[qeternity]

I find these takes to be so disingenuous. The dollar is used in this manner in spite of legal and regulatory efforts. Bitcoin is used in this manner bc it was designed explicitly to be immune to these efforts.

I respect people who believe money should be uncensorable. But at least own that view and the implications, instead of all of this fiat whataboutism.

[sam_goody]

I have no problem saying that cash should be uncesorable, as far as that goes.

But it as limits built in - it has to physically transfer hands, true anonymity is difficult, and is practically limited in its scale (moving and then using $1,000,000 in cash is logistically less practical than using a wire transfer).

Ie. it is mighty difficult to use cash for ransomware attacks, and it is not that simple to get paid in cash for a kidnapping (eg. the case of the guys who kidnapped a schoolbus, but while working out how to collect their ransom, the kids escaped.)

[malermeister]

> I respect people who believe money should be uncensorable.

Why? That is just another way of saying moneyed interests should be above the rule of law. What could possibly be respectable about a view this odious?

[pavlov]

I agree. It's an extremist position to say that money should be outside the rules of society.

Let's take an experiment. Instead of "I should be free to send money to anyone anywhere", we'll replace money with a car.

"I should be free to drive my car anywhere, anytime". Sounds superficially like a reasonable proposition even? But in fact we have lots of rules that control who can drive a car, where, under what intoxication. There are driver's licenses, traffic signs, road police... Ultimately a judge will put you in jail if you exercise your freedom to drive outside of society's rules.

Now imagine someone using the pseudonym Suzuki Toyotamoto invents a car made out of floating jello with an engine that runs on nuclear waste. Many engineers will marvel at the ingenuity of the design. Some people start building their own jello blobs and driving them off-road without a license. The law says nothing explicitly about transportation inside floating jello. Eventually people take their floating jello vehicles to roads and get fined. (The jello moves barely at walking speed and drips radioactive sludge.) Outrage blows up in the floating jello community. Do the old rules apply to them? Will the whole world switch over to floating jello? (These questions may seem very important to those versed in the world of Suzuki Toyotamoto's floating jello, but most people just don't care and will happily keep using their regular cars instead of sitting in slime powered by radioactive waste.)

[qeternity]

Because I appreciate different viewpoints. I may not agree with you but I can respect your opinion. What I don’t respect is people who draw false equivalencies and try to wiggle out of the consequences of their views.

[peyton]

I don’t think Chase freezing your account and refusing to tell you why counts as rule of law. I don’t see what’s so odious about coming up with a solution to move money that doesn’t involve financial institutions.

[jevgeni]

Solving bad customer service by creating a part of the economy meant to be outside of any accountability is a bad idea.

[qeternity]

Sure, but that’s a problem with a specific bank, not a problem with fiat currency.