Should they just cede this to other companies? It’s going to happen either way. At least we know who’s running this company, and they’re our people.
Discussion
"Someone will make money building the gulags, but at least its good people building them."
Then we don’t get to complain when companies choose not to accept bitcoin because it’s too risky for them on the legal side. We live in the real world, you know how this stuff works.
If a company's barrier to freedom money is lack of freedom, more compliance will surely set them free.
you wont find me complaining about whether Sears accepts bitcoin.. i will be complaining about what amboss announced today, they can go join the shitty pool with coinbase, etc.
No I wouldn't complain about that. I don't expect that at all. This is the way of the formal economy. Its useless. The informal economy is where freedom lies. Its the only place worth putting in effort to build.
It’s fine if that’s how you want to use it. You won’t get any argument from me. But if bitcoin doesn’t have representation in the formal economy, shitcoins will have no problem filling the void.
Shitcoins have been filling the void for years.
Ha, the formal economy going bankrupt from scams because they can't adapt is fitting.
Anyway I gave a more nuanced response regarding incrementalism, but full compliance not attempting to change anything, but just get Bitcoin to fit for these people I don't care for, is not interesting to say the least and the services built around that usecase are simply not useful for me and so I would prune that from my feed best I could.
Oh and to say the most rather than the least, its unacceptable.
Wasted resources.
Interesting you used the same words that nostr:npub19tcpurtt6xulhw0r6sc404j9jraj0h8me2lzs7z2tqewz7l0hpas59nlea used to describe companies that can’t launch their products because of legal risk. Is every business just supposed to ignore reality and do anything they want? Not really a solid business strategy, IMHO.
Depends if you want to build for a bright free future or not. Legal risk == governmental risk. Of Bitcoin not a separation of money and State? PR are we LARPing?
What other endeavors could "our people" be building?
Are nostr:npub1sg6plzptd64u62a878hep2kev88swjh3tw00gjsfl8f237lmu63q0uf63m and nostr:npub1cn4t4cd78nm900qc2hhqte5aa8c9njm6qkfzw95tszufwcwtcnsq7g3vle our people? They run business on bitcoin and have to navigate the legal and compliance world constantly.
🎯
Normalize guilty until proven innocent. Amirite?
Normalize easy compliance because then being subjegated at least isn't super tiresome.
Let me ask you this, Gary: what, exactly, are you building? Have you ever operated a registered business in a Western nation? Have you repeatedly and openly refused to file and pay your taxes?
What have you put on the line?
I am on LLC number two and will not be answering the question publicly. Both are side hustles.
As to putting things on the line. I was locked out of the building and prevented from doing my job when Microsoft shut off badges for anyone that didn't comply with their medical privacy violations. Pivoted hard away to another company that had no restrictions. Before leaving, I helped start up the Microsofties for Medical Choice employee resource group while inwas there for a place to collaborate with those who dislike compliance.
You're free to build what you want but don't be mad when people call it shit.
And as to what I am building, you can find my GitHub here: GitHub.com/EthnTuttle
Commits have definitely dried up as we've welcomed our third into the world recently.
I'm also an active attendee and paid supporter of https://sbfalliance.org a local group of small businesses ready to tell the government to go fuck themselves when they overreach next.
Have fun selling surveillance tech so businesses can spy on their customers more easily. I'm going to go write some ecash code.
So you haven’t been a founder, officer, or owner of a registered, much less regulated, company facing the consequences of failure to comply with OFAC, for example.
Go talk to a few in Lightning, like I did—almost 30—and let me know what you learn. We can compare notes.
Do you have arguments for my criticisms or just ad hominem arguments for me?
Would be happy to educate businesses on running a cash business. Many pitfalls. If you forget to account for some cash incoming you might pay less taxes. And definitely don't want that.
Im unsurprised you talked to businesses that said freedom is hard. I do understand 'reality' (as nostr:npub1aeh2zw4elewy5682lxc6xnlqzjnxksq303gwu2npfaxd49vmde6qcq4nwx calls it) but I will also not baulk at a chance to voice my concerns over privacy creep. Its creeping in the wrong direction. We need less privacy compromising tools. Not more. You seem to disafree.
