[CryptoPunk]

People should be free to spend their wealth on whatever they want, whether it's crypto, high-powered gaming computers, or abstract art.

If the environmental costs of crypto mining are genuinely your concern, the best solution is to advocate an agnostic solution, like restricting CO2 generating sources of energy, or energy consumption for ALL non-essentials (e.g. tourism, video games, crypto, etc).

Singling out crypto for its environmental costs, and calling for targeted restrictions on it that exempt other non-essential uses of energy, suggests a superficial basis for your position, like a negative emotional association, or dislike of crypto proponents.

[Ygg2]

> People should be free to spend their wealth on whatever they want

So, you're saying I should run my unlicensed nuclear testing facilities? Regardless of any consequences and externalities I may cause.

And I should have the right to sell whatever I discover to highest bidder (including terrorist organizations)?

It's a hyperbole, but Bitcoin suffer from both of those: heavy externalities, and interfacing with black market.

[throwaway55421]

It is completely ludicrous to compare nuclear testing with doing maths on a computer.

[CryptoPunk]

>>So, you're saying I should run my unlicensed nuclear testing facilities?

That is not a voluntary interaction. Nuclear reactors pose an uncontrolled risk to all those in their vicinity.

Yours is a hyperbolic analogy, and likely just a trope you wheel out whenever you encounter an opponent of your anti-libertarian "you only have the rights I agree you should have" ideology.

>>It's a hyperbole, but Bitcoin suffer from both of those: heavy externalities, and interfacing with black market.

I've already commented on how the externalities should be addressed.

As for the "black market" angle, there is a fundamental difference between designs for weapons of mass destruction, and targeted restrictions on their dissemination, and dragnet controls over all financial interactions, in an attempt to preempt a host of crimes.

The former targets a true threat, and takes proportionate measures to mitigate it. The latter rejects the first principles of a free and liberal society, in instituting warrantless mass-surveillance and centralized gatekeeping of practically all private economic interactions, in the name of preempting crime, and in doing so, creates a hyper-centralized power structure that is in itself a massive threat to humanity.

[otterley]

Life doesn’t work that way. We should try to prioritize the use of valuable and finite resources to those things we think are most valuable to society. Usually we leave that prioritization to the free market, but we also sometimes have to take corrective actions to prevent misallocations that would be harmful or destructive to society, the planet, or the human race.

There’s a whole encyclopedia of free-market failure modes that’s worth reading up on. For example: https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ec...

[CryptoPunk]

Life works however we want it to work. "Life" doesn't mean "my ideology's preferred state of affairs".

>>We should try to prioritize the use of valuable and finite resources to those things we think are most valuable to society.

No, we shouldn't. People should always be free to decide for themselves how to expend their share of those finite resources. There is nothing inherently more valuable about one non-essential activity over another.

If a person wants to spend their resources running high powered gaming machines, that is not inherently more valuable than spending it mining crypto. Your subjective determination that one non-essential activity is more valuable than another is just that: a subjective opinion. It doesn't govern someone else's subjective determination.

>>There’s a whole encyclopedia of free-market failure modes that’s worth reading up on

I did not advocate an absence of government intervention. I explained how to make such intervention congruent with the values that are stated to be the intervention's motivation:

>>If the environmental costs of crypto mining are genuinely your concern, the best solution is to advocate an agnostic solution, like restricting CO2 generating sources of energy, or energy consumption for ALL non-essentials (e.g. tourism, video games, crypto, etc).

>>Singling out crypto for its environmental costs, and calling for targeted restrictions on it that exempt other non-essential uses of energy, suggests a superficial basis for your position, like a negative emotional association, or dislike of crypto proponents.

[otterley]

We form governments and associations, and have them set rules, in order to accomplish more than we can accomplish separately. This means relinquishing some individual freedom of choice and prioritizing our use of resources. If you disagree with those choices, that’s fine, and you’re free to make your disagreements known and vote accordingly, but living in a society means accepting that you can’t just do whatever you want, everyone else be damned.

[CryptoPunk]

>>We form governments and associations, and have them set rules, in order to accomplish more than we can accomplish separately.

One more time: you are arguing against a strawman. I've already shown I am not opposed to government intervention in principle.

>>This means relinquishing some individual freedom of choice and prioritizing our use of resources.

No, the existence of government and the pursuit of common goals through it does not require restricting any one's right to freely interact with other consenting adults, or depriving them of their private property.

>>but living in a society means accepting that you can’t just do whatever you want, everyone else be damned.

Living in a free society means being able to engage in voluntary interactions with other consenting adults, the judgment of others be damned.

[otterley]

Sorry, buddy. You just can’t hire a willing veterinarian to do surgery on you. Good luck convincing the world that that’s ok.

[CryptoPunk]

I will keep making the case that violating people's right to engage in voluntary interactions with other consenting adults, is always wrong. The Quakers spent centuries arguing against slavery, and were in the extreme minority for most of that period. Progress sometimes takes time.

I think healthcare would benefit from legalizing the provision of medical service by un-certified individuals, as well as providing more than one tier of certification, where people who can't afford fully certified practitioners, but would like the assurance of some certification, have that option.

Instead of making it illegal for individuals who don't possess full certification to practice medicine, the law could instead require medical practitioners to disclose their level of certification, and any warnings the state provides in relation to that.

So for example, an uncertified doctor/nurse may be required to disclose not only that they are uncertified, but also the warning that the state strongly advises against using uncertified medical practitioners.

Why providing these options is critically important is that sometimes the prescribed institutions fail, and an escape hatch is a life saver. Take this case of a woman in Canada who had to wait two years to get a test that diagnosed her with cancer, because of a shortage of state-licensed doctors:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/doctor-shortage-cancer-video-...

Society has imposed heavy regulations on the most important industries, and the result is that the most important industries are the most dysfunctional:

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-or-century-3...

Look at what regulations have done to healthcare in the US for example:

https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-manageme...

>>Here's some food for thought: The number of physicians in the United States grew 150 percent between 1975 and 2010, roughly in keeping with population growth, while the number of healthcare administrators increased 3,200 percent for the same time period.

*

>>Supporters say the growing number of administrators is needed to keep pace with the drastic changes in healthcare delivery during that timeframe, particularly change driven by technology and by ever-more-complex regulations. (To cite just a few industry-disrupting regulations, consider the Prospective Payment System of 1983 [1]; the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 [2]; and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Act of 2009. [3])

[1] https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Paymen...

[2] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-reg...

[3] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/h...