Quote from: notme on August 20, 2012, 07:39:45 PM

Quote from: misterbigg on August 20, 2012, 04:23:51 PM

Quote from: notme on August 20, 2012, 04:03:08 PM

Ever heard of Ghandi?

Of course I have. And history shows that the Ghandi outcome is the exception rather than the norm.

Only because nobody else has been willing to take a beating without raising their own fist. The principle works, but violence is easier.

If anything this just shows that the economics of violence have been such that extortion has had a profitable ROI and the cost of protection has been too high. The Information Age in general and Bitcoin specifically are great force multipliers which have greatly lowered the cost of protection and largely made violence unprofitable.

BLOGDAIL makes a compelling case:

Quote

The facts in this matter do not concern the people who are gloating over this event. There are a group of people who are violent in nature, and who despise Bitcoin because they understand exactly what it represents; a direct threat to their sick and violent society which is based on coercion, the absence of freedom and the application of force.

Imagine a world where everyone had access to personal force fields via an artificially created gland that was made to grow into their abdomen by a nano machine / virus. These force fields could be activated either by the fear response or by the direction of your will, in the same way that you use your will to direct your arm to throw a ball.

Everyone would be able to protect themselves from any sort of physical attack, and all would be able to use similar technology to protect their houses.

It would then immediately become impossible for the State to send their agents to your house to rob you with bailiffs. They would no longer be able to force you to pay anything that you did not want to pay, and you would be able to protect yourself and your property from the other criminals and predators that are not sent out by the State.

In such a world, all flows of money would be voluntary by default. There could be no coercion of any kind, since violence against the person and her property would have been abolished by the advent of force fields.

The entire world would switch from one based on violence to one based on voluntary exchange.

This is exactly what Bitcoin is doing.

It is going to make it impossible for the state to stop people transacting at a distance, in any amount that they choose. It is going to remove the State from the equation as the unwanted third party in all transactions.

If you are a member of the aggressive criminal gang then having the productive cows refuse to produce or disappear is a real problem. However, if you are a productive cow then it only makes sense to disappear to Atlantis.