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Re: [tor-talk] Is there any societal use in Bitcoin?

On Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 08:50:20AM +0200, Jon Tullett wrote:
> > This is still an alpha release
> > * Exchange implements the full Taler protocol, but does not integrate with traditional banking systems
> > * No integration with "real" banks, so only toy currencies are available for now.
> > * Documentation, testing, error handling and performance still need to be improved.
> 
> That has NOPE NOPE NOPE written all over it for me, I'm afraid. I'm

When Linus first published his new kernel prototype, that too had
NOPE NOPE NOPE written all over it for you?

> sure it's very clever, but until one of the release notes says "You
> can now safely transfer funds from one bank to another", I'll stick
> with established options (which include BTC, just not for spot forex
> xfers).

Of course taler as a taxable micropayment system only works if
it actually has any currency attached to it. The point is to
make it clear that the option exists and we merely need to
convince some banks and politicians to offer a societally
reasonable alternative to BTC by adopting this. You are
speaking as if these were unsurmountable hurdles and
politicians weren't human beings.  :)

On Tue, Sep 05, 2017 at 09:23:19AM -0700, Scott MacLeod wrote:
> World University and School (which is like Wikipedia in 295 languages with
> CC MIT OCW in 7 languages and CC Yale OYC) is taking an all ~200 countries'
> official languages' approach to developing blockchain / bitcoin ... but

Sounds like something so big it's unbelievable I never heard of it...

> planning too for health care data, for example, in the blockchain -
> http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/08/sustainability-universal-basic-income.html

Did you read my post and its doubts on the feasability of non-statal UBI?

  "And an universal basic income emphasizing the >universal< of 7.5 billion people - coding and database-wise - and building on the block chain ledger / bit coin, with artificial intelligence and machine learning and machine translation, is an amazing coding, information technology, and helping opportunity (and hopefully all ~200 nation states will provide the financial resources for the UBI for all 7.5 billion people) ... (emerging from their tax IDs or social security number equivalents in each of all ~200-250 nation states, and possibly from people's drivers' licenses, and also connected with their smart phones ... and, conceivably, eventually even as part of their bodyminds with a chip or similar ... )."

This all doesn't sound exactly reassuring, but regarding the key
phrase "and hopefully all ~200 nation states will provide the
financial resources for the UBI" ...

1. why on Earth would they do so if UBI is still heavily disputed
2. why on Earth would they want to use a flaky anarchist currency
   if they can simply do a bank transfer or use any other type of
   efficient and scalable digital payment to each of their citizen?
3. when and where will you discuss that being able to finance a
   UBI actually implies dramatic changes to the taxation system
   and the economy of each of the ~200 nation states?

So, given that (1) and (3) are the actually difficult challenges
in this scenario, focusing on (2) as if it were a solution to the
other two appears quite... out of touch with realism.

Since you published your tor-talk post on your website, will you
also publish a link to the criticism that led you to write your
post and continue the discourse on your website by including these
new paragraphs of mine?

By the way, I have written several positive posts on the feasibility
of CUBI (cumulative unconditional basic income) on my.pages.de - but
they have nothing to do with blockchains since the State is funda-
mental for making it work, therefore there is no gain in using
anti-statal distribution methods: you're not shaking off the
dependency on a functional governmental apparatus anyway.

But let us not end up in a UBI discussion which is highly OT for
tor-talk, and stick firmly on the question whether there are
ethical use cases of bitcoin which legitimize it threatening the
future of Tor and other civil rights networks, unjustly framed
as "darknets". So far I don't see any reason why Tor should
defend Bitcoin and risk collapsing politically under its weight.
Tor should be a civil rights network, not a criminality network.


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