Topic: Libertarians -- where are they now? - page 3. (Read 873 times)

A really 100% fair governance is difficult to achieve because in a society, you'll always have different points of views. For example, you have bought a new house in the suburbs. Then, a new street directly to the city center will be build directly behind your garden. Some people will like it to get easier and faster to the city center. Some businessmen will like it to have faster delievery time to the city center.
But you and your neightbours won't like it most likely since you'll get noise and pollution from the traffic.
There are always conflicting interests, we could find much more examples.
So, even a completely fair governance will not prevent such things but it can try to improve things as much as possible.

As someone from Germany, we have seen a wide range of governance forms.
Interestingly, the more decentralized ones have been much more fair (Weimarer Republik (1919-1933) and our current form (BRD = Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Western Germany) based on Grundgesetz (constitution from 1949)).
Although I need to say that Weimarer Republik got abused when Hitler seized power in 1933 and set up a new form of government (fascism) removing the democratic core principles Weimarer Republik - and we know what he did later.  
And then, we had a form of government existing in parallel with BRD (Western Germany), called DDR (Eastern Germany). BRD and DDR existed in parallel until DDR collapsed in 1989 and Germany was united as BRD.
DDR has been a Communist dictatorship and tried to build a wall (Berlin wall) to prevent people from fleeing to Western Germany because Western Germany had much more liberties and simply a better living standard.

I don't know Romanian history but I believe DDR has been similar to Ceausescu dictatorship? Both were abolished in 1989.  

Bitcoin is a great example here because of censorship resistance. It's very dificult to abuse Bitcoin. Not impossible like a 51% attack but attacking it will lead to a very high cost for the attacker. A cost, he can't afford. Proof of WORK.  
But I also think mixing Bitcoin and real-life issues lacks a bit comparability.
Bitcoin might be fair but it can't be applied to our street issue above.

That pretty much sums everything up. I was also referring to a liberty which did not involve any kind of violence.

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Yes, and that could be possible into an utopian web of trust, where a solid reputation system would be functional, right?

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I understand your point of view; furthermore, I agree with it. But tell me this: how many times have you seen, in the past 5000 years, a fair governance...?

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However, I have a different view here... There is a concept name Spontaneous order. It implies that people, by themselves, can organize themselves, even without an authority leading them to do it. Just like in the example with the overcrowded shop. From something which looks like chaos, with no visible order, a new order appears and people organize themselves, in order to be able to find their products on the shelves, pick them up, pay for them and go home. Peacefully.

According to Wikipedia, Spontaneous order, also named self-organization in the hard sciences, is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos.

No wonder, Wikipedia continues, the great economists following Austrian school, about which we discussed earlier, come into play: The Austrian School of Economics, led by Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek made it a centerpiece in its social and economic thought. Hayek's theory of spontaneous order is the product of two related but distinct influences that do not always tend in the same direction.

The reference to anarchism says the following:

Anarchists argue that the state is in fact an artificial creation of the ruling elite, and that true spontaneous order would arise if it was eliminated. This is construed by some but not all as the ushering in of organization by anarchist law. In the anarchist view, such spontaneous order would involve the voluntary cooperation of individuals. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, "the work of many symbolic interactionists is largely compatible with the anarchist vision, since it harbours a view of society as spontaneous order.

So see, even from pure chaos, order may arise. Just by itself.

side note:
i would not say rich. i would say coin heavy
elitism begets more coin holding but in pos inflation systems those coins lose value (buys less breadloaves per year)

back to the topic:
some say that chaos is ordered. no its not
chaos is random.


chaos is where so many random things are happening that evolution only grows out of the randomness of events colliding to create more energy than predecessor thus survives longer.
its "survival of the majority/fittest". not "you are the chosen one"

out of all the random things of PoW, timestamp servers, contracts. no one could see bitcoin coming until boom, satoshi let it all unite into a interwoven system thats unique and never seen before it

chaos is not planned or foreseen or mutually agreed
it has to take a step away from chaos to bring in a bit of unity to bring features and people together

again i dont think liberty is wild west, outlaw, no repercussions, chaos.
liberty does have some bare moral rules that all would seem acceptable etiquette. where its self governed and judged by peers. rather then hierarchical governed and judged by representatives

What our Universe looked like in the most early days is a very great analogy. From what science knows, it has been extremely chaotic. But could we have lived in such an environment? Very unlikely…
As most of the dust had settleted down, galaxies emerged, it still took a very long time until our solar system came into existance.

