Bitcoin Forum

In the spirit of Christmas, can we on bitcointalk.org try to find some political consensus? Can Flying Hellfish and TECSHARE agree on anything?

Some points which might find general agreement:
 - The freedom of individuals is important.
 - The prevailing banking/fiat system is on the whole bad.
 - In most places, the people would be far better off if major changes were made to their respective governments.
 - As long as scarcity exists, the existence of some form of trade is good.
 - Technology is good.
 - Humanity should dominate the universe.

Any others? Do you disagree with even those broad statements?

I don't know what the politics of bitcoin talk is but I would say I agree with all your points but the last two.

Is technology really good?  Think about the level of effort and sophistication it takes to use the internet or technology now without your privacy being intruded on.  You might need special emails, rarely use your real name, use special plug-ins, config firefox, use a vpn and even all that you may miss some detail.  Tech companies have you agree to user agreements, can change them at any time, are vague, major companies like facebook/google outright spy on users and then lie about it whereas the user assumed their privacy was protected(i.e android location), profiles are built on people who don't even have accounts.  Technology also makes it easy to look up anyone and find out private and personal details that maybe is best kept private.  

I would say in many ways technology degrades, google search and technology in other ways used to be a means of education, learning and it was focused on high quality search results. Now google is crap and what are you going to do about it? It has 90 percent of the market share and search results of competitors aren't that good. Instead of watching a two hour film that requires some focus and concentration you watch a two minute youtube video, youtube is even considered a 'culture'.  The interconnectivity and great data monitoring capability of technology allows virtually every aspect of your life from what you learn to what you watch to your friends to health records to bank information to be known by those outside of those areas and shared easily.   Also the automation of things dumbs people down and removes them from having control.  

Also at a certain point excessive consumption in technology, computers, smart phones is excessive and people confuse what they see on the internet or their smart phones as reality and they don't engage in the real world.  

On one hand a strong element of technology relates to those who control/use it; alot of the problems we have today is because major corporations with little competition and oversight control technology and can abuse it without the users doing much about it.  At the same time in itself generally I would not say technology is good exactly. i would say it's useful, interesting but it has it's limits.  

Humanity should dominate the universe:..   What do you mean exactly? Do you mean all the solar systems, galaxies or that humanity should just dominate existence in itself?  Humanity dominates the earth, don't we already dominate the universe?  It depends I guess what you mean by universe.

I would say that that is probably not a good thing. Humanity dominates the earth and what has it brought the earth? Massive pollution, environmental degradation, overpopulation, wars, genocide.  Compare human beings to an animal, (although some say humans are animals), regardless we are the most advance being in the universe and  the only sentient one.  People compare humanity to nature, the laws of the jungle, to the state of nature and hold ourselves above the fighting and violence of animal and pointlessness of an instinct based life.  

Animals may kill one another for food but no animal has ever wrought the bloodshed and destruction human beings have and not only consciously for no point or reason murder one another but throughout history have done so on a massive scale(war) and also animals don'tcommit crimes, rape one another and so on.  The human being is smarter and more sophisticated than an animal, but he hardly has the morals or composure to be above one.

If humanity dominated the universe like it has earth; it would be a continuation and spread of all it has done here.

P.S. MERRY CHRISTMAS

The Politics & Society board is a dumpster fire of a sub-forum. While having different opinions is great, discussion (as well any hope for consensus) usually quickly breaks down: due to one or both sides refusing to consider / acknowledge facts, having a completely different view of self and the world around them (hence a different interpretation of what the majority of society considers facts, proper methods to evaluate information and come to conclusions, etc.) or due to being entrenched too deeply within their (often extreme) ideology, unwilling to change their mind even when proven wrong.

