Topic: Bitcoin's are totally useless once you have a state of WAR! - page 2. (Read 6362 times)

Yes, you are right... I finally (after about 30  minutes of trying got my internet connection going!)  I am on the road... kinda "Simon Black"-like

Most times I check things on a small device, but responding from there is a pain.  I have GREAT discussions with people all over the world, and wish to get those ideas here to have them go "deeper" with you guys, the "hero" members et al. but I guess this is just not working since I don't have constant, reliable internet connection. I wish there was a cool Android App for messaging and discussing things on this forum... any suggestions?

anyhow, I am responding as best I can, it is just too sporadic, I am really on the move now, but soon I will settled somewhere!

Thanks for the great input and call for a nice discussion, that is also what I want.

Currencies should compete in a free market just like everything else should compete. Even if there is a limit on total number of BTC, it can still be used to finance and buy things just as easily as anything else. Heck, Iran accepted gold for oil once the sanctions set in. Who says they couldn't use BTC for that?

@ChupacabraHunter: 25 replies, and no word from you. That's not nice. I was hoping for a discussion, or at least an update.

BTC doesn't have to "topple, beat, replace", etc. It just needs to compete. The freemarket suggests competition is good because it brings about innovation spurred by economic reward. Why should there be a private corporation controlling the currency of the US? (Isn't that a.... monopoly???) Why shouldn't currencies compete?

Yep, gold is useful for inflation hedge, not useful if you are trapped in warzone, in a warzone food and any useful products are more valuable than gold.

@ChupacabraHunter: does your friend spend time in war zones?  I suspect no. Does he use Bitcoin? I suspect no. Sounds to me like he's a typical modern pundit, a loud-talking know-it-all. I wouldn't be surprised if this is exactly how he made his money - by talking with authority about things he knows shit about. So 21st century...

There's a few people looking at Bitcoin as a survivalists currency, well a small hedge in disaster scenarios along with more normal stuff. Of course it depends on the scenario.

 How useful is a Bitcoin to an Iranian really? Now bear in mind how Gaddafi got on and he had a ton of Gold and Oil, both considered currencies. The difference with Bitcoin is just that the tech to track it is difference. Gold and Oil are just tracked in different ways... I'm not sure which is better or worse for different situations. Offline transactions are however, only offline...

If cash goes out the window in states of war what replaces it?

I read a story of a guy entrenched in a city in Czechoslovakia for a year. He recounted that gold was used but it was worth much much less than all the goldbugs might expect. Lighters and cigarettes were worth much much more. Gold simply wasn't really currency as the situation was so desperate. The key thing you need for gold and Bitcoin to work are some international trade. If you're completely cut off like you get in war (i.e. Iran now), then you can't get the other side of the transaction so that's the key.

What evidence are you using to support these claims?  This well researched book suggest that we're currently living in the most peaceful time in earth's history in terms of violence generally and war violence in particular.  There's tons of data in that book that would seem to contradict your claim.

In order for the elite to wage war the economy must first produce to enable war consumption. Without the production they cannot wage war.

The sounder a currency the more the elite would bleed savings until their resources are exhausted and they can no longer fund the mercenaries. The Golden Age of the soundest gold standard (there were multiple gold standards) was also the time of the least war because the State was more tightly constrained from being able to prey on the production of producers.

There is a huge difference in the economics of violence in the Information Age in contrast to the Industrial Age. The cost of protection and return on investment from extortion has changed dramatically in favor of both the producers and holders of capital. Both producers and holders of capital are in large part no longer held hostage by geography and consequently no longer need institutions capable of projecting tremendous amounts of violence to protect their assets.

And one of the reasons the elite did not bleed wealth was because of the fractional reserve lending system which allowed them to not bleed but consolidate wealth, particularly during times of war. Bitcoin being both the blood (gold) and the veins (storage & value transfer mechanism) constricts the predatory and agressive class far tighter than gold or anything else ever could.

You'd call it a war if you were preemptively invaded.

It would hardly surprise me if the majority of coins were already held by those looking to gain from it in 100 years, even if just in case a situation like this were to arise.

"I care not what puppet is placed on
the throne of England to rule the Empire, ...
The man that controls Britain's money
supply controls the British Empire.
And I control the money supply."
- Baron Nathan Mayer Rothschild

Then again, even if they didn't, they have the skill and experience to quickly turn things their way.

If it weren't for bankers financing wars, the history of the world would be far different. If governments and banks have little control over the currency, then yes I believe that war would be much more difficult. While war does temporarily promote some industries and can temporarily relieve recession-like symptoms, the greater toll is a big fat negative. But it has to get to the point where people only want a nation's currency to pay its taxes and nothing more and have to be willing to be civilly disobedient in the case of military drafts. But bitcoin won't fix most of this because of the fact that bankers will eventually accrue a large portion of the wealth or bitcoin will just fail because it's silly to loan money in a deflationary economy unless...