And after a long time, our planet finally got habitable. To reach that point, most of the chaos needed to be settled.
It’s similar to Bitcoin as a great example how to settle a space formerly known for chaos (or at least failed (but still important attempts or researches) like from Chaum) or we can also take our DT system to a lesser degree. It settled down chaos (scammers) and there’s a set of rules and these rules / DT1 members can be changed by the community if there’s consensus to do so. 

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As someone living in a capitalist country, I believe we should arrange the shop like that, to make them buy the most expensive products and more than they wanted to buy.
It’s called product placement.
Just a joke, sorry. 

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It's not unlikely that Elon Musk would end up as pirateat40 or be someone who's running 1xbit. 

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Regarding governs / governing mechanisms:

As franky 1 has explained already very well, we should try to get an understanding of governs / governing mechanisms / government / governance and consensus.
I’m more used to it to understand "govern" as a verb ("to govern"). At least for our article, I’m referring to "governance" from lat gubernare, which can be applied to a nation state, a community, a sports club, a company, a protocol and so many more. Governance can be achieved in many ways and one important part of governance is to act accoring a consensus.
This consensus should be as fair as possible and involving everyone who’s affected by it. It’s not easy to do it and some people might consider authoritarian governances more efficient but efficient is not everything: It’s efficient vs. fair.

I’m in favor of a fair governance instead of an efficient one. Yes, an efficient one might have advantages but also disadvantages.
Bitcoin is efficient and fair, so it’s already a very special form of governance and I would of course agree to it to call it a fair governance.
Maybe I’m just too focussed on Bitcoin’s tech but that’s what so fascinating about Bitcoin. It’s a special form of governance itself.

To extend this a bit, maybe we can elaborate our current DT system. As you’ve explained, creating trust is essential here on Bitcointalk because (almost) everyone here is an anonymous actor. Scamming is quite easy because scammers can run away easily. So, we need to evaluate, who’s trustworthy to avoid getting scammed. Very early in Bitcointalk’s history, the community agreed to follow a member-based reputation system.
That worked well many years but it was very centralized because DT1 members were picked by theymos.
Some trolls compained that DT is just beneficial "for the elites of the forum" and that some DT members would abuse governance.
But still, DT has been very centralized and in 2019, theymos decided to improve DT by making changes, to make it more fair. Each Bitcointalk member could vote DT1 members in or out via their own trust list.
DT got much more decentralized which also enabled more scammers to get into DT because a vaccum of power always gets abused but overally, making DT more decentralized has been a success in my opinion because changes were evaluated diligently.

So, any opinions on what DT system you would favor?
-   DT before 2019 changes
-   DT after 2019 changes
I would go for a DT after 2019 changes because it’s more fair, more inclusive. More members can participate and be part of DT decisions.

So, yes, we should try analyze what’s a good (fair) governance and what’s a bad (closed) governance and we should try to support and improve the good (fair) governance. We should not oppose a governance itself because it will be replaced by someone powerful trying to seize any vacuum of power.
So, we need to make any system resistant against abuse itself and Bitcoin is achieving that, Bitcoin is censorship-resistant.
A similar issue will come up if we look at PoW vs. PoS. We can take Polkadot, for example, where dPoS (delegated PoS) is used. Polkadot’s inflation is 10% per year and these inflation coins will go to stakers, which are already rich and will make them even richer. In dPoS such rich stakers will be able to consolidate their power, which will lead to a massive centralization over time. Rich stakers will be able to abuse it. I'm sure we'll get a big discussion around it some time later, maybe in 2 - 5 years. 

