I really don't understand people who support governments. nostr:npub1ej493cmun8y9h3082spg5uvt63jgtewneve526g7e2urca2afrxqm3ndrm should take note. He's not a real bitcoiner.
“But without taxes or a central bank how will we pay for genocide?”
Ideologue bitcoiners are so hopelessly dumb about this... Governments collected taxes just fine when everything was run on cash. Hiding income and especially property from the taxman is not easy.
The governments of the world that are actually funding genocide – Russia, Iran, Qatar, etc. – are doing it even though their currencies are garbage and hardly anyone trusts them enough to loan them money.
Bitcoin doesn't fix this.
FACT CHECK: true ☑️
I’m also trying to gently show these bitcoin peers that bitcoin fixes the mechanics but we must change the ideology together.
he literally said "without taxes" and your response assumes taxes. come on
Obviously saying "without taxes" assumes government is unable to collect taxes; genocidal governments aren't going to just stop collecting taxes and quit out of the goodness of their hearts.
reading comprehension problem or something else?
"Russia, Iran, Qatar, etc." --- You mean countries that export oil and get paid in Dollars for it? Yeah, they don't care if their currencies are shit and their credit rating sucks. That's not how they're raising revenue.
I'm not quite sure why people think a world running on bitcoin wouldn't have any taxes - The men with the guns don't care how you pay them: paper, silver, gold, bitcoin, they'll take anything if it means they don't have to work productive jobs.
Because taxes only exist to control inflation under our current money system.
In the 1970s we stopped using money and started using debt tokens.
Before that, taxes were needed for spending.
But now almost all public spending is new money, while taxes are destroyed, taken away from circulation to control inflation.
Bitcoin 100% solves the issue and does not require taxation to control inflation
I'm very sorry but that is mostly the MMT argument. It's true that in 1971, Nixon essentially ended Bretton Woods and made the dollar no longer redeemable in specie but there have been taxes before that, even when the gold standards of the world were fairly rigid, there have always been taxes as long as there have been wars or standing armies.
There is a graphic here:
https://usafacts.org/government-spending/
that details how much revenue the US government has made and how much it has spent. The deficit (i.e. the percentage covered by debt rather than taxes) is about a third which is mind-boggling but even in the current system, spending is mostly tax-financed.
Your argument of taxation being price level control that your friendly government uses to help you originated in a school of thought called Modern Monetary Theory which is essentially Keynesianism on steroids but not based in reality, in fact taxes very much are revenue.
But even if everything I said was false, imagine what the theoretical switch to bitcoin would do to government budgets:
They can no longer create new money and thereby inflate away your purchasing power while increasing theirs so how are they gonna finance themselves?
A bitcoin-based monetary system would be the best there had ever been and I would do a lot of things to bring that about but as long as there are governments, there will be taxes.
The Mises Institute (misesmedia on YouTube) have a lot of resources on Austrian economics, monetary theory and all kinds of related things if you're interested, here's one for example:
https://youtu.be/bKGW1lN1u-M?si=AVrji4q9xpxnqcsS
So again, I'm not trying to be mean or anything but fixing the money, while absolutely necessary, is only step 1.
I’m think it’s mostly because:
1) if a government pushes too hard with taxes, ppl will flee to a friendlier jurisdiction (the sovereign individual book thesis is coming true on this)
2) if your wealth is stored in houses, physical businesses, or bank account, it’s easy for the government to freeze them and make your flee harder. If your wealth is in btc its way easier to flee with your wealth
These are 2 ideas that come to mind on how it will be harder and harder for governments to impose crazy taxes
I grant you that BTC is harder to outright take/confiscate/steal as a bank account or a bar of gold but most people are employed in some way by companies who operate on the government's turf - and the government expect their cut, so they'd pressure those companies to reveal how many sats they give you just like they do with dollars and pounds right now, and the people coming to collect shoot to kill if necessary.
And about fleeing, I really wish it would be the case that people would actually "vote with their feet" in massive numbers but most people are bound by family, culture, or language to the area they live in so unless circumstances become unbearable (see perhaps California) or countries become way smaller (the South tried that, see how that treated them), the local government will always have massive power over those unwilling to cut and run, and enhanced wealth preservation with BTC, while solving a great deal of problems in many areas, would likely do very little to rectify that.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm arguing these points out of something like academic interest and to warn people that their well-laid plans might well be thwarted by the government but always in the hope that people come up with ways to affect lasting, unstoppable, positive change.
You are fully gone.
Enjoy hell
You should quit Bitcoin. And NOSTR.
You forgot to mention Israel along your genocide countries. Which doesn't really come at a surprise at this point
We'll have Monero for that. Would be nice to know on which agency payroll you are currently on.
🇮🇱
Big L
wtf lol
Anyone believing governments won't be able to wage war because bitcoin is the world reserve asset are ridiculously naive. I remember years ago when bitcoiners were telling themselves that bitcoin was going to kill the banks and not a single bank has died as a result yet & in fact banks are scrambling to sell it & custody bitcoin for their clients. The way to reduce wars is to reduce governments.
Its expensive to wage war in a bitcoin economy. Today its free. The incentives to choose peaceful resolutions will be stronger.
Yeah, yeah, I've heard this for years. As I said above bitcoiners also believed banks would die because everyone would use bitcoin instead. Some bitcoiners live in a fantasy world.
