Your whataboutism is becoming tedious. A thing can be bad even if it’s alternative is not entirely great. I can hate apples, and hate oranges all the same.
Blah Blah whataboutism if you can keep spamming bullshit about some nut buying expensive jpgs voluntarily I can spam all the negative things about tradfi until now you’ve still given no response on how a person with their currency being devalued by a central bank and their property expropriated could possibly get any legal recourse or what real alternative you could give them instead of crypto or any criticism of the projects that I told you that I support
Explanation link was provided in my comment. Saying “but banks are also bad” doesn’t change the fact that cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 scene is rife with scams.
But he didn’t really say that banks are bad, or that the cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 scene isn’t rife with scams.
Scams also existing in fiat currency (his point) doesn’t make fiat bad, in the same way as cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 having good uses doesn’t mean that it cannot also be “rife with scams”.
Are hammers bad because people can use them to smash skulls? imho what we need is measures to prevent, block, minimize or discourage that kind of behavior, not necessarily ban hammers.
Personally, I think the open source and p2p nature of blockchain technology can be a better way to introduce measures of control and protection in a way that is fairer and more transparent than using obscure private ledgers on the hands of more central authorities managed by humans that we have to trust…
But he didn’t really say that banks are bad, or that the cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 scene isn’t rife with scams.
He dropped a bunch of links with zero context, initially. Interpretation was left to the reader.
Are hammers bad because people can use them to smash skulls? imho what we need is measures to prevent, block, minimize or discourage that kind of behavior, not necessarily ban hammers.
No. But how a tool is designed influences heavily what it’s good for and how it’s used. A war hammer and a nail hammer are different hammers, useful for different things. One is way more useful for killing people. The other can also be used that way, but not nearly as effectively.
Same with the crypto scene. Most of the tools there are designed in such a way that they promote the power structures they claim to work against. Just look at secondary centralization of Bitcoin and Ethereum mining, how centralized wealth is in BTC and other cryptocurrencies. The scams there also don’t come from nowhere and it is very telling that to deal with some of them (the Ethereum DAO thing I mentioned time and again, for example) the core promises of these very tools had to be broken (hard fork, blacklisted wallets, etc).
Just to be very clear, I am not claiming that these tools had been designed this way on purpose. Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. But that’s what their design lends itself very well to.
Personally, I think the open source and p2p nature of blockchain technology can be a better way to introduce measures of control and protection in a way that is fairer and more transparent than using obscure private ledgers on the hands of more central authorities managed by humans that we have to trust…
Sure, and there are interesting projects in this scene. Nano Coin is one of them. Why? Because it explicitly acknowledges and tries to address the problems with almost all other cryptocurrency-ish projects out there.
And this is the conversation we should have had in this thread. But when somebody just knee-jerks, foams at their mouth, and keeps calling people names because they can’t get over the fact that maybe their pet tech might have some problems that need to be recognized and addressed, it’s hard to have such a conversation. One can either ignore such a person, or extract some entertainment value from their aggro. 😜
Those are fair points. But I’m used to seeing so much bad press against NFT from people who blindedly criticise it and assotiate it with any possible bad use of it… to the point that they think “NFT=bad”, and this kind of news paints that picture for anyone who doesn’t know better…
It would be like highlighting in the news every crime perpetrated by someone of color and then complain about “whataboutism” when someone says that white people also commit crimes.
I’m afraid that all this demonization will make it much much harder for any fair and honest project that we ever attempt in the future related to blockchain technology (such as the one you mentioned).
Those are fair points. But I’m used to seeing so much bad press against NFT from people who blindedly criticise it and assotiate it with any possible bad use of it… to the point that they think “NFT=bad”, and this kind of news paints that picture for anyone who doesn’t know better…
There is also an astonishing amount of shilling and pushing of NFTs. Media, sadly, often just prints ICO/NFT/etc projects’ press releases and helps hype them, instead of doing some delving. And coinbros exploit that, extracting cold hard cash from people who see themselves as “investors”, and who are in fact just participants in ponzi/pyramid schemes; crypto folk are even quite open about this sometimes:
Join a pyramid. It’s not a bubble unless it bursts.
And what I find particularly damning for the whole scene is that nobody from within the scene calls such crap out! FLOSS community is not perfect, for example, but bullshit gets called out. Projects that make exorbitant claims about security (snakeoil, etc), get called out. But crypto scene acts as if that’s bad for business. Can’t generate “bad press”, right? Because if one does, they and potentially the whole scene is NGMI, HFBP!
And frankly, I have not yet seen a single use of NFTs that is not either unnecessary (as in: whatever is being done could be done as well or better without NFTs), or outright scammy/snakeoily (most of the time). Not. One.
So this “NFT=bad” association is, sadly, well-deserved. And those negative stories are, I feel, necessary; they would not be necessary if crypto people dealt with scams and snakeoil themselves. But they don’t. 🤷♀️
It would be like highlighting in the news every crime perpetrated by someone of color and then complain about “whataboutism” when someone says that white people also commit crimes.
I find that analogy really strained (especially in the context of all what I wrote above and the general scammyness of the whole crypto/NFT/web3 sphere) and difficult to engage with without touching on sensitive stuff related to xenophobia, racism, etc.
I’m afraid that all this demonization will make it much much harder for any fair and honest project that we ever attempt in the future related to blockchain technology (such as the one you mentioned).
It probably will. But not calling out crypto/NFT/web3 scams just to preserve the few potentially useful and non-scammy projects would be effectively aiding and abeting the scammers. If people connected to the crypto community are worried about this kind of stuff, it’s high time they start calling scammers and snakeoil peddlers in that community out and otherwise dealing with it themselves, instead if pushing back against any and all criticism.
FLOSS community is not perfect, for example, but bullshit gets called out. Projects that make exorbitant claims about security (snakeoil, etc), get called out. But crypto scene acts as if that’s bad for business.
I think we have to differentiate the technical factors from the human ones. Calling out security vulnerabilities is not a problem, but when the cause is between the monitor and the chair then things get much more complicated.
Can’t generate “bad press”, right? Because if one does, they and potentially the whole scene is NGMI, HFBP!
Just not for the wrong reasons. It would be silly to say “internet” = “porn”, or “peer to peer” = “piracy”, so for the same reason, “NFT” = “fraud” is just as misdirected, imho.
I’ll agree to not continue with the simil about xenophobia since it’s true that it’s sensitive (though I do still think it does fit), but at least I hope you do accept these other broad generalizations that are mischaracterizing entire technologies that are very much different from that negative purpose someone might want to attribute to them due to how circunstancially “optimal” some specific instances might be for those purposes.
