[futureamish]

I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the undemocratic, nightmerican system of goverence with non-existent to weak checks and balances across the entire polis and an outdated constitution.

That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, and only someone riding the coattails of early adoption and espousing permanent oligarch rule through its lack of taxation could ever speak highly of its poor design, replacing centralized banking with a centralized computing infrastructure arms race to the detriment of the world's resources. There, I said it.

[survirtual]

First paragraph is on point. Sad about the second paragraph. That isn't a brave or impressive thing to say, it is a common and misinformed perspective.

Regarding Bitcoin, it's important to recognize that it's fundamentally about decentralization of financial control, not necessarily decentralizing value hoarding (though it largely does that too). It uses a distributed ledger technology, where the minting process (mining) and transfers (transactions) are verified by a consensus mechanism across a global network. This eliminates the need for central banking authorities, theoretically reducing the points of failure and censorship. It's designed to be a deflationary currency to counteract inflationary fiat systems, with a predictable supply that's governed by math, not by policy changes. While concerns about energy consumption are valid, the network is increasingly moving towards renewable energy sources and more efficient mining practices. Moreover, innovations like the Lightning Network are addressing scalability and resource issues, aiming to make Bitcoin more sustainable and accessible.

I think you should revisit your talking points / read the code / understand the thing you're talking about before having such a strong (false) statement.

[tromp]

> not necessarily decentralizing value hoarding (though it largely does that too)

I could have agreed with that if it had a fixed block subsidy. Not with the repeated halving that leaves each next generation with 32x less bitcoin to mine.

[warkdarrior]

> Regarding Bitcoin [...] the network is increasingly moving [...] more efficient mining practices

Has Bitcoin changed its mining protocol?

[tromp]

It is and always will be Hashcash with SHA256d as hash function.

[absinthe11]

That's an example of sunk cost fallacy, where the miners have spent so much money (real dollars, not bitcoin) on otherwise useless ASICs that they obstruct any attempts at progress.

[CyberDildonics]

That's not a sunk cost fallacy, that's just sunk cost.

[GabeIsko]

> It's designed to be a deflationary currency to counteract inflationary fiat systems,

Even if you take this conceit, we have to step back that bitcoin has irrevocably failed. Governments have definitely proved that they can regulate bitcoin transactions through various mechanisms. In China, mining is banned. In US, they are considered securities and regulated. No use case has emerged to truly transact in bitcoin. The only deflationary aspect is it's value in relation to fiat currency, which is still downstream to the supply of money controlled by central banks.

Personally, I don't think bitcoin is viable. The root of the problem is that no one is willing to transact in it. But beyond that, looking at it's implementation, I am not convinced that it accurately models the relationship between demand for the currency and the people willing to mine it. It seems very dogmatic to assume that it is just a logarithmic relationship between computing power and money supply. At the end of the day, there might not be a more efficient solution to establish demand for money than some kind of political process.

[DANmode]

> I don't have a problem with surveillance. I have a problem with surveillance under the

Also, just stop there!,

because the rest of that sentence will change every 5, 10, 50 years, no matter what anyone does.

Don't start any program within your home that you don't want your enemies to have access to use against you while they're in power.

[anonporridge]

I don't get how people don't understand this.

One of the reasons that the Nazis were especially effective at finding Jews in the Netherlands is because of their very detailed civil registry, that included religious affiliation.

French authorities were also forced to help the Nazis locate Jews during their occupation, and this is one of the reasons the French today don't keep official records on people's race or religious affiliations.

Just because you fully trust authorities today doesn't mean the guard won't turn over in the future for any number of reasons.

[autoexec]

The point is to put into place systems that will protect you from abuses no matter who comes into power. Those systems, and how well they function, can act as a bellwether indicating how tyrannical the authorities are becoming. If you're lucky exposed weaknesses in those systems can be patched up, and corrupt individuals ousted to shore up your freedoms before things slip too far, but if nothing else those early warning signs can tell you when it's time to get out while you still can.

At the point where you've already been taken over by the new "Nazis" it doesn't much matter. They'll put into place the systems you fear anyway. You say the French today don't keep official records on people's race or religious affiliations, but corporations do, and so that data on the population already exists and could be obtained very quickly. The nice French government today won't touch that data, but New Hitler would.

In the meantime, because France doesn't want to consider race in statistics, it's made documenting, understanding, and addressing the massive racial discrimination problems they have very difficult. For years there have been calls for the French government to start collecting ethnicity data in their statistics because blinding yourself to problems means you can't solve them. (https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_international_compar...) The policy to avoid that kind of data collection was well-meaning, but it turns out that not collecting that data doesn't adequately protect the people of France, and in fact it's actually hurting them.

[autoexec]

Except that I want my "enemies" to be able to conduct surveillance. There are genuine reasons for surveillance where it's honestly the best tool for the job. I also want the oversight and accountability to ensure that nobody (especially not my "enemies") are abusing that power.

Very few people would be happy with their lives if there were suddenly no surveillance at all. There would be crime, corruption, disease, pollution, extinction, and abuses of authority everywhere. We'd be totally blindsided by extreme weather, incoming asteroids, solar flares, and earthquakes!

One of my favorite forms of surveillance is body cameras on police officers. Body cams are amazing tools! They help protect the police from false claims of abuse and aid them in training, while at the same time they help protect the public by helping us find tyrants and corrupt cops. Body cam systems aren't perfect (tapes "go missing", some cops can turn them off) but they can be improved, and they should be because surveillance (like most valuable tools) isn't all good or all bad. Don't throw away powerful tools because you fear how they can be abused. Develop robust systems of transparency, accountability, and (ironically) surveillance to make those tools work for our benefit.

[DANmode]

> Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme

There's billions of USD of it owned by dozens of different countries.

Which state are you implying to be sponsoring the "pyramid scheme"?

[ur-whale]

> I don't have a problem with surveillance.

Hard to continue reading you after that kind of statement.

> That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme,

And now damn near impossible.

[alphanullmeric]

Cryptocurrencies have no value, what do you intend on taxing?

[hgomersall]

I suspect you're aware that your rhetorical question rather neatly makes the point that taxing in crypto would immediately (and for crypto-bros, ironically) imbue them with value.

[alphanullmeric]

What’s the point you’re trying to make? Do cryptocurrencies have value or not? It’s one or the other, you can’t claim they have value when you want to tax them and then claim they don’t when you want to regulate them.

[hgomersall]

That the process of taxation in a certain money is a sufficient condition to give that money value.

[alphanullmeric]

I’m not asking you to “give” my money value. I’m asking you to answer a simple yes or no question: does it currently have value or not? The way you’re trying to defend your obvious lack of consistency is purely circular. If it has value, you tax it. You can’t say that if you tax it then it’ll have value that justifies taxing it the first place.

[hgomersall]

If you can use it to satisfy your tax liability, then it has value.

[kolanos]

> That said, Bitcoin is a state sponsored pyramid scheme, ...

I would say the same about the Federal Reserve.

[sonicanatidae]

And the stock market.

[ForkMeOnTinder]

I can't wait to start getting my social security checks 30 years from now.

[sonicanatidae]

You'll get them, but you'll have to be 91 to start collecting, and they will be worth less than it took to print them, because some "people" think that giving more tax breaks to those that need it the least is a better use of the money you've been forced to pay into the system.

[sharemywin]

of course without either of these every Americans incomes, wealth, etc would shift to the left by 1 if not 10 decimal places.

[DANmode]

The size and complexity of both of those has increased since the 50s, a time when "every American"¹ was far better off financially with their takehome.

So, I'm not sure I follow your assumption.

¹with obvious regards to those of color