Governments and Bitcoin

[river]

I suggest eMansipater and friends fork the bitcoin client code to automatically send a percentage of each transaction to the government.

so what .. are you a Nazi spy or something that works for the government ... are you serious .... this is why they made it open source .. so douche bags like you can't take hard earned food off someone else plate.

It's not bad enough that the government {BEEPS} everyone and makes you idiots believe that all their criminal activities are lawful, but now you want to {BEEP} a perfectly working system ...

What was the point of having anonymous addresses, encryption, and peer-to-peer untraceable features, if dumb {BEEPS} like you want to make it all traceable to GIVE IT ALL TO THEM ... and put your asses in jail for NOT OBEYING YOUR {BEEPING} TAX GOD!   BEEP DUH!

I REALLY don't like to curse .. but fucking think people ... you dumb asses have obviously NEVER looked at the Magna Carta or Common Law Rules, you've obviously NEVER even attempted to seek out your rights or liberties, and you obviously don't want them, your too {BEEPING} scared of another MORTAL to grow a set.   SO BE IT .. but do NOT attempt to {BEEP} the rest of the planet just because your a retarded {BEEP}.

"I suggest eMansipater and friends fork the bitcoin client code to automatically send a percentage of each transaction to the government."   OK .. let say you idiots do this ... first off .. NO ONE will use the system anymore ... cause it would suck then just like FIAT.
Also ... which government .. there are hundreds of them ... are you going to make people in Australia pay Taxes to the U.S. or maybe Britian ... dumb shits ... it's a stupid and NON-feasible idea.

People that keep on about "ooohh ..all these CRIMINALS not wanting to pay THEIR SHARE of TAXES" .. {BEEP} you .. there's something on your shoulders you've never used before .. and REALLY need to start ... it's called a BRAIN.

It only take 1 BILLIONTH of a Volt to have a simply thought ... try not to electrocute yourselves.

[1714779847]

1714779847

[Anonymous]

I agree with that last post.  ^^^

[em3rgentOrdr]

Lol!  I hope you guys realize I'm being sarcastic!  Anyway, I doubt that very many people would choose to use the client that skims of part of every transaction for the government.

[deadlizard]

Anyone who wants to change the operation of the bitcoin network can just FORK OFF.

[eMansipater]

Do you advocate the use of violence against me, for refusing to fund violence against you?

Nope--I'm only looking for voluntary participants.  That's why I'm in favour of free movement across borders so that people can live under whichever jurisdiction they want.  I also think that having a good variety of jurisdictions is beneficial, provided that none of them prevent people from exiting should they so desire.  But people have to commit to jurisdictions--no living in one and keeping all your money offshore to avoid its laws.  I'm not inherently opposed to meta-jurisdictions but they not to be worked out carefully and typically will result in overlaps by design.  It's still not a perfect system because some issues addressing societies automatically transcend any boundaries, such as epidemiology.  But at this point in history I believe it's a good balance.

Paying tax is a self incriminating process.

most people have never paid tax, it's gone before you get your hands on it.

Not sure how it is where you live, but where I live those of us running businesses pay tax ourselves after we calculate our profits.

When hard money comes back they will cease to exist in the most part because they no longer have to the power to expand uncontrollably without tax-payer say-so. They will hate bitcoin inherently no matter how you spin it. If you can convince them that bitcoin is good for govt., go ahead, it will be the greatest trojan horse attack in history.

First of all, it's very hard to interact with any of this because you consistently fail to differentiate between the american government and other governments.  But it's quite naive to believe that either will be "ceasing to exist" presently.  If I draw on my limited knowledge of american history, the great depression was a big deal, but it didn't cause the government to blink out of existence.  Actions have consequences, and there has been some massive financial mismanagement, particularly in america, but these sorts of things lead to changes in administrations and shifts in voting sentiment, not to elimination of governments.  Just like at Iceland for a prime example.  If you believe otherwise, put your money where your mouth is.  I and probably a lot of other people would be happy to take your money over the idea that government will cease to exist in any major country within the next 20 years.  If this isn't what you meant, then it's probably time to tone down the rhetoric because the thermostat is set too high.

Whatever else you believe you must realise that most people today are not anarchists, and therefore participate willingly in modern democracies despite their flaws.

So NO ... there is NO exaggeration here .. this is all technical facts from history and government records.

