[vezzy-fnord]

Time for a reality check.

Okay, so I like the idea of CoinMD. It's a nice way for people with medical knowledge to get paid for their tips, but so far that's really about it. It's just yet another forum for medical advice, but with a gimmick. It's not even an original gimmick. The whole "integrate Bitcoin into everything" appears to be motivated by more of a cargo cult to appear modern and countercultural than anything rational.

However, it does offer an alternative payment system and in this case it works, so I won't complain about that.

But can we please let go of these childish fantasies that Bitcoin will overthrow all government and usher us into an anarchist utopia of voluntaryism and global human liberation? Those kinds of libertarian/anarchist pipe dreams were excusable during the very beginning of Bitcoin, when the protocol was still being sharpened and everyone was enthusiastic about this new idea.

I don't know what kind of world the author lives in where he thinks people posting textual descriptions of their conditions on the Internet, backed by a digital currency, will revamp the healthcare system into an anarcho-capitalist institution and turn government irrelevant? What bullshit. Do I seriously need to explain that writing about your condition isn't enough to get diagnosed with anything beyond the most rudimentary of advice ("This might be that, but I'm not sure. Go see a doctor and try this herb in the meantime to see if it stops.")?

Bitcoin will not render government irrelevant. You see, the thing is that even if the concept of Bitcoin theoretically can allow financial independence from the state, it's completely meaningless when your ecosystem is a mess. The Bitcoin ecosystem, as we have witnessed so many times, is absolute chaotic mayhem that can ironically only be controlled through state regulation, which many hardcore Bitcoiners are advocating for.

Homeschooling is opting out of the state? Uh, last I checked, homeschooling requires one to be registered with the state, as well as offer vigorous and regular checks with it to ensure you're in line.

The Silk Road isn't any different from your standard drug dealing market, only it's online and just as volatile and unreliable as the physical thing.

Look, Bitcoin is certainly capable of great things, but these here are just naive pipe dreams.

[eli5]

So, do you think that if enough people want to peacefully live without government interference at all (e.g. without a government) they don't deserve to do so and they don't deserve, for example, to be sold a piece of land to completely secede from state?

[rayiner]

The idea of "owning" a piece of land yet seceding from the state is itself a totally ridiculous concept. Without the state, you "own" what you can defend. God won't come down and defend your "natural right" of property ownership. If you can defend a piece of land against the established states, then good for you. Set up whatever anarchist utopia you want in there. But if you find that a voluntarist society doesn't allow you to defend yourself from aggressive outsiders, then you have to concede the failure of the concept, because one of the most fundamental tasks of being a human, right up there with eating and breathing, is defending your tribe against other tribes. If your model of society doesn't allow you to do that, then talking about it makes about as much sense as talking about a utopia in which people don't need to eat or breathe.

[tptacek]

We should all sit down sometime and compare notes, the core group of people simultaneously sane enough to write comments like this over and over yet insane enough to keep writing comments like this over and over again.

You can give us the script for explaining rights and the state of nature. I'll tell you guys which of urandom, random, and arc4random to use. 'gruseom can give us a cheat sheet on what Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso did and didn't say. Patrick can give us each a laptop sticker that says "raise your rates and never work for free". 'tzs will explain the secret trick for rolling the score over on the 1982 stand-up Galaga, and also the difference between first-to-invent and first-to-file.

Then we can all sub for each other. Maybe we can use a single account: 'tptzseominer11.

[Xdes]

It's more of a get-off-my-land issue. No government is going to secede land to some fringe group (let alone another government). Look at the situation in Ukraine. The only reason the Crimeans are able to secede from Ukraine is Russia's backing. If you remove Russia from the equation then the Crimeans are left to fight the Ukrainian army and its allies.

The point is you are going to be forced to live under the rules of another no matter where you live (I'm sure there are some Crimeans that would rather not be part of Russia or any other country). Bitcoin has the potential to disrupt the economy, but it cannot provide freedom of movement or freedom from taxation.

[chimeracoder]

That's a very loaded (but easy) question.

In the United States, we fought an entire war over the question of whether or not a state had the authority to secede from the federal government (the Union). The seceding states lost that fight.

It would be very hard to argue that individuals have that right when the states do not.

You may wish that it were different, but the fact is that individuals do not have this right, according to virtually any constitutional interpretation since the mid-19th century.

[wyager]

>In the United States, we fought an entire war over the question of whether or not a state had the authority to secede from the federal government (the Union). The seceding states lost that fight.

So wars decide what is right and what is wrong?

[aidenn0]

It's not about right and wrong, it's about what you can and can't do. If you do something and the US decides to go to war with you over it, you are SOL.

Philosphers may claim you have a natural right to buy and consume drugs the US government considers illegal, since you aren't harming others; you can then scream about your natrual rights from prison all you want.

[ameister14]

That's a perfectly valid way to decide what is right and wrong. A couple hundred years ago they would call it an "appeal to God."

[lotsofmangos]

No, they decide who is left.

[baddox]

In the area that would become the United States, we also fought an entire war over the question of whether colonies had the authority to secede from their empire. The seceding colonies won that fight.

[naturalethic]

You forgot the prior war where they fought to secede and won.

[ameister14]

A revolution/secession is morally and legally wrong unless you win.

[vezzy-fnord]

Sure is straw man in here.

No, I'm hardly a statist. I'm just saying Bitcoin will not solve the problem.

[Xdes]

eli5 your posts are marked dead, so no one will be able to read them.

[final_approach]

wow, what does "marked dead" means? First time I see someone mentioning it on HN.

[Xdes]

First link on google has a good definition[0].

tl;dr He probably got flagged for being a day old account (and being argumentative). I try not to say anything too controversial on here since I do not want to meet the same fate.

[0] http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