What's to stop the bitcoin elite from financing a large state's war? The profit incentive would be tremendous. It's what the goldsmiths and lenders did several hundred years ago for british and american wars. It was possible then, it will be possible again.

False. Govs would still require tax payment in their own currency, there'd still be legal tender laws, etc. Bitcoin as the backing/reserve-currency absolutely makes the situation better than now, but as I noted, govs still printed too much money when gold backed everything...

I think you're right here.

Although the oil companies have the world by it's balls quite nicely...I don't think they'd have a problem finding a new way to exploit economic systems for the purpose of control/power.

While they may not have the bitcoins, they have the stuff which makes bitcoins worth having.

If bitcoin were to ever be a core currency,
no one would accept anything other then bitcoin.

I think the current system makes financing war a very easy, just print the fucking money. Then use that money to take over a country and its oil, only to make more money! Now since you cant simply print bitcoin, financing wars would be harder, the only way would be to convince the people its a good idea and ask them for the their money / lives to fight for this war. As a result their would be no BS wars, because no one will pay good money to get people to kill themselves just so some corporation can come in and start pumping. Yes your right bitcoin is totally useless when it comes to war, because the oil companies would have to finance their own wars.

We are perpetually at war so this doesn't even make a little sense.

Well if we assume a Bitcoin using country under attack, they would actually have some "good" routes for funding a massive war machine:


1. Pay your "war tax/tribute" or get conscripted = hard money plus soldiers of low productivity to get rid off. (yes evil; that's war)

2. We are all here because we believe Bitcoin to be superior money to fiat, as in leading to a more efficient market/society. In a BTC
    country this would also mean more productivity and a more efficient war machine.

3. Agents/spies behind enemy lines can be funded on-demand with BTC despite everything going on which A keeps them funded doing
    their sabotage thing and B keeps them loyal as they are dependent on your nations money drip feed. (many Nazi agents sent to
    America defected very quickly and spent their large cash suitcases on their girlfriends before any missions got done)

4. Recruit enemy populations to do sabotage paying them in BTC. The opponent would have a hard time finding out who was cutting all
   their wires and harder time yet dealing with it during war.

5. Bitcoin does not easily fund wasteful governments, this means that a BTC country might well be unlikely to be the instigator of
   war - hence our hypothetical country would not be the aggressor and thus have more international sympathy.

6. During occupation the government could go underground, while still ruling the country's BTC economy and citizens would be
    harder to exploit without causing a rebellion.
    During WWII France this could have meant a continued and highly organized resistance against the Nazis that really only controlled
    Paris early on. With BTC control of the parliament (or whatever) in Paris would have had little significance.

7. Technologies that work well in peace usually also work well during war-time. Examples: Wheels=speed, phones/radio=comm., mass
    production technology, medicine=better/living soldiers, sensor equipment, satellites, high strength construction/armor materials and
    infrastructure. There is no reason to believe Bitcoin should be different.

8. With the opponent printing lots of fiat to fund their wars, their currency would be tanking while the Bitcoin country would be getting
    "free money" from the resulting BTC deflation.


It is a fallacy that smaller things cannot beat larger things. Large things generally take a lot of energy to even operate. If they are more efficient per unit, then that is fine, but that can hardly be said for our current EU/US status quo.

Or in short: Come at me bro!

If bitcoin were to ever be a core currency, why wouldn't governments use it like they used Gold for centuries? Issue your own notes backed by bitcoin, offer a redemption option to generate confidence, but print up to 10 times more in notes than you have in bitcoin reserve, and hope there's no run. That *does* work for a while, and can certainly work to finance wars. Eventually it fails, but memories are short...each generation of politicians seems to have to learn the same lessons for themselves via first-hand experience.

I don't even know what you mean by "a state of WAR!".  A state of war, where?  There are states of war all over the place right now in lots of different senses.  And that's been the case from bitcoin's birth to now.  So, clearly you can't mean any such state of war(s) as already exist, because bitcoin hasn't been rendered useless by them.  So, what then?  Like, a world-wide, in everyone's backyard, guns going off all around, state of war?  I mean, seriously, WTF are you talking about.

The main fault with the current system is that it can be used to create wars?  What?  So let's imagine a system where only bitcoin is used.  Would that mean no wars?  Why couldn't a bitcoin only system "create" wars in whatever ways you imagine this one does?  I don't even see the skeleton of a coherent argument here.