If there's no current internet rule about the correlation between all-caps and exaggeration, I hereby claim it!

COLEMAN'S RULE:  ALL claims containing ALL CAPS exaggerate, INCLUDING THIS ONE

I suggest eMansipater and friends fork the bitcoin client code to automatically send a percentage of each transaction to the government.

Sorry em3rgentOrder, we're too busy trying to do this with banknotes

Anyone who wants to change the operation of the bitcoin network can just FORK OFF.

lol, nice.

[sortedmush]

Do you advocate the use of violence against me, for refusing to fund violence against you?

Nope--I'm only looking for voluntary participants ..  But people have to commit to jurisdictions

Doublethink much?

[eMansipater]

Do you advocate the use of violence against me, for refusing to fund violence against you?

Nope--I'm only looking for voluntary participants ..  But people have to commit to jurisdictions

Doublethink much?

Wrong bolding.  People have to commit to jurisdictions.  You're either in or out, but you can change your status without coercion (at some limited rate).  Otherwise this is just ridiculous--live in a country but then pop out if you're ever charged with a crime, etc.  Keep in mind some jurisdictions could be anarchist zones.

[sortedmush]

Wrong bolding.  People have to commit to jurisdictions.  You're either in or out, but you can change your status without coercion (at some limited rate).  Otherwise this is just ridiculous--live in a country but then pop out if you're ever charged with a crime, etc.  Keep in mind some jurisdictions could be anarchist zones.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you advocating the validity of the social contract?

[eMansipater]

@sortedmush discussion continued in Off-topic.  Any other questions about my own approach to anarchism and governments ought to be quoted and continued there.

[em3rgentOrdr]

Ahh, the social contract...it's not very social, and it's not really a contract.

[river]

Anyone who wants to change the operation of the bitcoin network can just FORK OFF.

In my previous post I said do not screw with bitcoin ... I never said do not fork a new project .. but that NEW project that is forked would NOT be bitcoin would it.. it would be something else that does not interact with bitcoin ...  but to alter the operation of bitcoin would be to fundamentally change it's nature .. no more anonymity, no more individual control, just once again .. a central "controlling" authority at gun point, most people, if not everyone .. would simply scrap it.

so I don't care about a fork per say .. I care about when people talk about a FORK that is not a fork .. it's an alteration of the existing bitcoin itself ... if you want another project  great .. go for it, start something new and unrelated with different rules .. but don't screw the existing one is all I'm saying, you can improve the functionality, or ease of use or whatever, but not it's basic nature.

[eMansipater]

don't screw the existing one is all I'm saying, you can improve the functionality, or ease of use or whatever, but not it's basic nature.

I agree with you completely, my friend.

[karik1987]

The taxpayer must declare the income associated with the crypto currency in the tax year in which it is received or accrued. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in penalties and fines

[yuukireit]

Sometimes goverment are overreacting and aware if people cant controled by them. And many goverment think that we the people are stupid to doing something. And accused for what we did (the right thing) to getting freedom like that and making like we are doing bad thing
Thats stupid logic

[jack8989]

Lol!  I hope you guys realize I'm being sarcastic!  Anyway, I doubt that very many people would choose to use the client that skims of part of every transaction for the government.

Yeah, they just didn't realize that they already lost so much customers for their economy when they made the prohibitions on Bitcoin. Many people use Bitcoin and you could increase the limits of customer into global but they chose not to do it .

[freesia_pnp888]

their feud will never end i guess hahaha

[Urtaev]

Fortunately, not all governments are disapproving of bitcoins. There are those who understand its economic value and the prospect of using it for the needs of the country.

[THATBTC]

I realise that there are many anarchist-inclined bitcoin enthusiasts excited about the fact that bitcoin isn't government-run; obviously however we're not all anarchists so just thought I'd try and flesh out the topic of governments and bitcoin from the other angle.  Yay textwall!

It's one thing to be opposed to governments in principle, but especially for people who don't know anyone working in government there's a bit of a tendency to go all crazy around here about what "the government agenda" is or how "the government" will try and automatically repress any new idea.  The truth is that governments are just made up of people.  Forming any kind of cohesive idea amongst government members is a massive job in and of itself, as I well know from my own experience in politics--it's simply not true that there's one big organised conspiracy called "The Government" in any country.  Even flat-out dictatorships have a wider array of differing opinions "within the ranks" than you might think.

