[consp]

> And secondly what if the State is a bad actor?

That's ad hominem. You can make that argument for any player (stripe, any intermediary, the customer etc).

Personally I trust the state (at least mine) more than any corporation. But that's just me.

[argiopetech]

Depends. For the Founders of the US, it was a base assumption that the state was a bad actor. It's usually a good bet (i.e., it pays off more times than not), IMHO.

[pezezin]

The world is much bigger than the US, and those of us on the outside don't worship your founders.

[argiopetech]

And fair enough. Nevertheless, it's not an ad hominem to attribute to the state a characteristic which has been observed in every form of government. Barring the newest (though COVID response ["lockdown" and similar] provided an example for most), no state has ever avoided tyranny in the long-term. It must necessarily be so, if only because man is fallible and power corrupts.

The founders of the USA believed the counter to tyranny was to keep government weak, so that when even the slightest hint of restriction on life, liberty, or property crept in it could be stomped out by the people. The Founding Fathers too were fallible and built a form of government which could not long guarantee those desirable characteristics. I argue the USA is a bad actor in many regards, and I trust it not. That said, it's the best of a bad lot, IMO.

[throw0101d]

> It's usually a good bet (i.e., it pays off more times than not), IMHO.

If that was actually true, why do you put up with The State? Why do you not overthrow it? Seriously: if the state/government is bad why do you even have it?

Is the (municipal) State being a bad actor when it paves roads and runs water-sewage? Is the (state/provincial) State a bad actor when it runs schools? Is the (federal) State being a bad actor when it protects waters with Coast Guard and Navy and enviornmental regulation, when it inspects food, funds science and medicine?

It seems to me you get what you expect: the (e.g.) Nordics expect government to be a good actor and try to live up to those expectations; (some?) Americans expect government to be a bad actor and try to dismantle it… creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps if more Americans expected and fought for / 'demanded' better government they would get it.

[argiopetech]

Governments are overthrown regularly (I count 13 such cases just in the 2010s). Mine hasn't yet made it to the point where such actions are needed --- if and when it does, you may judge me by my actions.

As for why we have government: the alternatives are unstable and devolve into government, or are weak easily brought to the submission of other states (those powers having a natural incentive in land, people [historically: slaves], and other natural resources to invade weak or disorganized neighbors).

Re. your other points, if we can have those discussions we're likely not in the grips of tyranny. Tyranny has a way of making you accept the potholes and the fact you don't have water 5/7 days (beats dying in a labor camp, and you probably don't have fuel for your car anyway).

Since you asked, though: Paving and water/sewage are not inherently tyrannical. Acquiring the right of way may be. Schools are not inherently tyrannical, but may be used subversively to produce a populace willing to be governed under tyranny. Protecting territorial waters it not inherently tyrannical, but military might can certainly be used in a tyrannical manner. Inspection of food and funding of science and medicine are not inherently tyrannical, but the taxation required for that funding may be, as could be e.g., requiring the use of the output of that funded medicinal research.

In summary, I'm saying that every government must be watched carefully by its citizens lest it devolve into tyranny. By assuming this trend (demonstrated time and again through history) to be indicative of future risk, I am prepared for that eventuality. By continued vigilance, I implicitly fight for the opposite. By continued discourse, I demand the same of my peers (and they of me, mitigating my own tyrannical traits).

Personally, I wouldn't trade my government (imperfect though it may be) for a 50% nominal tax rate and sub-arctic climate. That said, it's no surprise to me that the Kingdom of Norway, a parliamentary monarchy with 4% the land area and less than half the population density vs. USA, populated by 80% ethnic Norwegians, would have a very different form of and perspective on government than the third largest country (by land mass), de-facto world hegemon, a federated republic populated by 360 million children of colonists and immigrants. Horses for courses.

[dragonwriter]

> Personally I trust the state (at least mine) more than any corporation.

I trust the state in aggregate no more than the least-trusted corporation, because corporations are, as creatures of law rather than nature, manifestations and exercises of state power.

[lacy_tinpot]

The State = People. The government are People. They are both as fallible as people are fallible. It's not magic.

Technology helps to mitigate the fallibility of people.

[bigyabai]

This is a ridiculous fallacy, one that gets people killed. Many a failed revolution, ill-fated coup or catastrophic invasion began by assuming the state was just people. The Battle of Stalingrad, the Vietnam War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the Gulf War. The state is a giant apparatus that doesn't know right from wrong, it just responds in the way it's supposed to like a sheepish animal. It happens in Congress, in the CCP Politburo, pretty much anywhere. The inhuman indifference of the state is a feature of modern legislation we call Rule of Law.

Technology is similarly indifferent, and it's common that cryptocurrency is deliberately designed to exacerbate the fallibility of people. Unpegged stablecoins, shit memecoins, rugpull tokens... that's what I would call "consumer fraud" in a functioning economy. Or "gambling" at the very least.

[lacy_tinpot]

There is no solution, everything is bad, but this new thing yah it's worse than everything before it. So we must keep the horrible old bad thing while impotently critiquing it.

It seems that this is a quintessential argument that's often made and is, plainly speaking, entirely stupid.

What do you think "people" means? "People" means an organization of humans.

How that organization structures itself produces various different kinds of results.

Religious organizations, political organizations, corporations, etc. are all People, but the results are very very different from organization to organization.

Why? Because of incentive structures.

The Enlightenment "indifference of the state" can actually then be extended to the "indifference of organizations".

Cryptocurrencies/the internet are no different in that sense as it is a new organizing principle for groups of people.

But what it is deliberately designed to do actually is to facilitate transactions.

What you're actually interested in is Fascism/Authoritarianism, where the state takes a paternalistic stance to protect the poor and stupid, the "masses", from the freedom to transact among themselves.

What actually needs to be prevented is the monopolistic and excessive accumulation that concentrates transactionary powers.

Limiting transactions is then the real authoritarianism, whether that is from a government or through the accumulation of wealth to a small segment of the population.

The issue simply that there is an asymmetry where certain people should have greater powers than others because they are verifiably better, but how much better and to what extent can such persons actually accumulate that power is a difficult question.

That's where the organizations of various kinds come in. They accumulate for themselves so as to protect the individual through the collective. This is the feature of any organization but again it ends up in the same situation. Organization can accumulate excessive powers and limit the freedoms of others, just as an individual can.

This dynamic is the problem. How to resolve? Can it be resolved? Who actually knows.

Cryptocurrencies, really the internet and computer technologies as such, are just another instance where we're re-evaluating the values and re-organizing ourselves around those principles. It'll address some of the old problems, it'll create new ones, but it's not any different than any other previous technological revolution.