Why Emunie is the Pandora's box of cryptocurrency

[r0ach]

The Emunie monetary system is both interesting and scary, all at the same time.  Mostly due to the fact that Keynesians are currently trying to ban cash so that people can't exempt themselves from negative interest rates and other man behind the curtain manipulation.  Emunie is basically an automated central banker, so it's a big difference from what most Austrian people are used to.

If you believe deflationary, Austrian economics has shortcomings, an automated central banker is obviously going to be better than a human one issuing changes with nefarious motives.  The only problem here is, governments can attempt to co-opt cryptocurrency at any given time, and a vote for Emunie economics is essentially a vote for central banking and Keynesianism in this regard.

Let's say Emunie did become huge and the number one cryptocurrency.  Even though it's a global ledger, the US government can just fork it, add their own variables, set it to automatically deduct X% taxes per citizen, declare it legal tender, and claim that anyone using a currency besides this system is a money launderer attempting to avoid taxation.  Anything with a central banker, whether a real person or automated, is a huge Pandora's box.  Assuming you have a benign, honest government, then you've created a system to increase efficiency and reduce abuse.  Assuming you don't, then you've created a system to increase the efficiency of abuse.

As I said in another post, reputation based systems are also the best candidate available for governments to link biometric data to a single wallet user address instead of having many pseudo anon addresses like Bitcoin.  At it's root, technology is just an increase in efficiency.  If you believe people like Ted Kaczynski are even remotely, somewhat correct, this leveraging of efficiency will always be used to decrease liberty and increase enslavement.

The standard Bitcoin and Cryptonote protocol is really a primitive piece of technology that the government might have a hard time co-opting for enslavement.  The pseudo-anonymous, or in the case of ring signatures, possibly zero knowledge proof, anonymous nature of addresses, with lack of a reputation variable to tie biometric data to, might make it a useless tool for governments in the long run.  Going any further past this might be creating the tools for your own enslavement.

"THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Quote from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

[1713492447]

1713492447

[benthach]

The Emunie monetary system is both interesting and scary, all at the same time.  Mostly due to the fact that Keynesians are currently trying to ban cash so that people can't exempt themselves from negative interest rates and other man behind the curtain manipulation.  Emunie is basically an automated central banker, so it's a big difference from what most Austrian people are used to.

If you believe deflationary, Austrian economics has shortcomings, an automated central banker is obviously going to be better than a human one issuing changes with nefarious motives.  The only problem here is, governments can attempt to co-opt cryptocurrency at any given time, and a vote for Emunie economics is essentially a vote for central banking and Keynesianism in this regard.

Let's say Emunie did become huge and the number one cryptocurrency.  Even though it's a global ledger, the US government can just fork it, add their own variables, set it to automatically deduct X% taxes per citizen, declare it legal tender, and claim that anyone using a currency besides this system is a money launderer attempting to avoid taxation.  Anything with a central banker, whether a real person or automated, is a huge Pandora's box.  Assuming you have a benign, honest government, then you've created a system to increase efficiency and reduce abuse.  Assuming you don't, then you've created a system to increase the efficiency of abuse.

As I said in another post, reputation based systems are also the best candidate available for governments to link biometric data to a single wallet user address instead of having many pseudo anon addresses like Bitcoin.  At it's root, technology is just an increase in efficiency.  If you believe people like Ted Kaczynski are even remotely, somewhat correct, this leveraging of efficiency will always be used to decrease liberty and increase enslavement.

The standard Bitcoin and Cryptonote protocol is really a primitive piece of technology that the government might have a hard time co-opting for enslavement.  The pseudo-anonymous, or in the case of ring signatures, possibly zero knowledge proof, anonymous nature of addresses, with lack of a reputation variable to tie biometric data to, might make it a useless tool for governments in the long run.  Going any further past this might be creating the tools for your own enslavement.

"THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Quote from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

chance of emunie become huge and the number one cryptocurrency is 0.0000000001%
chance of emnue being a scam altcoin is 100%

[Anima]

chance of emunie become huge and the number one cryptocurrency is 100%
chance of emnue being a scam altcoin is 0.0000000001%

Fixed that for you 

[r0ach]

It was more of a post about what types of systems you can create without shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.

[Peachy]

I don't even know where to begin to comment. 

You need to truly step back from the conspiracy theories and get better acquainted with the supremely advantageous benefits for how an autonomous elastic monetary supply system would benefit mankind vs. any other type of commodity-based (gold, btc...etc) system.

Read up on the history of "currency" models over the past 5000 years for why all prior elastic supply models have failed before (hint: humans) and you'll see why an autonomous system that can sense in near-real time the demand requirements of supply vs. demand to balance price fluctuations will change the game forever.

As for govts hijacking the system, that would be near impossible.  And where BTC is pseudonymous, eMunie is anonymous.

Basically, I'd hold judgement until the whitepaper and Open Beta demo are available as you'll only wind up looking more foolish with your predictions of doom and gloom.

[Peachy]

As for banning cash so that govts can force negative interest rates:  Of that topic I can 100% agree with you.

The govts of the world are in the final throes of life to survive.  It's happened so many times over the course of history that I don't even know where to begin to enumerate them all.   Their final act of self-survival is to tax any and all sources of funds.  With the ban on cash and move to electronic-only methods they can force their will on the unsuspecting populace. 

[r0ach]

Your statements did nothing to address the fact that with Bitcoin and Cryptonote, government's only real interest in it would most likely be to ban it or attack it.  A system such as Emunie would be very attractive for governments to fork, add their own variables, and force you to use it due to offering higher granularity of control over it's users.  It's no secret or conspiracy theory that governments want to force people into an electronic only currency, they release statements associating themselves with that fact just about every day now.

The only question remaining is, assuming Emunie is the ultimate system (which is a big assumption), would the power of governments to force people into their own Emunie forks prevail over the free market choosing the Hughes ledger.  Claiming it's not possible for governments to force it's citizens into a specific currency is obviously false at face value.  We live in this reality every single day.

Government is a monopoly of force or violence, the ultimate consensus mechanism that beats anything else you can create.  I don't have anything against Dan, these are just honest observations concerning the role of government and cryptocurrency.  Government isn't just going to stand by and do nothing, they will either co-opt or attack.

[r0ach]

Well, when you have a reputation system that can have biometric data linked to it, it's easily possible.  The only problem is, you now have no means to avoid being Cyprused, or just having your wealth turned off period because the state doesn't like you.

It all goes back to:  "THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Unintended consequences of a complex system and the outside world's (government) interaction with it.  I'm not saying that Dan is creating the perfect slave system on purpose, I'm saying it's the perfect system for the government to co-opt.

[Peachy]

You give the govt more credit than they deserve. 

"Are governments capable of evil? Yes, of course they are. All institutions are. But they're more capable of incompetence." -Sherlock Holmes

[okiefromokc]

Well, when you have a reputation system that can have biometric data linked to it, it's easily possible.  The only problem is, you now have no means to avoid being Cyprused, or just having your wealth turned off period because the state doesn't like you.

It all goes back to:  "THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Unintended consequences of a complex system and the outside world's (government) interaction with it.  I'm not saying that Dan is creating the perfect slave system on purpose, I'm saying it's the perfect system for the government to co-opt.

Okay, so what your saying is that the eMunie currency is not anonymous, correct? If, that is what your saying then you are WRONG, it can be 100% anonymous if that is your choice, as there are various levels of encryption built into the eMunie client. Your "biometric data linked to it" phrase is a bunch of poppy-cock imho.  How do you associate the reputation system data that is 100% encrypted to an individual user?

This seems to be a thread just to raise the level of FEAR here on the BTT forum.  It does seem that the light is being turned on to what Dan Hughes has accomplished with the eMunie cryptocurrency network. The eMunie system has been designed even for the unbanked 3rd world countries.

