Bitcoin Forum

AKA, The Ramifications of Anonymous Personal Data and Money on Government and Society.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/20/bitcoin-spain-currency-run
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21863593
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21427505

Forget that taxes - or rather, the punishment for not paying something which you never agreed to pay - are a declaration that you are not a sovereign entity, but are the property of your government. The basic question which relates to the thread title is: Why? The answer, of course, is: Because the government can't tax what it doesn't know exists in whose anonymous stash stored who knows where.

People do not want the government to control their trade value. If the government can't control people's currency, it can't take a part of it for themselves, which means it can't fund its efforts to continue to control people's currency, or anything else at all, for that matter. Governments will soon no longer have the ability to exist, because they simply won't be funded - and there's nothing they can do to stop that bit of social evolution.

Does that mean we won't have social services anymore? Not at all. In fact, the services we have will likely be of higher quality, and be much more efficient and tailored to a "country"'s specific cities and smaller regions. Social projects will be funded through Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/)-type operations, with contractors, corporations and individuals listing the projects they think up, and where everybody will have direct say in where they place their anonymous currencies - not where their government places it for them. This means that services will start to be a lot more like what the people want to see, and funds will transfer relatively directly to projects rather than funneling through inefficient and incompetent bureaucracies.

There will definitely be smaller defense forces all across the globe (albeit with dictatorships, like North Korea, retaining their military might the longest - as they'd be slowest to adopt, and likely block out access to these currencies through force), but probably larger scientific funding across the globe. People will inevitably have more funds at their disposal, as huge amounts of currency are wasted in governmental bureaucratic fashion - not to mention plain old idiocy.

There is also another thing to consider - how will the anonymous currency market shift, in light of these facts-to-be? Current market-cap growth volumes don't allow enough BTC to go around for full global adoption, and with BTC breaking mainstream news, there will be a lot more demand for it. Either output will have to increase, or there will become several established side-by-side currencies, providing enough supply for all to use.

We're already working on it...    ;)

You almost wrote my white paper for me...

coming soon

You mean like https://cryptostocks.com ?

I love the tone of your post, believe me but I think it's not a likely reality in the short to medium term at least.  There's going to be a lot of shaking before something resembling that martini is in the glass.  I'm an optimistic guy but feel enough people around the world have become so dependent on "government" that it's not just going away in our lifetimes.  The percent of people in the population that are into holding something like  gold or Bitcoin, the percentage that is fully turned on to what happens in the world and roughly how things really work, is miniscule.  Plenty of people utterly glued to, and dependent on, the matrix that "governments" can fleece for the rest of our lives I submit.    

The difference between voluntarism and government is the difference between choosing your own partner and arranged marriages.

I believe that number is rising pretty high.  There's a lot of people on welfare, milking America for all its socialism, and increasing as jobs slowly disappear to other countries.  These folks are completely, 100% indebted to their nation, and if that system collapses, so do their benefits.  So that's at least 4 million votes in support of American socialism, and at most 46+ million (according to this handy little statistic (http://www.statisticbrain.com/welfare-statistics/))  And we're not even talking about the average Joe and the typical Jane.

I'd like to say we're progressing, but you may be right.  It might not be a change we'll see in our lifetime.  But I'll be damned if my kids, if not, their grandchildren, if not, their grandchildren's grandchildren, have to put up with this any longer.  It is happening, and minds are changing, but it's a hefty heave-ho.  We'll be stuck doing all the pushing ;D

there's no end to government! only the realization of the ideal, that someday we would govern ourselves, as opposed to trusting the 'experts'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVBRDNnt1o

The problem I have with an archo-capitalit type set-up is the Monsanto type corporation that are so evil in their intent and greed that most people can't belive it or they are not educated about it, so without a government to regulate some of these big companies and monopolies or without people boycotting them things could get worse.

With that said Monsanto is not a great example they only exist in their current form because of the lack of regulation, they have had people (ex employees / lobbyists etc) in the whitehouse for years, So if you removed govenment you would remove there regulation but they could still get sued by indivuals and other companies for the damage they do. Also without patent rights Monsanto wouldn't be able to patent their gnome and sell these seeds that will grow in soil filled with poisonous round-up.

Now that you've noted that all the evils of Monsanto are only possible because of governments and would not exist without a government, what's stopping you from recognizing this is true of all the other corporations as well?

If taxing wealth is not an option anymore, governments could always impose a land tax or a "citizen tax". 

So no, cryptocurrencies don't mean the end of government.

I'm pretty sure cryptocurrencies don't mean the end of government....

