[arcticbull]

How can you possibly imagine adoption of Bitcoin would end the US army? The US army existed for hundreds of years on the gold standard. World wars were fought on the gold standard.

Exactly, step my step, please explain how adoption of bitcoin would reduce military energy consumption.

[dnautics]

You are missing the point. When the us was on a gold standard, the army was not required to create the dollar's value. Now that the us is on a sovereign credit-based system, the might of the military is an integral part of the dollars value, both in the obvious sense that the military protects sea lanes and in the more subtle sense that government debt and the sustained credit cycle goes in no small chunk to the military.

[arcticbull]

The army has nothing to do with the value of a dollar.

[dnautics]

I'm sorry, but there is no other way to say this but that you are clueless on this matter.

[arcticbull]

Surely you have some citations.

[quantumBerry]

Happily.

"Base demand for dollars is created due to taxation" [1]

Which of course completely contradicts: "The (mostly paid for by tax) army has nothing to do with the value of a dollar." [also 1]

[1] comment by 'arcticbull' on 'Hacker News'

[arcticbull]

You’re either intentionally avoiding the point or you’ve missed it yet again so I’m going to side step and say this: the amount of army won’t change regardless of which currency is used. There’s no path to reducing the size by changing the currency. It’s a separate, unrelated social policy decision. Either way I don’t think you’re arguing in good faith so I’m gonna cut this off here. Have a great evening!

[arcticbull]

You misunderstand my point. What the tax money is spent on is irrelevant and doesn’t create the demand. The demand is created by the obligation to pay the taxes and subsequent enforcement of non-payment. The same demand structure exists for instance in Japan without an army. Does that clarify for you?

[arcticbull]

The army doesn’t enforce taxes, that would be a violation of posse comitatus.

[monological]

That’s not what I said. It’s simple. Bitcoin has value because of proof-of-work which uses a ton of energy. US dollar has value because it’s propped up by the military which uses MORE energy (more so because there is no more gold standard)

[carnitine]

The US dollar has value because the most productive economy ever to exist demands that all taxes be paid using US dollars. The army is a small part of protecting and enforcing that monopoly.

[imtringued]

You can say that having a working economy props its currency of choice up but by that logic the dollar and other government currencies are propping up Bitcoin which is dependent on infrastructure of the economies of those nations.