US BITCOIN REGULATION "FOR" or "AGAINST"

[Viceroy]

ErisDiscordia,

The fundamental problem with your position is that there is no evidence to support it.  It's one thing to have a philosophy about living in utopia but it is something completely different to actually live in the real world.

Either:
You accept that we need law to protect us from each other (< 30% of the readers)

or:
You think we are capable of living without any laws (or regulations).


I'd love to live in utopia but I realize that I live on Earth.  On Earth there are other people who need to be protected from me.  If I start killing people society MUST deal with me.  We MUST have laws.  Otherwise we are just animals in the woods.    

In the real world there was a time when we had no financial regulations.  That time ended with the Ponzi Scheme.  Lack of regulation = daily ponzi schemes.  Then in modern times when the regulators didn't do anything to regulate credit default swaps what happened?  The end of the economy as we know it.  And what will happen if the banks are allowed to continue without regulation?  More crashes.  More concentration of wealth.  

The republicans (along with Dem Charles Schumer) in America have been trying to end all financial regulation for decades.  Why?  Because they work for the 1%.... the only group who benefits from no regulation.  But you are not in the 1% so wouldn't you rather be protected than naked in the forest?

If you have 2 hours to watch an enlightening movie about the reality of our cruel world watch this:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/park-avenue/film.html

[1715368694]

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[PerfectAgent]

This 1% is what benefits most from regulation that keeps out the little guy, preventing him from competing by using onerous licensing, regulation, and massive fees. A tiny example of this mess is government shutting down lemonade stands and food trucks because they compete with established businesses. Regulators pick winners and losers, and the winners are oftentimes their friends with cash, not the neighborhood kid or the average person who decided to get a loan on a truck to make a living.

[Viceroy]

Yes the 1% benefit greatly from locking up all the poor people across the river, it's true.  Of course the 1% do whatever they want while extracting all the wealth of the 99%.  Did you know (from the movie) that 400 people control more wealth in the USA than 150,000,000 people?  That's not 1% it's 2.6667 x 10 ^ -6.

So let's write a law that redistributes worldwide wealth....  either that or lets stop worshiping gold.  The first option seems easier.

>lemonade stand
I'd bet you probably cannot start a meaningful business with less than $250,000 these days but the SBA guarantees loans up to $750,000 for start ups.

[ErisDiscordia]

Hey Viceroy!

Can't say I haven't heard those very same arguments before. Let me address them:

ErisDiscordia,

The fundamental problem with your position is that there is no evidence to support it.  It's one thing to have a philosophy about living in utopia but it is something completely different to actually live in the real world.

This one can actually be turned back right at the opposing view. There is as little evidence for the case that stateless society wouldn't work as there is for the case that it would work. The simple fact is that we haven't tried so we don't know. Presuming to know that it would or wouldn't work seems, well...presumptuous.

Either:
You accept that we need law to protect us from each other (< 30% of the readers)

or:
You think we are capable of living without any laws (or regulations).

Here we can see the fundamentally flawed way of either/or thinking. It makes us think in false dichotomies (meaning considering only two predefined options, where there could be many) and creates more problems than it solves. You can see either/or thinking in exclusive ideologies based on defining one group of insiders and a group of outsiders, defining each persons merit based on them being either an insider or an outsider. See racism, sexism, xenophobia etc.

Consider that there might be other options. Yes one option is having an institution with a monopoly on creating and enforcing rules of conduct. Another option is to try and live without any rules whatsoever. But what about the option for several competing/complementary frameworks of rules?

People seem to love making up rules. I don't see anything wrong with that. Is it then foolish to think that if we all got to create our own rules and test their viability, we might end up with superior sets of rules? Compared to the heavy handed approach of creating and enforcing one single set of rules trying to accommodate everyone?

I'd love to live in utopia but I realize that I live on Earth.  On Earth there are other people who need to be protected from me.  If I start killing people society MUST deal with me.  We MUST have laws.  Otherwise we are just animals in the woods.    

In the real world there was a time when we had no financial regulations.  That time ended with the Ponzi Scheme.  Lack of regulation = daily ponzi schemes.  Then in modern times when the regulators didn't do anything to regulate credit default swaps what happened?  The end of the economy as we know it.  And what will happen if the banks are allowed to continue without regulation?  More crashes.  More concentration of wealth.  

The republicans (along with Dem Charles Schumer) in America have been trying to end all financial regulation for decades.  Why?  Because they work for the 1%.... the only group who benefits from no regulation.  But you are not in the 1% so wouldn't you rather be protected than naked in the forest?

