Bitcoin = political?

[commandrix]

We've all been calling Bitcoin a "libertarian" technology but what if Satoshi didn't really intend it to be? What if all the political stuff just came after Bitcoin went huge? Don't get me wrong, it's pretty sweet, but remember, it all started with a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. http://bitcoinonmars.com/blog/is-bitcoin-political/

[franky1]

read the genesis block, read satoshi's bitcointalk posts. then you will see he was a libertarian.

but putting the person aside. bitcoin is just a protocol, with no soul or brain. bitcoin has no political view or intention. it simply links transactions. that is all.
only those PEOPLE around it with their beliefs make it political, religious or whatever.

so bitcoin is not political or religious, but the community is/can be.

[1K]

What does it matter what Satoshi intended it to be? It is what it is and the people will use it as they wish. Nobody can stop it now.

[keithers]

Based on how it was initially created, it doesn't seem like there were political intentions.   He could have just left that part out of the paper since it was irrelevant to the actual technology..

[Skeksis]

Based on how it was initially created, it doesn't seem like there were political intentions.   He could have just left that part out of the paper since it was irrelevant to the actual technology..

It seemed pretty political to me. You cannot create something like this and it not be political to be honest.

[moko666]

No

its like this

Bitcoin = Technical

[Polycoin]

Bitcoin is controlled by the 7 tribes of the northeast quadrant in Southwest Hong Kong in EastWest China.

[franky1]

the cavemen that found oil burns, intended to use it as a fuel on the end of sticks as a form of a torch, to light their way as they hunted at night. But humans evolved and their brains, biology and human intentions now use oil to make canadian plastic bank notes. So is oil political from the start (day of cavemen) or is it due to HUMAN desires after-the-fact. Meaning oil itself is not political, but HUMAN's desire for oil is.

[FUR11]

We've all been calling Bitcoin a "libertarian" technology but what if Satoshi didn't really intend it to be? What if all the political stuff just came after Bitcoin went huge? Don't get me wrong, it's pretty sweet, but remember, it all started with a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. http://bitcoinonmars.com/blog/is-bitcoin-political/

For a lot of people it is political. Whether Satoshi himself really saw it as a political message will remain unknown, I guess. It may just've been some weird experiment he did. Who knows. A lot of people want the regular banks to go under and bitcoin to take over, others just want to make a quick buck. I guess Bitcoin attracts all kinds of people for various reasons.

[BitCoinNutJob]

BTC has no political ideology, calling it libertarian is like calling a vacuum cleaner an anarcho syndicalist

[FUR11]

BTC has no political ideology, calling it libertarian is like calling a vacuum cleaner an anarcho syndicalist

Well, it has some aspects that could make it more suitable for one political direction than the other. One of the most striking things would be that you can't influence the market or the economy by printing new currency units. I think it is a fact, that Bitcoin is better suited for a libertarian market than, say, a socialist one.

[franky1]

For a lot of people it is political. Whether Satoshi himself really saw it as a political message will remain unknown, I guess. It may just've been some weird experiment he did. Who knows. A lot of people want the regular banks to go under and bitcoin to take over, others just want to make a quick buck. I guess Bitcoin attracts all kinds of people for various reasons.

you got it the wrong way round..
satoshi's intentions are widely known. again read the genesis block and satoshi's forum posts. its clear as day. but bitcoin the it, is not political. bitcoin is just an 'it'. a tool, 'it' has no motivation, no brain, no voice, 'it' is simply logic and maths. 'it' has no discriminatory opinions either way.

put another way. a wet fish has no political agenda. but if i used it to feed people, this could be considered as socially motivated action BY ME. if i slapped it across the face of obama or david cameron. then I, ME have made a political statement with the use of the fish. yet the fish is still not political. a fish is just a fish.

[counter]

We've all been calling Bitcoin a "libertarian" technology but what if Satoshi didn't really intend it to be? What if all the political stuff just came after Bitcoin went huge? Don't get me wrong, it's pretty sweet, but remember, it all started with a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. http://bitcoinonmars.com/blog/is-bitcoin-political/

I couldn't agree with you more about the branding or labeling of Bitcoin being a bad choice.  I tend to do this myself and forget it best not to do so.  People tend to latch on their politics and block anything out that they think might conflict with their politics.  This is bad and does nobody any good.  Suggesting the Bitcoin models the Libertarian model is one thing but we should be careful, some might find it unappealing if it's labeled with a certain political ideology.

[giveBTCpls]

From what i've read Satoshi didn't want any politics involved within the Bitcoin idea and it's development, the question here is if Bitcoin should deal with regulations or not to survive.

[atc1]

From what i've read Satoshi didn't want any politics involved within the Bitcoin idea and it's development, the question here is if Bitcoin should deal with regulations or not to survive.

There were theories abound as to why he left the whole process because of it's excessive politicization and that all he was interested in was the technological aspects of the process and not as a kind of liberal "screw you" to the banks. Oh well,it's being run now by a foundation whose members have extreme liberal tendencies but that is the kind of crows that that kind of technology attracts.