Don't get me wrong: this issue is more or less prevalent in pretty much every online medium. Obviously, all of this stems from the fact that people's environment, upbringing, life experience and character traits determine their political preferences (and once you're sure how something should be handled, it's hard to accept a different way that you simply find immoral / stupid / impractical / etc.). However, considering that Bitcointalk is already comprised of people who were willing to embrace something new, go-against-the-man non-mainstream (all of which is often wrapped up in layers and layers of politics), it's not much of a stretch to assume that the political Bitcointalk crowd would very much continue on that ideological path, sometimes to the extremes. So if, on a consistent basis, you're willing to spend tons of time discussing politics on Bitcointalk, you probably have relatively strong (if not extreme) opinions on issues you have at least a mild interest in. And it's difficult, if not impossible, for such people who are constantly at each other's throats to agree on anything they care about.

As for the points outlined in the OP, I can guarantee you that someone will find something wrong with them (especially points 1 and 2). People think differently and at this point of cryptocurrency adoption, we can already see quite a few people joining the community for other reasons than those that joined in the initial wave (2009-2010).


All of that said, maybe (and it's a very strong maybe) a Christmas miracle will happen and everyone (or at least most people) on Bitcointalk will get along for this short week of winter holidays. Merry Christmas everyone.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

You know how save money on Christmas presents?

Bring up politics at Thanks Giving dinner.

1. Bitcoin and associated technologies have evoked many changes in finance and this spills over into traditional areas of politics.

2. Some issues which have been thought of as fodder for political views become a moot point with the existence of crypto currency.

agreements dont work because reality is complex, magnitudes, are supposed to be agreed upon on every and that changes over time.

I am of the opinion consensus is overvalued. Everyone standing around agreeing with each other never accomplishes anything. However the slaughterhouse that is the marketplace of ideas is a perpetual source of bringing the most valuable ideas to the forefront, while cutting free those that are not. While it may seem brutal at times, it is easy to forget that it is through debate we focus this energy and disagreement on words, as opposed to trying to silence it, inevitably resulting these issues boiling over into violence.

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy

P.S. I have it on record (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4823476.msg47281818#msg47281818) Flying Hellfish has actually agreed with me before.

Cool thread hehe, Merry Xmas P&S!  8)

On a Macro level I personally find it difficult to disagree with the above statements.  

Not 100% sure about the last one but since I consider it a statistically 0% chance of us engaging alien life at this point in our evolutionary path, I can gladly say fuck yeah HUMANS RULE!  BUILD A DOME!

When I was younger and much more conservative I had an almost hard line stance that things were just black or white, end of story.  I've come to think very differently than I did as a young man and I understand that the world is rarely black or white and that in fact we do everything in scales.

In terms of the differences it clearly comes down to implementation.  It may or may not come as a surprise but to be honest the freedom of individuals is extremely important to me.  My philosophy in terms of my property, my family, my lifestyle is you WILL leave the me the fuck alone and I WILL leave you the fuck alone.  Of course assuming you're not crossing some socially accepted "monster" red line like but not limited to murder etc etc etc.

If this is an acceptable broadview of both sides the difference clearly creeps in when we say well how do we make sure you WILL leave me alone in private.  One argument if obviously I must personally have "weapons" designed to protect me if a rouge actor emerges (and we all know they will).  Another argument is we don't need to arm ourselves but instead create a society where it is just more beneficial to leave me alone. And of course all the scales in between those 2.

Fear is a primal instinct in animals, part of the reason humans have evolved beyond any other species is our ability to understand and rationalize fear, to adapt at ways to minimize life being boiled down to a single decision of fight or flight for everything.

Rule by fear can only ever work for so long, history is full of it, the next level after the cleptocracy's should be interesting, I wonder if I will see it or not but I do wonder sometimes what it will look like.

Alright there's my Xmas message, peace and love!

Could scarcity be eliminated in the future? With genetic bio-technology I see no reason why it couldn't be solved.

nope because people will always desire the rare things

Scarcity can easily be eliminated in the future with the rise of robots we should all be able to have our basic needs met.

People pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of shoes because it has some special logo on it.  Same goes for a mercedes G wagon, is that car worth 200k? No but people buy it because it is expensive so they can show off their wealth.  