I'm not sure what exactly you are talking about when referring to a time without financial regulation ending in Ponzi schemes. You seem to be sure of your case that it was precisely the lack of regulation which brought about our current financial crisis. A compelling case can be made stating that it was precisely the existence of regulation which caused this. I won't go in depth on this, if you are truly interested in learning about these arguments, you can easily find them in the writings of various anarchist and libertarian writers. Let me just say that having the single institution in charge of creating regulation (the government) being subject to massive influence by banks and giants of industry (whom they're supposed to regulate) creates perverse incentives for those companies and destroys any semblance of a level playing field - big players can effectively buy regulation protecting their business and market share from newcomers without the capital and political connections to challenge them.

Oh yes and the "without laws we'd all just be killing each other argument". Do you really believe that the only thing stopping me and others to kill you, rape your woman and take your stuff are written laws? Do you have such a dim view of humanity? On the other side of the coin, is the current system the only one you can think of, which might protect you from those bad people who want to kill you? What about the problem inherent in the solution of entrusting the protection from bad people to stewards of an institution with the legal monopoly on the initiation of force? Where are those people going to come from? From the pool of bad people...and now you want to give them even more power and the possibility to kill you and take your stuff in a systematic, highly organized way?

As for the bolded part, it seems that you claim knowledge of what the real world really is. I find that amusing

If you have 2 hours to watch an enlightening movie about the reality of our cruel world watch this:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/park-avenue/film.html

Thanks for the link. I'm always glad to look at things from another perspective in order to understand it better.

[Viceroy]

The world is not black and white.  I generally believe that laws cannot govern morals.  But I also recognize that at times in my life the only thing that has prevented me from hurting someone (or killing them) is prison.  There are people who should die and if there were no law I would most certainly kill them given the chance.  If you want to live near me you and I need rules that govern our actions.  Otherwise nothing prevents you from trying to steal my wife/car/bike/gold.

If there were no laws would you pay for bread?  Do you think everyone else would?


regarding regulation:

Charles ponzi's scheme (just before the great depression) resulted in "New Deal" regulations (including the 1933 SEC Regulation D) which lasted until the recent repeal of Glass-Steagle.  The result of the repeal was great recession.  Repealing the regulation resulted in producing the  opposite of what the lawmakers said it would.  Eliminating the regulation did not improve profitability, it destroyed the country and nearly the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_financial_crisis_of_2008

There were a few Frontline programs about glass-steagle.  The first in 2003 then another after the crash.

http://billmoyers.com/content/glass-steagall-dodd-frank-and-the-volcker-rule-a-primer-and-resources/


The poll is flawed, the answer is not as simple as "yes" or "no".

[malevolent]

The fundamental problem with your position is that there is no evidence to support it.  It's one thing to have a philosophy about living in utopia but it is something completely different to actually live in the real world.

This one can actually be turned back right at the opposing view. There is as little evidence for the case that stateless society wouldn't work as there is for the case that it would work. The simple fact is that we haven't tried so we don't know. Presuming to know that it would or wouldn't work seems, well...presumptuous.

It may work and it has already been tried:
http://mises.org/daily/1121

And about the regulation part the primary problem is that less regulation for banks, businesses, etc. should automatically mean that they are to carry more responsibility for their actions.
Bailing out != teaching about responsibility

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Country: Poland
Vote: Against

[firefop]

No on the regulation. Markets do best when self regulated

[Viceroy]

No on the regulation. Markets do best when self regulated

* Viceroy facepalms while muttering then I guess the great depression and great recession never happened

[ErisDiscordia]

Glad to hear that we agree that the world is not black and white. In fact it is all Hodge and Podge!

If you want to live near me you and I need rules that govern our actions.  Otherwise nothing prevents you from trying to steal my wife/car/bike/gold.

You mentioned that law has been the sole factor preventing you from violent action at some point in time. Quite refreshing to hear this admission! I've heard many people stating that the law is only there to protect them from others, not others from them. After all, they are decent, intelligent human beings, it's those stupid evil masses...  

With that being said, would you consider alternative solutions to the problem of our neighborly coexistence? Right now our option is to submit to the existing rules and hope the government will enforce them honestly and effectively (quite a gamble I would say). How about we draft our own inter-neighbor constitution and hire someone to enforce it? Or maybe we hire a company specializing in this field? Or we might go full on crazy and try to talk over the fence every once in a while and try to live together peacefully? Or is that Utopia?