[ljudotina]

We've all been calling Bitcoin a "libertarian" technology but what if Satoshi didn't really intend it to be? What if all the political stuff just came after Bitcoin went huge? Don't get me wrong, it's pretty sweet, but remember, it all started with a paper by Satoshi Nakamoto. http://bitcoinonmars.com/blog/is-bitcoin-political/

It really doesn't matter what it was intended to be. Bitcoin has it's own life and it's moving away from initial purpouse for better or worse. What Satoshi intended it to be is no relevant any more. What is relevant is what we make out of it today. Like Nobel and dynamite...he didin't intent it to kill milions upon milions. Similar story with first discovery (theoretical) of nuclear explosion. It was suppose to be used for electricity....look where it took us from there...

[Beliathon]

We've all been calling Bitcoin a "libertarian" technology but what if Satoshi didn't really intend it to be?

He did. With respect, you need to do your homework before you start a conversation or you look foolish.

[inBitweTrust]

but putting the person aside. bitcoin is just a protocol, with no soul or brain. bitcoin has no political view or intention. it simply links transactions.

While I agree with much of your thought, I am going to have to disagree with you slightly here.

Bitcoin is a mostly politically neutral protocol that can be used by governments or individuals of any political philosophy, however....

There are some design aspects to this protocol that make it anarchistic/voluntarism/agorism in nature at Bitcoin's fundamental design layer:

1) The fact that Bitcoin is decentralized matches the philosophy and political framework of a anarchistic paradigm.
2) The fact that users/full nodes vote on the direction of the code and not representatives means that Bitcoin is a bottom up approach just like with anarchy.
3) The fact that any one user can fork the bitcoin code at any moment and either stay with Satoshi's intent or go another direction is anarchistic in nature. This is a fundamentally different than a democracy or a representative republic where the majority forces the minority in concordance to the group demands. No one can force you to comply, you can choose to disagree at any moment and for any reason.
4) The fact that Bitcoin is open source and anyone can develop for it instead of elected representatives makes it anarchistic.
5) The fact that Bitcoin is designed where identities aren't necessarily  attached to wallets and public keys allows one to avoid the coercive and violent threat of taxes/theft which is the key principle in agorism.
6) The fact that Bitcoin is designed with key privacy tools allow one to voluntarily trade and create contracts outside government regulation, this is anarchistic.

Blockchain technology could have been built differently without much of the above but was designed as it has been for specific political reasons.

Remember Bitcoin came from the roots of the crypto-anarchist movement.

 

[bitsmichel]

There are always some political motivations behind some code. Bitcoin in itself is open-source, which means Satoshi wanted people to look at the code and all the freedoms that come along with it. The general idea of bitcoin was to provide us with more freedom.. and that's what we got. Technology is really powerful.

[franky1]

but putting the person aside. bitcoin is just a protocol, with no soul or brain. bitcoin has no political view or intention. it simply links transactions.

While I agree with much of your thought, I am going to have to disagree with you slightly here.

Bitcoin is a mostly politically neutral protocol that can be used by governments or individuals of any political philosophy, however....

There are some design aspects to this protocol that make it anarchistic/voluntarism/agorism in nature at Bitcoin's fundamental design layer:

1) The fact that Bitcoin is decentralized matches the philosophy and political framework of a anarchistic paradigm.
for security that not one person can manipulate it
2) The fact that users/full nodes vote on the direction of the code and not representatives means that Bitcoin is a bottom up approach just like with anarchy.
for security that not one person can manipulate it
3) The fact that any one user can fork the bitcoin code at any moment and either stay with Satoshi's intent or go another direction is anarchistic in nature. This is a fundamentally different than a democracy or a representative republic where the majority forces the minority in concordance to the group demands. No one can force you to comply, you can choose to disagree at any moment and for any reason.
for security that not one person can manipulate it
4) The fact that Bitcoin is open source and anyone can develop it instead of elected representatives makes it anarchistic.
for transparency that not one person can control it/hide bad code in it
5) The fact that Bitcoin is designed where identities aren't necessarily attached to wallets and public keys allows one to avoid the coercive and violent threat of taxes/theft which is the key principle in agorism.
Identification is not automatic with anything in the world, its an added feature. Bitcoin just doesn't need it to function
6) The fact that Bitcoin is designed with key privacy tools allow one to voluntarily trade and create contracts outside government regulation, this is anarchistic.
Identification is not automatic with anything in the world, its an added feature. Bitcoin just doesn't need it to function
Blockchain technology could have been built differently without much of the above but was designed as it has been for specific political reasons.

Remember Bitcoin came from the roots of the crypto-anarchist movement.

 

bitcoin was made as the most simplistic way of being a currency without a single entity in control with least added features as possible, that would not help its basic function. but its humans that then recognise that these basic featureless system allow their personal preference, belief, political motivations to be used with it.

bitcoin is not any of the ethos's you described. it just logs transactions. but because its so basic without limits and without political directions ANY person can use it freely, no matter their ethos. so a socialist would call it such because hee sees he finds bitcoin useful to him, an anarchist sees it useful to him, blah blah blah. without changing any code. bitcoin is just pure and simple. allowing free trade without bias.