Topic: Cryptocurrency and Society (Read 348 times)

 I'm not really sure If Bitcoin or cryptocurrency for that matter is capable of taking away any power, from any state, to print money, fund warefare, etc. I do think that cryptocurrency is a huge disruption that instead of causing a shift of power, (*be it financial, political, etc) creates an alternative route, or option instead. Looking at cryptocurrency today, it seem to better compliment the modern financial systems already in place, not displace it as many had hoped. Bitcoin has caused a shift in awareness, it has us looking at the way we actual perceive money, like how can a digital currency actually have value?

If cryptocurrency is viewed by many powerful currencies and societies then if it is legalized and regulated by the use of crypto, then the price of the cryptocurrency will increase and every person in the society will have the same view and cryptocurrency will be considered as more powerful currency in the country. Effective to the public and easy to control.

How does the government connected by the KYC? Maybe by withdrawing crypto into fiat it will be included. But some ICO or bounty do have KYC just to know their customer specially their participants but it was okay if the project was trusted.

It will be strong if actually there are more ways to use bitcoin than dissolving it.

In the past, with the gold standard, the ability of funding warfare was very limited, therefore the size of the forces (founded by state ruler) was limited.
This is why in feudalism monarchs had been summoning local feudal lords with their forces.

To be honest, this could happen even today - this time feudal lords could have been replaced with corporations - can you imagine a tank division funded by eg. McDonald's?

This could possibly happen if US banks keeps inflating paper money to manipulate the value to exploit people, the debt accumulation would lead to a global market collapse. As we all know majority of fiat is backed with USD and a lot of them has loss it original value when was it created. So, if another great depression occurs people might seek safe haven assets like BTC.

This point of view is strong enough. But the government is trying to restrict the power of cryptocurrency. Crypto regulation laws, KYC verification, anti-money-laundering laws are examples.

well the states are fighting for power/money against each other, with crypto you are only moving that conflict into the sphere of "who the hell runs the legitimate and truthful cryptoindex?

then many states will seperate themselves out of the global community and throw into trash everything crypto brings and then start running their own nazi states

I know an easier way to not depend on the state. If a person has his own land, grows his own food all year round, has almost everything necessary for life, then he doesn't depend on money. And what you need to buy (clothes or something else) can be exchanged for what you produce yourself.
This is if we say simply and primitively.
If this process is well thought out, then you can actually become almost independent of the state. Cryptocurrency can also be used here. And the most advanced technology too.

So, I guess the kernel of my thought is that Government would not be able to fund "total war" where the full resources of the state are put towards destruction. 

I don't think that we can fully eliminate warfare/violence-- weather using cryptocurrency or something else. 

By taking away the state's ability to print money, we can limit the scope and scale of warfare. 

While I harbor anarchist/libertarian tendencies, I'm unfortunately not too hopeful that we will achieve ancapistan.  The state and dependency on the state is so deeply ingrained in people's lives. 

Cryptocurrency may have the opposite effect because if government's are struggling financially they'll be more apt to print more currency, to amp up their fractional lending machine to produce wealth.

And you cryptocurrency definitely can't influence WHERE governments spend their money. Funding warfare will always be a priority until the tools used to war are outlawed or otherwise destroyed. Government spending is more likely to be cut short in the category of welfare, certainly before warfare.

Most people are currently conversant in cryptocurrency especially with Bitcoin everyone thinks its future are going to be far better at some point it'll even be madness of chest transactions. albeit we put tons of thought into cryptocurrency, nobody can control it because we are still unknown.

As much as I love cryptos, I don't believe that cryptos are capable of taking power from states. if we look at the state we will see that it is made up of a small group of people who are from a certain political party and that certain political party has its ambitions, which Is " become very rich and full of power ". When they make wars against other places Is to become more rich at the expense of the place they are destroying. Unfortunately, this system will prevail for many years

In democratic country,governments were running by the people for the people so they are also just fellow common man should work for bettermet of society but that is now the practical thing actually that is why we need something which is not controlled by anyone.Definitely we can reduce the influence by joining hands together if we just stay away from everyone then decentralized payment system might get failed.

Actually its very hard for one society to accept bitcoin as a financial system of their economy.  Government always stopped thst thing to happen. The role of cryptocurrency as of now still limited compare to what fiat can do because not everybody inform about what bitcoin is. 

Society comprises of people with different opinion on the same thing. There are people who have understood about bitcoin and has begun to use it. By the time there is people who have known about bitcoin, but with the lack of proper understanding stay away without using it or benefiting out of the same. Probably when things get regulated cryptocurrency usage will be much welcomed in the society.