Besides all that there is another point to be made. If you look to authority to protect you from (any) threat, you slowly lose the ability to do so yourself. You become dependent on authority for the solution to your problem. Being dependent is a very vulnerable state to be in. Especially if the person/institution you're dependent on has incentive to abuse the situation. Does the government have such incentive? I guess that depends on how you view government. If you tend to look at it as a benevolent protector interested in protecting you and your interest you might think it's not that bad. But even then, you are still in a state of dependency and facing potential inability to protect yourself if for some reason your protector fails you. But maybe you tend more towards the view that government is a power structure and as such is interested in accumulating and preserving power (and by extension, wealth). In that case they have plenty of incentive for abusing your position of dependency.

This is a basic argument which can be applied to topics like gun control. Should guns be regulated or not? On the one hand you have the fear, that armed people are going to do stupid/evil things with those guns. On the other hand, take a situation like the Breivik disaster in Norway. Here you have a guy with an assault rifle on an island full of unarmed people. He ended up killing like a 100 of them. How many would he have been able to kill, if they were all armed?

That's the problem I see with "government as protector". First you lose your ability to defend yourself against others, but you tell yourself it's fine, because government will protect you. But once it fails to do so, what do you do? And how do you protect yourself against government?

This is all very complicated and I don't have any solution to it. Neither does Barrack Obama and his team of advisors. I feel such a complex issue should be thrown in the open and let everybody have their go at it with their solutions. It might lead to comical and disastrous results, but I suspect it would produce much better results than our current approach of one size fits all law.

Of course this is all easy to say for me, because an outlook like this requires to trust yourself to the chaos of life and not fear it. Nothing difficult for the Godess of Chaos

And about the regulation part the primary problem is that less regulation for banks, businesses, etc. should automatically mean that they are to carry more responsibility for their actions.
Bailing out != teaching about responsibility

+1
This is why I don't see where people like Viceroy are coming from, when they claim that lack of regulation brought about a crisis. What lack of regulation? For the love of godess, I can't see any lack of regulation, it's rampant! It's akin to saying "free-market capitalism brought about the crisis". Regardless on my opinion on free-market capitalism I ask: what free market capitalism? Where?

[Viceroy]

Dude, I'd LOVE to live in Utopia.  You just give me the address and I'll be there.

This is why I don't see where people like Viceroy are coming from, when they claim that lack of regulation brought about a crisis. What lack of regulation? For the love of godess, I can't see any lack of regulation, it's rampant! It's akin to saying "free-market capitalism brought about the crisis". Regardless on my opinion on free-market capitalism I ask: what free market capitalism? Where?

Read about the repeal of glass-steagle and how is caused the great depression.  Or read about how lack of regulation almost ended the great American experiment when the great depression arose.  Don't just spout, read the facts.  You are certainly smart enough to recognize that the repeal of glass-steagle (by lobbiest influenced lawmakers) directly resulted in the great recession.  

[ErisDiscordia]

Dude, I'd LOVE to live in Utopia.  You just give me the address and I'll be there.

Might just be you're already living there. If you think of your government as having only your best interests in mind as well as the means to effectively satisfy them. Sounds more utopian than the wildest anarchist dream to me.

Besides, this is the internet, the 21st century and Bitcoin! Might be about time to start freeing ourselves from the medieval serf mentality tying us to a specific location and making us swear patriotic allegiance to whatever organized band of thugs happen to be ruling that particular turf of land.

There is only one real question here: Do you want to be free?

[Viceroy]

You are quite conflicted:


"whatever organized band of thugs happen to be ruling that particular turf of land."

"There is only one real question here: Do you want to be free?"

You can never be free if you assume that every bit of earth is controlled by a band of thugs.  Is your neighborhood controlled by a band of thugs?  Mine is not, the police arrest the thugs around here.  But I'd hardly call this place utopia.

Your vision of utopia can only exist in fairy tales.  On earth we live in a place.  We are physical and so is our world (or we are just a dream in my head).

[ErisDiscordia]

Is your neighborhood controlled by a band of thugs?  Mine is not, the police arrest the thugs around here.

My point exactly! The police are the thugs.

I think we are done here, thank you for your time and opinions. You may continue to live in the real world, while I may continue to embrace my ignorance of what the real world is while remaining open to reinterpretation and reinvention.