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Yeah, that's an important point.

there are two different things being said..
govern = a set of key actors setting rules and enforcing rules the masses have to comply with
consensus. a known popularity of best practices, accepted expectations agreed by the masses. a basic standard of rule agreed by the masses

even in a grocery store, there is expected acceptable practices to not just put food in your pocket and walk out. but instead to take it to the cashier and pay for it. which allows the "freedom" to not be chaperoned/governed by employees per visit

this does not mean there are not rules. but where the community understands a set of rules/morals and self governs

some view libertarianism as the outlaw/lawless society of no laws, no punishment, let people do as they please even if it inflicts harm, change on others... to me i dont see libertarian as this.
i also dont see libertarian as allowing representatives to make laws for us to auto-follow, where there is no election or vote
eg, saying devs can slide in protocol changes without consensus is "libertarian".. is wrong in my mind. i see that as authoritarian

my view is freedom as long as you dont inflict harm, change, loss on another. where the population on mass have a bare minimum set of rules they decide themselves to agree to , a basic etiquette of moral understanding when others are involved set by the whole community agreement. not by some master representation group above the community.
yes individuals, master groups are free to set proposals for rules/etiquette, but not enforce them against populations lack of agreement(abstinence)
eg barter between two individuals is liberty/freedom, they can agree on whatever value they want
expanding to more population a freemarket of mass individuals coming to an agreement of perceived value is freedom/value
but to say a custodian of users funds is free by 'libertarian right' to 'rig the price' or abscond with all population funds, is not liberty

I'm not quite sure of your understanding of govern. Sure, the customers don't need an employee to lead them, or push them onto his suggestions; they know to walk around the shop, and they should have the freedom to do so... as long as they don't intervene into their nearby fellows. If you don't have governing, you can't effectively discourage someone from breaking the law likewise.

That raises a very important issue. Should people's opinions on others affect their prosperity? Such society sounds utopian to me. Nobody would want reputation, because nobody who seeks to establish success is surrounded by people who like him. You know there's a saying that if you want everyone to like you, don't be a leader; sell ice cream.

Nice reads, can't say for sure as may never get the chance to read them, nor such an interest in that particular brand/ideology. I have a more "indigenous" leaning of liberty (where there is no concept of ownership even, at odds with Bitcoin or even money), but that's more from my birth and circumstance, and being a realist I know I can only become familiar with those ideas, not intimate, despite my origins.

They're all around, and while they might have been vibrant in the cypherpunk newsgroups, I wouldn't count on finding them here on this forum.

I feel proud to share same visions with such a respectful iconic figure as Foxpup!


Of course =)))

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Yes, but the highlighted part is also what will doom most of those acting like this. Prometheus gave fire to people, to warm their houses and prepare food; people used it to fire up places and each other's homes. Satoshi gave Bitcoin to people for offering them a chance to eliminate governs, banks and middle men; people invented centralized exchanges and, furthermore, also associated their bank accounts with the exchanges, to make sure (sarcastically speaking) that the long arms of the State will 100% catch them... For this reason I wrote, a while ago, 12 years later and people still don't know to use Bitcoin nor what it's good for.

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I also feel like all libertarians were overcrowded, in time, by people like this:



And it's very sad...

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Thank you!


Same here No worry.


Big thumb up for this elaborated description.


Now all you said above, is a great debate! I will try to explain also my point of view here.

Let's start with the chaos part. You say that "when there are no rules, chaos will arise". However, my dear 1miau, let's first remember what chaos is. And the simplest definition of chaos is that it represents "the perfect disorder". It's a disorder so well organized that you can see an order inside it. Does that make any sense? So, if chaos is a perfectly ordered disorder, what is the order? It is the cause of disorder. For example, we can say that the Universe, in its continuous expansion, it's just a combination of progressive disorder. But this disorder, as it expands itself, creates new orders and each of these orders can be identified with the initial order. So even inside chaos, which is disorder in its pure form, order is created. Therefore why would it be so bad for chaos to arise? All disorders will lead to new orders, in the future...

Let's imagine an overcrowded shop before Christmas, where no employees are available to lead customers to the section they seek for buying whatever gifts they want to buy. Now let's imagine all those people storming the shop, like ants. What will happen? Eventually, all of them will find the needed section and the wanted gift and they will go then to the cashier, pay for it and go home. The shop, in this example, represents your chaos and, respectively, my idea Cypherpunks' and Austrian school economists' idea of a society without a state / anarchism / libertarianism. So what happens in the end, to those people which are not led by any employee (obviously, they represent the society without a govern)? Do they cease to exist? Do they not find the wanted gifts...? No, quite the opposite... They all manage to do what they want, by organizing themselves...