Saying “the association is well-deserved” already is admitting to the mischaracterization.
And frankly, I have not yet seen a single use of NFTs that is not either unnecessary (as in: whatever is being done could be done as well or better without NFTs)
It would be great to find a solution for distributed domain names that was done well or better than what can be done with NFTs, it’s something that p2p distributed networks haven’t managed to solve without blockchain tech.
not calling out crypto/NFT/web3 scams just to preserve the few potentially useful and non-scammy projects would be effectively aiding and abeting the scammers
I’m all for calling any and all scams. Just as long as we separate the technology from the scam. My problem isn’t with this article, but with the reactions in the comments that seem to jump to conclusions and paint things with broad strokes, assuming NFT = fraud.
I think we have to differentiate the technical factors from the human ones. Calling out security vulnerabilities is not a problem, but when the cause is between the monitor and the chair then things get much more complicated.
This is all human-made. One way or another, the cause is always between monitor and the chair. One of the reasons I find the crypto space so toxic and dangerous is their insistence on technosolutionism.
Just not for the wrong reasons. It would be silly to say “internet” = “porn”, or “peer to peer” = “piracy”, so for the same reason, “NFT” = “fraud” is just as misdirected, imho.
Your analogy falls apart due to how small the ratio of non-scammy uses of NFTs to scammy ones is. Internet is actually useful for other things than porn, peer-to-peer is actually useful for more things than unlicensed non-gatekeeped access to culture (“piracy” is stealing shit on the high seas). There might be useful ways to employ NFTs, but I have not seen them.
And again: the fact that NFT proponents focus on pushing back against any and all criticism instead of spending this energy on pushing back against scammers in the crypto sphere is very telling.
It would be great to find a solution for distributed domain names that was done well or better than what can be done with NFTs, it’s something that p2p distributed networks haven’t managed to solve without blockchain tech.
And they will not be able to solve it with blockchain tech.
The difficult problems in domain names are not related to figuring out who controls which name when, they are related to whether or not someone should be allowed to control a given name at a given time.
We’re talking legal issues (trademarks, scams, malware watering holes, etc), disputes (should I be allowed to control the name associated with a different entity/person? sometimes I should, parody and criticism are important; sometimes I shouldn’t, online harassment is a real thing). Neither of these can be written down in code, be it on blockchain or not.
These are ultimately human issues that need to be sorted out (often piecemeal, due to infinite complexity of human relations) by humans. As are other issues that blockchain-based boondoggles were proposed for, like: the “AbortionDAO” galaxy-brained idea linked before, or the “fix journalism with crypto” idea from a few years back, or the “fix climate with crypto” thing, or trying to pretend NFTs help artists (they don’t).
There is a reason I keep saying that blockchain tech is a solution in search of a problem. But it’s worse than that: what keeps happening, as with all the “great ideas” mentioned above, is that cryptobros decide “we will solve <this complicated problem> with crypto”, and ignore the nuances and complexities involved. This inevitably leads to people who have been involved in a given scene for years or decades going “oh for fuck’s sake, just stop!”, and now they have to spend their limited energy and resources not only on trying to fix the problem itself, but also on pushing back against clueless technosolutionists whose ideas actually make things worse.
It’s literally this XKCD, but with “crypto” instead of “algorithms”. And with even less self-awareness (in the comic strip at least the “algo bro” admits in the end that the problem is perhaps a bit more complicated than he expected; haven’t seen such behavior from cryptobros yet).
And the worst part is that this is assuming that the cryptobro in question honestly and genuinely wants to help solve a problem, instead of trying to cash out by associating their crypto scam with an important issue and using this to drive it “to the moon”. Which seems to be the case quite often, too.
I’m all for calling any and all scams. Just as long as we separate the technology from the scam. My problem isn’t with this article, but with the reactions in the comments that seem to jump to conclusions and paint things with broad strokes, assuming NFT = fraud.
This is all human-made. One way or another, the cause is always between monitor and the chair. One of the reasons I find the crypto space so toxic and dangerous is their insistence on technosolutionism.
Preciselly, you can’t stop technosolutionism if you don’t differentiate between the technical factors and the human ones.
Saying technical issues are all the same as human ones or in the same level (just because they are “human-made”) is in fact technosolutionist.
The goal is to solve human issues by manipulating technology, not solving problems in the technology by manipulating humans. Manipulating humans is not in the same level as manipulating technology… I think that this should be pretty clear.
Your analogy falls apart due to how small the ratio of non-scammy uses of NFTs to scammy ones is.
The issue is that if the nature of NFTs already makes such purchases “scammy” for you then, of course, most of it will be “scammy”. But note that something feeling scammy to you is not the same as committing actual fraud. If someone is fully aware that they are buying something because they purposefully want to speculate with it in an extremely unstable market, then it’s their own fault if the risk they took doesn’t pay off. That’s not the same thing as getting scammed.
Myself, I’m not one to invest in such risks, and in fact, right now my bank is charging me money just because I have the money stored in my account doing nothing, which it makes no sense that they’d charge me for that! I wish I could just have it all as cash stored in a vault at home and don’t need banks, but sadly sending cash by post is not exactly secure (nor generally accepted). It’s too bad there isn’t a safe and government-backed cryptocurrency infrastructure in place. I would certainly find that useful.
And they will not be able to solve [domain names] with blockchain tech.
Some have already used the blockchain for that purpose though. Gittorrent used the bitcoin blockchain before (I’m not up to date on what’s the current state on that project, I hear it’s no longer maintained and there are other alternatives). And there’s also the ENS for .eth domain names which are distributed, or am I wrong?
We’re talking legal issues […], disputes […] Neither of these can be written down in code, be it on blockchain or not.
But those are human issues, they should not be in the code itself, just like they aren’t in the code of current DNS servers either. Instead, the tech should just be transparent and flexible enough to allow that kind of human control (again, humans are meant to manipulate the technology, not the other way around).
If anything, I’d imagine a public ledger in a blockchain with proper authorization using government issued signatures would make it easier to track and identify the owner and have legislation impart whatever sanction or punishment. Wouldn’t it? (I’m not even sure if the current DNS system allows this, I believe you can get domain names with some level of anonymity if you really want to).
I think the problem here is getting to the sweet spot between privacy and identification, maybe with different levels for different purposes. If this was controlled by each government and there were some layers in place and measures that allowed some level of anonymity at the same time as allowed disclosure in circumstances that require it, this could be a tool very controlled and safe.
In particular, I think a public p2p ledger would be helpful to have traceability of public funds in a way that can be peer-reviewed without depending on the government “accidentally” losing a hard disk or destroying evidence “by mistake”. Which is something I’ve seen happen more than once in my country whenever there’s an internal investigation for corruption.