There’s nothing ad hominem about my remarks. Until you understand what said individuals are facing in building and running *Lightning* startups, you have no frame of reference. Nor can they operate cash business when they’re working to build significant companies. Surely, you must know that.
Lastly, nothing about it is *must*. It’s elective, opt in. For companies who choose to operate using means and in jurisdictions where they must mitigate risks that could otherwise stop their operations and/or land them in jail.
By all means, run and promote small, cash businesses. Build (e)cash tools for them.
Reflex is not for them. And it’s not for you.
Slay your heroes.
Do they sell compliance as a service?
I get it, it’s hard to watch the kids grow up and have to get real jobs.
No. It's hard watching Americans cheer for conpliance. You cannot comply your way out of tyranny.
Furthermore, innocent until proven guilty used to matter. Guess not anymore? Keep cheering the slippery slope to tyranny.
I return to my Gulag analogy. "Its just a reality of doing business in the world today. We have to round up these people because otherwise we can't do business. But maybe if we make it easy for other businesses to round up Jews, then maybe it'll be OK."
Keep telling yourself you're the adult in the room as you cheer for our children's enslavement in a digital panopticon.
Stop normalizing clown world.
Bro, you went straight from businesses seeking better ways to build products for bitcoin adoption to the Nazis are going to throw us all into camps. I know you know the world isn’t that black and white.
I understand the whole No KYC thing but 99% of Bitcoiners couldn’t name two people actually on the OFAC list. Scams are a huge problem in this space. If I send some BTC and I get scammed you bet your ass I’m reporting then and telling everyone I know I got scammed and if some company makes a list of know bitcoin addresses known for scamming it’s a step in the right direction to stop the scam from happening to others
This list is much different from a govt formulated list.
True but the way society is set up now the scams list constructed by a private company has no power to bring chargers and prosecute in the court of law. All they can do is turn over that list to the government and hope the government actually does something with it. No different than trying to hire a private investigator to solve a murder. They can do all they can to collect evidence but they don’t have power to arrest.
I'm saying it's a slippery slope. Have you forgotten the Canadian truckers so soon?
It’s always possible to do that with any asset not held in self-custody. If you want to prevent that you have to avoid anything except on-chain transactions or running a node with just your chosen peers.
Exactly, so should we teach and provide 'compliant' methods or should we teach and provide sovereign methods?
We teach self-sovereignty, but that isn’t going to be the way companies adopt it on the merchant side. Most people will probably need to use both systems until such time that the legacy system is obsolete.
This will seem to contradict what I've said before about the formal economy being pretty useless and not worth building for.
https://youtu.be/IdeJ1FKdiQE?si=7_5EoE-L1a85GGoy&t=2258
"This dichotomy is critical because we see that in the end, we see that neither of these competing approaches, the anarchist vs the incrementalist, is enough on its own.
Its only by putting aside petty differences and joining hands in pursuit of a bigger goal that we can find our true selves and win the future"
This entire video is worth a watch, but that section is relevant for this discussion.
If you can't cringe and still take seriously a message being presented, maybe I could alternatively offer probably the only good star wars series produced by Disney. "Andor". It has intentionally slow pacing (so perfectly my style) and can be best described probably as star wars as a soap opera. It features people in both the rebellion and the empire basically just being people doing what they believe is best for themselves contextualized by their job title or position in society (both high and low).
But that message presented by that slow paced soap opera might be a little high speed so back to kill LA kill and Amboss.
I admit I do not understand Ambos's actions from an incrementalist perspective. I can only hope there is some subverted intention in there (however unlikely coming out a profit driven business)
What I do know is that contextualized by where I stand, what Amboss is doing is useless for me and useless things inherently can not justify being used.
So yes, I probably won't use Amboss. nostr:note15vfes2r6at9fhzu99zj860kjlh89zrv03clxmj97fy56p6f0m4sqsn43vf