And, regarding the people which may abuse the vacuum of power... These things happen now, indeed. Your examples can not be denied. However, Tim May envisioned a long time ago (in 1988!) a solution for such abuses. He mainly referred to govern's abuses, but his proposal may be applied in this situation too. And his solution was a crypto-anarchy based on a web of trust and reputation. The idea was shared by other Cypherpunks as well. And it implies a trust network (web of trust) based on feedbacks (similar to our forum) and this trust would improve (or decrease) your reputation. What do you think would happen to Elon Musk if such a society would actually exist? Wouldn't it be full of negative feedbacks and excluded by most people from their web of trust? Do you think he would still have same success as he has today? Indeed, Tim May's idea, as many other great ideas from the past, is utopian. But so was Bitcoin too, before it was invented. There is nothing granting that such a society won't be possible in the future...


Yes, libertarianism, in its most pure form, it's an uptopia. It's a sort, if you want, of Shangri-La. Yet, for multiple decades, Bitcoin was also a dream of Cypherpunks, libertarians and crypto-anarchists. But it ultimately came through. It prevailed! But why were all those people behind him (and Satoshi's ancestors) so driven to create it? Sahotshi, Wei Dai, Nick Szabo, Adam Back, David Chaum... And the list can also go back even more, to Austrian school economists, such Murray Rothbard or Hayek or Mises... although they could not even think to something like Bitcoin, the ideas expressed in books like:

Conceived in liberty,
For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto,
Denationalization of Money,
A History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World War II,
Theory of Money and Credit,
What Has Government Done to Our Money?,
The Case Against the Fed,
Society Without a State

have many things in common. They all advocated for private money; for anarchism; for liberty; for opening people's eyes that the old paradigm they've been fed for centuries -- that governs are necessary and without them we could not live anymore our daily lives -- is wrong!

Do you see the common points between those remarkable figures of history and Cypherpunks? Do you think this is only a coincidence...?


True. Yet their paths cross so much. They have many things in common.

there is no economics or monetary theory in libertarianism, it's a political ideology. this sounds like the 'bitcoin is encrypted internet tokens' pov


this is an oft stated "oversimplification".

you will not get the goods you want from the market place if you always choose from the people with the lowest prices. Why or how could that ever be true?

capitalism is about... capital, not the lowest prices. it would in that case be called "buy everything cheap whether it's what you wanted or not"-ism

The ones you talk about, the one who are init for the true libertarian word are still in it. However the world and especially the crypto industry has changed a lot for the worst and now we all have to lay low. It doesnt mean that we have abandoned the general idea, ot means that we will only go out when there will be the need. Bitcoin was made by libertarians for libertarians and it will be always like that.

Bitcoin isn't democratic. Running a node isn't voting. It might be considered as "taking place" into something, but change doesn't come according to the number of nodes that demand it. Proof-of-Work is a voting system, but it doesn't bring change. It is only to sustain the current system, with current rules; not to change them. A 51% attack isn't changing what's valid.

And in which place there are no such rules? As far as I'm concerned, very few countries live on free enterprise, with minimum government intervention. In most countries, government steps in regularly.

What you describe is anarchy. Not libertarianism. The former is described by lack of moderation. The latter is described by lack of government intervention in most (if not all) market activities.

I am pretty sure that you could have pages and pages of discussion, but there will always be some people like me who will not believe in a world where if you give liberty, and I mean unquestioned liberty where only things like "don't steal and murder" etc, but financially liberated, it will suck so bad, it will suck more than you could possibly know.

Why do we have 5 work days instead of 7 days working 12 hours a day? Because we are not libertarian, why do kids go to school and not work 7 days 8 hours a day in sweatshops? Well because we are not libertarian, honestly USA is close to being libertarian when it comes to companies, more than most other nations, lower taxes, ways to avoid taxes, Nike putting their patent company at Belize stuff? Well certainly not helpful to the world.