Ah, I see. Idk why they saying that, why defend crypto/NFTs? They are extremely predatory, and I can tell that from just looking in from the outside. have a nice day
because some of us aren’t stupid and realize money is a problem. You can’t just move to goddamn china. I swear you capitalists just like being ignorant or just in that mindset permanently
Greed is a problem. Debt is a problem. Money… is a tool. One that enables them, but one that is also somewhat useful. As long as it’s not an end in and of itself (which is, incidentally, exactly what capitalism is about, and exactly what cryptocurrencies are about, and that is exactly why I said cryptocurrencies are intrinsically capitalist).
Graeber’s analysis is fascinating. In small communities (say, a village) until, say ~18th century, money was simply not needed for day-to-day stuff. In fact, it was notoriously difficult to get coins in large enough quantity to go about regular daily business (buying food, selling your wares, etc).
So people did what they always do in small, closely-knit communities: operated on credit. And in many of those communities every now and then (maybe once per year or six months, depending on the community) there was a reckoning, where people’s credit was cleared against each other, and what was left to pay was paid in coin.
Actual money was used when a given transaction was happening with someone who was not from that community — a traveler, for example — as it was impossible to expect them to come to the reckoning or otherwise be around long enough to “balance the books” so to speak.
It’s all sorts of more nuanced, of course, and Graeber goes into all that nuance. Really good read, and very much on-topic.
Anyway, can’t wait for our friend to pontificate on how all of this is wrong and never happened and how Graeber — having done decades of scientific research both as an anthropologist and as an economist — has no clue what he’s talking about. 🙂
an economist who doesn’t even understand the difference between mainstream and austrian economists, how what was possible in the 18th century for tight-knit communities is not possible for modern day nation states and how even a left wing website admits that this is less an economics book and more propaganda
if you’re an economist I don’t think it’s that farfetched that you should know the beliefs of the most dominant school of economic thought especially considering your whole thing is criticizing them and any introductory material in the field would introduce you to their beliefs.
No. And yes people can just “get money to move” my god you are worse than a republican. China has very strict immigration, and even then won’t let foreigners into the CPC.
I can just join the communist parties here to annoy you and make your country the way it must be.
What alternative does the book suggest? All the reviews only note them suggesting debt relief for the world’s poorest countries and that we’re all imperfect communists because we act out of altruism sometimes and how that proves communism works
I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out. Really not inclined to do a book review for someone who’s throwing f-bombs at people he disagrees with.
But here’s a hint: perhaps the problem is not the specific technical implementation of a financial system, but the power structures that financial system promotes and enshrines.
Yeah so anarchist communes but don’t we have enough information on preindustrial societies that have existed/that still exist to show that they aren’t as egalitarian as claimed and they aren’t free as of violence either to know that’s completely stupid and violence is in the nature of man and not any particular system which is why no matter how free the market is , people will still be exploited
Wow, you either read books very fast and understand very little from them, or you just pull crap out of your arse without even bothering at all to dive into the source material.
The synopsis and reviews of the source material just talk about it exploring the history of money and giving evidence to point out to it’s origin as credit. All reviews of the book whether good/bad mention the end of the book recommending debt relief and it’s talks about everyday communism in none are any concrete alternatives mentioned. So regarding your critique of capitalism and the author’s background as an anarchist it serves to reason that any alternative system to capitalism that would be promoted must be anarchism so what pray tell did I pull out of my arse even jacobin doesn’t really find it that enlightening https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/
I guess we’ll never know until you read the book. 😄
But here’s another hint: perhaps debt relief can be implemented without an “anarchism”. You might also want to explore the author’s definition of “everyday communism”, and how it doesn’t have much to do with a communist state.
Are you an imbecile if you suggest a book by an anarchist and then complain about capitalism and talk about the need for it to be replaced any sensible person would conclude that you’re advocating for the replacement of capitalism with anarchism and not just debt relief, further more we already do debt relief for poor countries and as you can plainly see it does nothing for them as the corrupt politicians will just continue to loot the country’s assets and rack up the nation’s debt for it to be considered for relief yet again leaving the citizens to bear the cost as nation states unlike individuals/companies will always have even one willing lender meaning this cycle of misery could possibly continue till the end of time with their purchasing power constantly being eroded and the possibly that at anytime their assets stored at the bank could be expropriated by the government and the author’s definition of everyday communism as I already explained is literally just doing nice thing for other people again I assumed that you were an individual with a working brain who would realize that there has never been a society in the history of mankind that has operated on pure altruism and that charity alone cannot solve the issue of global poverty
Are you ever able to make an argument without calling people names?
if you suggest a book by an anarchist and then complain about capitalism and talk about the need for it to be replaced any sensible person would conclude that you’re advocating for the replacement of capitalism with anarchism and not just debt relief
And if you’re defending cryptobro scams any sensible person would conclude you’re okay with them. How has that worked out for you so far?
there has never been a society in the history of mankind that has operated on pure altruism and that charity alone cannot solve the issue of global poverty
Nobody ever said anything about pure altruism, nor charity. Debt relief is not charity.
I also really like how you make a point about the “politicians” doing the looting literally in a thread started by an article on how cryptobros loot poeple that had just been looted by other cryptobros. I guess if the looting is a private enterprise, it’s fine and dandy? 🙄
But please do go on, I enjoy reading your hot takes about what’s in a book you have not read, and what I think that I have not said!
And if you’re defending cryptobro scams any sensible person would conclude you’re okay with them. How has that worked out for you so far?
Anyone with a brain in their head can see that I’m not defending scams but the right of individuals to make choices based on the information given to them and bear the responsibilities for those choices.
Nobody ever said anything about pure altruism, nor charity. Debt relief is not charity.I also really like how you make a point about the “politicians” doing the looting literally in a thread started by an article on how cryptobros loot poeple that had just been looted by other cryptobros. I guess if the looting is a private enterprise, it’s fine and dandy? 🙄
But please do go on, I enjoy reading your hot takes about what’s in a book you have not read, and what I think that I have not said!
Charity is generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering so of course debt relief is charity.The cryptobros aren’t forced to use those defi applications you removed and are able to read the source code of the application before using it and decide whether or not to use it while the citizens of third world countries have no choice in what countries they’re born in and are largely unable to move to other countries safely without help nor did they elect the politicians in power on a platform of inflating their currency again I ask how the fuck does everyday communism/debit relief stop central banks from devaluating currencies and governments from expropriating property of their citizens
Charity is generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering so of course debt relief is charity.