Governments and technology have an interesting relationship.  On the one hand members of governments tend to be well-connected, established people with an investment in the status quo.  It also takes a lot of time to succeed in politics at any significant level, which means that many policymakers aren't exactly on the cutting edge of technology.  I won't be so unkind as to call them flat-out dinosaur luddites (or maybe I just did ) but they don't tend to grasp the value and significance of new, disruptive technologies quickly.

On the other hand, I actually know many individuals who work at high levels of government, and a significant portion of them are genuinely trying to improve society's function through their work.  Don't forget that, as amazing as it sounds, a government invented the internet (the american government no less!).  Governments sent humans to space.  Governments even created the first computers!!  The american government created Tor!!!!!!!   -my head just exploded.

Governments are not mindless anti-tech zombies.  When something is really different they often have trouble understanding it.  Like p2p filesharing--they've completely dropped the ball on that one!  And vested interests generally tend to distort and mess things up.  But if the regular actual people who work in governments see a true opportunity for something to benefit everyone, they tend to get just as excited about it as "us" (intended in the most fully ironic sense as if there is some fundamental divide between anyone-who-can-use-bitcoin and anyone-who-works-for-a-government).  At the end of the day, if bitcoin can present a good case for providing real value to interests across the board in an area where other solutions have been sorely lacking, I think a lot of people-in-governments can get on board with that.

But one thing's for certain--if we turn bitcoin (or even the community surrounding it) into a destroy-all-governments, end-of-all-fiat-money, never-pay-taxes-again conspiracy, it will end up on the terrorist watch list before the first report even hits the desk.

tl;dr:Bitcoin is what bitcoin is.  Like the internet, it enables both traditional enterprises and disruptive possibilities.  There's nothing wrong with loving bitcoin because of the latter, but it's worth it to differentiate between your reasons for loving bitcoin and bitcoin itself.  Get excited about the fact that bitcoin could be the first successful non-government-initiated currency!  But don't fall into this trap of thinking that there's some fundamental reason that governments and bitcoin are in a conflict to the death.  I can tell you that any dinosaur worth his salt goes completely glazed over when any such topic comes up.  It's too psychologically complicated at that point in life to actually parry and dissect really different ideas--it's a lot simpler to just shut them out and bitcoin with them.

For any anarchist who faults the state on its use of force, the only fair response is to out-compete it fair and square.  If anarchism is truly better, bitcoin will probably be an important milestone in the path to getting there.  Work hard on it!  Help make it succeed!  But remember that bitcoin is about all of us, not just about those who believe that.  Don't worry though, I still love you even if I think the world isn't ready for anarchism yet .

And for anyone else out there who thinks anarchism leaves something to be desired--stick around!  You're not the only one.  We need you because the way bitcoin actually succeeds is not as some fringe project of the libertarian community (no offense to the hundreds of toes I just stepped on there ) but as a truly world-changing technology that encompasses people from many different points of view.  Bitcoin won't succeed unless non-anarchists accept it and that's pretty much that.

/steps down from soapbox, however briefly

I agree with all of this.

I'm tired of whining about libertarians, and I'm sure libertarians are tired of hearing it too, so I've been trying not to do that anymore. But I think the forum is so focused on people that hate government or are paranoid of evil banking cabals that... that I for one have found it off-putting. I'm way more interested in bitcoins and the possibilities of them than I am about the ideological tone of the forum. I think a lot of people would find it off putting. Bitcoin should be above politics.

People can agree or disagree about whether it's a good idea to have an agency that is (in principal) democratically empowered to do things like build hospitals, schools and roads etc. People can agree or disagree as to whether bankers are the most evil force in the world, or just a corrupt oligopoly that needs to be replaced by something better, and people can agree or disagree about whether inflation is part of an elaborate scheme to steal wealth from people or just one of the poorly controlled forces that are a flaw of the money system we have now. But bitcoin itself can be used quite happily by anyone regardless of their political/economic point of view.

I think this should be recognized, this should be a Big-World technology, not just a political niche affair for people of a certain political mindset. Bitcoin has something to offer everyone, heh, even state-socialists, fascists and Islamic theocracies probably.

Having said all that, I did start a thread about bitcoin on an anarchist forum, and on a forum that's quite left-wing. Maybe the bitcoin forum itself though should be more politically neutral, for the good of bitcoin itself.

