Quote from: sortedmush on March 27, 2011, 11:37:07 PM

Quote from: eMansipater on March 27, 2011, 09:41:51 PM

Don't use bitcoin to trade in illegal arms, fund terrorism, and advertise tax evasion, and we'll all do just fine.

To me this translates to:

Don't trade is arms unless they conform to a violently imposed criteria.
Don't fund violence for the purpose of advancing a political ideology.
Don't advertise avoiding funding violence for the purpose of advancing a political ideology.
And we won't have the violence we've funded used against us.

To each their own language--that's the beauty of a diverse society. But I'm content to raise my kids with those three things as ironclad rules, and I don't consider myself a monster for doing so.

Quote from: moa on March 28, 2011, 12:24:02 AM

... I think you forget paedophilia and drugs.

You're right, we can include those two as well. Guess I'm just not a very imaginative lawbreaker--I was thinking more about the "being labelled domestic terrorists" angle. And again, two things I'm going to advise anyone I care about to stay the hell away from.

Is it really a violent conspiracy against all that is good and holy for an individual who is a BitCoin advocate to propose people steer clear of gun-running, terrorism-funding, paedophilia, drugs, and tax evasion as a simple way to help bitcoin succeed? It's not a philosophical treatise, it's just an opportunity--seizing it can't be too much to ask from such a highly intelligent community. If it were, I would think I'd seriously misunderstood the potential scope of BitCoin technology.

At the end of the day, people need to realise there's a pretty big difference between keyboard philosophy and real-world change. If there's anyone here who aspires to Waco, they need to be slapped upside the head. And if there's a single reply here about either the specifics of that situation or the completely flawed government response, you have missed the whole point. Even from a "Davidian Branch Davidian" standpoint, the people in that scenario were fundamentally lacking the ability for civil interaction with the world at large; had they possessed it they would still be alive. Anyone who thinks different has never seen a man die.

To take this back out of the esoteric, what I'm saying is people can and should believe whatever their conviction tells them. But real-world actions have consequences. So is BitCoin going to be a philosophical exercise, or a real-world technology? It's up to us.