Nostr is the Church of Bitcoin. And as a bitcoin unbeliever, I'd like to probe the understandings and beliefs of those who are really into bitcoin.

These false dichotomy questions are meant to spur discussion, of course I don't think anyone can simply choose one over the other, but I wonder what people are thinking.

Which of the following is true:

1. If government went away, the people would be free of the oppression of taxes, all interactions would be voluntary, and anarcho-capitalism can finally bring in a utopia.

2. if government went away, the infrastructure would erode (roads, the internet, power distribution, sewage, etc) and people would be living in fear of violent gangs that would have bloody and terrible battles for power.

Which of the following is true:

1. Bitcoin will grow to the point of being the world currency, at which point government won't have any reliable way to collect taxes and government will shrink away.

2. Bitcoin won't get much larger than it already is today because if it gets much bigger governments will shut it down, seeing it as an existential threat.

I could ask more but I think you get the point.

My belief is that small governments are good and necessary things, and governments will not allow themselves to lose revenue in any significant amount, so bitcoin can't grow much larger unless it embraces KYC (which the Church of Bitcoin clearly doesn't). And therefore IMHO there is no bitcoin endgame other than where we currently are. I believe we are living in an abnormal period of laxity.

I"m about to run off and I won't see the replies to this for hours, so don't expect me to participate in the discussion right away.

BTW: I am libertarian, I believe in free markets, I like power in the hands of the people, I hate the fact that governments are necessary, and I love free speech. But also I think I'm pragmatic and realistic.

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The state has a role to play it just needs to be about 95% smaller than today

NZ labour govt around 2000 commissioned a report from about 7 economists asking at what total tax take in %GDP would maximize economic growth. As a student of Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman I would guess something like 5%. The results were pretty uniform at 18% - 24%. I'm not saying they are right. But the govt at the time was at about 35%. Today it is around 50%. BTW US is at about 20%, far lower than all other western countries, and yet right wing Americans complain the loudest like they are massively suffering (when in reality they suffer less than every other country). Just an observation.

these are false dichotomies and not very interesting

- Small, focused government is good.

- Small, focused government is impossible with the power to print.

- Small, focused government is only possible with non-debaseable money.

I reject the false dichotomy all together.

Institutions can be established. I like DOGE. Imagine if DOGE was in the constitution and had real teeth, forcing strict limits on all aspects of the government. Without something like that, government is hard to constrain.

American government is pretty well constrained compared to other western nations because of the American spirit of right-wing Americans. But you and I may not think it is constrained nearly enough.

I"m not sure non-debasable money prevents governments from becoming bohemeth parasites. Imagine gold was in use. Government can still tax at 65%, and physically take your gold at gunpoint.

honest question, not snark 😀 do you know of a government that leaned towards bohemeth for any significant amount of time without fiat?

I can think of some examples that I would consider fleating like wartime or external plunder/colonization. But I can't really think of an empire that didn't maintained power outside of those temporary(?) scenarios that didn't rely on fiat debasement... I suppose even fiat has always been temporary... might be arguing myself in circles ha

first one is a false dichotomy. it's a moral foundation that secures civilized society. John Adams said that liberty requires a religious (moral) people.

on the second question, a govt couldn't shut down bitcoin, and you can't get enough govts to work together on the problem. add to that that in order to shit bitcoin down, you'd have to eliminate every node and miner, oh and the entire internet.

I don't know if it will become the world reserve currency, but I do think it will become the most desirable currency.

I agree in spirit with John Adams. I believe the character of the people matters in the utmost, far more than the specific laws and institutions.

I also agree bitcoin can't be shutdown. But the masses can't operate with bitcoin securely so the masses can be prevented from using it.

Please elaborate on the last statement.

You're saying the government can't shutdown bitcoin if they wanted to. I agree. But they can shut down any single person by showing up in squad cars. And normies can't hide their bitcoin usage, so they would be violating any anti-bitcoin order and be arrested for the violation. Therefore, if the government outlaws bitcoin (but can't shut it down) they effectively shut down most people's ability to use bitcoin. The dark anonymous people with good op sec continue to use it and can't be shutdown even in that scenario.

I think you are going to break the vase regardless of what I say. So don't worry about the vase.

I think this is a sensible take, and one that understands what power is actually rooted in.