That’s like saying “tax deductions are charity”. Which is to say, untrue. Charity is personal, debt forgiveness is public policy.
The cryptobros (…) are able to read the source code of the application before using it and decide whether or not to use it
That is demonstrably untrue. The source code is accessible, sure, but ability to read it and reason about it is a whole different thing. And as smart contract bugs and all other sorts of problems with code related to “defi” show, that ability is not really doing them much good.
And before you go on a tangent about how “open source is important”, I’ve been doing FLOSS activism for way over a decade now.
the citizens of third world countries have no choice in what countries they’re born in
Dunno, man, can’t remember being asked where I want to be born in either, even though I come from the so-called “Western World”. 🤷
and are largely unable to move to other countries safely without help
And crypto helps here… how exactly?
I ask how the fuck does everyday communism/debit relief stop central banks from devaluating currencies and governments from expropriating property of their citizens
That’s like saying “tax deductions are charity”. Which is to say, untrue. Charity is personal, debt forgiveness is public policy.
please open a dictionary whether or not an act of kindness is done by an individual/company/government doesn’t alter the fact that it’s charity.
That is demonstrably untrue. The source code is accessible, sure, but ability to read it and reason about it is a whole different thing. And as smart contract bugs and all other sorts of problems with code related to “defi” show, that ability is not really doing them much good.
The same could be said about all open source software even if they aren’t technical it’s not wholly impossible to get in touch with people are and make a decision again it’s their decision whether or not to get involved with something they don’t fully comprehend no one is holding a gun to their head forcing them to do so.
Dunno, man, can’t remember being asked where I want to be born in either, even though I come from the so-called “Western World”. 🤷
The point you idiot is that they don’t get to choose to be born in place with loads of corruption and you being born in the west isn’t a curse like being born in a third world country is at the end of the day the chances are high that you have the capital needed/can find someone to give you the capital if you needed/wanted to move somewhere else and do so safely
And crypto helps here… how exactly?
It gives them a way to preserve their purchasing power while they’re stuck in that hellhole and save up to be able to move somewhere nicer
The point you idiot is that they don’t get to choose to be born in place with loads of corruption and you being born in the west
Wait, I’m confused. You kept bringing up how the financial system is corrupt, and kept giving examples from the West. Now you’re saying that there is not loads of corruption in “the West”?
Which one is it?
It gives them a way to preserve their purchasing power while they’re stuck in that hellhole and save up to be able to move somewhere nicer
I kinda think calling certain countries “hellholes” is kinda racist, don’t you?
And before you start calling me names again and telling me that there are other cryptocurrencies, perhaps consider when exactly a person living on $5.50 per day and working all-day shifts is supposed to do their research into cryptocurrencies, not to mention reading the code and the smart contracts to make sure all is nice and dandy.
Wait, I’m confused. You kept bringing up how the financial system is corrupt, and kept giving examples from the West. Now you’re saying that there is not loads of corruption in “the West”? Which one is it?
My examples came from third world countries as well plus it should be very obvious the level of corruption in the west doesn’t affect the daily lives of a majority of it’s citizens while in the third world it does.
I kinda think calling certain countries “hellholes” is kinda racist, don’t you?
Racism is the discrimination of a person/group of persons based on their race/ethnicity how does my use of hellhole do that all I’m doing is highlighting the negative conditions of those countries not discriminating against their inhabitants.
And before you start calling me names again and telling me that there are other cryptocurrencies, perhaps consider when exactly a person living on $5.50 per day and working all-day shifts is supposed to do their research into cryptocurrencies, not to mention reading the code and the smart contracts to make sure all is nice and dandy.
Wait, I’m confused. You kept bringing up how the financial system is corrupt, and kept giving examples from the West. Now you’re saying that there is not loads of corruption in “the West”? Which one is it?
My examples came from third world countries as well plus it should be very obvious the level of corruption in the west doesn’t affect the daily lives of a majority of it’s citizens while in the third world it does.
Ah, so you’re saying that Western political systems and financial sector regulations mostly work, then?
Racism is the discrimination of a person/group of persons based on their race/ethnicity how does my use of hellhole do that all I’m doing is highlighting the negative conditions of those countries not discriminating against their inhabitants.
Living on Defi: How I Survive Argentina’s 50% Inflation - Mariano Conti at Devcon 5
Yeah, pretty sure that person does not, in fact, live on $5.50 per day. Which is exactly my point: cryptocurrencies do not lift poor people out of their circumstances, cryptocurrencies cushion the already well-off and give the very rich them one more tool to use to extract wealth from others.
Ah, so you’re saying that Western political systems and financial sector regulations mostly work, then?
they work fine enough for people to not starve to death and die of preventable diseases but they could be sooooooooooooooooooooooo much better whether or not people want that it’s up to them.
This is how
I call my country a hellhole all the time I don’t care about the opinions of trump and other people just that we make them stop being hellholes.
Yeah, pretty sure that person does not, in fact, live on $5.50 per day. Which is exactly my point: cryptocurrencies do not lift poor people out of their circumstances, cryptocurrencies cushion the already well-off and give the very rich them one more tool to use to extract wealth from others.
Living in a country with 50% inflation is being well off now? also what barriers would possibly stop someone who does live on that amount from the ability to preserve their wealth did you not see my other links about people in Africa and el salvador doing exactly just that
Living in a country with 50% inflation is being well off now?
Having enough money to travel while living in such a country is relatively well-of, compared to other people in the same country who might be starving to death. Regardless of what the inflation rate happens to be at the moment.
Anyway, two things are certain:
we’re not going to agree
cryptocurrencies are not going to make any place better
For that you’d need real political change, and taking stock of power structures in the society, instead of a scammy investment vehicle useful almost only to the (relatively) well-of that happens to support the very same power structures.
yeah so the people in africa and el salvador using crypto that are preserving their purchasing power are being scammed I never said that crypto was this perfect thing that’d fix everything and I have constantly presented it as only a stopgap solution to help in the meanwhile. I’m going to give a real scenario in my country the banking system is controlled by a cartel that funds the two major political parties in power these banks knowing of their situation have denied accounts to any alternative political parties and it’s not farfetched they could make up something to pin on these parties so that banks in other countries would cooperate with them and block them from making accounts in those countries as well what other than crypto would provide a neutral payment platform to ensure that we can fund our only hope of having a functional country whether through the ballot box/violent revolution you need money to be able to form the government and if you don’t have that then sorry you’re shit out of luck. We’ve been granted bailout from the imf time and time again for the politicians to loot our treasury and raise taxes in order to keep our country on life i’ll say it again debt relief is relief we also have plenty of people whether local or foreign who performs acts of kindness everyday of course it help it somewhat but as long as we have the same political parties in power we’ll forever be receivers and not givers and as long as they still breath the oligarchs will use any means to crush any chance of us gaining political and economic power including through weaponizing the centralized banking system even if all turns out happily ever after the possibility of the centralized banking system being weaponized will always be possible and crypto is the only payment system that is uncensorable
Oh, and by the way, for the Suisse Secrets you might want the actual investigation site, linked from the press release you linked to: https://www.occrp.org/en/suisse-secrets/
I used to work for OCCRP, so thanks for bringing back good memories! 😍
Wait I thought you were saying banks are bad because criminals are using them?
