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I agree wholeheartedly. If the world was cleansed, as you say, of one of the world’s superpowers, whom would assume that role? A small group of anarcho-capitalists, or the thug with the largest stick?

Mike Brock 2y ago

There’s this thread in thinking within the bitcoin community that the discipline that a commodity money will impose, will lead to incentives that turn us away from the worst excesses of state power. I think it’s a deeply misguided belief.

It is a belief that is built around normative foundations of the universality of individual property rights and a general consensus for the capitalist mode of production. Which, people assume, is largely inviolable at this point.

I think this is serious reasoning error. People are not even aware of their normative biases here.

How will the government fund the war effort if it’s drowning in debt? Easy. It’s called the Defense Production Act. It will seize the supply chains and factories and bring them under public control, and directly produce weapons, tanks, and planes. There won’t be any negotiation with the private sector over costs and payment.

The problem is, a lot of people think this will lead to public outrage and pushback. Except it won’t. A public, terrified of external enemies, will happily go along with it. And the capitalist class that screams about it, will be branded as traitors.

THIS ISN’T HARD!

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Discussion

Sikto 2y ago

💯 I have been arguing this point for what seems forever.

Mike Brock 2y ago

People need to wake up from their fairy tales. Bitcoin can make the world a better place. But the idea it’s going to stop these forces from rolling over us and killing us all, is so beyond naive, I don’t know what else to do, but start using more expletives. 🤷‍♂️

Sikto 2y ago

Swearing always helps me.

Sikto 2y ago

It’s hard for me to pinpoint why so many people believe in this line of thinking and how they rationalize it. If I could do that, then maybe I could approach it in a way that changes their thinking.

But at the same time, it is so hard for people to accept that they may be wrong. That maybe bitcoin doesn’t fix everything. Maybe it will make the world a better place, or maybe it won’t? I do believe it will, but I’ve never believed it would be a silver bullet for all of the ills of the world.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

The idea of Bitcoin has never been that it makes violence against others impossible. It simply makes it way more economically costly to do so.

The people who would violently capture private, productive individuals and infrastructure and use it for unproductive war against a perceived enemy will always lose. Right now, we have a monetary system which structurally supports those actions and makes it economically beneficial to partake in them.

If we can remove that, then the scale that violence can be committed on decreases greatly, and the rational behind it makes much less sense. I understand that most people can be easily manipulated by fear or propaganda, but the vast majority of humans don’t desire violent conflict with one another. If it wasn’t for the caress of phony economics which makes the whole violent interaction seem voluntary, it would be much easier to see it for what it truly is.

If you don’t have a belief that humans who understand the truth of their actions and have moral and economic frameworks which make harmful actions unpalatable will stop engaging in them, then you simply don’t believe that we have the ability to reach higher states as a civilization.

Mike Brock 2y ago

If China invades Taiwan, I promise you, we’re at war. Japan will be drawn in immediately, and the likelihood that the US will be drawn in — and likely have its bases in Okinawa attacked — is basically 100%. Then the US is just at war.

All of the libertarians and peaceniks arguing we should stay out of it, will be blown away like dry leaves on a windy Fall day.

The only thing worth thinking about at this point, is how to dissuade China from taking that step.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I agree with you there.

We aren’t in a Bitcoin world. We live under a fiat standard. There are only a handful of millions who have adopted a new economic for of communication and culture.

The Bitcoin thesis is that our culture and currency is superior, and will win out eventually and usher in more peace and prosperity compared to the current culture and currency. However, that hasn’t played all the way out yet. We aren’t at a point where we can prevent the unraveling of the old world, and unfortunately we might not make it there before the old world tries to destroy everything that’s been built.

I appreciate you accepting the reality of the current situation. You can both understand the reality of fiat powered global war, violence, and violations of individuals, while also believing in a better future where a new monetary technology makes these atrocities impossible to repeat.

Mike Brock 2y ago

You can’t beat human nature. The tribe will always close ranks when threatened. Bitcoin will not stop this. You’re hoping for a spiritual awakening that will never come, unless we literally breed our tribal instincts out of us through genetic engineering.

Sikto 2y ago

What is stopping you from believing in a world where our current institutions, that have evolved over hundreds/thousands of years, will continue to exist with bitcoin playing a role within it?

