Topic: Politics does not matter. Only power. - page 4. (Read 3051 times)

Yes, it could certainly be. 

For sure, in numerous third world counties in which such dire straits and corruption exist that there is no way Paypal could get established there, and hence, Amazon or Ebay cannot exist there.

Beyond those situations, where a separate private currency has obvious advantages (yes I am talking about someone in the US trading directly with someone in Kenya, etc) it is not so clear.

Would the emergence of a crypto currency in the USA say to the extent of 10% of paypal transactions  cause fundamental social or political change?  If so, how and what?

Well said.

I have often pondered the notion that we are living in the natural conclusion an anarchist state.  Ie, the strongest wins.  And it will always be so, though it will take different forms.

A counterpoint however is that if we look at history, we can see that forward motion has been made, and not always linearly.  I think most would agree that society has advanced beyond feudalism.  ie, it was not a lateral or backwards step from feudalism to democracy.  Yet if you could talk to the average person living in a feudal society 900 years ago, they probably would have trouble even conceiving of a democratic society and its implications.  Or if they could, they would laugh at you and say that such a utopia will never happen.  The lords and kings would never permit it.

So thinking about it that way encourages me that there is hope for a better tomorrow, for improvement of the human condition and societal organization.  Perhaps cryptocurrencies will be the sword that finally strikes a mighty blow at the root of centralized power:  control over money.

When that day comes, we may have set the stage for a new type of society, as different from today as we are from the dark ages.   perhaps even a voluntaryist one.

Whatever your political point of view, whether we need this or that, whether the government should do something about whatever or not. Whether we should be involved in whichever thing or ignore it. It does not matter. All that matters is power.

We are fooling ourselves if we believe that anything can be changed in Washington that would give power back to the people, or if that power would remain. An anarchist/libertarian society? Forget it. A communist utopia? Only if people are slaves to the masters with power.

When it comes down to it, we live in an anarchist, survival of the fittest world. But when people think of such a world they think of preppers with guns killing weaker people for their supplies and surviving because they have more guns or are stronger or whichever.

But the reality is that all things equal, two people are more powerful than one. So the two people have more power than that one person and can pretty much tell that one person how they should live. Unless that one person finds two other people so that it is three against two. Then they can determine what everyone should do. And on and on, the groups getting bigger, the power growing within each group. 1000 people against 500 people, the 1000 people get to decide how society works. All the way to millions of people with a huge military and nuclear weapons. How could you possibly think you can get the power back to that one person?

But the thing about that is that those large groups of people join forces to protect themselves from other groups, but within the group there are groups of people with more power than the rest. So even if you do not agree with what those with more power in your group want to do, your only other option is no protection.

Was our country founded on ideas alone? Or did they have more power than the British? The huge amount of effort it required for the British to send ships to America and fight a far off war caused their ideas to become the losing ideas. Not the merit of the politics, but the fact that we won the war. We displayed our power. Is democracy the best way to run a government? Is that why all of these countries are becoming democratic? Or does it have something to do with the most power country in the world flexing its muscles and pushing it on nations?

In a way, libertarians in the US are fighting a far more difficult battle than if they were in some small country with a tiny military force.

Your political ideology will only work if it includes a more powerful force than the current one in place. Giving power back to the people is great, as long as your political system has a way for them to all join that power together to fight a larger force. And that means, at this stage in human technological advances, being more powerful than a full on nuclear strike. And if your political ideology can do that, you need to make sure someone cannot control all of that power to take control of those that combined their power.

Of course, power is not just guns and bullets. It includes money. And I believe Bitcoins can help in that piece of the puzzle.