Can’t have it both ways, my friend. Either misuse of the traditional financial system is a good argument against it (and thus misuse of cryptocurrencies is an argument against them), or not. 🤔
Didn’t I already tell you that all banks aren’t bad and that it would be stupid of me to smear all of them like that which is why I’m constantly pointing out the stupidity of your logic using silly statements like above, when have I ever said that I have a problem with people choosing to use banks since I believe in individual responsibility and the both of them have disadvantages that are clearly communicated to users and it’s up to you to make the decision
But I am merely clearly communicating the disadvantages of cryptocurrencies/NFTs/web3 and other blockchain-based boondoggles. And that seems to frustrate you to a point of calling people names and using all-caps, for some reason. 🤔
https://www.ecosia.org/search?p=2&q=bank+data+leaks
https://www.transparency.org/en/press/suisse-secrets-banks-learned-nothing-financial-secrecy-supervision-enforcement
https://www.ptsecurity.com/ww-en/analytics/vulnerabilities-mobile-banks-2020/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_federal_government_data_breach
https://projects.propublica.org/bailout/
https://www.transparency.org/en/news/25-corruption-scandals
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/08/09/Bank-Lobbying-Regulatory-Capture-and-Beyond-45735
Your whataboutism is becoming tedious. A thing can be bad even if it’s alternative is not entirely great. I can hate apples, and hate oranges all the same.
Blah Blah whataboutism if you can keep spamming bullshit about some nut buying expensive jpgs voluntarily I can spam all the negative things about tradfi until now you’ve still given no response on how a person with their currency being devalued by a central bank and their property expropriated could possibly get any legal recourse or what real alternative you could give them instead of crypto or any criticism of the projects that I told you that I support
I never said you can’t. I only said it’s getting tedious. But hey, whatever floats your boat! 🤷♀️
whataboutism? what you talking about?
Explanation link was provided in my comment. Saying “but banks are also bad” doesn’t change the fact that cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 scene is rife with scams.
But he didn’t really say that banks are bad, or that the cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 scene isn’t rife with scams.
Scams also existing in fiat currency (his point) doesn’t make fiat bad, in the same way as cryptocurrency/NFT/web3 having good uses doesn’t mean that it cannot also be “rife with scams”.
Are hammers bad because people can use them to smash skulls? imho what we need is measures to prevent, block, minimize or discourage that kind of behavior, not necessarily ban hammers.
Personally, I think the open source and p2p nature of blockchain technology can be a better way to introduce measures of control and protection in a way that is fairer and more transparent than using obscure private ledgers on the hands of more central authorities managed by humans that we have to trust…
He dropped a bunch of links with zero context, initially. Interpretation was left to the reader.
No. But how a tool is designed influences heavily what it’s good for and how it’s used. A war hammer and a nail hammer are different hammers, useful for different things. One is way more useful for killing people. The other can also be used that way, but not nearly as effectively.
Same with the crypto scene. Most of the tools there are designed in such a way that they promote the power structures they claim to work against. Just look at secondary centralization of Bitcoin and Ethereum mining, how centralized wealth is in BTC and other cryptocurrencies. The scams there also don’t come from nowhere and it is very telling that to deal with some of them (the Ethereum DAO thing I mentioned time and again, for example) the core promises of these very tools had to be broken (hard fork, blacklisted wallets, etc).
Just to be very clear, I am not claiming that these tools had been designed this way on purpose. Maybe, maybe not, I don’t know. But that’s what their design lends itself very well to.
Sure, and there are interesting projects in this scene. Nano Coin is one of them. Why? Because it explicitly acknowledges and tries to address the problems with almost all other cryptocurrency-ish projects out there.
And this is the conversation we should have had in this thread. But when somebody just knee-jerks, foams at their mouth, and keeps calling people names because they can’t get over the fact that maybe their pet tech might have some problems that need to be recognized and addressed, it’s hard to have such a conversation. One can either ignore such a person, or extract some entertainment value from their aggro. 😜
Yeah, I never said I’m a nice person.
Those are fair points. But I’m used to seeing so much bad press against NFT from people who blindedly criticise it and assotiate it with any possible bad use of it… to the point that they think “NFT=bad”, and this kind of news paints that picture for anyone who doesn’t know better…
It would be like highlighting in the news every crime perpetrated by someone of color and then complain about “whataboutism” when someone says that white people also commit crimes.
I’m afraid that all this demonization will make it much much harder for any fair and honest project that we ever attempt in the future related to blockchain technology (such as the one you mentioned).
There is also an astonishing amount of shilling and pushing of NFTs. Media, sadly, often just prints ICO/NFT/etc projects’ press releases and helps hype them, instead of doing some delving. And coinbros exploit that, extracting cold hard cash from people who see themselves as “investors”, and who are in fact just participants in ponzi/pyramid schemes; crypto folk are even quite open about this sometimes:
And what I find particularly damning for the whole scene is that nobody from within the scene calls such crap out! FLOSS community is not perfect, for example, but bullshit gets called out. Projects that make exorbitant claims about security (snakeoil, etc), get called out. But crypto scene acts as if that’s bad for business. Can’t generate “bad press”, right? Because if one does, they and potentially the whole scene is NGMI, HFBP!
And frankly, I have not yet seen a single use of NFTs that is not either unnecessary (as in: whatever is being done could be done as well or better without NFTs), or outright scammy/snakeoily (most of the time). Not. One.
So this “NFT=bad” association is, sadly, well-deserved. And those negative stories are, I feel, necessary; they would not be necessary if crypto people dealt with scams and snakeoil themselves. But they don’t. 🤷♀️
I find that analogy really strained (especially in the context of all what I wrote above and the general scammyness of the whole crypto/NFT/web3 sphere) and difficult to engage with without touching on sensitive stuff related to xenophobia, racism, etc.