Me and many other people believe that if we go full on libertarian, we would be horrible, because greed is unlimited, and we are going to be in a world of pain and humanity can't just flow like water and find the right place, it would go off a cliff like a waterfall instead. I am not saying the some people have good intentions, they do, they really do have good intentions and by all means governments and their interventions SUCK, so its normal to want them out of the way and that's good. But right now, the whole world is saying government terribleness, only because without them it would be even worse, that's why libertarianism wouldn't work, and doesn't work.

yes, the reddit-level of debate seems to constantly regurgitate all the libertarian aspects, but here on bitcointalk, it was noticed a long time ago that p2p systems are inherently collectivist, anathema to libertarians.

Bitcoin is a collectivist system that mutually reinforces individual rights as a by-product. In fact, it is a stratification of mutually balancing tensions between the miners the users and people who produce forks (which includes the developers, of course). But this is not an original observation, as I say, someone else said all this stuff here on bitcointalk years ago.



I believe people have addressed those problems (usurping structural changes in the political system) even on this forum before, I certainly remember talking on it myself.

and yes, you might well conclude though that Bitcoin is also anti-democratic too, depending on your definition of democracy. for sure, it has already begun to re-shape the nation state, and may not stop until the re-invention leaves the state unrecognizable; I expect the former country's name will be the only characteristic that sticks. And not a single vote will be held that could endorse it or stop it (legislators "legalizing" something that's impossible to enforce against is never any more than an attempt to avoid looking weak/incompetent)

Unfortunately, a power vacuum is exactly what that kind of scenario has as it's destination, although temporarily perhaps. But the system we're presently living in really is nothing more than anarchism gone wrong; the smartest, least ethical gang leaders turned the world's successful tribes into a series of elaborate yet thinly disguised cults. Maybe the gold money revolution started it all? Now that would be an unpalatable irony. The picture you paint of Thiel is arguably more benevolent than what we're enduring now (of which Thiel himself is simply a execrable component, albeit a valuable one to the ruthless). At least with Thiel, he himself makes it plainly obvious that he's a snake. Or at least I would hope it's obvious.

And so the answer to me is that some critical mass of people see we're an anarchic system that was overrun by jackals and coyotes, and that we can expect the same cycle to endlessly repeat until we recognize it

I like historic figures explaining problems but in our considerations, we should always check if past predictions are still valid.
Time is changing quickly and we need to figure out to get it right.

A known anarchist libertarian historian is Murray Bookchin and he already predicted climate change will destroy our coastal cities. Tampa Bay and Miami are most likely screwed, for example, if morale doesn’t improve.  
Bookchin analyzed common problems and his famous quote was "when barter?". He viewed capitalism critically and draw several conclusions.

Already today we can transfer his comments, because of Murray Blockchain, and give it added value because Bitcoin can be considered barter.
For Murray Bookchin, barter was central for his considerations.

Murray Bookchin is an educated academical figure. He has left us wise words and given many hints how to protect our environment, to review barter and act against toxic capitalists.
You can find his profile on Wikipedia.  

Reading from Murray Bookchin can help us to draw better conclusions for good solutions.

"anarchist" can also mean disruptive. which bitcoin is disrupting and offering a new choice to hedge against fiat wallstreet game of fiat monetary policy/control

..
bitcoin does not fit the old terms of fiat categories of "currency" nor the terms of fiat based communities or civilised sets
but if you were to draw it out on a heat map of position closest to certain labels
             authoritarian
              /             \  
             /  $           \
            /                 \
capitalist                  libertarian
           \                 /
            \       BTC      /
             \             /
               socialist

Of course when bitcoin first came out, in it's earlier years there were more of the same like minded type of people who kind of got things kicked off, but as it's mass adoption grew, there was of course an inevitability that other types of political minded people would join in. 

I still think that those same libertarians who made up a large part of the bitcoin "crowd" are still around, they just perhaps don't have the same loud voice they had before being that there's so many more people involved now.

Lastly, from what I saw, most of those people who claimed to be libertarians were actually right wing conservatives..so I don't think there were truly as many libertarians as people like to claim.