Untenable moral contradictions mean the end of government. Cryptocurrencies just help the process along.

even cyborgs have gangs, mafias and government.

crypotcurrencies can't change the nature of carbohydrate based social animals.

well because their are still exceptions, their are still companies that will seek to hold monopolies or exploit the poor or damage the planet for profit, we will still overfish and cut down forests, the rich will still get preferential treatment, So anarcho-capitalism won't solve all of our problems, the dark side of capitalism has bought our elected representatives and is what is doing the damage aforementioned,

I don't know what the solution is but I'm willing to give Anarcho-capitalism a try, (has to be better than fascism that we have now) but ultimately people naturally like to be in groups and these groups compete so eventually you probably end up with one group using force, breaking its principles and morals and the same shit over again.

thank you for stating this all-too-important truth. the more things change, the more they stay the same, or so they say... human beings, i.e. the ontology of being human has never altered and never will - unless we become something other than human beings. What's more likely is that Bitcoin will initiate a libertarian transformation of our government and get us back to how the original republic used to be, and hopefully drive personal responsibility to its maximum and reduce government interference in our personal lives down to a minimum. I.e. gun ownership will increase, illegal drugs will become legal - things that are happening on a minuscule scale right now will grow by leaps and bounds. 

None of this will prevent humans from becoming greedy gluttons, liars, adulterers or even rapists or murderers - which is why government always will exist for as long as human beings exist.

Think of BitCoin as trimming the fat off government and creating a lean government in the final analysis, and increasing personal responsibility/morality in people like nothing else has so far. It's a long way in the making, but once BitCoin is brought into the mainstream and tied to the powerbase - and it will be, that is exactly what's going to happen.

This is ridiculous. If suddenly everyone was being paid in bitcoin the government would demand records and taxation just like it does the dollar. Businesses cannot operate at a profit and employ people and just be like "oh revenue and payroll? Na I have none of that we exist on unicorn piss".

There is not a single piece of evidence to suggest that this is grounded in reality. This own community's "charity" is grounded purely in selfish desires and doesn't give a shit about actually helping people. It is more of a propaganda machine. No statistics or evidence of any kind exists to backup your very naive assertions. You also don't seem to understand that "projects" are groups of bureaucracies all interacting with a common goal.

Yes because people so often vote in favor of large scientific spending.

How can you type this post out and not be overcome with embarrassment for even having had these thoughts?

This post is literally "BITCOIN WILL MAKE EVERYTHING AWESOME JUST BECAUSE"

Nothing is more ridiculous than the response you just gave. I love how you live in such a bubble that you think your government controls the world's governments - much less a peer to peer anonymous encrypted piece of data. Just who are they going to demand the record from? Did you think about that? Who do you think they get the "dollar" (again, absurdly thinking in a bubble) records from? How do you think that can relate to anonymous-encrypted data? How come piracy still exists, if "the" government has such great powers? That shit isn't even encrypted, or anonymous. Silk Road. Why don't they just demand the records for it? Submit the suggestion to "the" government that they do, it'll solve their dilemma right away.

The message of the topic isn't even what you said - that BTC is going to do these things - but instead that a trickle-down effect of anonymous currency (keyword, Anonymous) will be a reduction in governmental power and increase in individual peoples' power, which will in turn result in these increased efficiencies.

I'm not going to bother with the rest of what you said, other than to say that it isn't mature thought.

You should read this article another member posted the other day, found here (http://mises.org/daily/1121)

Pretty sure you're just describing yourself with that statement.  I think you think that bitcoin is super anonymous, when in reality you can figure out who addresses belong to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_aid_society) these existed before government decided to use welfare to make the population reliant and compliant.

The guy is talking about people being PAID in bitcoins. You have completely missed the point bringing up piracy as if it is in any way related what so ever.

I see what you are saying but on the other hand, Our resources on this planet are finite and because of capitalism and the fiat money system we have, people and companies are inevitably seeking return on their investment and growth in the economy, This pursuit of growth means every year our companies need to dig up / cut down or farm more crap from the earth than last year, this would be fine if at some point people would be happy with what they have but alas that is not human nature. Governments that own land or fishing / mining rights only exacerbate the situation. I think that if our nations / world wealth wasn't being syphoned off by a tiny elite then we would all have more "things" and a better quality of life but still we would want more at any price.

A monopoly is the antithesis of a free market, and without regulation monopolies can and will exist, When I wrote the above statement I was thinking at the time of JP Morgan profiting from the provision of benifits payments in the US (and soon UK), However even without the state benefits these massive banks will try to exploit people, If the UK was a made a stateless land mass tomorrow, All the big banks would be pouring in to buy up independent corner shops or farmers or utility companies or land so they could set market prices. The whole point of a monopoly is that it has no competitors and is hard to boycott (imagine if wallmart bought like 90% of the food shops with no government to intervene, people in locations without competitors would be forced to shop there.)

I think it is a mistake to assume Companies do not use force, there are examples of people finding themselves in fatal plane accidents and such, There is that story of an investigation into market manipulation of the gold or silver market (can't remember) where the investigators have been run off the road and the investigation has stalled for years. Even with a proper unbiased Court system and judicairy the universal incentive of money is still their for people and companies to do wrong.


Please correct me if my thinking is wrong, I am still a recovering libertarian statist so I may not have thought on the challenges to anarcho-capitalism for as long as some of you have.