I don't think that fiat currency's are going anywhere anytime soon, because it is a whole lot more easier to hand a merchant physical cash than to pull out my phone go to my app, get my cyrptocurrency going and make a sale. To the average joe it is simpler to just use cash. Society won't adopt cyrpto any fast until a social media company like Facebook drops a platform like Libra that educates and empowers first timers with crypcurrencies (even if Libra is a stable coin).
  Many don't like the idea of Facebook and the Libra project but I applaud Mark for taking the first step towards official regulation by presenting his cryptocurrency based platform before congress. That's not only a noble act but its pretty ballsy!

See that is the reason that a good deal of us got into Crypto, because we hated the antiquated system. We hated the fact that the governments control monetary policy and that they use it to overspend and put us into a large amount of debt. They work alongside the bankers to make them money, but they never care about the little guy. All the care about is getting reelected, and all you have to do for that is to either spend more to stimulate the economy or to cut taxes. (Typically, they don't cut taxes)

But the thing about the government giving up this is control is that I don't think it's going to happen as easily as we all talk about it. I've been in the space for a few years now, and people say the same thing about crypto taking over the monetary policy of the government and that it's going to happen every day now.

Right now we have to focus on building, making crypto easier for the people and making the fiat on ramps easier for the people. It shouldn't be so hard to get into crypto, and once you have it it shouldn't just be a speculative asset -- it should be something you should be able to use all the time. I can think of tons of merchants who would be ready to use it (if people did use Bitcoin) because a fee of less then 2 percent to convert it back to USD is much better then dealing with the credit card 2 percent fee, then another merchant fee, then chargebacks, etc.

Crypto can really be something. But we shouldn't start with "TAKING OVER THE GOVERNMENTS MONETARY POLICY" start with everyday transactions, remittances, and so on.

Probably, when it lose financial control maybe. But how about those tech billionaires, who have billions of war chests to start a war for their own interest. But yeah, OP may be right here, but I like to see bitcoin or other crypto is being utilized for more public projects.

Even if the government does not fund warfare, does it not have the right to defend its own territorial integrity? It is not all bad for government in what they do. Yes there are some excesses but it does not rule out the fact that if not for these same government and its machinery ensuring law and order, there would be total chaos and a situation of anarchy. An example of this is territories where there is either absence of an authority figure as government or the weakness of it. Human beings would continually want to overcome or overpower his counterpart no matter the means necessary to achieve that and government is there to ensure that is not done in a free for all manner.

Assuming we can hide it from the government of course. The more of our economic activity is moved into the cryptosphere the more they'll notice that we aren't using their play money as often as we used to.

It is indeed a nice goal. If they'd have to beg us for money the more we'd have a say on policies.

Well it is indeed too strong and it focuses on just one aspect of crypto. It's much more diverse than just to displace fiat and put money in people's control. The scope of crypto and block chain's use can very well be extended to more than the financial system. The people who created bitcoin probably didn't even have that point of view in mind when they started bitcoin.

Wow, I'm really glad that I've landed with such like-minded individuals. 

Re: financing public works, I think that Bitcoin is going to do great for that, because of its inherent transparency.  Not only does Bitcoin make "total war" (where the state squanders all of society's wealth on pointless carnage) much less likely, it also makes corruption much harder because of its transparency. 

What are some things that you see coming in the next 10 years re: disempowering the state?

I agree with you so it seems that if any group knows about the benefits of crypto, they will work on crypto. This is a very powerful step and "while financing for money laundering and warfare has taken away the power of the state crypto will certainly be effective for public works.

This is just one use of government fiat money. Government also launch public welfare projects and run affairs of the country due to this fiat money. As far as warfare is concerned, it will continue to exist even if we move whole global financial system from fiat to cryptocurrency. Its human nature to suppress the weaker one and its there since life started on this earth.

Why "it takes away the state's power to print money and fund warfare"?

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that both states and some radical groups can use cryptocurrency in the same way as we do. Even if no one does it now, they will begin to do so in the future.

I too share similar hopes.  In my opinion, BTC is activism and free speech.  I have yet to see any other form of activism which I'd consider more effective today.  'Exit' is a very powerful action and its available the first time in history,indiscriminately.  I don't think your point of view is too strong at all. All great and notable changes started with an idea.
Hope may be strong now and still, there is a very large battle for fungibility and privacy ahead which needs our attention if we are to be successful.
Nice to see someone doing it for the right reasons 
 

My hope for cryptocurrency is that it takes away the state's power to print money and fund warfare. 

This is the only thing that matters in the crypto space:  Can we reduce the size and scope of the state's influence in the lives of everyday people?

If we can do that, we've won.  If we can't do that, then cryptocurrency probably doesn't matter.  Is this too strong of a point of view?