When Bitcoin's main use case is getting rich quick, and financial freedom is secondary at best, there's nothing surprising that ideology is very low in the list of priorities of Bitcoin community. And in this context it's somewhat ironic, because libertarianism is a pure form of capitalism, and this is what capitalism looks like on practice - people care about money first. People don't mind sacrificing privacy and control over their funds when they use centralized exchanges, because it allows them to make money more conveniently and cheaper. It seems like libertarianism is at odds with itself.

Interesting article, I've reached my 50-Merit limit for your posts unfortunately, so don't worry, I'll come back here later. 

It’s really difficult to "label" Bitcoin. Since Bitcoin is only code, I wouldn’t label it as anything. It’s just Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has so many aspects and yes, we could "label" some of these aspects but we won’t get a clear picture what Bitcoin, as a whole, really is:

-   Libertarian = it’s your own money, you only need to remember 12 words
-   Progressive = a completely new technology
-   Conservative = Bitcoin will help to conserve your monetary value (hard money, capped at 21M coins)
-   Anarchist = Bitcoin is anti-dictatorship money
-   Constitutionalist = Code is law!
-   Transparent = everyone can verify if a transaction happened, coins were moved etc.
-   Private = people can take some steps to protect privacy
-   Democratic = run your own node and participate in the Bitcoin network
-   …. (I could add dozens more)

And yes, some of these single aspects can be labelled as "anarchist" or "libertarian" etc. but for (most likely) everything I can argue for the exact opposite.

Let’s take "anarchist", implying that means "unchained". At the same time, Bitcoin is completely the opposite of "anarchist" because Bitcoin is indeed following the same rules- for everyone. The rules are defined in the code.
Bitcoin is "unchained money" and "coded Blockchain money" at the same time.

There are so many explanations, what Bitcoin is. We could write some educated books about it, we wouldn’t find the answer because such an answer does not exist in my opinion.


Crypto Anarchists, like Eric Hughes, Tim May, John Perry Barlow or David Chaum have been the earliest adopters but I’m in doubt if they want to be labelled from an economic side.


Especially, I’m in doubt if they would want to be associated with what some "Libertarians" are intending, as "what’s Libertarian?" is hard to explain: there are so many people who claim to be "Libertarians" but when they are explaining their vision, I’ve so far not come to a conclusion what their end goal really is:

For example, let’s take people like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Jeff Bezos just constructed a new "support yacht" because his new Superyacht needs a support yacht, where he can land his helicopter. Sounds completely exaggerated? Yes – but it’s true.
How could that happen? By wrongly applied "Libertarianism" because people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Peter Thiel are seeing "Libertarianism": "Nobody needs to follow any rules".

But that will ultimately fail.

Jeff Bezos is buying a "support yacht" for his new sailing yacht because he has too much money...

Elon Musk is orchestrating a shitshow on Twitter as he has done for Tesla (Tesla’s stock is down 60%, so many people lost money).

Peter Thiel is CEO of a private surveilance company (Palantir), and that company is know for spying on normal people. At the same time, he’s calling himself a "Libertarian" while he’s openly opposing the free market because in his opinion, monopolies are better. That has nothing to do with "liberal / libertarian" values. A free and fair market
But in his "Libertarianism", he’s allowed to create a monopoly, to crush the free market because Thiel simply can do it due to his wealth (and get even more wealthy from his monopoly). There’s a great article about Thiel’s bullshit here.
And similar to Thiel, many rich people are pushing such a "Libertarian" strategy.

"Libertarian" has become a sponge word used by everyone and the people pushing this "Libertarianism" (which is exactly the opposite of that what would be really beneficial for normal people like getting rid of powerful structures abusing anything to their advantage) just want to replace currently existing rules with their own rules.

And that’s where I’ve questioned how to turn Libertarian theories into reality because always someone like Bezos, Thiel or Musk will come and abuse a vacuum of power.
It’s very important to understand the consequences of a vaccum of power.
Some Libertarian theories explicitly try to remove any rules but when there are no rules (vacuum), this vacuum will be filled by those who have or will quickly accumulate power (money).