It probably will. But not calling out crypto/NFT/web3 scams just to preserve the few potentially useful and non-scammy projects would be effectively aiding and abeting the scammers. If people connected to the crypto community are worried about this kind of stuff, it’s high time they start calling scammers and snakeoil peddlers in that community out and otherwise dealing with it themselves, instead if pushing back against any and all criticism.
I think we have to differentiate the technical factors from the human ones. Calling out security vulnerabilities is not a problem, but when the cause is between the monitor and the chair then things get much more complicated.
Just not for the wrong reasons. It would be silly to say “internet” = “porn”, or “peer to peer” = “piracy”, so for the same reason, “NFT” = “fraud” is just as misdirected, imho.
I’ll agree to not continue with the simil about xenophobia since it’s true that it’s sensitive (though I do still think it does fit), but at least I hope you do accept these other broad generalizations that are mischaracterizing entire technologies that are very much different from that negative purpose someone might want to attribute to them due to how circunstancially “optimal” some specific instances might be for those purposes.
Saying “the association is well-deserved” already is admitting to the mischaracterization.
It would be great to find a solution for distributed domain names that was done well or better than what can be done with NFTs, it’s something that p2p distributed networks haven’t managed to solve without blockchain tech.
I’m all for calling any and all scams. Just as long as we separate the technology from the scam. My problem isn’t with this article, but with the reactions in the comments that seem to jump to conclusions and paint things with broad strokes, assuming NFT = fraud.
This is all human-made. One way or another, the cause is always between monitor and the chair. One of the reasons I find the crypto space so toxic and dangerous is their insistence on technosolutionism.
Your analogy falls apart due to how small the ratio of non-scammy uses of NFTs to scammy ones is. Internet is actually useful for other things than porn, peer-to-peer is actually useful for more things than unlicensed non-gatekeeped access to culture (“piracy” is stealing shit on the high seas). There might be useful ways to employ NFTs, but I have not seen them.
And again: the fact that NFT proponents focus on pushing back against any and all criticism instead of spending this energy on pushing back against scammers in the crypto sphere is very telling.
And they will not be able to solve it with blockchain tech.
The difficult problems in domain names are not related to figuring out who controls which name when, they are related to whether or not someone should be allowed to control a given name at a given time.
We’re talking legal issues (trademarks, scams, malware watering holes, etc), disputes (should I be allowed to control the name associated with a different entity/person? sometimes I should, parody and criticism are important; sometimes I shouldn’t, online harassment is a real thing). Neither of these can be written down in code, be it on blockchain or not.
These are ultimately human issues that need to be sorted out (often piecemeal, due to infinite complexity of human relations) by humans. As are other issues that blockchain-based boondoggles were proposed for, like: the “AbortionDAO” galaxy-brained idea linked before, or the “fix journalism with crypto” idea from a few years back, or the “fix climate with crypto” thing, or trying to pretend NFTs help artists (they don’t).
There is a reason I keep saying that blockchain tech is a solution in search of a problem. But it’s worse than that: what keeps happening, as with all the “great ideas” mentioned above, is that cryptobros decide “we will solve
<this complicated problem>
with crypto”, and ignore the nuances and complexities involved. This inevitably leads to people who have been involved in a given scene for years or decades going “oh for fuck’s sake, just stop!”, and now they have to spend their limited energy and resources not only on trying to fix the problem itself, but also on pushing back against clueless technosolutionists whose ideas actually make things worse.It’s literally this XKCD, but with “crypto” instead of “algorithms”. And with even less self-awareness (in the comic strip at least the “algo bro” admits in the end that the problem is perhaps a bit more complicated than he expected; haven’t seen such behavior from cryptobros yet).
And the worst part is that this is assuming that the cryptobro in question honestly and genuinely wants to help solve a problem, instead of trying to cash out by associating their crypto scam with an important issue and using this to drive it “to the moon”. Which seems to be the case quite often, too.
If the shoe fits…
Preciselly, you can’t stop technosolutionism if you don’t differentiate between the technical factors and the human ones.
Saying technical issues are all the same as human ones or in the same level (just because they are “human-made”) is in fact technosolutionist.
The goal is to solve human issues by manipulating technology, not solving problems in the technology by manipulating humans. Manipulating humans is not in the same level as manipulating technology… I think that this should be pretty clear.
The issue is that if the nature of NFTs already makes such purchases “scammy” for you then, of course, most of it will be “scammy”. But note that something feeling scammy to you is not the same as committing actual fraud. If someone is fully aware that they are buying something because they purposefully want to speculate with it in an extremely unstable market, then it’s their own fault if the risk they took doesn’t pay off. That’s not the same thing as getting scammed.
Myself, I’m not one to invest in such risks, and in fact, right now my bank is charging me money just because I have the money stored in my account doing nothing, which it makes no sense that they’d charge me for that! I wish I could just have it all as cash stored in a vault at home and don’t need banks, but sadly sending cash by post is not exactly secure (nor generally accepted). It’s too bad there isn’t a safe and government-backed cryptocurrency infrastructure in place. I would certainly find that useful.
Some have already used the blockchain for that purpose though. Gittorrent used the bitcoin blockchain before (I’m not up to date on what’s the current state on that project, I hear it’s no longer maintained and there are other alternatives). And there’s also the ENS for .eth domain names which are distributed, or am I wrong?
But those are human issues, they should not be in the code itself, just like they aren’t in the code of current DNS servers either. Instead, the tech should just be transparent and flexible enough to allow that kind of human control (again, humans are meant to manipulate the technology, not the other way around).
If anything, I’d imagine a public ledger in a blockchain with proper authorization using government issued signatures would make it easier to track and identify the owner and have legislation impart whatever sanction or punishment. Wouldn’t it? (I’m not even sure if the current DNS system allows this, I believe you can get domain names with some level of anonymity if you really want to).
I think the problem here is getting to the sweet spot between privacy and identification, maybe with different levels for different purposes. If this was controlled by each government and there were some layers in place and measures that allowed some level of anonymity at the same time as allowed disclosure in circumstances that require it, this could be a tool very controlled and safe.
In particular, I think a public p2p ledger would be helpful to have traceability of public funds in a way that can be peer-reviewed without depending on the government “accidentally” losing a hard disk or destroying evidence “by mistake”. Which is something I’ve seen happen more than once in my country whenever there’s an internal investigation for corruption.
Ah, I see. Idk why they saying that, why defend crypto/NFTs? They are extremely predatory, and I can tell that from just looking in from the outside. have a nice day
Saying “apples are horrible” does not defend oranges. Two things can be bad at the same time. This is not a competition.
very true! The dude also has quite the shit comment history, what a load of garbage.
