bitcoin changing my ideology from socialism to libertarianism! What about you?

[shawshankinmate37927]

I'm totally cool with socialism if it lacks coercion.

Agreed, but in practice this is difficult or almost impossible to achieve. The closest models I have seen that respect the Non-aggression principle are certain variations of anarcho-collectivism.

Most people that call themselves socialists are just looking for an excuse to justify using force to steal and plunder the property of others.

[Beliathon]

I AM, however, strongly ethically opposed to the way we have been distributing these exchange-tokens so far, which looks like this and is only getting WORSE:

I am curious to understand a hypothetical scenario of how income and wealth distribution would be handled under your philosophy.

Have you ever been starving? I don't mean very hungry, I mean truly starving. As in, your body is indicating that you are dangerously underfed by creating internal suffering the likes of which you have never known. It's a special kind of hell, starvation, like burning from the inside out.
See, it's not really about how income and wealth are distributed, it's about that our very survival depends on our ability to produce a profit for some employer. That is unethical, that is serfdom.

If you want to understand capitalism, you need to understand the historical realities from which it was born. Study feudalism and the transition to modern capitalism, and you will truly understand it as the neo-feudal, violence-backed system that it is.
To create a better world, we must provide decent food, shelter, healthcare, and education to all human beings as a birthright. Once that's done, the rest will fall into place, as it won't matter so much how you determine resource distribution if you have already eradicated illiteracy, homelessness, and starvation.

Compassion is the noblest form of wisdom, that is the heart of my philosophy.

[inBitweTrust]

...which I doubt can work at scale.  sooner or later, someone will want to be rewarded for working harder, longer, and smarter than others.  do you agree?

Yes, I completely agree. Many socialist or communist frameworks are able to temporarily function at great inefficiencies because of their scale that is created through violence and coercion with a mandated social contract.

This is not to say that society necessarily needs to have scale to function efficiently. I have visited and studied examples of anarcho-cap and collectivist communities and most tend to be small(anarcho-communist ones are almost impossible to find as they quickly fall apart). Their is evidence that a smaller community between 100 to 250 is ideal = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number so a perhaps society would be better organized if a bunch of small towns/communities worked in solidarity with each other and all of them had slight different social regulations that had unanimous agreement. Thereby if one town didn't suit you well you could create your own or move to another freely without a state treating you as a tax slave.

[CoinDiver]

Socialism works great if you can opt out. It really does. People get to pick the groups of people they associate with, and people of like productivity naturally group together. What you'd find is those that are more productive opt out, and those that are not band together to eek out a modest living. This is socialism without coercion. This is what every anarcho-socialist/communist should recognise, and strive for. This is a socialism that ancaps won't object to.

[inBitweTrust]

Have you ever been starving? I don't mean very hungry, I mean truly starving. As in, your body is indicating that you are dangerously underfed by creating internal suffering the likes of which you have never known. It's a special kind of hell, starvation, like burning from the inside out.
See, it's not really about how income and wealth are distributed, it's about that our very survival depends on our ability to produce a profit for some employer. That is unethical, that is serfdom.

If you want to understand capitalism, you need to understand the historical realities from which it was born. Study feudalism and the transition to modern capitalism, and you will truly understand it as the neo-feudal, violence-backed system that it is.
To create a better world, we must provide decent food, shelter, healthcare, and education to all human beings as a birthright. Once that's done, the rest will fall into place, as it won't matter so much how you determine resource distribution if you have already eradicated illiteracy, homelessness, and starvation.

Compassion is the noblest form of wisdom, that is the heart of my philosophy.

Yes, I am familiar with the argument of "Structural Violence" and familiar with being poor, on the brink of death and starving as well. Why don't you answer my questions so we can have a polite discussion and possibly I can learn from you?

I am curious to understand a hypothetical scenario of how income and wealth distribution would be handled under your philosophy.

