Topic: thought experiment: wars could be ended by BTC (Read 1212 times)

well john im not going to make the claim that bitcoin will save us from wars, i like to think that it COULD, that it is possible. But there is a difference between gold and bitcoin and that is bitcoin empowers individuals to trade globally. That is we had this wonderful technology called the internet which was limited in its effect because we were forced to rely on centralized institutions (and so state influenced) to transact over it. Now that we have an anarchic currency like gold that can be used over the internet it could begin to make the state obsolete. Gold has no such properties because its only useful for local trade, thus there is no expectation that it might begin to tear down political borders like bitcoin potentially could.

somolia is on its way up, if it continues to improve at the unprecedented rate that it has been improving since the fall of its state, i just might go live there at some point in the future =D Its already the best place to live in the region as measured by many metrics but these things take time, it takes time to accumulate capital and a society can not become wealthy untill after it accumulates sufficient capital.

Exactly, and really why wouldn't you take that gold if you calculate that on short and medium term gains from taking it is more than cost and losses...

Uh, gold/PM's are an acceptable commodity for the world since god knows how long ago, but I don't see wars stopping yet...

In short... no way.

The type of currency people use has little to nothing to do with most disputes humans have.

Let me ask you this... did the bombers in Boston this past week set of bombs because people used the dollar instead of the euro? Of course not, it had nothing to do with that.

If a neighbor or someone out there does something wrong to you or pisses would you ignore it simply because of the type of currency they use? Nope.

"Wars" are simply human nature. It's a dispute people have, except in the cause of wars it's governments that have the dispute. There is really nothing humans can do to stop humans from pissing other people off. There''s always going to be something or someone or something that happens that makes  someone else or something else upset and willing to fight.

Also it's simply not realistic that every country in the world would use bitcoin. If bitcoin became too popular it's 100% fact that multiple countries across the globe would make harsh enforcements to limit it. Think countries in the middle east or places like China.  Maybe the can't get rid of bitcoin completly but if a place like say China made it a crime punishable by death, MOST people in China would never use bitcoin.

Humanity will always find a way to fuck itself over I do think though that BTC will certainly make governments a lot more democratic, if BTC managed to eliminate paper currency or make it obsolete, political parties would have to work a lot harder to gain our votes because if they tried making war like they do now etc. then we'd simply stop funding them and it's not like they could just tax the difference from us like before if we objected Bitcoin is giving voters an insurance policy against political con artists.

I don't think it would. There will always be cases where war is profitable.

On earth and in real universe war might be at times the cheapest option to gain resources. Or control.

It could even be corporate war where some corporation calculates that it's best for them to stop competitors and gain monopoly. While also stopping new entries to market or pricing the products better than new entries can...

Wars aren't going anywhere as long as there is anything to gain.

It may be that facilitating worldwide trade without barriers will make war less attractive. That BTC is a grass-root currency created by the people, and not by governments for which every international action is some sneaky scheme to increase their power (such as the Euro), may also help. I certainly hope so. It's one of my reasons for contributing to this project at all.

Would profit making wars cease?  An unequivocal yes.  (along with a lot of other world wide nastiness).

Yes, I hope that Somalia continues to be thrust upon us as a place where no government exists. I hope they remember that when Somalia is one of the major African countries and surpasses many others.

Even though the UN is doing everything they can to suppress their advances.

I agree.  It's madness; it couldn't possibly make sense.

That is, until one realizes those who run the country do not have the nation's best interest in mind.  We could attribute this to "Well, they're just stupid!  They don't know what they're doing!"  I say they do.

Somalia's progress since the fall of its violent state in 1991:
http://mises.org/daily/5418

Huge government spending items would not be purposefully created in order to ensure deficits which benefit the central banks.

This includes war.

Wars can only be ended by uprooting the state and discarding it.

Look at it this way: if America needed to wage war with nation X to produce jobs, and ultimately profits for the private entities driving America's hand, and they cannot get enough drive going to keep the process going (that is, through taxation) because Bitcoin cannot be taxed, a new tax will be introduced and many others would be removed.  Ideally, this tax will occur at the end of the year, and it will be the same for everyone.  Because Bitcoin cannot be tagged to any individual, you would no longer be able to tax individuals on capital gains or purchases.  I'm not a tax expert and there's probably plenty of ways to tax someone (like through wages or land tax), but Bitcoin can still be accommodated by the IRS to ensure they're still leeching off you at every turn.

As of today, you can get away with evading taxation through Bitcoin (and thus, put a dent in this horseshit war on terrorism,) but don't expect this to always be the case.  If need be, the government will adapt, and more taxes will be installed to replace the old ones which can no longer work.  The only way to remedy this is to break from the state and fight for a national government which cannot tax, or fight for no national government at all.

Good news! You're already free to go live in the paradise that is anarchy. Somalia. Enjoy!

i believe so. Bitcoin could lead to the establishment of a truly free market society. in a truly free market society the cost of war would tend to be born by the persons seeking the war. Contrasted to a statist society where war-mongers can internalize the benifits of war upon themselves and their buddies and externalize the costs onto the wider population through the machinery of the state with inflation, debt and taxation.

also you are never going to end war while there are still nations. The only way bitcoin could save us from war is by ending the nation state entirely.

I think most here would concur that wars are encouraged by the current monetary system that we have, with central banks and inflation, an economy that is in a perpetual need to destroy in order to be able to rebuild again.

I surely do hope that BTC as a debt-free currency would end such tendencies.


Because people everywhere would use the same currency? That's an argument that doesn't work in the EU with the Euro though. 

wat.

I really don't get that metaphor.

hi everone, so if BTC was the currency of the world apart from dying fiat currencies, do you think wars could be ended? id like to think so as if every nation used BTC then we all use the same blood to supply our organs. what are your thoughts?