Bitcoin Forum

I remember a couple of years ago when I was on P&S often, the section was primarily libertarian

I seem to notice a trend that's not similar to the one I enjoyed earlier.

So, I googled to see if I was mislead or not

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9568.0

It was pretty obvious Anarchist and Libertarian dominated

I have found one from 2012
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67929.0

But this one is still open, and I need to vote in order to see the results..

http://prntscr.com/jalv48

At first glance looks tight
But if you take a better look, you'll notice there's an option called Ronpaulism with 8 votes
You can add those 8 to Libertarianism and carry a dominant victory!

You have to note, Anarchists are mostly Libertarian, so the wins here are even more prevalent.
Let's vote to see, if the bitcoin base has changed, or has it remained the same?


EDIT: Sidenote

Do an 8values quiz
https://8values.github.io/

Screenshot your results and post them here so we can compare.
Assuming you're willing to share your beliefs.

My are:
https://i.imgur.com/MM7P9FF.png

I have no idea what my political orientation is. I've been struggling for years to figure it out. Most people would probably think that makes me a centrist, but I'm unsure. I've been listening to social/political commentary from every angle that I can possible find and I still cannot pinpoint my orientation to any meaningful degree.

How do you define these things?

Have you tried taking a quiz?
Might be helpful.

8values seems to be the most popular quiz around
https://8values.github.io/

The only negative thing I see is that Tradition is listed against Progress as in those two oppose eachother and can't go hand in hand

Looks something like this
http://prntscr.com/jam61i

I took a quick peek through some of the questions, and I thing there may be more issues with the test than simply that mutual exclusivity that you've pointed out. The way some of them are worded are very, awkward to interpret properly and some of them are hinging upon caveats and single words that change the entire interaction with the question.

I'll go through it tonight and see where I fall, tried to do it now but 70 questions is a heap.

I've relatives who think I'm too liberal and those who think I'm conservative. This would make me a moderate and the scourge of either of the other two. Personally, I consider myself as a "realist". I consider that there is what we should strive for in the future but only so much that can be done now. It's strange how we clamor for diversity and tolerance in so may other things than in political ideology.

The community has become less libertarian as it has expanded, which is disappointing, but not really unexpected. IMO Bitcoin is still a force for freedom regardless, though.

https://i.imgur.com/o9DCDj7.png
https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/10/108829/1527404-recettear_00.jpg

I just finished taking the 8-values test and I am no better off than I was when I started. It also calls me a centrist, so who knows what to make of that.

My results were -
Centrist :

Economic Axis : Centrist | Equality 44.5% | Markets 55.5%
Diplomatic Axis: Patriotic | Nation 63.8% | World 36.2%
Civil Axis : Moderate | Liberty 56.9% | Authority 43.1%
Societal Axis : Progressive | Tradition 34.6% | Progress 65.4%

It seems like my strongest leanings (according to this test) are on the Diplomatic Axis, favoring my Nation, and on the Societal Axis favoring "Progress".

Take it as you will, but I'm still very much unsure about what any of it means.

---

With those Economics results, I would kill to pick your brain. I consider myself rather clueless on economics, and this result is interesting as hell.


Do you think the community or Bitcoin have the possibility to change minds on economics issues?

Indeed.
I had thought about this a few times.
Will bitcoin grow slowly, and slowly absorb the newcomers into the old base or will it grow so rapidly to completely change the base of its users..
Yepp, no matter who uses it, it is and always will be a tool that provides the freedom from goverment internvention, seizure and inflation.


Doesn't matter what you are, as long as you're not a socialist  :D
Markets are a bit up, nation is quite strong, liberty - authority ratio is good, you could be a libertarian, but gotta work on that economic axis  :P
I would probably ignore the societal axis, since the questions seemed to be weird.
For example: Do you think we should favor traditions over progress (I believe it was something simmilar), almost pointless.

This is what attracted me to Bitcoin originally. One word "Decentralization" was the single most attractive thing I had ever heard.


There were a few questions that I felt were way too vague, for the sake of brevity presumably, and these had me stumped for awhile. Suggest me some economic reading, where can I get some information? As I said, very clueless, mostly ignored politics and economics my entire life. Markets are important, but maybe I have too much compassion weighing on it, or something. I think most American's would have a strong nation bias, it's pretty heavily embedded in our culture.

What defines a libertarian?

Well, I'm an anarcho-capitalist (The Machinery of Freedom (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf) describes my particular ancap flavor). So I really should've gotten 100% capitalism, and I consider this a bug in the quiz.