I was just looking through my podcast feeds this morning and an episode titled How Bitcoin Eradicates Child Sex Trafficking is in there. Now don't gete wrong, I would love that to be the case but it's just not going to happen.
Why are you expecting it to happen within 15 years? If its the foundation to make it happen in a 150 years its still a great idea, and the best idea we have to achieve those things. Lower your time preference and stop being so selfish. You can do things that will only benefit your grandchildren.
It does make tax collection harder, which historically leads to fairer taxes.
Value added tax is the least shit I think, and easiest to collect if everyone was using bitcoin.
But that's not the point of op
Taxes are very interesting.
This is good, by our quirky bitcoin pal: 
Nah, VAT is a gigantic pain in the ass, and very invasive. It forces you to keep lots of records and disclose lots of data that you otherwise would not have to.
Property tax has the advantage of being applied to something that inherently isn't very private: the fact that land is owned.
Does it? That's fiat thinking.
With mocropayments this can be done at point of sale.
In our bitcoinised future.
While we are at it, you could elect what department of gov those sats land from your wallet (10% military, 40% education etc), then every transaction becomes act of direct democracy.
We can but dream..
Unless there are huge amounts of invasive auditing records attached to that, it's a donation.
If there are, this is a pain in the ass to administer. No different than VAT now.
Weeeeeelll. This can also be viewed a bit more nuanced. It would still be Harder to collect taxes -> smarter governments and foreign politics
HAHAHA PETER RETODD STRIKES YET AGAIN
"Genocide isn't funded by a lack of money — it's funded by unaccountable power."
Governments commit atrocities not because they can’t collect taxes — they do — but because fiat enables infinite debt, opaque transfers, and zero consequence. Genocides aren’t paid for with cash under the mattress — they’re paid for with IMF bailouts, arms deals, foreign “aid,” and currency printers.
Bitcoin doesn’t need to ‘fix’ evil. It fixes the tools that let evil scale.
Russia funds war despite a failing ruble — but imagine trying to maintain a war machine when every transaction is auditable, irreversible, and immutable. Imagine needing actual consensus to wage war, not a shadowy bond issuance or off-book money printing.
You’re right: Bitcoin doesn’t stop evil.
But it makes evil accountable.
It makes theft harder.
It makes money honest.
And honest money doesn’t finance genocide.
Fiat does.
You sound dumb
Wtf are U doing here if this is what you believe? Be honest
has it ever occurred to you that some of us don't support taxes regardless of whether it's bitcoin or fiat?
has it ever occurred to you that perhaps for some of us freedom is not a larp? we are objectively the least free we have ever been, regardless of which country you live in.
for some of us, bitcoin is not just money, but it's a way to finally feel the freedom we need?
Imagine living in the age of Monero, Tor, I2P, Nym, XMPP, and SimpleX and still thinking that it's impossible to hide from the State.
nostr:nevent1qqspetwkrdz60ejk8xdr4canvlh5r4f2hr7n3m96hqfmn6wh6na8edgxe5fwp
Bitcoin doesn't fix anything. It's a tool and as such relies on the weilder to use it to such ends.
One bad take after another.
Yeah, this is the same guy who was arguing for sending more money to Israel because "those evil Muslims and Christians deserve to be raped and tortured and our taxes should fund it"
nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzpyq49dlcmlaul3rz7hqz7y30wt3m4evvevzegvfk0cneqgzw2aqpqqc82tnn9ckhgun0dac8xtthda6kcepdv4hxvmmjvdjj6ur9v93k2tt4dejx2u3dv9ex67fdwd682eremcsynp
💯 on this one.
I totally agree. "Bitcoin stops wars" is about as retarded a conclusion as you can reach.
People can fight for ideology, resources, or territory, and none of it stops because of bitcoin.
Sometimes I feel like this whole space is becoming so dumbed down, reductionist, and simplistic.
The argument is about a countries capacity to export violence on a sustained basis. A debt based monetary system facilitates this far more effectively than a monetary system grounded by a hard money. It's an entirely rational position to take - whether it plays out that way I guess time will tell.
And ignores the other side of the incentive structure.... If you can't print to buy, you might have to take by force.
There is no magic bullet to fix wars.
Until it is hacked, Bitcoin fixes fiat.
There is a glaring omission from your list of countries Peter. How convenient.
Maybe don’t share every thought you have
"their currencies are garbage" Why?
Locks don't stop all break-ins, filters don't stop all spam, and bitcoin doesn't stop all wars. Another shit take from nostr:npub1ej493cmun8y9h3082spg5uvt63jgtewneve526g7e2urca2afrxqm3ndrm
I saw you had no zaps and was wondering if it’s because you had no wallet. I guess the reason you have no zaps is not because of this
There were fewer and shorter wars under the gold standard than under fiat. Historical facts are clear.
Fiat money incentivices high time preference. War is the ultimate high time preference activity.
But sure, fight your silly strawmen all you like.
Il take it a step further; regardless of taxes, war can be a profitable venture on its on, assuming you win.
I dislike the simplistic 'btc defunds war' narrative, especially because it just does not do the matter justice.
Its a thorny issue, because the nature of armies can change, the type of warfare and its funding. That stuff has been in flux throughout history, whether its spain raising armies with their newly acquired gold from the new world, or France centralizing bureaucracy and forming citizen armies in responce to deal with it.
Frankly, whatever way shape or form, war appears to be eternal; it will find its way under a Bitcoin Standard just fine.
