually arguing my point for me without realizing it.
Bitcoin empowers the individuals and dis-empowers the states. Thus, you are correct that any state that has a significant percentage of citizens adopting crypto-currencies are at a disadvantage in leveraging the tool of dilution to scale up defenses from an attacking state. Bitcoin does have properties which are antagonistic to the ability of states to control their economy which is detrimental for funding either a defensive or offensive war.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
Agreed, if your definition of adopters means states(B the state gets easily conquered by F the state), but if you intend to define adopters as individual people and their families, I would disagree. The concern of the security of individuals in an anarchist society without a healthy state defending them is another conversation which we can discuss now if you are interested.
What we are also proposing is that the adoption of any crypto-currency which makes it more difficult for states to tax and regulate also makes funding such wars more difficult as well.
From the game-theoretic point of view this is dubious. Assume the existence of two alliances: B & F. Alliance B uses Bitcoin-based financial system without fractional reserve. Alliance F uses the conventional debt-based financial system.F issues war bonds to finance war of aggression against B. Because B is not capable of financing its own defense it gets easily conquered by F. F then subjugates the people of B and robs their natural resources to pay off the war bonds issued. By demolishing all B's massive mining farms it also significantly increases the availability of cheap electricity.
It would appear that the adopters of Bitcoin necessarily put themselves at disadvantage in a military conflict or that your model needs further refinement.
The vast majority of the major wars (all of them?) since the revolutionary war have been financed primarily through debt and somewhat through increased tax revenues. You can find posters that were created around the times many more recent wars broke out advocating for people to buy "war bonds"
The vast majority of wars have been financed by dilution(loans diluting public assets or the debasement of currency). This can be done directly like the Romans did debasing their currency by adding non-precious metals into their coins or through fiat currency inflation.
Even with your example you are wrong:
The financing of war expenditures by the means of currency issues (printing money) was by far the major avenue resorted to by the Confederate government. Between 1862 and 1865, more than 60% of total revenue was created in this way.[4] While the North doubled its money supply during the war, the money supply in the South increased twenty times over.[5]
The confederate army primarily relied upon dilution , while the union army relied on a a mix of dilution, loans, bonds, and new taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_war_finance
The alternative methods that states finance wars(taxes and bonds) prior to going off the gold standard strengthens my argument . When currency is tied to a commodity or crypto-currency with a fixed inflation rate or that is deflationary the state no longer has the tool to fund wars with dilution which makes fundraising much more difficult.
Most definitely shows how naive and out of touch with reality some bitcoin supporters are. Bitcoin will do nothing to stop "popular" wars.There are quite so many cases where war were actually "demanded" the the majority of the populace.
I don't think anyone is insinuating that Bitcoin will stop all violence and skirmishes. The argument being made is that state actors cannot use deflationary currencies as a tool to socialize/amortize the costs of large scale wars.
Demanding war and socializing the costs is one thing, but what would happen if everyone used Bitcoin instead of Government fiat, and thus governments would need to propose legislation to fund a war through bonds or taxes instead of simply inflating the monetary supply? From what I understand about human nature we tend to be selfish and hypocrites who prefer other people to pay for our wishes and often have higher priorities than war to spend our bitcoins on.
What we are also proposing is that the adoption of any crypto-currency which makes it more difficult for states to tax and regulate also makes funding such wars more difficult as well.
One argument that would be valid against my position is if state governments consistently become proficient at stealing the private keys as they have done a few times in the past than Bitcoin could be used to fund their adventures. Hopefully, hardware wallets and multi-sig will assist in deterring these unethical actions committed by states.
Very difficult to foresee.
As many of you already said, I think Bitcoin alone can't stop wars.
Anyway, I also think wars happen more frequently in presence of powerful vested interests of, as it were, "centralized organizations" that can control and influence many people. With decentralization it's harder to set up an army and persuade people to the necessity of war.
Moreover, Bitcoin can reduce the power of governments and banks, which are both - as we know - the main architects of war, along with religious organizations.
So, I'm pretty confident Bitcoin can contribute to set up a more peaceful world
As many of you already said, I think Bitcoin alone can't stop wars.
Anyway, I also think wars happen more frequently in presence of powerful vested interests of, as it were, "centralized organizations" that can control and influence many people. With decentralization it's harder to set up an army and persuade people to the necessity of war.
Moreover, Bitcoin can reduce the power of governments and banks, which are both - as we know - the main architects of war, along with religious organizations.
So, I'm pretty confident Bitcoin can contribute to set up a more peaceful world
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