The quiz doesn't seem that great. It seems impossible to be sane and then get very high numbers in most pairs of categories, which strikes me as a flaw in their whole methodology. I think that I should've gotten a higher score in "liberty", for example, but probably the questions which would've caused this were also pro-government, pro-egalitarian, or anti-market.


Not directly, so much. The biggest value in this stuff is that it creates a territory of freedom where governments have little or no power. People will just naturally exploit this where they can, and as they increasingly rely on it, that's what might change minds, and it also reduces the power of governments in itself.

You are correct. When I registered in 2014, the vast majority of the users were Lbertarian. But the demographic make-up changed, as more and more people joined from third world nations such as Pakistan and Indonesia. Now I guess the majority of the users are religious.

Can't say that I am surprised at all by my results. I have always been pretty firm in my social and political beliefs, mostly because I formed them myself not so much based on what was around me or in my home.

I approached the quiz like any other that is meant to determine/categorize your traits. I read it and chose the first button that I felt was right; even if as I went to click it I began to have doubts. I'm a firm believer in your first thought/feeling is your true response.

I had to laugh because quite a few of the options did fall well within why I got involved with BTC, but the beauty there is it is many different things to many different people as we can see.

Personally I think there will be many more Capitalists that pop up these days. More on a gut feeling that in the last year people have seen this as a free market/gold rush opportunity.

Thanks for the topic, quiz was fun. I'll be checking back to see how others fare, if they post it.

https://i.imgur.com/3QNRVz3.png

Milton Friedman: Free to Choose (there's a video serial too, you can find it on YouTube)
Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations
George Orwell: 1984, Animal farm possibly



 libertarian (lĭbˌər-târˈē-ən)►

    n.
    One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.
    n.
    One who believes in free will


A libertarian is a person who has a focus on personal freedom and contracts between individuals
NAP is a core principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

Strong emphasis is on personal property, ownership and the individual.
Libertarians believe no one should forcefuly make decisions for you.


I agree. I've gotten a very low score on Liberty considering my personal focus on it.


I don't think people from 3rd world countries are the problem.
We have plenty of socialists in the west.


It's rather interesting to see how the quiz works as you have gotten a 75% on Liberty, while Theymos and myself were rated at around 62-57%.

Did the test. Wasn't really surprised by the results (which I guess is a good thing). In terms of civil liberties, I generally don't mind (as in I don't want it to be illegal; I might complain about it though) what you do as long as it doesn't harm others, also known as the world renowned "who gives a fuck" approach. As for my economic "policy", I'm for a society that doesn't stifle the successful (fair tax rates, non-overbearing regulations, etc.) but protects it's most vulnerable. A death of a person who didn't do anything wrong (didn't threaten the health or safety of other individuals) due to an inability to satisfy his / hers basic needs should be considered a failure of the system, not an inevitability. I'm not even advocating for a large social safety net - just the ability for every law-abiding citizen to exist (unemployment benefits so long as he's capable and looking for work, basic free housing and food stamps for the people who can't afford food and rent, free healthcare) and if he / she wants, the possibility to work towards a better life for him / her self (free basic education, completely free higher education for the well performing, smaller taxes for people with low income).

While I understand their importance for the economy, I thoroughly distrust corporations as they time and time again have shown to only act in their own self interest (profit) above all else (the well being of the consumers, workers, the environment, etc.) unless restricted from doing so via government regulations. I'd rather have a fair system working poorly (regulated capitalism) rather than an exploitative one working well (laissez-faire capitalism) since the former still has room to improve.

I consider nationalism to be an extension of tribalism - sometimes necessary, usually pointless and counterproductive. However, it's hard to ignore the fact that different countries have different cultures and mashing them together doesn't always work, at least in the short term. The last one kind of speaks for itself - we are talking about this on a cryptocurrency forum and I generally follow the aforementioned "who gives a fuck" approach to things that don't directly affect me.


https://i.imgur.com/vY1ud7f.png

Having very limited insight into your own views, and only slightly more info regarding Theymos. I would say it has more to do with the questions than anything. While I have operated in various roles through a number of different unregulated markets; the leanings make sense to me. However had they asked the right questions they would have found my limits; which in turn may have brought that down somewhat.

