[djsumdog]

The thing about loans, that is borrowed capital that you use to try and create more capital, is that there isn't enough capital to go around. Capitalism does depend on a certain percentages of businesses failing, and that debt being written off.

You also can't make loans with BTC because debt needs to be enforceable. There must be violence behind debt. In the past that meant someone turns you into a slave or breaks your legs. Today the violence has been reduced (you get bad credit score and debt collectors keep calling), but it's still there. States have to have a monopoly on violence to enforce debt.

I don't really agree with where this guy is going, because the entire way loans are used to generate fiat currency isn't really sustainable. David Graeber has talked a lot about every great civilization has needed some form of debt relief at some point, either when a new leader comes in or when the civilization collapses.

People in the ancient world knew the empires they lived under would eventually end. Today in many high income countries, most people cannot see the end.

[0x445442]

Yeah one has to buy into the premise that debt based money is a good thing but I reject that premise.

At least each BTC represents a certain amount of work (in the form of electricity expended) that's already been performed.

Debt is great as long as there is enough work to be performed to square the accounts.

[candiodari]

Not really. You only have to buy in the premise that given 2 options:

1) a system with a lot of (risky) debt

2) a system in which debt is impossible

Then have competition between these 2 options. There is no doubt about the outcome. System 1 will devastate system 2 (in that the total economy size of system 1 will be a LOT larger than system 2).

Therefore the Nash equilibrium is a debt based system.

Nobody's claiming there aren't any advantages to a system where debt is not a possibility. I guess people are just claiming that not having debt is too expensive, in terms of missed opportunities.

The strength of bitcoin is the inflexibility and general incompetence of government based money systems. It wouldn't be too hard, I think, for a government to make a money system that would trounce bitcoin. Of course, they'd have to be prepared to trounce banks and most of the financial sector to do this.

[kintamanimatt]

Debt collectors calling and having your credit score dinged isn’t the definition of violence.

[SerLava]

I mean, ultimately if you try to keep your stuff, people will break into your house, beat you, throw you into a cage and lock you in close proximity with rapists.

If you try to keep your stuff and resist them, they will blow your brains out.