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I do believe that. I just think the “role” it will play will be big enough to restructure them beyond their current form, and largely defang them. Nobody wants to pay for senseless war and destruction.

Sikto 2y ago

No one in this thread is arguing for senseless war and destruction, but to believe bitcoin will stop it is misguided hope. I’ve got more hope in my blood than doom. I believe in humanity, but I don’t believe in all of the fairytales.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I guess my framework is just that it needs to be stopped. It needs to end, it cannot continue. nostr:npub1hyqrsvl6hle8r5rc9cpshesm0mpcee75tgde4p5lhke5h83dyqqqdwk7cp would be correct that if we cannot find a solution to these problems, we face a grave existential crisis. Due to this framework, I’m forced to argue that Bitcoin is capable of defunding state violence and bringing more peace and prosperity to civilization, because I see it as by far the best chance we have, and nothing behind it comes very close. If I’m wrong, I’d rather have lived in some hopeful delusion than accept that humans cannot evolve past this as a species.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I think just sitting back and letting our institutions fail, rather than trying to reform and fix them, is just about the dumbest fucking idea at this point. It’s playing with matches at a civilizational level.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I’ve never argued that we should sit back and let institutions fail. I do believe that they are failing. And the only level an individual can change a social system at is the level they interact with it at. I have already changed my individual behaviors to try and create the better world I wish to live in. How am I playing with matches?

Mike Brock 2y ago

The problem is always going to be, that one person’s definition of “senseless war” is another person’s “just war”. If enough people think a war is just, then the tolerance of the public to sacrifice towards the prosecution therein, will go up.

Ukrainians are paying extreme economic costs — and in blood — to sustain their war against the Russians. And support for the war in Ukraine is >90%.

Humans are not purely driven by narrow economic incentives.

SMS 2y ago

Whats wrong with video games and movies?

BitBees 2y ago

This is salient. As nostr:npub15dqlghlewk84wz3pkqqvzl2w2w36f97g89ljds8x6c094nlu02vqjllm5m say, even if one dies intestate with our #bitcoin uninherited, thus staying untapped and unused by mortal hands, it would be a win for the ₿ community at large. In that way, we are contributing posthumously to a cause in which we deeply believe. I am not saying that it is ideal. But it is comforting.

Sikto 2y ago

History has shown us otherwise. Fear is a powerful motivator. And there is no power greater than a majority of people who fear the “other”. Peace and stability is what we all desire, but to think you can achieve that without the threat of violence, runs counter to the evidence of history that we have to look upon for guidance. People will willingly give up many of their freedoms and rights to property when presented with an existential threat. Bitcoin doesn’t solve this.

Mike Brock 2y ago

The vast majority of humans will give up liberties in exchange for security if they’re afraid. History shows us this time and time again. Bitcoin isn’t going to change this. There’s going to be no spiritual awakening on this. We are hard wired — literally in our DNA — to have a tendency to close ranks with our tribe when the tribe is threatened. It’s bedrock human nature shit.

This is why maintaining stability is so fucking important. People embracing collapse and chaos as an opportunity for some libertarian or anarchist awakening are in la-la land.

2e202d92... 2y ago

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Directionally, Bitcoin can prevent senseless state on state violence. First however, people would have to use and understand it, which is currently where we still are.

Bitcoin can never prevent the need for violence as a backstop against immoral or unjust action. And it can never prevent violent individuals from committing crimes. But the violence we are concerned with today is neither of those things - it’s state sponsored war played out as a political and economic chess game between fiat elites with millions of innocents being used as pawns. We are capable of restructuring that system to prevent that, and we will need to if we are going to survive. If you don’t think that’s possible, then kindly go fuck yourself, because hope is one of our most essential tools in order to build a better world.

If you think it is possible, but don’t see Bitcoin as the tool to enable it, then I’m all ears. My goals do not start and stop with Bitcoin - peace and prosperity for myself, my family, and my community are always my main priorities. Bitcoin is by far the best shot I can see for individuals to dismantle these horrible, violent and destructive state systems. But I might be wrong, and I’m willing to understand why. The only thing I’m not willing to do is to accept doom and permanent group warfare. The history of human progress is a story of group cooperation making life better for everyone.

Sikto 2y ago

How would one kindly go fuck themselves? And here I thought we were having a conversation?