[r0ach]

Well, when you have a reputation system that can have biometric data linked to it, it's easily possible.  The only problem is, you now have no means to avoid being Cyprused, or just having your wealth turned off period because the state doesn't like you.

It all goes back to:  "THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Unintended consequences of a complex system and the outside world's (government) interaction with it.  I'm not saying that Dan is creating the perfect slave system on purpose, I'm saying it's the perfect system for the government to co-opt.

Okay, so what your saying is that the eMunie currency is not anonymous, correct? If, that is what your saying then you are WRONG, it can be 100% anonymous if that is your choice, as there are various levels of encryption built into the eMunie client. Your "biometric data linked to it" phrase is a bunch of poppy-cock imho.  How do you associate the reputation system data that is 100% encrypted to an individual user?

This seems to be a thread just to raise the level of FEAR here on the BTT forum.  It does seem that the light is being turned on to what Dan Hughes has accomplished with the eMunie cryptocurrency network. The eMunie system has been designed even for the unbanked 3rd world countries.

I already explained this.  I didn't say Dan Hughes is attempting to create the perfect New World Order currency on purpose.  I said it will most likely be the best option out for central governments to fork and co-opt since they've stated they want a digital only currency with no cash.  It has the characteristics that they want, or could easily integrate, while Bitcoin and Cryptonote would not function well for their purposes.

[okiefromokc]

Well, when you have a reputation system that can have biometric data linked to it, it's easily possible.  The only problem is, you now have no means to avoid being Cyprused, or just having your wealth turned off period because the state doesn't like you.

It all goes back to:  "THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Unintended consequences of a complex system and the outside world's (government) interaction with it.  I'm not saying that Dan is creating the perfect slave system on purpose, I'm saying it's the perfect system for the government to co-opt.

Okay, so what your saying is that the eMunie currency is not anonymous, correct? If, that is what your saying then you are WRONG, it can be 100% anonymous if that is your choice, as there are various levels of encryption built into the eMunie client. Your "biometric data linked to it" phrase is a bunch of poppy-cock imho.  How do you associate the reputation system data that is 100% encrypted to an individual user?

This seems to be a thread just to raise the level of FEAR here on the BTT forum.  It does seem that the light is being turned on to what Dan Hughes has accomplished with the eMunie cryptocurrency network. The eMunie system has been designed even for the unbanked 3rd world countries.

I already explained this.  I didn't say Dan Hughes is attempting to create the perfect New World Order currency on purpose.  I said it will most likely be the best option out for central governments to fork and co-opt since they've stated they want a digital only currency with no cash.  It has the characteristics that they want, or could easily integrate, while Bitcoin and Cryptonote would not function well for their purposes.

So now you are advocating that eMunie should not be an Open Source currency application... because it has all the characteristics of a complete digital cashless currency.  I find this rather interesting ... thanks for the compliment...

[ceric35]

The number one crypto we be based on a free source code analyzed by evereone before asking if this is "the pandora box".

And it will not be developped by only one developer.

[Peachy]

Says the guy writing his reply on a closed-source Windows pc made with closed source asics and other components in a thread that's probably viewed by others on their closed-source iPhone after they found it via a closed-source Google search.

[billotronic]

Says the guy writing his reply on a closed-source Windows pc made with closed source asics and other components in a thread that's probably viewed by others on their closed-source iPhone after they found it via a closed-source Google search.

Just because YOU make poor life choices and use closed source crap does not mean the rest of us do.

[Peachy]

Says the guy writing his reply on a closed-source Windows pc made with closed source asics and other components in a thread that's probably viewed by others on their closed-source iPhone after they found it via a closed-source Google search.

Just because YOU make poor life choices and use closed source crap does not mean the rest of us do.

If it had been anyone else that had responded I'd be sad. 

Good to hear from you again Bill.  Hope life is treating you well.

Keep up the fight!