Would the NAP be followed? Would a social contract be imposed upon the unborn? Aren't there enough anarcho-communists out there where you could crowdfund your resources and build your own test model city to show the rest of the world how much better your ideals are?(You understand that in the US the IRS has exceptions for non-profits and certain religions which allow you to not be taxed on your land if you do not function for profit in a capitalist manner, right?)

[inBitweTrust]

Socialism works great if you can opt out. It really does. People get to pick the groups of people they associate with, and people of like productivity naturally group together. What you'd find is those that are more productive opt out, and those that are not band together to eek out a modest living. This is socialism without coercion. This is what every anarcho-socialist/communist should recognise, and strive for. This is a socialism that ancaps won't object to.

Correct, with the one caveat that we don't know what special blend of capitalism/collectivism or mutually agreed upon rules is best. Socialism without state/government violence may be better or perhaps not. I really don't care what -ism people want to call themselves , I just want consistent ethics and rules applied to all members in society.

I also think it would be nice to have many choices of different governments all being individual test case examples that we can freely choose to copy, adopt or fork just like with bitcoin. Currently, almost all countries function as democratic republics so there is little to no choice besides a few fringe collectives. These collectives tend to be filled with anarcho-primitive Luddites too which doesn't sit well with me.

[jonald_fyookball]

I was reaised republican and conservative, when i started to get a bit older it became more libertarian but i think more and more people need to accept socialism is good for certain aspects.

I'm totally cool with socialism if it lacks coercion.

Agreed, but in practice this is difficult or almost impossible to achieve. The closest models I have seen that respect the Non-aggression principle are certain variations of anarcho-collectivism.

...which I doubt can work at scale.  sooner or later, someone will want to be rewarded for working harder, longer, and smarter than others.  do you agree?

I mean in the form of Healthcare and social programs that advance upper education like the Northern European countries (Free college and not being in debt from student loans) also a standarized tax that could be seen as socialism where everyone pays the same percent of tax every year and have it automatically taken so you don't have to file taxes unless you try for cash back.

if its taxed automatically taken from you, i would say that counts as "coercion"

[CoinDiver]

Hahaha.... "free"...

Freedom != free shit
Freedom != free from work
Freedom != free from death
Freedom != free from work
Freedom != free from consequences

...and liberals accuse libertarians of being utopian idealists.

[jbreher]

bitcoin will not change my life if i dont have 1000 BTC ,

If 999 BTC is an insufficient sum to make a large change in your life, then you are already phenomenally well-off.

can miracle come to me and send me to my address iin sig and change my poor life

Maybe you should be begging from your rich neighbors. Doing so here will only make you the target of ridicule.

[jbreher]

our very survival depends on our ability to produce a profit for some employer. That is unethical, that is serfdom.

Yet under our current system, you are free to employ yourself.

[inBitweTrust]

Is the current tax situation not Coercion? If you don't pay you go to jail or they take it. If it was a flat tax at lets say 6% and they take it automatically out of your income and then only if you want cash back you file taxes. I am sure it can't be this simple but i don't see why not.

Both are coercion through violence. Why not allow people the ability to homestead a small parcel of land? They can live like luddites and farm it themselves, they can run their storefront or business from it, or if they are lazy and prefer to play videogames all day they could rent it out and live simply.

Why do we need to take money from people at gunpoint in order to give a small percentage(losses through corruption, middlemen, redtape, collection costs, enforcement costs) of it back to people?

[twiifm]

Why not allow people the ability to homestead a small parcel of land?

Because its too late for that

[Beliathon]

Would the NAP be followed?

Yes, non-aggression is absolutely vital to human existence in a post-capitalism, post-state world. There is a zero-sum game between reason and violence in our world. As one waxes, the other wanes. If we want a world governed by reason, we must end all forms of violence, structural and otherwise.

"Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims."
-Derrick Jensen

Capitalism depends upon violence for its survival. Without organized, state-sponsored, hierarchy-legitimized violence, the over-engineered, unbalanced structure of capitalism would collapse under its own weight almost instantly.

Would a social contract be imposed upon the unborn?

No. Nor would it be tolerable to indoctrinate children in national factory-dyslearning facilities (read: schools).