Scarcity has to do with the way people think. Consider the populations of India and Bangladesh. The take a look at what Seasteading (https://www.seasteading.org/) is doing. There isn't really any scarcity out there in the oceans. There is scarcity of though and knowledge in many places on land.

8)

Scarcity is an overstated reason for living conditions and also is an assumption.

Many third-world countries are rich in resources and resources, like Mexico, Venzeula(one of the top 10 largest oil reserves), Africa has alot of resources, India has a significant amount and yet they are  third-world. 

Compare this to Japan it has virtually no resources and is the third largest economy on the planet.   

What determines economic well-being of a nation and population is not resources, it's how they manage their countries. In INdia, Mexico, Vezenual, they are uncivilized, have a poor rule of law, disorganized, high crime rates,overpopulation and so on.  They don't as human beings do what is necessary and act in the appropriate way and make the right decisions in life and how they rule their nations in order to have a higher standard of living; it has almost nothing to do with scarcity.

But I'm of course going to want the biggest robot. :)

And then scarcity's back.

By the way, I'd also like a space rocket. These are just a few of what I consider "basic needs."

(purposefully exaggerating to make a point)

Well at least those are common grounds we can all agree about I'd say xD
Though you don't want to go deeper in any of those specimen, like what you mean exactly by individuals or freedom or important, or what kind of changes and so on.

But on the principle I guess we all agree on this ^^

Which is incredible. I don't know exactly what happens here but it's not only a question of being factual, it's as if some people weren't able to... Communicate. I can't talk to TECSHARE, and I'm not putting the blame on him here. It's as if when we write a sentence, the meaning of this sentence were not the same for him or for me.

It's quite shocking how language is a poor communication tool by itself. We'd need to find something better cause we're deeply limited with just the words.

Common ground? Here is some.

UNDERSTANDING THE US/MEXICAN BORDER AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

A. Watch the 1970s movie Up in Smoke.
B. Go to A.

I agree, but I thought it'd be interesting as a change of pace to pretend that we'd all be willing to form one political platform.


It's not surprising. There are two main branches of political belief: liberalism and authoritarianism, and "liberal" derives from "liberty" (=freedom). In the past, there was significant true political belief in authoritarianism, where people would actually say that they believed in eg. following an absolute ruler, but now almost all politics is at least couched in terms of liberalism. For someone to disagree with my vague individual freedom statement would require them to be far outside of the overton window, probably an extreme communist type or an extreme conservative.

The main difference between libertarians and left-liberals is that those on the left recognize some positive rights as integral to freedom, such as the "right to healthcare", while libertarians only recognize negative rights such as the "right to not be assaulted".


Maybe someday material scarcity could be eliminated for most practical purposes, but scarcity can't be eliminated on the whole. For example, you may desire to have something custom-designed by one particular famous artisan, and that person's time is limited. Or you may like Picard in Star Trek desire an authentic kurlan naiskos artifact.

In this area, some leftists make two major mistakes:
 1. They tend to just dismiss a desire for anything that technology cannot conceivably produce ~infinite amounts of as something that people shouldn't desire. This brings them out of touch with what humanity actually is.
 2. They tend to assume that we're 99% of the way to post-scarcity, so we can just immediately eliminate all modern-day ways of managing scarcity. Even the USSR thought in this way to some extent, dreaming of a future where automation would solve everything, even though from today's standpoint they were laughably far from post-scarcity.

I doubt anyone would pretend we can get read of the idea of scarcity. If someone does he needs some serious argument on how he thinks he can limit human desires.

But fact is that we're pretty close to eliminate scarcity of basic human being needs which would be: food, water, home and common distraction.

Those elements can be provided for whole humanity with a pretty good amount of automation.

Bringing any "precise number" in the conversation would be silly but I doubt that more than a few hours of work per week on average on the human population would be needed to provide those elements. Most of our work are for not-mandatory needs.
Which doesn't mean they're not important of course.

