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@Scoresby
stacking since: #74100longest cowboy streak: 233
100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Scoresby 15h \ on: How Big Brother can attack Bitcoin without spending a dime bitcoin
I'm not sure this is true. Censorship resistance is a pretty basic part of Bitcoin, yet gov'ts are busy coming up with ways to circumvent this.
If we all upgrade Bitcoin to some incredibly fungible, ecash-level privacy, that is essentially the same as physical cash, what stops the gov't from requiring all the same things it requires of physical cash? "If you want to send your 100% fungible, private coin to our exchange, you have to prove where you got the money (proof that you earned them, a letter from the source, etc...)."
The issue here, it seems to me, is not the technical abilities of Bitcoin, but rather the fact that the gov't controls most of the points you need to touch in order to do very much with Bitcoin in the physical world.
Privacy improvements to Bitcoin help Bitcoin be better, but they don't fix this problem.
From the moment a child is born, you are the only one responsible for them. Every day. Every hour.
There is no hour where you get to say "I don't want to deal with this." What you want to do can always get trumped by what they need you to do.
As they get older, it's like you have an exposed nerve walking around in the world, out of your control, but still connected to your being.
Who they become is largely dependent on how you behave. But ultimately, you have to give up, and just accept who they become -- even if it's someone you don't like that much, even if it's your fault.
Having a child is like cosigning a debt with a stranger you have never met, for an amount you don't know, and yet it's not foolish...sometimes it even pays off.
Your responsibility to your children is unique among relationships because it alone cannot be undone. This is a kind of encounter with reality that is far more valuable than any that can be revoked or stepped away from.
Isn't that a success already?
Problem is we don't know how good of a "hedge against state agression" it is. We kind of have to wait and see what happens when/if a state really attacks it.
in which case adoption may increase accordingly, making it a self-balancing system.
This is the hope. Increased threats from state (financial controls, gov't money debasement) will hopefully lead to increased adoption. But we don't know at what level of state aggression a person's threshold for adopting bitcoin is.
The more people want to be free, the easier it is for you to be free as an individual.
You are spot on with this and I think it is true of bitcoin specifically, as well. So it makes sense for anyone interested in it to try to make bitcoin easier to use and understand so that the level of state aggression at which it becomes an attractive alternative is as low as possible.
Whether we think it has succeeded or not, it makes sense for anyone who wants censorship resistant money to continue to put effort into increasing bitcoin adoption. Because with more adoption, we get better censorship resistance.
Sounds like a scammer to me. Never used Peach, but I've used bisq a fair amount. In the years of trading there, only ended up with 2 disputes. Both caused by trading partner ghosting part of the way through the trade.
Monopoly (the game) suffers from monetary inflation, too.
2022 versions of the game come with 475% more monopoly dollars than the 2008 version (which had 35% more than the original).
And they added $1k and $2k bills in the 2022 version.
Isn't public just another way of saying anyone can read it?
If anyone can read it, anyone can do math to verify it.
If anyone can verify it, anyone can be sure about the true state of the ledger without needing to trust anyone else.
If anyone can be sure about the state of the ledger, they can accept the coins anyone else gives them.
If anyone can accept coins, anyone can spend coins.
If anyone can spend coins, anyone can write to the ledger.
If anyone can do these things, anyone can run a node.
Perhaps I have oversimplified his second point.
People probably don't just enjoy holding dollars. They like what dollars can get them. In that sense dollars are just a means.
However, there are also some things only dollars can get you (you can only pay US tax obligations in dollars).
So dollars have an end for Josh.
Lawyers may be a means to a lot of things, but there are some things you can only get if you hire them.
I have a feeling Josh does not count bitcoin's censorship resistance as an end.
Yes, and my sense is that Josh would agree with you. From his replies to folks, it looks like he finds the regression theorem a little silly.
The main points of his argument are:
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people only really want things that are an end in themselves.
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things that are a means to an end still need to have some aspect in which they are an end.
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what is bitcoin's end?
I don't think he is saying only (and I hope I didn't imply that).
My read of the argument is that money has to get "jump-started" with some kind of use-value. Once others want it for money purposes, it's just that: money. But people don't want money just to have money (so the argument goes), and some number of people do want money for the use-value of the money -- and that's what keeps the whole system going round.
I disagree with him that there is no end in bitcoin itself.
EDIT: "jump-started" may not be what he's getting at, either. It may be more like the little pushes that contribute to resonance in a swing.
I agree with you, but I'd go further and say bitcoin doesn't need to be valued as a collectible to have value.
No. Just that we don't how how much any one person values any particular thing. So there's no such thing as a value something has in and of itself.
People give value to things by wanting them and being willing to do something about it.
I agree 100% with his analogy not being particularly useful.
What I do like about Satoshi's reply is his last little bit where he says people just seem to like having something to use like this.
Also, my read of his tone is that he didnt really care all that much. (But this is a very subjective analysis on my part)
Josh tries to get at the "intrinsic value" concept by talking about ends and means.
There are some things people pretty much only want as a means of getting something else.
Usually, people say money fits in this category. Here's an article where Rothbard says it several different ways.
Then there are things that people actually want, like cigarettes. Cigarettes can be used as a means (prison currency), but they were created as an end in and of themselves. I think Josh's take is that money can't be used as an end, and so it needs to be tied to some "real" end.
That's where I think he's wrong. People can want anything as an end.
His explanation is that gov't money gets its value initially from being a claim on the "right not to be thrown in jail for not paying your taxes."
I like this: value through negativity (probably not the best way to phrase it). You are on point with your observation. As far as I can see the main value prop of bitcoin is censorship resistance.
Strangely, I think Josh would agree. His hangup seems to be on a theoretical level. He'd probably be happier if he just didn't worry about it.