Interesting. I have a lot of questions about your statement but I want to see how the discussion develops. Thanks for bringing this up for debate.

It's not a false dichotomy as others are claiming. I constantly struggle with the points you raise.

Thanks. But I admit in the post itself that it is a false dichotomy. They were for illustration purposes.

It's a false dichotomy in the sense that the same thing won't happen every where all the time forever.

It's not the false in the sense that they seem likely scenarios that can arise in certain regions or periods of time.

Nostr needs a new reputation

Interesting, yes I think you're missing the point(s), I pretty much don't have a belief in any of your listed options..

Here's the simpler version: Governments dont like cash. Now cash is mostly gone (america is the last country to still have loosely regulated cash). The savvy government will not take away bitcoin because they can track it better than they can track cash, and yet there are still ways to use it with better privacy and knowledge of how it works. It works way better for long distance transactions than cash does.

That's it, why does it matter? Because it's *also a store of value, so people that believe in savings, can save AND transact with it, without having to convert in and out to STONKS. There are millions of retirees, playing the STONK market RN, and playing the UNREAL-ESTATE rn because they have no other choice. Oh, but they do, the choice is bitcoin.

Many countries still use cash, but less and less so. NZ has cash, but half the supermarket checkouts don't take it (you have to get in the right line).

Bitcoin is tracked on the blockchain, but not the associations between who owns which addresses. That is why I think KYC rules are going to become more onerous.

I totally agree it is great for long distance transactions.

I also agree it is a great long-term store of value (among many others). I think real estate and commodities have their place.

Can you imagine a world where the state and money are seperated? And yes I agree we need states and (local) goverments for the commons we all use.

Yes I can imagine that, and yet also in that world the state will find a way to fund itself, possibly by forcing you to transfer to them some bitcoin. The only thing I'm sure of is that the state isn't going away, and the state will fight dirty when it feels threatened.

Institutions change all the time, so it's not impossible for this outcome. But the state will not just lie down and shrivel up.

I believe that none of the options are true and that government begins at personal security while you are away from home so your wife doesn't get killed and your dog not raped.

If you trust someone enough to do a job for you, you are probably in the process of forming a company (employer) or a government (civil service). Creating a security detail amongst neighbors is creating a militia. Businesses and government will probably always be present no matter what utopia people believe they live in.

My point is that the government is suppose to be small and by The People, for The People.

Now for the monetary system, I believe it too needs to be formed by The People, for The People and not some third party private corporation dictating the scam of massive taxes.

Credit and blips in a banks computer can be easily taken away whereas Bitcoin is much more difficult. Bitcoin has a sort of sudo transparency on the network because all transaction are transparent but the wallets don't really have names on them. Keep in mind that anything else on a network will display curtain characteristics (shit can't think of the word I'm looking for).

Anywho, Bitcoin does appear to solve many problems in our current monetary system but like many solutions it comes with it's own set of problem.

I believe that Bitcoin is for everyone including businesses and governments. I believe we will not truly understand Bitcoin until the HODLers begin moving and using Bitcoin in a fluid manner. I believe we are still in a collection phase.

NOTE: I'm just a retard.

I agree bitcoin is a far better system. I want that system to replace the money printing, and the copy-your-credit-card-number bullshit. But if it stands in opposition to government funding it is doomed. So I just wonder how to strike a balance that works.

From the top down, the world is anarchic. But most of us live in bohemeth nation states. I'd prefer to have a small and highly engaged community that self defends, but I think the larger structures of power do not like such things (Texas may be the exception).

In this scenario, why wouldn’t the government insist on payment in Bitcoin? Property taxes, tariffs, visas.

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Bitcoin will grow to the point of being the world currency, at which point government won't have any reliable way to collect taxes and government will shrink away.

i disagree with this magical thinking about bitcoin alone changing everything

partly, it is going to be because it empowers a lot of good people

but what they do is what will cause the change not the simple existence of bitcoin

they will move their money to places with the weakest governments, and fund campaigns to make them disappear and be replaced with a polycentric legal system, and voluntary, non-aggressive defense, and then after that, the techniques will be replicated in nearby places and the more it grows the more powerful efforts to find, try and convict the criminals will become

because that's really what it's about, criminals run governments, because they are a convenient lever of power, and centralization is why, and this is what has to end

I am not BTC maxi. But I have some BTC. Reasoning is probabilistic:

I *know*, 100% sure, fiat will go to shit, I am already seing my fiat evaporate from the bank (inflation numbers are fake) in Brazil, I am losing ~10%/year, besides being taxed to death. I am sure in 10 y I will be much poorer (and everybody around me too). And in 20y it will be even worse. The descent has been already happening for decades.