[ceric35]

Says the guy writing his reply on a closed-source Windows pc made with closed source asics and other components in a thread that's probably viewed by others on their closed-source iPhone after they found it via a closed-source Google search.

This is so funny that you said this about me, maybe the most anti microsoft/google guy on this forum.
I don't use Windows since about 10 years (linux), I use modified version of Android (but i would like to change with something really libre in the future), i use "duckduckgo" as search engine.
But dawned, i still use gmail

And i don't use eMunie, but a free currently called "Bitcoin" (the no-XT one).

[Fuserleer]

The Emunie monetary system is both interesting and scary, all at the same time.  Mostly due to the fact that Keynesians are currently trying to ban cash so that people can't exempt themselves from negative interest rates and other man behind the curtain manipulation.  Emunie is basically an automated central banker, so it's a big difference from what most Austrian people are used to.

If you believe deflationary, Austrian economics has shortcomings, an automated central banker is obviously going to be better than a human one issuing changes with nefarious motives.  The only problem here is, governments can attempt to co-opt cryptocurrency at any given time, and a vote for Emunie economics is essentially a vote for central banking and Keynesianism in this regard.

Let's say Emunie did become huge and the number one cryptocurrency.  Even though it's a global ledger, the US government can just fork it, add their own variables, set it to automatically deduct X% taxes per citizen, declare it legal tender, and claim that anyone using a currency besides this system is a money launderer attempting to avoid taxation.  Anything with a central banker, whether a real person or automated, is a huge Pandora's box.  Assuming you have a benign, honest government, then you've created a system to increase efficiency and reduce abuse.  Assuming you don't, then you've created a system to increase the efficiency of abuse.

As I said in another post, reputation based systems are also the best candidate available for governments to link biometric data to a single wallet user address instead of having many pseudo anon addresses like Bitcoin.  At it's root, technology is just an increase in efficiency.  If you believe people like Ted Kaczynski are even remotely, somewhat correct, this leveraging of efficiency will always be used to decrease liberty and increase enslavement.

The standard Bitcoin and Cryptonote protocol is really a primitive piece of technology that the government might have a hard time co-opting for enslavement.  The pseudo-anonymous, or in the case of ring signatures, possibly zero knowledge proof, anonymous nature of addresses, with lack of a reputation variable to tie biometric data to, might make it a useless tool for governments in the long run.  Going any further past this might be creating the tools for your own enslavement.

"THE ‘BAD’ PARTS OF TECHNOLOGY CANNOT BE SEPARATED FROM THE ‘GOOD’ PARTS"

Quote from:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm

Ive had similar thoughts over the period that this has been in development, but I think it would be very difficult for a govt to enforce a lot of your "fears".

Firstly, only service nodes gain any form of reputation at a system level.  Non-service nodes (like regular Joes) won't have any associated reputation.  I don't see how any government could associate bio-data or anything similar to a single ID, nor enforce it when it's a simple case of just creating a new account or 2 and moving funds around.  The government then has to attempt to associate that same data with those other accounts, it would be an admin nightmare I would imagine.

With regard to the cashless society kind of thing, to do that they will need an electronic infrastructure to enable it, which, with our P2P debit card, we can hijack, piggy back on etc.   In the event that said infrastructure is secured enough to be out of reach to eMunie or another crypto, there is nothing preventing a merchant having a dedicated piece of hardware for EMU payments.  Trying to banish that hardware would be very counter productive to any country's economy IMO, let alone the costs to enforce it, patrolling merchants to ensure that they are not accepting EMU would be quite a stretch for any government.

Furthermore, there are features in place that allow merchants and regular users to be compliant with laws and regulations regarding tax and declarations etc.  Most regular Joes really do not care about anonymity and all that kinda stuff, and just want an easy life with products that make it easier still.  It would be a very small demographic that would have all of these features setup in a way to "Screw the Gubbermint", and even in that instance the worst case is the government is back where it is now, but with a much improved system.

