Quote from: MacFall on June 02, 2011, 05:35:18 AM

Quote from: no to the gold cult on May 16, 2011, 10:15:15 AM

Quote from: unk on May 16, 2011, 05:25:05 AM

Quote from: technotarian on May 16, 2011, 05:20:57 AM

You make it sound like it was planned, or managed even.

satoshi's early messages to cypherpunks are informative. there was a discussion of how bitcoin could be marketed to libertarians there, compared to alternatives (e.g., ones that relied on altrustically motivated groups).

Any links?

It is my beleif that Satoshi is not himself a libertarian or anarcho-cap, and that libs and an-caps only think that bitcoin is somehow theirs. In fact I consider bitcoin to be anyones. Makes monetary policy one more thing that government need not to worry its busy little head about and screw up somehow, like the rotation of the earth or its distance from the sun.

The problem for anyone who isn't a libertarian (or at least a classical liberal) is that if bitcoin succeeds, governments will not longer have central banking and debt financing at their disposal. Without that, they have only taxation. But they would need a tax rate approaching 100% to fund anything close to their current activities, and that's not likely to be very successful. The bitcoin-driven black market would crush the tax-laden "white market". So all their wars and social programs are going bye-bye. Bitcoin may not produce a stateless society, but it sure as hell would destroy the modern warfare/welfare state.

I'm all for the end of the warfare state. Don't get why libertarians hate welfare so much. In my country welfare means affordable quality health care, affordable housing for low income families (instead of the mercy of slum-lords etc) and subsidized income for pensioners and so on. In the US (i think) welfare seems to mean having money taken from you and given to people you don't like, don't resemble, don't consider your fellows, and don't consider to be in the same society as you.

Maybe that's the difference, in the US they shout "We're #1" a lot to make up for not really feeling like they're all on the same team. They do not got each others back, it's every man for his self, fuck the other guy I got mine.

Elsewhere it's more like "Sure, me casa su casa, let's pool the heating bill and the medicine cabinet".

Anyway like I said, fuck the warfare state.