Perhaps. I do feel strongly that people are too tied to the necessity of 9-to-5, 5-days-per-week jobs, even though people have been working similar amounts (or less!) for 100+ years.

But it's important to put the cart before the horse! If government mandates low amounts of work, for example, then the economy might not be ready, possibly causing economic breakdown and poverty. It also puts a barrier in front of the minority of people whose primary desire may be to work as much as physically possible so that they can significantly move their family up the economic ladder. The government should just stay out of it and let people work as much as they want/need.

Ahahah
And that's where most of disagreements on the board come from I'd say.
Some wants less government.
Some wants more government.
I don't see how we can reconciliate those two visions. One has to lose so the other can win.

Or if there is a way I don't see it.

I see two ways:

First, although I still consider it bad, I think that it'd be better policy-wise and ethically for governments to eliminate regulations while still collecting and distributing taxes. For example, instead of having a 25% income tax and a $15/hour minimum wage, I'd consider it better to have a 30% income tax, no minimum wage, and some sort of welfare system to cover up whatever holes you see created by the lack of a minimum wage. (The 25%->30% income tax increase is just an example, and is maybe not worth eliminating just the minimum wage regulation.)

Second, we can have many small countries with different policies. There's no need for world domination. I'm a big supporter of seasteading, anti-EU movements, and secessionist movements around the world.

For the first why not. After all any kind of management is just a question of managing ressources, money being the base ressource for everything.
If you get rid of ecological regulations you can tax polluting products and use money to fund ecological project. Same goes for pretty much everything. There might be some areas where money can't really regulate things but those would be very marginal cases.

For the second that's a very unusual idea I would heavily go against. I see what you mean which is nothing but the extension of democratic principle: after all if a minority doesn't want to live under the rule of majority what choice do they have but to make secession?
But History tends to lean towards more and more assimilation and centralization. We went from families to tribes, from tribes to villages, from villages to cities and so on. I don't see why you would go against history as centralization like this gives something tremendeously important: stability.
If you have many different countries with different policies, what will prevent you to also have many different wars? :)

Not being assaulted is a right. Healthcare is a RESOURCE. You can not have rights to a resource. You might have rights to access a resource, but you can't have rights to a resource. That would entitle you to other people's time and property. This is the primary reason I think most conservatives are opposed to "universal healthcare" or basically any healthcare system the government runs.

No one wants people to suffer, but if you take a break from fantasy land for a moment, you will realize it is not logistically possible for EVERYONE to get even marginally decent healthcare. Perhaps some smaller 1st world nations could accomplish this sustainably IF they heavily restricted immigration. Anyways we could debate endlessly about healthcare. I just wanted to make the distinction between a right and a resource, because going around telling people it is a right is fundamentally wrong on many levels.

I agree, but leftists fundamentally won't: that's what makes them leftists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_and_negative_rights

I am aware of the concept of positive and negative rights. Healthcare does not fit within this definition, as I explained previously because you can not make it a right to be entitled to the goods and services of others, without infringing on the rights of others. There will always be debate on this subject, but healthcare is a resource, not a right. This clarity in definition is important if we are to ever make progress on this topic.

Arguably a person could have rights to a fraction of the available resource of healthcare enacted by legislation, similar to the way Alaskans get a yearly check for their fraction of the take on oil drilling.

Not my opinion that's a good idea, and it's not what socialists promise, but it is possible.

There is a difference between contractual rights and inalienable birth rights. One consents to a contract in order to make it valid by definition. In your example there is excess revenue, and that was designed as an equitable way to distribute it for all residents of the state.

No matter how many people move to Alaska, that pool doesn't get any bigger it is simply divided out even more. This gives the illusion of such a program being able to function independently. In reality there is no practical limit to how many can be born or migrate to receive healthcare entitlements, instantly creating a dilemma that infringes on the rights of others. There is never going to be a limitless pool of resources and man hours that can meet the demands of a practically limitless population.

I sometimes find it hard to form a solid opinion on  broad statements than ones that are drilled down.. well I think so anyway.