There is some entertainment value to this, though. Does brighten the day, in a weird way. 😄
Go fuck yourself you dumb communist removed
How… eloquent
Go to China and live in the countryside to experience your egalitarian and efficient utopia
okay? that really isn’t the threat you think it is.
why is that socialists are always on the internet complaining about the horrible west instead of living in their utopia
because some of us aren’t stupid and realize money is a problem. You can’t just move to goddamn china. I swear you capitalists just like being ignorant or just in that mindset permanently
Greed is a problem. Debt is a problem. Money… is a tool. One that enables them, but one that is also somewhat useful. As long as it’s not an end in and of itself (which is, incidentally, exactly what capitalism is about, and exactly what cryptocurrencies are about, and that is exactly why I said cryptocurrencies are intrinsically capitalist).
Graeber’s analysis is fascinating. In small communities (say, a village) until, say ~18th century, money was simply not needed for day-to-day stuff. In fact, it was notoriously difficult to get coins in large enough quantity to go about regular daily business (buying food, selling your wares, etc).
So people did what they always do in small, closely-knit communities: operated on credit. And in many of those communities every now and then (maybe once per year or six months, depending on the community) there was a reckoning, where people’s credit was cleared against each other, and what was left to pay was paid in coin.
Actual money was used when a given transaction was happening with someone who was not from that community — a traveler, for example — as it was impossible to expect them to come to the reckoning or otherwise be around long enough to “balance the books” so to speak.
It’s all sorts of more nuanced, of course, and Graeber goes into all that nuance. Really good read, and very much on-topic.
Anyway, can’t wait for our friend to pontificate on how all of this is wrong and never happened and how Graeber — having done decades of scientific research both as an anthropologist and as an economist — has no clue what he’s talking about. 🙂
an economist who doesn’t even understand the difference between mainstream and austrian economists, how what was possible in the 18th century for tight-knit communities is not possible for modern day nation states and how even a left wing website admits that this is less an economics book and more propaganda
You forgot your monocle emojo. Here, take mine: 🧐
if you’re an economist I don’t think it’s that farfetched that you should know the beliefs of the most dominant school of economic thought especially considering your whole thing is criticizing them and any introductory material in the field would introduce you to their beliefs.
I think it’s far fetched to assume, especially without having read any of his works, that Graeber doesn’t know Austrian economics. 🤣
he gives ludwig von mises as an example of a mainstream economist so yeah it’s clear he doesn’t
Again, monocle! Here: 🧐
yeah so he’s a fraud
🧐
then get the money and go to china and leave us capitalists alone
No. And yes people can just “get money to move” my god you are worse than a republican. China has very strict immigration, and even then won’t let foreigners into the CPC.
I can just join the communist parties here to annoy you and make your country the way it must be.
fuck off and go raise funds to bring about the glorious revolution and ruin your own country
Post an alternative if you can trash something it must mean you know of something better
I already linked you to a book that points towards some alternatives, but you refused to consider it. 🤷♀️
What alternative does the book suggest? All the reviews only note them suggesting debt relief for the world’s poorest countries and that we’re all imperfect communists because we act out of altruism sometimes and how that proves communism works
I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out. Really not inclined to do a book review for someone who’s throwing f-bombs at people he disagrees with.
But here’s a hint: perhaps the problem is not the specific technical implementation of a financial system, but the power structures that financial system promotes and enshrines.
Yeah so anarchist communes but don’t we have enough information on preindustrial societies that have existed/that still exist to show that they aren’t as egalitarian as claimed and they aren’t free as of violence either to know that’s completely stupid and violence is in the nature of man and not any particular system which is why no matter how free the market is , people will still be exploited
Wow, you either read books very fast and understand very little from them, or you just pull crap out of your arse without even bothering at all to dive into the source material.
I wonder which one is it. 🤔
The synopsis and reviews of the source material just talk about it exploring the history of money and giving evidence to point out to it’s origin as credit. All reviews of the book whether good/bad mention the end of the book recommending debt relief and it’s talks about everyday communism in none are any concrete alternatives mentioned. So regarding your critique of capitalism and the author’s background as an anarchist it serves to reason that any alternative system to capitalism that would be promoted must be anarchism so what pray tell did I pull out of my arse even jacobin doesn’t really find it that enlightening https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/08/debt-the-first-500-pages/
I guess we’ll never know until you read the book. 😄
But here’s another hint: perhaps debt relief can be implemented without an “anarchism”. You might also want to explore the author’s definition of “everyday communism”, and how it doesn’t have much to do with a communist state.
But I am not going to hold my breath here.
Are you an imbecile if you suggest a book by an anarchist and then complain about capitalism and talk about the need for it to be replaced any sensible person would conclude that you’re advocating for the replacement of capitalism with anarchism and not just debt relief, further more we already do debt relief for poor countries and as you can plainly see it does nothing for them as the corrupt politicians will just continue to loot the country’s assets and rack up the nation’s debt for it to be considered for relief yet again leaving the citizens to bear the cost as nation states unlike individuals/companies will always have even one willing lender meaning this cycle of misery could possibly continue till the end of time with their purchasing power constantly being eroded and the possibly that at anytime their assets stored at the bank could be expropriated by the government and the author’s definition of everyday communism as I already explained is literally just doing nice thing for other people again I assumed that you were an individual with a working brain who would realize that there has never been a society in the history of mankind that has operated on pure altruism and that charity alone cannot solve the issue of global poverty
Are you ever able to make an argument without calling people names?
And if you’re defending cryptobro scams any sensible person would conclude you’re okay with them. How has that worked out for you so far?
Nobody ever said anything about pure altruism, nor charity. Debt relief is not charity.
I also really like how you make a point about the “politicians” doing the looting literally in a thread started by an article on how cryptobros loot poeple that had just been looted by other cryptobros. I guess if the looting is a private enterprise, it’s fine and dandy? 🙄
But please do go on, I enjoy reading your hot takes about what’s in a book you have not read, and what I think that I have not said!
Anyone with a brain in their head can see that I’m not defending scams but the right of individuals to make choices based on the information given to them and bear the responsibilities for those choices.
Charity is generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering so of course debt relief is charity.The cryptobros aren’t forced to use those defi applications you removed and are able to read the source code of the application before using it and decide whether or not to use it while the citizens of third world countries have no choice in what countries they’re born in and are largely unable to move to other countries safely without help nor did they elect the politicians in power on a platform of inflating their currency again I ask how the fuck does everyday communism/debit relief stop central banks from devaluating currencies and governments from expropriating property of their citizens
That’s like saying “tax deductions are charity”. Which is to say, untrue. Charity is personal, debt forgiveness is public policy.
