Also, Vlad is mixing together toxic, ethically incoherent attitudes with attitudes that actually make sense and calling it all one thing, I might add. Communism is a death cult. A culture that emphasizes what keeps the money secure and at the apex of monetary commodities though? That's not death. That's life. When any one of them gives in to using government regulations, that is evil, that is a perversion, and it should be excommunicated from the bitcoin maxi cult, as he puts it.
Discussion
The idea of culture is generally tied to a coherent group of people, which bitcoiners are not. Our focus certainly should be on keeping the protocol free of interference, but that has nothing to do with the conditions under which the protocol is used. That is always going to be subject to human behavior.
I appreciate the conversations about the protocol, such as how to deal with the quantum threat. But bitcoin isn't a church, and if a person takes an immoral action like asking for a regulatory position from the government, you're talking about something other than bitcoin at that point.
What I don't care for is painting with a broad brush what "bitcoiners" are. I think that's all I'm trying to say without picking a fight with anyone.
We just have different concepts attached to the word "bitcoiner." No true bitcoiner is a statist. But to you, "plenty of bitcoiners are statist, they're just people who like bitcoin," is probably an accurate statement. Both are true. These are just words. It's the concepts that matter.
Statist is a such a fixed word. I believe that a people incapable of governing themselves require an authority to keep order. Whether the inability to self-govern is an accident of factors s or is an intentional strategy is a separate conversation. I don't favor regulation and don't ask for it. But I'm not surprised when it happens. My believing that a state, even tyranny, can sometimes be necessary doesn't change my commitment to classical liberalism.
If you further take the position that people capable of governing themselves should prefer statelessness as a means of being free from aggression, then you are also an anarchist.
I have observed that it is just the course of things that some people and peoples are just unable to achieve statelessness because they are statists, because they choose it, and they choose it because they are incapable of thinking, and they are incapable of thinking because they choose to not think. They are immature, they have not mastered themselves. They need whatever they need, and they will follow the path they perceive to be appropriate for them. Consequentially we can say that because this or that is necessarily going to happen and there is no possibility of achieving a completely free market for these people within that possibility space, then all of the moral paths still necessitate a state.
But if you affirm that state aggression is bad, and that all states necessarily aggress by definition, and that there is a better alternative, then you must concede that you are yourself an anarchist, and have simply relegated yourself to acceptance, but never advocacy for, the pathetic state dependence of other people. Else you are inconsistent.
I also consider myself to be a classical liberal. A consistent classical liberal, which is an anarcho-capitalist. I got to ancap via classical liberalism and my own reason. States are just corporations. They don't have the right to steal or murder any more than any other corporation. Ergo, voluntary governance is the way.
So I think we actually agree on everything except definitions and preferred modes of language.
I don't affirm that all state aggression is bad. I think it should be employed to protect life and property. I'm not sure that requires bitcoin regulation, and I am pretty sure I wouldn't be cheering people who call for it. On the other hand, there is practical value in lobbying the govt to eliminate CGT on bitcoin. I'm not sure that's what we mean by regulation, though.
I agree with you on all points, except either you are unfamiliar with the Rothbardian meaning of the term "aggression" I am using here and have misinterpreted it to mean force, or you believe in a contradiction. I presume it is the former.
In as much as states act in either protection of property rights or leaving people alone, they are not aggressing. It is the monopolization of this power through abuse of rightful property, such as theft, fraud, slavery, kidnapping, et c., that sustains the state (in addition to the lack of personal responsibility and the gullibility of its purported citizens). This is why I consider states to be inherently antagonistic against the protection of property rights and to be in all cases worse than a voluntary system of property protection, all else equal.
Aggression means the initiation of conflict over the control of a property, be it your body, your brain, your house, your car, your privately guarded nsec, etc. This can generally be observed whenever consent is breeched, as a rule of thumb.
I agree with that definition of aggression.
Then you are admitting a number of unfortunate empirical facts into your analysis of the necessity of a state for our practical purposes, which kind of go without saying and muddy up the core of the message of classical liberalism if permitted to make us shy away from the logical conclusions of our normative stance.
Aggression is bad. Simple as that. You are taking the stance that attempts to behold things one can only behold if one is omniscient, of "well, it may be necessary for this thing to be here in an ultimate sense." I do that a lot of the time too, I try to think of things from a very holistic perspective. But regardless of whether the conclusions you are drawing from that necessitate some uncertainty regarding the technical or ultimate necessity of the state within that narrow subset of possible future particulars, our goal is to generally reduce aggression.
You probably agree that we want to do that as one of our top goals, through means consistent with our principles and in light of our own epistemological uncertainty, so the strategy of working to eliminate - or educate reasonable people about - state aggression within these bounds, and the ontological truth that aggression is always bad, are things we should agree on and perhaps be more clear about when presenting our desire for freedom and our practicable solutions toward that end. It helps us communicate to others who may join us on this journey or who would be amenable to alternatives to the authoritarian nightmare normies have been leaning into.
Rothbard has a number of essays about why radical, unrelenting consistency with the principle is crucial, and a large part of it is the efficacy of the message and the sustainability of the movement, and of the cause. Or you can just ask me my thoughts, I've thought a lottt about strategy, communication, and the interactions of sustainable individual libertarian lives keeping the movement going.