Indoctrination of children in their formative years, before they have learned to reason critically, be it religious, national, or capitalist-economic indoctrination - is child abuse. A profoundly horrendous, violent, and unethical act.

Aren't there enough anarcho-communists out there where you could crowdfund your resources and build your own test model city

City? No thanks. Cities as you know them are an unsustainable cancer of this planet. They cannot survive on their own landbase, they rely on extracting resources from external land and importing them for consumption, and then exporting massive amounts of waste product.

[inBitweTrust]

Why not allow people the ability to homestead a small parcel of land?

Because its too late for that

Almost all land worldwide is uninhabited, most of which is owned by states.

[inBitweTrust]

Yes, non-aggression is absolutely vital to human existence in a post-capitalism, post-state world.

No. Nor would it be tolerable to indoctrinate children in national factory-dyslearning facilities (read: schools).

City? No thanks. Cities as you know them are an unsustainable cancer of this planet.

You state you are against violence and coercion but I await any coherent explanation of how distribution of resources will be achieved without it. I have indeed watched and read much of the material that you have been promoting and don't see how violence would not be mandatory as part of your structure. Notice how I have been framing my governments with unanimous agreement in anarcho-cap/anarcho-collective governments. If you don't have unanimous consent with any decision or policy like you do with Bitcoin than you are introducing violent coercion into the framework of the government.

How do you eliminate this institutionalized violence?

You are sidestepping the question of creating a test case example.I already mentioned Dunbar's number and the possible ideal community being 100-250.  Why not get together with some of your Anarcho-communist friends and form a town, association, group , or whatever you want to call it as a test case example to show how effectively your ideas work in reality?  Bitcoin is a test case example that is working why not follow its lead and do the same.

Do you need help finding like minded individuals like yourself to accomplish your goals? I can help.
Or is this an issue where you know that such a system wouldn't be feasible unless their was a certain amount of participants to make it possible? How many participants is needed for your test?

[Beliathon]

How do you eliminate this institutionalized violence?

By fostering a culture of strict anti-violence / pro-reason. I'm not even sure if it's possible to transition from the hyper-violent culture we have today to some anti-violent culture without several generations or some horrible system-shock such as a nuclear war.

Why not get together with some of your Anarcho-communist friends and form a town, association, group , or whatever you want to call it as a test case example to show how effectively your ideas work in reality?

Lack of resources generally and a desire to not sever all my personal relationships. I have a girlfriend, a family, parents, all these people wouldn't just end theirs careers and lives to come live in some experimental commune with me. Get real, I don't have such enormous freedom as you think. No one does.

[Meuh6879]

the problem is that humans can choose the anti-violent path ... because of the money background (work for life ? Very real...)
bitcoin will erase the background to supress the heavy money inflation.

in old time, prices decrease over the years and salary rease over the years.

now ?
Money litteraly evaporate from your wallet ... FIAT money.

10 Euros for an McDo, 12 Euros for a pizza ... what a fool society that we have made ?!?

[Meuh6879]

Hahaha.... "free"...

Freedom != free shit
Freedom != free from work
Freedom != free from death
Freedom != free from work
Freedom != free from consequences

...and liberals accuse libertarians of being utopian idealists.

you can work for free ... if it's interesting.
me, i like build program to provide solution in robotic infrastructure ... i build already device to manage cell in battery pack and solar charge.

and it's not the crapy device that you trash when you have a burned piece.
imagine that the humanity can build specialised device with a 20 years life time ?

now, we build think for 3 years (at most ...).
i will happy to build my device with bitcoin money ... because bitcoin can pay me over the year (not inflation system).

[Beliathon]

imagine that the humanity can build specialised device with a 20 years life time ?

Rapidly evolving technology would make it obsolete 2-3 years later. Non-solution.

[Meuh6879]

ooooh, please ... ed2k network have 15 years and it's work flawless.
imagine that with yellow page, wikipedia or ... robotic run on the street.

life time (of an object) is a relativity of the poor industrial process that "we" accept at this time.

OK, i'm old ?