Just my two satoshi.

I'm agree x2

[yasong]

I realise that there are many anarchist-inclined bitcoin enthusiasts excited about the fact that bitcoin isn't government-run; obviously however we're not all anarchists so just thought I'd try and flesh out the topic of governments and bitcoin from the other angle.  Yay textwall!

It's one thing to be opposed to governments in principle, but especially for people who don't know anyone working in government there's a bit of a tendency to go all crazy around here about what "the government agenda" is or how "the government" will try and automatically repress any new idea.  The truth is that governments are just made up of people.  Forming any kind of cohesive idea amongst government members is a massive job in and of itself, as I well know from my own experience in politics--it's simply not true that there's one big organised conspiracy called "The Government" in any country.  Even flat-out dictatorships have a wider array of differing opinions "within the ranks" than you might think.

Governments and technology have an interesting relationship.  On the one hand members of governments tend to be well-connected, established people with an investment in the status quo.  It also takes a lot of time to succeed in politics at any significant level, which means that many policymakers aren't exactly on the cutting edge of technology.  I won't be so unkind as to call them flat-out dinosaur luddites (or maybe I just did ) but they don't tend to grasp the value and significance of new, disruptive technologies quickly.

On the other hand, I actually know many individuals who work at high levels of government, and a significant portion of them are genuinely trying to improve society's function through their work.  Don't forget that, as amazing as it sounds, a government invented the internet (the american government no less!).  Governments sent humans to space.  Governments even created the first computers!!  The american government created Tor!!!!!!!  -my head just exploded.

Governments are not mindless anti-tech zombies.  When something is really different they often have trouble understanding it.  Like p2p filesharing--they've completely dropped the ball on that one!  And vested interests generally tend to distort and mess things up.  But if the regular actual people who work in governments see a true opportunity for something to benefit everyone, they tend to get just as excited about it as "us" (intended in the most fully ironic sense as if there is some fundamental divide between anyone-who-can-use-bitcoin and anyone-who-works-for-a-government).  At the end of the day, if bitcoin can present a good case for providing real value to interests across the board in an area where other solutions have been sorely lacking, I think a lot of people-in-governments can get on board with that.

But one thing's for certain--if we turn bitcoin (or even the community surrounding it) into a destroy-all-governments, end-of-all-fiat-money, never-pay-taxes-again conspiracy, it will end up on the terrorist watch list before the first report even hits the desk.

tl;dr:Bitcoin is what bitcoin is.  Like the internet, it enables both traditional enterprises and disruptive possibilities.  There's nothing wrong with loving bitcoin because of the latter, but it's worth it to differentiate between your reasons for loving bitcoin and bitcoin itself.  Get excited about the fact that bitcoin could be the first successful non-government-initiated currency!  But don't fall into this trap of thinking that there's some fundamental reason that governments and bitcoin are in a conflict to the death.  I can tell you that any dinosaur worth his salt goes completely glazed over when any such topic comes up.  It's too psychologically complicated at that point in life to actually parry and dissect really different ideas--it's a lot simpler to just shut them out and bitcoin with them.

For any anarchist who faults the state on its use of force, the only fair response is to out-compete it fair and square.  If anarchism is truly better, bitcoin will probably be an important milestone in the path to getting there.  Work hard on it!  Help make it succeed!  But remember that bitcoin is about all of us, not just about those who believe that.  Don't worry though, I still love you even if I think the world isn't ready for anarchism yet .

And for anyone else out there who thinks anarchism leaves something to be desired--stick around!  You're not the only one.  We need you because the way bitcoin actually succeeds is not as some fringe project of the libertarian community (no offense to the hundreds of toes I just stepped on there ) but as a truly world-changing technology that encompasses people from many different points of view.  Bitcoin won't succeed unless non-anarchists accept it and that's pretty much that.

/steps down from soapbox, however briefly

There are hundreds of billions of yuan worth of Bitcoin in China, and this part of the money cannot be regulated by the government. The government can't control the people how to spend this part of the money. For example, it has exceeded the purchase limit of 50,000 US dollars in foreign exchange. This is what the government is panicking.

[Andrews193]

I think the government will not accept Bitcoin in my country for many years, so now many people want to join Bitcoin to get back their profits and economic gains, but there are too many risks. They feel no match for the way to engage in virtual coins.