Replying to Avatar Yaël

"The actions of a massive portion of the active community, at least online, act in complete contradiction with the principles of libertarianism. Freedom, liberty, and voluntary interaction. Many rightwing or libertarian Bitcoiners encourage the exact opposite of that, they bully and intimidate and push people to adopt their worldview."

Obviously the pareto principle (80-20) applies here.

I was part of the "libertarian" wave of bitcoin in 2013 and today, we're mostly focused on topics other than thought-policing the values of other bitcoiners.

Real libertarianism respects different views and lifestyles, and in fact is supposed to wholeheartedly respect and defend the right to do things in your own way as long as you don't hurt other people.

If there is some online reactionary movement, it is people who generally view bitcoin twitter/nostr as a sport and they don't really understand nor live the principles.

You made that latter point, nostr:npub1xapjgsushef5wwn78vac6pxuaqlke9g5hqdfjlanky3uquh0nauqx0cnde, so I agree with you.

A necessary article, though it should be targeted at the few rather than the many.

Live and let live, laissez-faire.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/occupy-bitcoin-bitcoin-is-not-just-libertarian?new

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JB 1y ago

Not a good take.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/occupy-bitcoin-bitcoin-is-not-just-libertarian

As a political philosophy, libertarianism says nothing about respecting others' views and lifestyles -- let alone celebrate and cherish stupidities and absurdities. It certainly doesn't prescribe us to live and let live.

It says we MAY NOT USE VIOLENCE (= esp STATE coercion) to enforce beliefs we may have onto others.

It doesn't say I have to be nice. It doesn't implore me to be compassionate. It doesn't mean I have to respect and allow into my home dispicable and degenerate shit.

I can insult you all I want. I can refuse to engage with you because you're ugly, vegan, "autistic," or believe that Bitcoin is compatible with leftism. I can ridicule your pathetic ideas or lifestyle, in public or in private. I can tell nostr:npub1xapjgsushef5wwn78vac6pxuaqlke9g5hqdfjlanky3uquh0nauqx0cnde off for thoroughly misunderstanding what libertarian means or what its philosophy or ethics prescribes, or nostr:npub15dnln6cukw3yrflnv3hnrntdt9amh0uw466u6tns05ymqp3nal4qzz3lfc who certainly should know better.

Libertarianism is a non-smart contract: it asks about physical violence, initiation of force, and state power. Nothing more.

The rest-- religion, etiquette, values, behavior -- it relegates to a social level.

Living in harmony with others doesn't mean to embrace any odd retarded thing they do or say. it means to NOT throw them in jail for it

#bitcoin #polecon #polstr #bitcoinmagazine #freedom #libertarianism

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Paul 1y ago

Bitcoin, or any hard money, inherently aligns with Sowell’s constrained vision because it is itself a constraint.

Anyone holding to the unconstrained vision while simultaneously supporting and promoting Bitcoin will eventually run into a situation where the contradiction becomes apparent. It will be interesting to see how they respond.

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Yaël 1y ago

I don’t think you can place Bitcoin as a technology into Sowell’s model. People, yes.

What the ideas are of a Bitcoiner with an unconstrained vision, though, is an interesting question. I don’t think it’d as simple as laid out in your comment.

If you ask me, the people pushing for centralization via publicly traded mining companies, ETF bag-pumping, or US gov’t bag pumping via a strategic reserve, more closely hold the unconstrained vision than those of us who are skeptical of centralized power.

Willing to debate that point.

It’s all trade-offs toward promoting freedom tech.

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Yaël 1y ago

This is all just narrative policing. Reminiscent of the “thick” vs “thin” libertarianism debate from a while back.

(Lol btw I can see you’ve read Hoppe)

I’d agree that the definitional understanding of libertarianism in the article is flawed and doesn’t get the broader point. Folks want harmony and tranquility.

But it’s also true that negative reactions and increased hostility will put off many people to some of these ideas, whatever good it may do them, purely based on how they’re treated.

Ultimately, the question of government power for most people just isn’t how they view the world. It will take time, but they will understand if we give them room to change their mind.

It’s the ultimate paradox: libertarian ideas are the best for humanity to survive and prosper, but many messengers of these ideas often do more harm than good in representing them for public consumption