Maybe you’ve also played monopoly (the game). There are some rules how to play but it always turns out when very late in the game one person owned all of the streets, placing hotels on it and everyone else goes bankrupt (because you can’t pay your rent). That’s a likely outcome how Thiel’s vision would escalate quickly.
On a much bigger scale than our monopoly of course, where the monopoly game could be your city.

It’s not a secret that when there are no rules, chaos will arise. Just imagine the forum where no DT would be active, no rules would be in place and spam piling up because it’s not getting deleted.
Some players filling this vaccum might be nice, get powerful but don’t do many harmful things. Some other players filling the vaccum might be the opposite and they will abuse any vaccum for their profit. And these evil players will crush everyone, nobody could stop them at one point.
Similar like Thiel intends to construct his monopoly: remove all rules and when all rules are removed, use your money (power) to establish your own (insane) rules (his monopoly). Netzpolitik.org, the site where I’ve linked the article above, calls Thiel’s vision "anti-democratic Libertarianism".
And that’s exactly what Thiel is trying to do: trying to dictate the rules himself.
That’s vacuum of power.

I can’t see in regard of Libertarian visions any concept of how the end game could suceed.
Libertarians (or what some people claim to be) have provided interesting visions and part of that are very important and also relevant for Bitcoin. But the end game from Libertarianism is similar like Communism, it just doesn’t work because it’s quickly abused by a small, wealthy and powerful group of people.
So far, nobody could address arising problems of these visions, both Communism and Libertarianism.

Most likely "Libertariansm" is an utopia itself and Bitcoin is what we need to understand, how to fix some flawed libertarian thoughts. Bitcoin is so powerful on so many layers and it will probably teach us to understand some flaws of Libertarianism and other aspects because Bitcoin is addressing the vaccum of power issue.
There’s a big difference between what Libertarian theories say and what Bitcoin says. Bitcoin is following clear rules, everything is certain. There’s no vacuum of power in Bitcoin.

So, to come back to my initial conclusion:
In my opinion, Bitcoin is a big mixture of different characteristics and the mixture is very well evaluated making Bitcoin so promising.
It’s libertarian, constitutional, progressive, conservative, digital and verifiable at the same time. But removing the flaws for what Bitcoin does.
Something like Bitcoin has never existed before because it’s completely unique.

And in my opinion, it’ll never be possible to "label" Bitcoin properly because Bitcoin is so unique.

the fight begins.. what is:
liberty
libertairian

they say its freedom.. but then.. if there are no rules, where everyone has freedom to believe what they like and follow what they adore..  then there is no consensus/code.  because code/rules and consensus are anti-liberty

if people say devs should be free to just slide in any code without a community vote (consent(permission) by census(survey of population))
is that liberty or democracy.
should forks be done first and then people chose the path to follow. or the original propose future route and people upgrade and if enough upgrade to support a proposal then the new rule activates)

should businesses and developers be accountable to customers and community. or should businesses do as they like even if it harms customers, should devs do as they like even if it harms the community

so what is liberty in regards to the cryptosphere

rules, consent.... or wild west "run away if it harms you"

hmmm, I think you may have been watching too much tv



right, you definitely have been watching too much tv.

you know when the good guys are tall, witty, handsome and always helping old ladies across the road? and the bad guys are the total opposite?
well, I'm not sure whether you noticed yet, but real life isn't like that. And even James Bond and Superman break the rules, because good guys do things like that, because, y'know, being good is a hard job

It's entirely possible to alter Bitcoin's rules, but only if you're willing to use and promote your own fork of bitcoin. And ever was it thus; millions upon millions of people have essentially broken bitcoin's rules in order to achieve exactly that.

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mock them both

both groups are behaving as if saying "no, my nuclear weapon is bigger than yours" somehow ends well.


they're both responsible for escalating to the current level of tension, and you appear to be promoting the perpertuation of said fight. mutual tolerance and all it's subtleties is the only solution, and every qualified adult already knew this long before you were all goaded into this nonsensensical dispute.

the best the two groups can hope for is mutual dislike and distrust: from a safe distance. promote that, or accept your role in people fighting, ruining lives, and then finally some critical mass is reached and enough people quit fighting. the more you fan the flames, the less kindly you will be remembered

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]