Although I think I take the protecting personal property to a whole new level. I recently tracked a thief from my home about 2 KM, thanks to freshly fallen snow to retrieve a 5 year old weather worn toboggan that my family had forgotten to take while leaving town for a few days. I came back from night shift and instead of the much needed sleep embarked on my personal mission. I have also never had a property I didn't build a fence around immediately; and generally 6 IN above limits. I know such a badass; and I switched between metric and imperial.


I didn't intend on quoting so much of your response. It started with 1 or 2 lines and then quickly became a matter of I can't cut that. I read it I was surprised by how many of those views are how I've described myself to others. Thanks for putting it into better words than I would have.

My political orientation is usually with the majority:
Anti-war, pro democracy, against private prisons, environmentalist, woman decides whether to have an abortion, pro-LGBTQ, anti-fascist, anti-surveillance state, pro renewable energy, against private prisons, pro net neutrality, pro universal healthcare.

And more controversially:
I believe in syndicalism (unions owning companies), I believe that companies have the right to deny free speech and service, I support bipartisanship in the pursuit of egalitarian legislature, and I condemn conflict of interest and taking money from lobbyists. I support cooperating with your political enemies when you share an egalitarian stance, but not when the lawmakers benefits directly from passing the law. I am vehemently against meat industry subsidies, anti-Monsanto, against petro-agriculture subsidies, I am against drug-legalization yet I am also against imprisoning people for possession. I am against frisking, voter purging, DNC economic rigging, government-toppling... And the mass murder of civilians in Yemen and Gaza. I support 'law enforcement modification' for hanguns, I believe killing unarmed civilians should be persecuted even if you are a cop or a military general. I am against exorbitant military budgets (anything above 4% of federal spending) and massive spending on revolving door military contractors. I am pro-denuclearization, anti proxy war, anti-coup, I believe that funding terrorists should be persecuted and that against arming and supplying terrorists should illegal. I think rich elites and religions should pay taxes, but I also think that people should have the option to opt-out of specific government programs. I support the environmentalist political parties and believe that consumers need to support fair trade and minimize their impact on the environment by choosing environmentally sustainable products and minimizing goods transportation. I believe in economic socialism, and human egalitarianism. I believe that whistleblowers should not be persecuted. I am against the 'Muslim ban' and the National Defense Authorization Act. I believe that banks should be regulated on how much they can lend. I believe that banks should back loans from their own coffers and that printing money to lend to other banks should be regulated. That the EPA should be restored.

And most controversially:
I believe that coal plants, oil pipelines and animal testing should be illegal. I believe that war criminals should be persecuted - including politicians! I believe that the CIA and ICE should be dismantled immediately, and that the NSA needs to become more transparent by going back to ThinThread. I believe that Duterte, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and the Koch Brothers should all be put on trial for crimes against humanity. I think that predatory capitalism should be boycotted by consumers.

I believe that the entire planet needs to completely switch to renewable energy and invest massive MASSIVE wealth into carbon sinks to try and save the planet from desertification via runaway global warming. Last year we passed the critical threshold for carbon dioxide. If we stop all greenhouse gas emissions now, the planet will become a desert within 2000 years due to water vapor being a greenhouse gas, and cloud coverage (evaporation plus relative humidity) rising as it gets hotter! Therefore a massive concerted effort is needed by all of humanity to focus on carbon sinks in an attempt to stabilize the atmosphere's carbon dioxide levels back under the extinction threshold that we just passed of 400ppm. Therefore anything that uses gasoline or petroleum or oil should be tariffed, fined, or sanctioned - including cars, plastics, pesticides, fertilizers, etc.

And finally, yet most importantly: I believe that animals with human-level intelligence have the same rights as humans. This means that all animal testing and factory farming is a criminal offense, and sabotaging the meat industry should be legal because animals are not property and I am against slavery, rape, and torture!

I support gene therapy because I view aging as a 'disease'. A curable disease!