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I want to have a conversation as long as there is something to talk about. If your view on human nature and our capabilities is fundamentally different from mine, I don’t think we can resolve that.

I might be naive, and you could even be right. But I hold a lot of distain for people who think we cannot overcome tribal impulses and the urge to commit group violence on one another. The people who think we are doomed to always follow harmful group ideologies which hurt individuals. If I unfairly assigned that belief to you, I apologize. It likely spilled over from the comments of the OP.

Mike Brock 2y ago

We have found a way to overcome our tribal impulses. It was called liberal democracy and pluralism. We built institutions that facilitated the peaceful resolution of disputes, and the basis for economic exchange.

The people who want to tear these institutions down and replace them with “pure capitalism” or some nonsense like that, have no idea of the forces they’d be unleashing.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

That’s all correct, to an extent. How do you explain the world wars and the constant forever wars we currently have under that framework?

The 20th century witnessed the most mass killing in human history. Some estimates put it close to 200M systematically killed by some form of government action. Around 50M died in WW2 alone.

I’m a fan of the progress made my liberal democracies and rule of law. Historical documents like the manga carta and Constitution are incredibly powerful and important. But if this is as far as we can go towards peace and prosperity, I’ll be very disappointed, especially considering the current potential for another global violent conflict on the horizon. I think we can create social structures which can produce even better results, and Bitcoin is one of them.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I think people overstate the case about the “constant forever wars”, quite honestly. And I say that as someone who is a harsh critic of US foreign policy. The reality is that the period starting at the end of World War II, all the way up to today, has been the most peaceful time in most of the history of civilization.

Civilization itself, going all the way back to the Roman Empire has been a forever war. We have existed in an era of the Long Peace. Sometimes called the Pax Americana.

The number of people dying in wars has been in precipitous decline. So when people act like this so-called “American Global Empire” has been an unmitigated war machine that has made the world a far more violent place, I actually don’t know WHAT THE FUCK they’re talking about.

Here’s a chart of the last hundred years of people on this planet who have died in wars.

Liberty Farmer 2y ago

Deaths do not equal peace. Warfare has changed, bombing drones, satellite surveillance, high altitude and unmanned aircraft. Tank tech, cyber warfare, UN and NATO help, and on and on.

Mike Brock 2y ago

This is irrelevant. I agree with you that the US has done evil. I’ve criticized it. But it’s so fucking ahistorical by any standard — I don’t give a fuck HOW you define war — to suggest that the last half of the 20th century through the oughts and teens of the 21st haven’t been the most peaceful in the history of recorded civilization.

And thinking that if you just take America out of the equation and everything would have been so much more peaceful because you think that the only thing fueling war is the profit motive of the military industrial complex is so naive, and so geopolitically ignorant, that it’s nausea-inducing.

The idea that America is the principle agent in all conflict, and that conflict will subside fi the US was defanged is ridiculous. There are so many geopolitical tensions built in historical, cultural and religious animosities that have nothing to do with the US. And if anything, it’s been the US’s shadow that has kept some of those conflicts at bay. And we’re seeing some of them flare up as we speak!

Liberty Farmer 2y ago

Woah, easy there anger man.

I didn't say anything about America.

I said that people dying from war has nothing to do with there being peace or not.

We don't just send troops to the battlefield blindly anymore like in WW1 and WW2 and even Vietnam. Technology has changed war forever.

Sikto 2y ago

See swearing works! 😜😂

Mike Brock 2y ago

I have no fucks left to give, right now. I'm alarmed by the geopolitical risks I see, and I think people need to wake up from their luxury narratives.

Sikto 2y ago

“He who would attempt to do great things, should not do them alone”

The world needs you to give a fuck and there are people who still believe in the song you sing.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

It’s systemic risk Mike. I think your timeframe is incredibly misleading - liberal democracy has been established since the 18th century. I don’t disagree that we’ve had a relatively peaceful period of history, especially in the Western world, since WWII. But I think it’s undeniable that the structure of the system is cycling back towards chaos and destruction, as you seemed to agree with.

