after men with guns come for a few dozen people the rest fall in line REAL quick
Discussion
Yeah I don’t think so. One guy with a gun showed the world how dangerous it is to be as an individual who carries out decisions that hurts other people’s lives like the United healthcare care care ceo.
occasional heros don't change human behavior,
they are part of it
people generally choose convenience over privacy,
safety over freedom,
and when the tax burden gets too high
or men with guns come for their friends
they dont make self sovereign transactions.
You want that to be the case so your favorite coin looks more appealing. The people who deny freedom money will have to do so publicly and face the consequences of those that disagree, in whatever form that comes. Would you want to be that person?
what i said is accepted by adults who have families and assets that can be taken from them.
which is 99% of the money in Bitcoin.
There are already more people in nostr zapping notes and not accounting for taxable transactions than they will be able to go after. Is that going to stop because they might lock up a handful of people using bitcoin if things get dicey?
zaps aren't meaningful economic activity.
and if they become so, theyre already 90% custodial.
so yes
if they become an issue they are easily stopped.
So millions of bitcoiners all around the world give up their keys because one gov sends their goons to arrest some bitcoiners? If it was so easy why haven’t they done it already?
if they are that much of a threat to the system,
do you honestly believe they WONT come?
and they don't have to give up their keys,
they just have to be scared enough of taxes and jail to not make p2p txs.
which is pretty damn easy to do when theres no real privacy.
It would be similar to the war on drugs the drugs will win. You can’t illegal things out of existence if you could there would be no murder and society would be grand.
agree in principle
but its the money, the foundational unit of exchange
not a commodity like drugs.
so theres MUCH more incentive to regulate.
and drugs arent traded on a transparent ledger anyone with an Internet connection can audit.
more incentive + easier to identify flows
bad combination.
Enforcement is where they will fail. Many governments are barely competent to keep violent criminals and repeat offenders in jail and have a catch and release system. They’re not going to be able to enforce a law that prohibits self custody it won’t work. Will they try some will just like some have banned bitcoin all together but the network thrives and grows in spite of these things.
i hope you are right.
but i STRONGLY disagree that Bitcoiners should proceed under the assumption this is true.
preparing for adversarial scenarios is important and how we got this far
taking success for granted is complacency and leads to regulatory capture and failure.
I mean they did buy a bunch of ammo and hire a bunch of thugs.
Because if you applied for a gun-carrying role at the IRS you're a thug (or more likely a thug wanna-be) and a traitor to the nation.
There are some non-legitimate professions. Prostitute and thug come to mind.
they did recruit a bunch of thugs didn't they?
probably nothing 🧐
Fedi fixes this.
Millions of Bitcoiners give up their assets to the government every year via the IRS.
IRS only has jurisdiction in the US bitcoin is global
the point is that kinetic violence is a real disincentive and an actual threat.
yeah geographic arbitrage helps
but I doubt its as effective as you think, given the strength of the dollar hegemony.
and i really really think that Bitcoiners should not be casually dismissing this threat
I acknowledge the threat but the likelihood of it happening where I live seems slim. My point is individual bitcoiners may be affected by this but the overall network will grow in spite of these actions.
Tell that to Roger Ver.
Have you ever tried to open a bank account in a foreign country as an American?
They mostly refuse to do business with Americans due to the onerous reporting requirements handed down by the IRS and US Gov, which has global reach.