That's a bleak view on the state of democracy.

Whatever your feelings on the topic may be, we will not be giving up government control of the financial system in favor of a blockchain and profits for crypto-bros.

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dns_snek 2 days ago | parent [-]

Bleak but realistic, unfortunately. There needs to be a viable alternative as long as our elected representatives have the power to abuse the financial system as a means of authoritarian control, like freezing the bank accounts of protestors.

A truly democratic leadership with stringent limitations on how they can meddle with financial transactions would be preferable, but that's just a dream at this point.

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user34283 2 days ago | parent [-]

A viable alternative to the financial system is also just a dream.

If we take from the government the ability to freeze bank accounts of protestors, we can't just also remove the ability to freeze the accounts of criminals, enemies, or even terrorists.

It seems like a clear non-starter, yet many proponents of crypto seem to think it would be an obvious improvement.

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Dilettante_ 2 days ago | parent [-]

>If we take from the government the ability to freeze bank accounts of protestors, we can't just also remove the ability to freeze the accounts of criminals

That's really the crux of the issue here: Having to choose one over the other, would you rather some criminals go free, or some innocents be imprisoned?

I suspect anyone's position to this depends heavily on which sides they've been on more on their lives: Victimized by criminals or unjustly punished.

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user34283 2 days ago | parent [-]

That might be the crux philosophically.

But realistically we're not seriously going to entertain stripping all controls from the financial system because we don't trust the government to do a reasonable job. Perhaps you'll agree that this is a very unlikely thing to happen.

Now my issue here is that many proponents of crypto, among other fallacies, use this exact scenario as a justification for why eg. Bitcoin will go to $1M, and why they should deserve to cash out at a 10x return in the future.

It's not going to happen, and even if it was, there's still no reason for early adopters to profit in what has so far been a zero sum wealth redistribution scheme with negligible value generated.

	▲	Dilettante_ 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		We are actually completely in agreement that crypto-hustlers and such are entirely full of hooey and nobody deserves any payout whatsoever. I'm only arguing from a point of "government bad" idealism. >realistically we're not seriously going to entertain stripping all controls from the financial system because we don't trust the government to do a reasonable job I kind of am. What I'm seeing happen is the opposite: The government stripping more and more agency from the individual because it does not trust its citizens do do a reasonable job(of anything). Every sector freed from the Leviathan, every tiny bit of life that can proceed without being subject to gov't interference is a huge win for me. Again, this is essentially a position born from my seeing what happens when "safety over liberty" goes too far. >negligible value generated Depends on what you value. I happen to like drugs and gambling. On the other hand, giving someone who falls for a hustle the ability to get their money back is something that I personally do not value at all.