Sometimes over simplification can lead to me not knowing if I agree or disagree... then again it's the details that are impossible to thrash out to an optimal solution that makes me realise there is no knowing if you are more positive or negative in either direction.....hmm.

1. freedom of the individual

Yes agree its important but unsure if it can be more important than the impact on the group of that freedom. So is it important or not? Well I think we should aim for as much freedom as possible.

This is a tough balance in any society. I highly value individual freedoms although... Each individual can not be free to do exactly as they like else an optimal quality of life (in terms of enjoyment) can not be led by the optimal number of individuals.

The individuals freedom should be something that should be set to max settings  until clearly negative/non optimal on group. I had this discussion before on here with another person where I still think that if were possible every individual should be free of all rules(if that is what they want) if they could live isolated or apart from others where their actions had no direct impact. Later trade between them and any other group could be on agreeable terms.

 This sadly is not possible as of now but may become possible. Over intrusive government or any layers of control that are not needed should be rolled back until doing so is again clearly negative or dangerous for the group. Really though until any individual can opt out freedom of the individual needs balancing carefully. I do believe even anarchy is better than centralised control that is clearly not working for the optimal quality of life for the optimal amount of people. Especially if that control is spiraling out of control in terms of becoming more centralised, more powerful and less optimal for more people.


2 The prevailing banking/fiat system is on the whole bad.

This is a system of control that I do not believe seeks to provide an optimal standard of life for an optimal number of people at this time.

3.  In most places, the people would be far better off if major changes were made to their respective governments.

Yes but the blueprint for such changes I would not know exactly where to start. Even small changes can have large and unintended impact through so many levels and permutations I would be scared of what to change first. Streamlining and making them more efficient would be the first way ..... but I know even governments and their actions or even abilities to enact change are part of a wider connected web of global trade and business.

4. As long as scarcity exists, the existence of some form of trade is good.

Yes I think so

5. Technology is good.

Hmmm. Another one where I have no idea of the true answer. Technology and well all science is to me a simple discovery of laws that exist so merely unraveling the truth of these laws and building things that operate upon those laws. This knowledge has great power to do good and bad. However to me as technology enables control and influence of a small central control over the majority regardless of their will then I will say this discovery of laws is both good and bad and is good for somethings but bad for others. I think I would say it is both essential and terrifying. It will depend upon how it is put to use. Long term I say it is good short to mid term it could be bad for lots of people. Then again from observing the timeline of technology perhaps it has made things better for people and most will only see it as good. Unclear.

6. Humanity should dominate the universe.

I have no idea. Again I am not sure what alternative forms of intelligence or dominating forces there are. To me humanity to a vast degree is born of being self aware, awareness of others and awareness of the interactions between parties and their effects for both sides then running a calculation of what the self gain vs group gain ratio is. Self being favoured but if it is sociable which I expect any form of intelligence would be then moderate consideration to the group and their ability or motivation to interact on a basis you would like.  I mean I just made that up as I thought about it... the last bit so could be totally incorrect and crazy.


These are just where I am now of course... as always open to change my mind if I can see that those answers are non optimal...or just hugely flawed.

optimal is a great word I am sure of that.

Am I a communist by the way? Someone said that I was .....but I had always preferred to be civilian in a capitalist democratic society than in any communist based country ... as far as I know anyway.

Could question 1 - 6 all have the same answer like ... yes or no depending on which action led to the optimal enjoyment for the optimal amount of people ... compared to the alternative?  I mean is that the goal of most people answering but yes or no is just their idea of how to reach the goal? Or are we all aiming for different things by disagreeing ( if we do) ?

That's correct, of course. Contractual vs inalienable.

I had wondered whether you'd correctly define rights, as the founders of this country understood them, and you did. Good luck finding a ideological socialist that understands that.

Yes, the simple facts of division of a limited resource is lost on those sold a bill of goods by liars pushing a fantasy.

The common ground... the agreement to disagree... except on the disagreement agreement... or that, too?

8)