I am not 100% sure BTC will be confiscated, or if the government will be smart enough to close all in/off ramps into tax hell and draconian persecution. Probably it will. But the government may be too incompetent, corrupt ( then I have to pay bribes ) or just colapse before that. Or at least, BTC wealth may last a few years after fiat evaporates.

By 'confiscate' I do not mean just taking BTC from exchanges. They can track it, find you, and give a tip to the cartels. Then bandits go to your house, cut your children's fingers untill you give them the keys. Government boys will get their share.

Yeah. I have hope that bitcoin is the start of a paradigm shift, a massive revolution in how people and governments operate. But I also know how nasty governments can and will be if they feel threatened (just look at Julian Assange or Ross Ulbricht).

1. Will we continue to evolve?

2. Have we evolved?

I tend to think that bitcoin will just coexist with governments (which are, of course, necessary). It can be seen as a check on money mismanagement at least.

You're taking this far too seriously. We're putting memes out there that converge with other memes to create more complex memes that eventually tip reality. We make outrageous speculations about price and somehow these materialise... a few years later than we hoped, but slow and steady wins the race. We predict the downfall of current financial order and they seem to oblige us by printing to infinity and misplacing the gold. It's all surreal and also quite fun.

We're also psychos that converted unhealthy amounts of old system money into magic internet money to affirm our beliefs and focus our attention. There's loads of holes in the arguments out there but that's all fine, as long as you stay alive, out of jail, and in possession of your private keys... it'll all work out one day soon enough. The more earnest among us worry about wrench attacks and government going full retard with a 6102. But mostly we just distract ourselves with chants like

- fix the money fix the world

- separate money and state

- stay humble and stack says

- laser eyes till fiat dies

- not your keys not your coins

I've been a maxi for a few years now, we're all fanatical about something, might as well be Bitcoin. If nothing else, it gives me the illusion of control in an otherwise chaotic world, and a framework to improve my life in the meantime.

If price ever did go to zero or I lost the coins, the intangible value I have already obtained more than compensates that loss. Money isn't everything. It creates opportunities for sure. But life is what I am living today.

Hard to explain it any better than that.

🧡

I like that take.

I'm still hopeful that it is a revolution, a paradigm shift. And it would be all to the good if it doesn't cause the powerful state apparatus to start crushing people. I'm just trying to comprehend the likely future scenarios.

What is the state more than a mental concept legitimising force over others that would otherwise never be accepted?

The real criminals duped the public handing them over the keys to their own self-soveeignity in the name of defending against pocket thieves.

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will"

My take is that I don't need mass-adoption of neither bitcoin nor anarchism to be productive and live on using bitcoin in the market as is (gray/black). Utopian widespread use isn't necessary, as all that's needed for anarchism/agorism to work is a minimum of two individuals who agree to peacefully and voluntarily transact with one another.

Oops, I just liked my own note 😬

if you don't rely on magical future events, you won't be disappointed. If it is already useful, you're getting the benefit now. I am using it myself.

Idk what a magical future event is. But I use bitcoin as a circular currency, and I earn it and live on it just like I would, cash.

To th3 first question, the latter is more true than the former. We live in an anarchy in which the strong gangs have already won.

To the second, neither, but I'm an outlier on this. Bitcoin is great, but Bitcoin is destined for collapse. Explanations of this are in my pu lic bookmarks.

> My belief is that small governments are good and necessary things, and governments will not allow themselves to lose revenue in any significant amount, so bitcoin can't grow much larger unless it embraces KYC

Your assumption here is that governments are omnipotent. We live in an andversarial game with governments. It must be this way or it won't stay small for long. The goal has to be to take it's power, because it's goal is absolute power.

neither.

I'm going to make some observations now that I've been thinking about it all day and I've read your responses.

BITCOIN IS A STORE OF VALUE THAT AVOIDS THE SCAM OF PRINTING DOLLARS. There are other stores of value, but bitcoin is one too.