I've spoken to a number of MP's in the UK on what the agendas are regarding this kind of stuff and crypto, and also sought a lot of advice from people more in the know about tax law, reg law and such than I am.  The take away I had from all of these discussions is, as long as the policies are in place where the system can provide the requirements the government needs, then long term issues should be minimal and I myself (and the eMunie project) are covered from that perspective.  If a user wants to enable all the features available to mask himself, that is on them.

One key challenge that safeguards a system such as this from government tactics like you suggest, is a fast and rapid user base growth where there is a lot of value in the system.  If you can achieve that before any government can react (and they react slowly), then it ties their hands somewhat as the populous is already committed.  Any action to discredit that system would result in a large amount of the populous losing wealth over night due to a "run".  If that happens you have a major economic issue and lots of unhappy citizens on your hands to deal with, and no government, however Orwellian, will want that.

My view is to put enough measures in place so that such a system can align with the government's needs, but still keep the wellbeing of the user's as #1 priority.  If the government wants all of the users to set their clients up so that it can be achieved, that is the governments job to promote, and the users decision to make.

Finally you'd need every government on the planet to take the same stance, and risk the same problems and costs.  Seems unlikely to me, and even if they did, by the time they move, any currency similar to eMunie could be well established if pushed with smart direction and decision making.

[r0ach]

Ive had similar thoughts over the period that this has been in development, but I think it would be very difficult for a govt to enforce a lot of your "fears".

Firstly, only service nodes gain any form of reputation at a system level.

My statements were more centered around governments wanting to force people into a digital cash only system, but they don't have the logistics covered to do it.  A system like Emunie is a prime candidate for them to take and fork to create slavecoin due to the following attributes:

1)  Support for high transaction volume

2)  Much higher granular control over economic functions than Bitcoin or Cryptonote (which is not necessarily a good thing in that case)

3)  Reputation variables and lack of PoW to create a closed system are really the key in linking biometric data to users.  This allows you to build the tax system into the coin/platform as well.  If the tax system is built into the coin, they can mandate any other form of currency or gold is an attempt at bypassing the tax code for money laundering, shutting down all alternatives.  Things like this are much harder to do with PoW & Bitcoin or Cryptonote.

[Fuserleer]

Ive had similar thoughts over the period that this has been in development, but I think it would be very difficult for a govt to enforce a lot of your "fears".

Firstly, only service nodes gain any form of reputation at a system level.

My statements were more centered around governments wanting to force people into a digital cash only system, but they don't have the logistics covered to do it.  A system like Emunie is a prime candidate for them to take and fork to create slavecoin due to the following attributes:

1)  Support for high transaction volume

2)  Much higher granular control over economic functions than Bitcoin or Cryptonote (which is not necessarily a good thing in that case)

3)  Reputation variables and lack of PoW to create a closed system are really the key in linking biometric data to users.  This allows you to build the tax system into the coin/platform as well.  If the tax system is built into the coin, they can mandate any other form of currency or gold is an attempt at bypassing the tax code for money laundering, shutting down all alternatives.

You make valid points, as said, I've thought about the implications too.

My conclusion was that they would have to be focused on that angle and get in on the ground floor, otherwise the fall out from creating a competing flavor of eMunie later will be greater as time goes on.

eMunie (or a similar tech) likely wouldn't even be on any governments radar until its too late, and they then have to risk upsetting the apples already on the cart.  This is, of course, assuming that adoption of such a tech would be swift and have a good adoption rate.

I guess the fact that most of eMunie will remain closed source for a period of time will keep the genie in the bottle somewhat, and allow the original version to gain some traction.  This would help to impede any "coup"  by governments with their own version, but I really don't think it would come to that, they could just build the tax system into eMunie via plugins, and allow users to opt in.  

Most of the masses would flock to it...."What?? my eMunie client fills in my tax form and all associated crap with regard to EMU and I don't even have to click send???  AWESOME!!"...at the same time, opponents of that kind of system can just opt out, or not even install that plugin in the first place.