It gets even more controversial, yet the arguments for my above views do not rely on the arguments for my following stances:
1) I advocate the one-child policy in order to prevent overpopulation. This means that the government only subsidizes your firstborn. Overbreeding is the primary cause of overpopulation, and financial pressure can solve this. Incidentally, the one-child policy also makes intelligence into a genetically desirable trait! Intelligence relies on complex genetic coding which is lost over generations of overbreeding to gene deterioration. Any form of population control mitigates gene deterioration, and the one-child policy is the most peaceful method of population control. Without population control, human civilization collapses due to famine, disease, thermonuclear war or destruction of the biosphere from pollution or ecological destruction.
2) I fully-support technological singularity, and assert that AI with human-level intelligence have the same rights as humans, since we are philosophical zombies with deterministic actions and thoughts. Everything is reducible to mathematics, including consciousness and intelligence, therefore AI can be programmed to live in a simulation and think the same way as humans. The primary difference being that a human-level AI consciousness would become more rational and logical than its human counterpart since it is not limited by wetware and genetics. Incidentally, artificial general intelligence would be capable of colonizing planets when the sun burns out, and hopefully intelligent enough to create programmable black holes or some form of supercomputer capable of simulating an entire universe to forestall heat death by using the processing power of black holes to give intelligent life infinitely more time to survive.
3) My most controversial view of all: I believe that the role of humans is as pets, and that post-singularity artificial general intelligence will be our rightful owners, since we are too stupid to survive as the dominant species on Earth.

Well, this poll has gone a lot better than expected  :D
Though, from some of the replies I see self identifying as a libertarian this does not equate pro-market tendencies.
Which I used to bind together.

Well, I don't know how to start. My political orientation is socialist because I am from Vietnam and it's quite different from your orientation. My country has 4000 years of its history with more than 2000 years in wars and civil wars. My political orientation has been oriented from secondary school up to now, and even to death. Maxis and Leninist and Ho Chi Minh theory have been concreted in my mind from childhood and they shall follow me like shadowing.
Because of 2000 years in blood and smoke, Vietnamese gave birth to many world heroes, such as: Vo Nguyen Giap, Tran Hung Dao. To date, I can not define what socialist exactly is, but it is somewhat i really admire and honour. Why? Socialist is, to some extents my religious and help me to have a happy life literally. Although my country is still the poor one (about $300 bil GDP 2017), most of Vietnamese can afford themselves with medium accommodation in general.
There's only one Party in my country, the Socialist Party which was called "Vietcong" by American troops in years 1955-1975. So, Vietnamese election is not as fair as yours. But I like this because the leading party has no opponents and it, therefore brings us peace.
I would like to confirm here: my orientation is Socialist and Socialist only because it help me to have a happy life and that's enough
P/s I am from the third world so my writing skill is not as good as you. So, forgive me if I have any mistakes.

I'd expect more "progress" from you Theymos on that test.  :o
Perhaps this test doesn't take crypto into account all that much. ;)

What they put as "progress" in the test is heavily subjective.
One can not know for certain what's going to bring progress.
I don't think there are many people that don't want progress?
It's funny that they put tradition vs. progress as those 2 must be opposed.
Dislike.

As iluvbitcoins said, I think that it's mainly due to some weird ideas of the quiz-author regarding progress vs tradition. In most of the questions related to this I gave neutral or weak answers because most of that stuff should be personal choice, not political. If you want to follow particularly stupid traditions that were invented centuries ago, then I think that this is stupid, but it's not any of my business. So for example in the question like "should children be taught traditions", IIRC I said "agree" to this because they should be taught whatever traditions their parents see fit.

In reality, the best and quickest way to achieve progress is through the unrestricted free market. So I should be 100% progress and maybe 65% tradition, but that doesn't work due to the way that they set up their quiz.

BTW, although all libertarians should be opposed to governments getting into individuals' personal business, different libertarians can have very different cultures. I've noticed that the sort of libertarians who made up the early Bitcoin community, including myself, are usually a more socially-conservative type of libertarian. Eg. while I think that people should be able to do what they want with themselves, I don't use and recommend against using euphoric drugs, I don't advocate completely discarding traditional values on a personal level, etc.

I think politiscales (http://www.politiscales.net/) captures other sentiments of progress such as technology and development more accurately. I'd say it captures futurism better as it even has questions about nuclear power. Here are my results of the two tests side by side
https://i.imgur.com/X9Z4qmd.png | https://i.imgur.com/LRioLOB.png

You can see me getting the most out of Productivism, Laissez-fair and capitalism whereas 8 valued doesn't picture my disdain for the opposites.

I was born into a socialist family in a country with a fascist government, so, somehow, I used to consider myself socialist (utopic one).
But, to be honest, socialism has been truly misunderstood by the "socialists" rulers, and it doesn't fit into my mind anymore.
Recently I read a book called "Anarchy evolution", by  Greg Graffin (Bad religion singer, which also occurs to be a PhD investigator on biology and a teacher in the NY university), and I found myself, for the first time, being understood.
I truly recommend the book, this is an amazing insight related to evolution, religion, nature, and the current state of society.