That is demonstrably untrue. The source code is accessible, sure, but ability to read it and reason about it is a whole different thing. And as smart contract bugs and all other sorts of problems with code related to “defi” show, that ability is not really doing them much good.
And before you go on a tangent about how “open source is important”, I’ve been doing FLOSS activism for way over a decade now.
Dunno, man, can’t remember being asked where I want to be born in either, even though I come from the so-called “Western World”. 🤷
And crypto helps here… how exactly?
Again, I guess we’ll never know!
please open a dictionary whether or not an act of kindness is done by an individual/company/government doesn’t alter the fact that it’s charity.
The same could be said about all open source software even if they aren’t technical it’s not wholly impossible to get in touch with people are and make a decision again it’s their decision whether or not to get involved with something they don’t fully comprehend no one is holding a gun to their head forcing them to do so.
The point you idiot is that they don’t get to choose to be born in place with loads of corruption and you being born in the west isn’t a curse like being born in a third world country is at the end of the day the chances are high that you have the capital needed/can find someone to give you the capital if you needed/wanted to move somewhere else and do so safely
It gives them a way to preserve their purchasing power while they’re stuck in that hellhole and save up to be able to move somewhere nicer
Wait, I’m confused. You kept bringing up how the financial system is corrupt, and kept giving examples from the West. Now you’re saying that there is not loads of corruption in “the West”?
Which one is it?
I kinda think calling certain countries “hellholes” is kinda racist, don’t you?
Also, what purchasing power is there to be preserved, exactly, when people in such circumstances often earn less than $5.5 per day while BTC transaction fees “plummeted” down to ~$2?
And before you start calling me names again and telling me that there are other cryptocurrencies, perhaps consider when exactly a person living on $5.50 per day and working all-day shifts is supposed to do their research into cryptocurrencies, not to mention reading the code and the smart contracts to make sure all is nice and dandy.
Outside, of course, of right-libertarian fantasy world, not all too much different from Cryptoland perhaps, which is so cringe and intethered from reality that it is literally a meme. 🤣
My examples came from third world countries as well plus it should be very obvious the level of corruption in the west doesn’t affect the daily lives of a majority of it’s citizens while in the third world it does.
Racism is the discrimination of a person/group of persons based on their race/ethnicity how does my use of hellhole do that all I’m doing is highlighting the negative conditions of those countries not discriminating against their inhabitants.
https://internationalfinance.com/the-rise-of-crypto-adoption-in-africa/
https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/lightning-network-bitcoin-usage-adoption-el-salvador
Living on Defi: How I Survive Argentina’s 50% Inflation - Mariano Conti at Devcon 5 https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=ZEPx-iS7sz8
Ah, so you’re saying that Western political systems and financial sector regulations mostly work, then?
This is how.
Yeah, pretty sure that person does not, in fact, live on $5.50 per day. Which is exactly my point: cryptocurrencies do not lift poor people out of their circumstances, cryptocurrencies cushion the already well-off and give the very rich them one more tool to use to extract wealth from others.
they work fine enough for people to not starve to death and die of preventable diseases but they could be sooooooooooooooooooooooo much better whether or not people want that it’s up to them.
I call my country a hellhole all the time I don’t care about the opinions of trump and other people just that we make them stop being hellholes.
Living in a country with 50% inflation is being well off now? also what barriers would possibly stop someone who does live on that amount from the ability to preserve their wealth did you not see my other links about people in Africa and el salvador doing exactly just that
Having enough money to travel while living in such a country is relatively well-of, compared to other people in the same country who might be starving to death. Regardless of what the inflation rate happens to be at the moment.
Anyway, two things are certain:
For that you’d need real political change, and taking stock of power structures in the society, instead of a scammy investment vehicle useful almost only to the (relatively) well-of that happens to support the very same power structures.
yeah so the people in africa and el salvador using crypto that are preserving their purchasing power are being scammed I never said that crypto was this perfect thing that’d fix everything and I have constantly presented it as only a stopgap solution to help in the meanwhile. I’m going to give a real scenario in my country the banking system is controlled by a cartel that funds the two major political parties in power these banks knowing of their situation have denied accounts to any alternative political parties and it’s not farfetched they could make up something to pin on these parties so that banks in other countries would cooperate with them and block them from making accounts in those countries as well what other than crypto would provide a neutral payment platform to ensure that we can fund our only hope of having a functional country whether through the ballot box/violent revolution you need money to be able to form the government and if you don’t have that then sorry you’re shit out of luck. We’ve been granted bailout from the imf time and time again for the politicians to loot our treasury and raise taxes in order to keep our country on life i’ll say it again debt relief is relief we also have plenty of people whether local or foreign who performs acts of kindness everyday of course it help it somewhat but as long as we have the same political parties in power we’ll forever be receivers and not givers and as long as they still breath the oligarchs will use any means to crush any chance of us gaining political and economic power including through weaponizing the centralized banking system even if all turns out happily ever after the possibility of the centralized banking system being weaponized will always be possible and crypto is the only payment system that is uncensorable
Oh wow, that’s a lot of energy (and thought, I guess) that went into writing this one!
Bit unfortunate most people (including yours truly) will just ignore this wall of text due to lack of punctuation and general readability. 🤷♀️
First of all BANKS DO NOT EXIST UNDER COMMUNISM
First of all NO ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT A HYPOTHETICAL COMMUNIST SOCIETY
Oh, and by the way, for the Suisse Secrets you might want the actual investigation site, linked from the press release you linked to: https://www.occrp.org/en/suisse-secrets/
I used to work for OCCRP, so thanks for bringing back good memories! 😍
You might want to read up on some more of their investigations, this tag is particularly interesting perhaps: https://www.occrp.org/en/component/tags/tag/cryptocurrencies
NATIONAL CURRENCY IS BAD BECAUSE CRIMINALS ARE USING IT
Wait I thought you were saying banks are bad because criminals are using them?
Can’t have it both ways, my friend. Either misuse of the traditional financial system is a good argument against it (and thus misuse of cryptocurrencies is an argument against them), or not. 🤔
Didn’t I already tell you that all banks aren’t bad and that it would be stupid of me to smear all of them like that which is why I’m constantly pointing out the stupidity of your logic using silly statements like above, when have I ever said that I have a problem with people choosing to use banks since I believe in individual responsibility and the both of them have disadvantages that are clearly communicated to users and it’s up to you to make the decision
Cool, cool.
But I am merely clearly communicating the disadvantages of cryptocurrencies/NFTs/web3 and other blockchain-based boondoggles. And that seems to frustrate you to a point of calling people names and using all-caps, for some reason. 🤔
Bro 💀 just log off and read a book or something god damn