I do admit that it's tempting to decide that you in fact do know what reality is and have it figured out. Must be cozy and comfortable.

[Viceroy]

In many places the police are thugs particularly in corrupt big cities.  But the policemen who live in my home town are not thugs, they are people just like me.  They are hired by the citizens to try to stop crime and detain criminals.  They do a fairly good job but the only people who would call them "thugs" are called "criminals" by the rest of society.  In fact I can think of three incidences in my state where corrupt police officers have been arrested and charged with crime by their fellow policemen.

You've made no point except that you wish to live in a fairy tale world.  Send me the address when you find it, won't you?



  

[ErisDiscordia]

I think I see the problem of our misunderstanding now. You seem to be living in a sort of Utopia. I don't mean mental Utopia now. But you've managed to find yourself in a place, where it is possible to perceive policemen as honest, helpful people. This is the exception, rather than the rule. Sort of like when you get an honest politician or two every once in a while. Have you traveled around a bit and come into contact with law enforcement people in other places?

I haven't even brought up the point of how a hierarchical structure like the state attract people prone to corruption and once they're part of said system it tends to present them with incentives to get corrupted even further. Or the point about how information gets distorted as it makes its way up a hierarchical structure and how the people at the top end up basing their decisions (as well-intentioned as they may be) based on totally distorted information. But seeing as I have "made no point so far" I will refrain from elaborating. I think it's time we stopped making this thread into our personal trench warfare of opinions (because that's what I see developing. I don't see a discussion forming) and let other people comment on whether or not they wish Bitcoin to be regulated.

This is my last post on the subject matter, unless someone picks up a discussion.

[Explodicle]

No on the regulation. Markets do best when self regulated

* Viceroy facepalms while muttering then I guess the great depression and great recession never happened

One thing I love about depression/recession debates is that whether or not they were caused by the government/market typically supports whoever is making a claim.

If any undecided readers are still reading this thread, I leave it to you to judge whether or not the USD market was self regulated during the depression, or if the housing market was self regulated in 2008.

Likewise, consider if gold-backed private currency regulation to date has increased or decreased the prevalence of gold-backed private currencies.

[Viceroy]

I copied this from the previous page because if you are going to consider the above you should probably consider what I wrote, not just my reaction to an ill informed poster.

regarding regulation:

Charles ponzi's scheme (just before the great depression) resulted in "New Deal" regulations (including the 1933 SEC Regulation D) which lasted until the recent repeal of Glass-Steagle.  The result of the repeal was great recession.  Repealing the regulation resulted in producing the  opposite of what the lawmakers said it would.  Eliminating the regulation did not improve profitability, it destroyed the country and nearly the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_financial_crisis_of_2008

There were a few Frontline programs about glass-steagle.  The first in 2003 then another after the crash.

http://billmoyers.com/content/glass-steagall-dodd-frank-and-the-volcker-rule-a-primer-and-resources/


The poll is flawed, the answer is not as simple as "yes" or "no".

Further, without regulation, there is no way to make marijuana, a harmless plant, available to the masses as Colorado does: http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_23575299/colo-announces-rules-recreational-pot-sales

[ErisDiscordia]

I was going to quit posting in this thread but this is just too much glaring bullshit:

Further, without regulation, there is no way to make marijuana, a harmless plant, available to the masses as Colorado does: http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_23575299/colo-announces-rules-recreational-pot-sales

What the hell man? How can you even say something like that? You have the whole thing backwards. Without regulation there is no way of making Marijuana unavailable to the masses. It was the government who made it a Schedule 1 drug (without proven medical benefits) contrary to expert opinion in the first place, remember? Or are you now saying that people can't even grow pot if the government doesn't help them out? I thought you were serious the whole time, now I suspect you might just be trolling...

[cryptoanarchist]

I was going to quit posting in this thread but this is just too much glaring bullshit:

Further, without regulation, there is no way to make marijuana, a harmless plant, available to the masses as Colorado does: http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_23575299/colo-announces-rules-recreational-pot-sales

What the hell man? How can you even say something like that? You have the whole thing backwards. Without regulation there is no way of making Marijuana unavailable to the masses. It was the government who made it a Schedule 1 drug (without proven medical benefits) contrary to expert opinion in the first place, remember? Or are you now saying that people can't even grow pot if the government doesn't help them out? I thought you were serious the whole time, now I suspect you might just be trolling...

Might be? He's already been added to my "ignored" list, and I'm sure he'll be on more and more as long as he keeps posting.