BITCOIN IS GREAT FOR LONG DISTANCE ONLINE PAYMENTS. Probably the best argument for bitcoin I think I've heard. Better than cash since cash loses value from money printing at unpredictable times.

BITCOIN CANNOT BE SHUTDOWN: The people with good operational security cannot be stopped from participating in the bitcoin economy. But the vast majority of people will not and practically cannot have good operational security. And so this may bound bitcoin's growth. If people can come up with easy to use high-op-security systems for the masses (where the govt doesn't even know people bought the device, for example, which IMHO is unlikely but this is theory so...) then that could alleviate such a road block.

GOVERNMENTS HAVE OTHER WAYS OF FUNDING: As for governments taxing income and transactions, it does not have to be like that. Tracking all the finances of everybody, doing accounting, filling out tax forms, this is a massive drain on the economy. If governments found another way to fund themselves, people could become much more productively employed. But of course accountants will fight for their jobs. IMHO government can be funded through a combination of tarrifs, user fees, property taxes, and flat rates (and I'm probably forgetting something). It is certainly a possible endgame that bitcoin is the thing that forces governments to come up with an alternative way to fund themselves. And if that happened, I would be a bitcoin worshiper.

All I'm really sure of is that governments will always be with us.

The world does not have to keep operating like it has. New ways topple the old way all the time. Certain things will always be (human nature, game theory) but specifics can be changed.

The endgame is bigger than bitcoin, hard money is only one box on the list.

Without unstoppable communication and compute the world online will continue to be a gated landscape.

On the first matter, leaning to the first option, but as you point out, neither extreme is truly possible in a real world. There is always power, and it will always have some impact on people. Government going away, rather, can be thought of more in lines with a decentralization of that power, but there will always be hot spots, because no grouping of humans is ever going to be perfectly distributed with regard to their means or will to exert influence over each other. What may emerge as the best approximation of no government is a free choice of government, possibly untied from geographic location in some way (though I'm not holding my breath). When people know you're protected by a particular organization, they think twice about infringing upon your protected rights, and likewise, you would generally avoid trying to win one over on someone in defiance of their protective organization.

Part of where bitcoin, or more abstractly, sound money, comes in, is creating a level playing field in the market that allows those power concentrations to be based more around what people find utility in, and perhaps more importantly, punishing economic wastefulness such as unjust wars through the stripping of wealth, and thereby, power.

On the second matter, again, I lean toward the first option, but there are at this point scaling concerns that make it unlikely that bitcoin in its current form could serve as global money for everyone, if only because with current blockspace and transaction size, there's roughly enough space for every one of the 8 billion people on earth to make 2-3 on chain transactions per lifetime. I don't worry that governments can shut it down, as between tor, geographic limitations, and unbreakable cryptography, it's just out of reach. The best they can do is control the fiat offramps (ie, exchanges), which would make it harder for those not in bitcoin yet from getting in, but nothing prevents bitcoiners from exchanging goods and services with each other for the bitcoin they have. As for government taxes, the government can simply do what they've always been able to do in the event of bitcoin maximalism: beat you with a $5 wrench (okay, with inflation, these wrenches now cost around $20...) and throw you in a cell until you give them what they want. The same holds if you're holding your money as fiat paper in a secret location. Most people value their lives more than they value their money, especially when their money becomes unspendable when they've lost their liberty. That said, I do think the way taxes are levied would likely change, as income and capital gains taxes become a bit trickier to track, particularly with people using various privacy practices to obfuscate the currency they've received. There may be taxes on state provided goods and services (think toll roads), taxes on things like vehicle registrations or houses, taxes on imports (tariffs), taxes for special privileges (regulated businesses, health code, etc), or even flat taxes imposed on every citizen governed by a given state. None of this would be outside of what has been seen historically -- if anything, it is modern income taxes that are the relative aberration which did not exist prior to the advent of fiat currency in the first place.

While I do tend to prefer smaller "leave me alone" governance, and Bitcoin removes some of the means government has historically ballooned in size, nothing quite guarantees that you'd have a light handed touch. Just like tyrannical governments existed on the gold standard as well. They just end up having to play by the rules of the market, which likely would have less time for their fiat bullshit and debt expansion (much like the Medicis had no interest in extending credit to sovereigns, until they did, and subsequently saw their banking empire collapse).

Study localism