Against Trustless Finance

Bitcoiners err in thinking that because the fiat/fractional banking currency system has proved completely untrustworthy, no financial system can rely on trust. For this reason they reject historical money such as metal disks and reject any future financial system built around such money.

But, we enjoy civilization to the degree we devise practices & institutions that foster merited trust.

Historically, banks were able to profit by unsound Ponzi practices, resulting in a crisis in which the banks were unable to meet their obligation. Rather than end the criminal enterprise, the bank cut the courtly authority in on the proceeds of the fractional scheme. Ordinary bankruptcy should have allowed for these banks to be foreclosed, the vault opened by the courts, and any deficiency in repayment to be lifted from the pockets of bank directors.

Instead, the corruption of courtly authority will permit the banking system to go bankrupt only when the courtly authority itself lies in ruin.

Bitcoin does not fix this. A corrupt monopoly on security & resolution of disputes will plague us whether or not the base money is sound, as gold basically is. Gold was not driven from daily transactions by mass mining or even counterfeit coinage, but by the establishment of a financial system whose function depended less and less on physical gold. Why is it impossible for this to occur with Bitcoin? And how could Bitcoin come to be valued as the base money in the first place?

Moreover, we reject fiat currency just as much by saving metal disks as buying cryptocurrency. The important thing to end the corrupt system is to withdraw support from the fiat network as much as possible and to store value outside of it. We must through market action end the "money" printers.

The future challenge is to build a trustworthy financial system. If we intend to ship each other oil, grains, manufactured goods, and so on, non-corrupt courtly authority is needed to provide security & resolve disputes. But the presence of such an authority is precisely what it takes to engender trust, make metal function as money in the industrial economy, and eliminate the need for unbacked "trustless" cryptocurrency.


Why are they illustrated as metal disks?


Doesn't the converse apply from the seller's point of view? If I'm promising to send a bag of coffee, why should anyone trust me to follow through on that such that they send me a Bitcoin?

Commerce need not take place predominantly online, it's entirely possible we return to a world in which local retail plays a prominent role & remote transactions are mostly done between business entities who face the discipline of repeated dealings


I can send claims to metal over the internet

And isn't Bitcoin a cryptocurrency?


"We were told the World Trade Center was going to collapse"

NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, morning of September 11 2001
Starts at 1:50
https://youtu.be/6vCg8Fp8aw8?si=pPjdVqT5VCv6azTQ


No, it isn't.
Commodities are standardized materials.

Bitcoins are immaterial.

You're also missing the point - if they can cheat and make "infinite" gold, why can't they cheat and make infinite bitcoins? It's not like they actually have an infinitely large pile of gold somewhere


This seems like an excellent red pill for normies - explains the fiat/fractional banking dilemma in simple terms

nostr:nevent1qqs9c7ye4pz8s9x69xqvjwj06faatdzn4yjnwcw9av0areksh76fy8qpz3mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wcpzpad4ta45fwye0v4kaprf56jhlrfl8vh0yupr2s6yt3qwemzgtmnyqvzqqqqqqy935e2x


https://youtu.be/zpTA4Tmx8JM?si=KkgCJSX52IDEBYRA

https://youtu.be/-cSyctENy3A?si=etBcjLBFgiQhAkns


I use certain Google services (YouTube, Gmail, news)

But I also have private alternatives (Rumble, private mail, other news) which I use Firefox private for (as well as anything else I do online)

So I don't need anyone to delete my browser history, it's not saved in the first place


All that will matter if the family you left behind


Where do you stand on the Dewish Question?


I'll buy Bitcoins when Satoshi starts making physical delivery


Managerial socialism, yes

The remnants of capitalism are all that's keeping us afloat


Last few decades not so much

wtfhappenedin1971.com

But the real criticism is they're all in cars - USA is adapted to abundance, not real poverty

When people are living in tenements and walking/cycling to work and still can't afford food, then guillotines come out


I like coin


Sounds like scrip to me


What are bit coins made of?


No such thing


How long until GLD goes force majeure?


Habit


F*** the bluecoats


What's remarkable to me is they got caught plotting the coup (infamous "Fuck the EU" phone call) and then did it anyway


Raw yolk, ghee

I think tallow would probably be unpleasantly sticky to pull with


It is what it is


If God is reality, what is evil?


I've had good results after cutting out added salt


Plato: Power is control of people (via ideas, language, symbols, social consensus) so there is no potential for true cooperation, only power struggles and the totalitarian State becomes God. Psychology and morality become centered around master/slave dichotomy.

Aristotle: Power is the ability to flourish in nature, so God is Nature (not Gaia but the whole cosmos, even us)

Bacon: Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed

So there is a natural order (Dao) to discover in the world and in ourselves

And harmonious flourishing emerges as the ethical goal, with trader and kinship psychology


Gradual devolution and the worst abuses are instituted in a series of crises such that by the time the public realize what has happened there is no longer a clear focus for action

I think the solution is not to storm the Pentagon or capitol or whatever but to decentralize, build independent communities and systems and eventually secede naturally and organically as Washington or Brussels or Davos becomes irrelevant to your life