Topic: How do we prevent money laundering and assasinations? - page 4. (Read 17432 times)

The assumption in intended is that there was no such case, but only the intent to cause a panic.

Your opinion on such a topic is very different if you are willing to be present, understanding the real-life implications of something that for many people is only a thought exercise.  That's why it was a fair question to ask, and one that I was asking seriously rather than as some sort of line.  It's also something that I've experienced personally and it's made me very tired of arm-chair discussions about real life things.  Like I said, the internet tends to make a lot of people pretend they know what they're talking about, so it's hard to know--and there's a heck of a lot of rhetoric bouncing around on these boards that I'd rather not give the time of day to.  Calling someone "holier than thou" and "sanctimonious" for suggesting that the real-world consequences for things need to be at the forefront of this type of discussion (and then erroneously categorising me with some imaginary stereotype of the people you think would be advancing my position) doesn't really get you off on the right foot.  Nor do phrases like "brain well-pickled blah blah blah" contribute to any useful discussion.

Saying I would DDoS an assassination board is not equivalent to blaming the type of money people are using for crimes.  But more deeply what I'm getting at is that technologies do have consequences, which we need to think about.  For example, I would not have opposed the invention of the internet because of its potential for child pornography.  But that doesn't end the discussion.  The internet does change things, and foreseeing that it might be used for child pornography would be a good time to realise that at that point child pornography has become a world issue that will require inter-country cooperation to address.  BitCoin, like the internet, is real life.  It will have real consequences, and they're worth actually thinking about.  Tone down the rhetoric, and take the opportunity to have a productive discussion about it!

If you believe the theater is on fire or that there is some other important reason for everyone to leave in panic you totally have the right to yell "Fire!" inside the theater; not only the right but the duty to do so.

Freedom of speech is a negative right, that the federal government does not have the authority to limit your ability to say what you wish about it.  And it does not.  You can say these things, but once you do you can be persecuted based upon the content.  Not by critiquing the actions of government in general, or the actions of government agents in particular; but by advocating harm being done to another person.  Generally such things are taken more seriously when the person in question also happens to be an agent of the state.  Freedom of speech doesn't imply you have the right to scream "fire!" in a crowded theater any more than the freedom to keep and bear arms implies you have a right to shoot your neighbor if he stumbles drunk into your backyard and pisses on your lillies.

And that is considering places wherein the public actually has a freedom of speech.

Lol, still safer to interview senators than police I guess.

I guess you have a point; just the other day over here a senator (or perhaps it was a congressman or somthing like that) ripped the recorder out of a reporter's hand, took it home and erased everything in the memory before returning it to the reporter just 'cause he didn't like the question...

Where are you that you think you have freedom of speech?

Saying you want someone dead publicly is against the law? Isn't it covered by freedom of speech?

You could start such a site on Tor, but this would likely be illegal in many juristictions.

Kinda off-topic, but would any of you know of a site where people can vote for, and against, the assasination of individuals; just dealing with votes, no money? Even though it probably wouldn't lead to anything i guess voting there would still feel a little more productive than yelling at the TV during the news....

Not that it is any of your business or relevant to the topic, but yes I have. Since you are asking have you?

Basically, blaming the type of money that people are using for crimes is infantile and indefensible as a logical argument. Something only a brain well-pickled and infused with statist tosh could come up with ... but then again you think you know what you are talking about so carry on ... it must be the internet doing that to you.

/thread

Stop making asinine arguments and whining that USD does it too!!! 

The available data leads me to believe that BitCoin enables more good than bad.  Neither BitCoin nor cash "promote anarchism"--at best any implications for a political ideology like anarchism are peripheral to their broader significance.

Try to step back for a moment.  BitCoin is technologically superior to and more efficient than any existing currency or payment provider.  Particularly exciting are its applications in the developing world, in enabling microtransactions, in creating the possibility for digital contracts, and in facilitating the emergence of a tipping economy.  It seems very narrowminded to me to think that BitCoin's primary relevance is political.  I'm sure there were people who thought the same of the internet, and while they were right that the internet has political consequences, it's had kind of a lot of other ones as well.

And most importantly, I'm not naive.  BitCoin is ultimately mathematics--there are plenty of drug lords and covert organisations that have the finances to run their own BitCoin-like network regardless of whether BitCoin itself succeeds or fails.  I cannot control what they do--but I can help to make BitCoin an effective counterpart to that possibility.  So that's what I try and do--think ahead, and act appropriately.

since bitcoin enables money laundering and asaasination markets and tax evasion and promotes anarchism, then why do you support it? Im curious.  You have great tools with democratic-state-regulated currencies already that dont have these issues as much, right?

Have you ever seen a person die?  Like, not in a video game or a movie?  The internet tends to make a lot of people pretend they know what they're talking about.  Tools are never bad, but there can be good reasons to scuttle a good tool--it's a simple cost-benefit analysis on the available data.  If the available data for any good tool showed it enabled more harm than good, the only rational response is that the tool isn't worth it.  Nuclear bombs are just tools too, but you're still a moron if you want to live in a version of today where everyone is handed one at birth.

Amen to that.

+1

Fortunately, those that create threads do not have absolute control over them, and cannot exile certain types of discussion to another thread. Though, I think that would be an interesting message board, if the thread creator had moderator rights in that thread...

+1

Wrong. You blame the individual, not the tool. You could not pay me enough money, give me enough power over others, or threaten me with the wrath of any god to convince me to commit murder, theft, or any other immoral act against my fellow man. If I can rise above the confines of these systems, anyone can.

Blaming the tool shifts the focus from the real actors, and practically absolves them of their misdeeds.

"Yes, he committed atrocities, but he did it in the name of his god, he can't be held fully accountable."

"Ahh, but he was poor, and offered such a large sum, who wouldn't have done the same in his place?"

"Of course he voted to go to war, he would have been ostracized by his own party had he not."

Baloney.