Here’s a chart of the bank failures since 2008. Looks oddly similar to your battle deaths chart. From a structural, foundational perspective, the current monetary and governmental system is designed in a way which creates great death, destruction, and poverty when there shouldn’t be any. I would rather have consistently more localized and individual crimes with slow increases in prosperity over time than massive top down controls causing booms and busts, both in prosperity and in safety.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I agree the risk of chaos is alarming. What actually makes me angry is people who think we should just let our institutions fail and prepare for what's next, cross our fingers and hope we survive the chaos.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

We agree on that.

I’ll ask you the same thing I asked nostr:npub12rze589jx0gg6kslkjfl2gxxkhtlw73t5shyve5qrglrv6c2qflqejj7ns though.

If you don’t like people claiming Bitcoin is a solution to these systemic flaws in our system of money and government, what do you think we should do?

Crossing our fingers and hoping is something we both agree is useless - so what other action would you recommend people take to save our institutions and prevent violent collapse? Would Bitcoin not be one of the best paths in achieving that goal?

Sikto 2y ago

Of course, I believe bitcoin to be one of the tools. Our lack of trust in our institution is the major risk that I am concerned with,and that is what I think we are talking about here. The idea that bitcoin will lead us to Eden, wherein our institutions are dissolved and the US no longer provides stability and a counterweight to chaos, is where I get off the hopium train.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Maybe we’ve both been arguing based on false pretenses then. I don’t think that Bitcoin can dissolve all institutions, nor do I think it would be desirable, at least not for many decades.

I just think that it will make institutions better and more accountable to the people. If government were actually just a system of rule of law and management of utilities which suffer from the tragedy of the commons, I would be a huge supporter. Some form of social structures are necessary and beneficial.

I’d argue that things like mining pools, lightning service providers, and Bitcoin banks are forms of new institutions. That’s not a bad thing, because people actually demand them for the things that they are doing.

I think the “hopium” train can take you very far, quite far from the established way of doing things. You obviously understand that, because you’re communicating on Nostr and talking about Bitcoin. I personally would rather be extremely hopeful of the change that we can accomplish with freedom technologies and advocate for them, than worry people are getting too hopeful and detached from our current, much more grim reality.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

Here’s the chart updated to include March of this year:

Do you see my point and my concern?

Sikto 2y ago

When you are engaged in a discussion and debate with someone and you tell them to kindly go fuck themselves because they disagree with your worldview, don’t you see that you are reacting to your base emotions? That you are so firm in your beliefs that you are willing to react to your most base emotions. Now transpose those same things onto your larger tribe and you will understand why people act in ways that you yourself have identified as abhorrent.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

“Kindly go fuck yourself” is a term I steal from nostr:npub1mc20uche0cy599vpl850aschpu7wteundgsnf0msep79lu3fu5aq3r4ptv and it typically means that we have an irresolvable ideological difference. It does not mean that I don’t see you as a friend, a fellow human, and someone who is worthy of living freely on this planet.

I personally will never be part of a group atrocity. I refuse to pick up a gun and kill a fellow human who has never harmed me. I refuse to accept that I am defined by some group label more than I am defined by my individual actions and beliefs.

I do react to my base emotions. As you can see, I am very passionate about this. And I apologize if my language made discourse impossible. You’re right for calling me out, I shouldn’t use language to provoke or offend.

If I transposed my beliefs and feelings onto everyone it my “tribe”, I think we could establish peace and prosperity much faster. Unfortunately, I am limited to only being able to communicate my beliefs verbally and economically to others, with the hopes that they will follow. This is one of the downfalls of trying to establish voluntary and peaceful social interaction.

no₿ody™ 🧱 2y ago

Too many wards gfy 🥴

Sikto 2y ago

In a world without institutions to mediate “irresolvable ideological differences” what happens? Does bitcoin solve this?

The Servile Statist 2y ago

Depends on what the difference is.

Zach⚡️ 2y ago

I cannot steal your money based on ideological differences, and I have an incentive to let differences which don’t violate the rights of either of us just be what they are.

I honestly don’t even think we have differences big enough that we need mediation, Bitcoin or no Bitcoin, but on the scale of the entire society, Bitcoin does serve as a tool to encourage peace and cooperation.

Mike Brock 2y ago

The idea there's going to be a mass tax revolt, where everyone stops funding the government by hiding seed phrases in their heads is a cool story.

2e202d92... 2y ago

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

-Ben Franklin