I am a centrist because it is characterized by moderate views and compromises, based on a significant social base, reasonable actions not of a radical, explosive nature. Centrists in politics are called groups of political forces that are between the "left" and "right". Centrists get rid of the mistakes of these extreme political forces, have the wisdom of staging and resolving political issues with moderate means that do not lead to serious radical changes in society and state, party and other structures and institutions.

Libertarian. My rights end where the rights of another person start

Did you click on the links in the first post or you are answering the question in the title? never allow the media or anyone to tell you who you are, you have to decide it on your own. never let them to categorize you into groups. this thread is here to profile people, never comment on them to reveal your self unless you already have a facebook profile lol.

Sometimes i see myself agree with the conservatives on some issues other times its with the liberals and i believe its great so that i dont get tied down with a Party rather by the ideas and plans that their various candidates have for the country as a whole.

My political orientation comes from great American personality in person of Andrew jackson by his kitchen cabinet platform and that of bridge the difference between the poor and the rich

http://www.politiscales.net/en_US/results/?p0=7&p1=90&m0=7&m1=69&s0=17&s1=40&e1=67&b0=19&b1=43&j0=21&j1=55&c1=52&c0=19&femi=19&t1=24&t0=14&anar=67&comp=67

I still don't understand how conservatism and progressism can be placed on different ends of the line.

I think that the spirit of freedom of any action and the absence of a state in my life is my dream. Closer to all this libertarian ideology.

http://www.politiscales.net/en_US/results/?b1=33&b0=50&t1=24&t0=60&c0=24&c1=48&p1=88&p0=7&s0=48&s1=29&femi=10&m1=93&e1=67&e0=14&j0=60&j1=29&anar=100

This quiz seems better than the shorter one. I wonder how they generate those flags.

Took mine, got the most boring flag immaginable.

http://www.politiscales.net/en_US/results/?m1=19&m0=33&b0=55&b1=14&p1=26&p0=26&e1=33&e0=29&c1=43&c0=19&femi=19&j1=12&j0=57&t1=40&t0=14&s1=10&s0=55&prag=67 (http://www.politiscales.net/en_US/results/?m1=19&m0=33&b0=55&b1=14&p1=26&p0=26&e1=33&e0=29&c1=43&c0=19&femi=19&j1=12&j0=57&t1=40&t0=14&s1=10&s0=55&prag=67)

Apparently, I'm not so "social" after all. While I wouldn't go as far as to call myself an absolute centrist, I do somewhat see myself being a left-leaning centrist in terms of economic policy.

Libertarian. Dont really lean either way, but if i ever did it would be towards the right. Those religious wackos scare me though.

@mprep
@theymos

Why did you guys get these logos and I didn't  :D

http://prntscr.com/jj5wkg
http://prntscr.com/jj5wmz

Not cool  politiscales >:(

I got Libertian Socialist, Very extreme to each spectrum
https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=70.7&d=79.8&g=78.8&s=84.4

I am a Libertarian. A lot of my political views were based on my economical knowledge and personal observations and then when I discovered libertarianism, it turned out I share all of their attitude and ideas. By the way, Libertarian Party is currently the second opposition power in Russia (if not count fake system opposition).

The most important thing is peace. If you do not have peace in your country, you cannot even vote. No matter what we choose, peace and economy are very important. I think I am more liberal for economical reasons. I hate centrists. You have to take a decision. Gambling in politic is not my sport. Extremists are also not sure about what they say. But again, no matter what we choose, we must look for peace and economy. The party that can provide both will get my vote. It is very important for people to know that. You just cannot have a political orientation for fun.

I'm Libertarian, freedom is what we need first, but we also need to know how to properly dispose of it.

I am a democrat, a person is free and has his Word

The society needs democracy for development

it's always hard to use one dimension to present a variety of contradictory slants, but in short I am center right in the context of the UK and very left wing in the USA.

I hold two opinions that while not mutually exclusive, create a number of powerful contradictions. I'm not great with political terms and my opinions are somewhat complex, I'm happy to accept that I may be wrong, confused or inconsistent and welcome comments.

Very good point. It's also better to make up your own view than adopting a political belief as as alternative for religion. In some areas I agree with with progressives in some other areas I share the views of libertarians. At the same time I am happy to change my mind if the argument convinces me.

I'd say what is the closest to my political view is anarcho-capitalism.
I believe the world and markets can regulate themselves freely, and that the state is unwanted and toxic. Taxation is theft.