Comment by jakelazaroff
6 months ago
It doesn't really matter what use cases cryptocurrencies were supposed to have — their actual use cases turned out to be scams and speculation. We can wax philosophic about the failed promise, but to a rounding error scams and speculation have always been their only use cases.
Which makes it very understandable that crypto companies became subject to KYC laws as they tried to scale up to serve the American public! Online gambling and securities trading are already subject to KYC. The rest of the activity is the scams and crime that (despite your cynical reading) KYC was intended to fight in the first place.
If I understand the discussion correctly:
Your opinion is that the benefits of KYC (safety) outweigh the downsides of KYC (giving up liberty).
The other poster's opinion is that the downsides outweigh the benefits.
There is a quote out there regarding those who would sacrifice liberty to obtain safety, but it slips my mind at the moment.
Careening at 90 miles per hour through a school zone crosswalk as kids dive out of the way: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Yawn. If that were truly analogous to the current topic, rather than a gross exaggeration, the analogy would be unnecessary.
Replace "Careening at 90 miles per hour through a school zone crosswalk as kids dive out of the way" with the actual topic of "Spending your money on legal things without government tracking and control".
Your point is understood that you personally prefer one thing to another, compared to another person preferring the opposite.
6 replies →
> It doesn't really matter what use cases cryptocurrencies were supposed to have — their actual use cases turned out to be scams and speculation.
I'm going to translate what you said here out of your obscene level of privilege:
"It doesn't really matter what use cases cryptocurrencies were supposed to have - even if their actual use cases did address those concerns, not all of them did, and what's more important to me, and other hypercapitalists like myself, is to maintain my privilege."
I very much did not say that cryptocurrencies' actual use cases address those concerns. In fact, I said the opposite!
Like the other commenter, the reason you need to "translate" my argument is that you can't rebut what I'm actually saying on its merits.
It turns out, it is actually you "translating" views. Here you are "translating" and "stripping out all specifics to build a straw man", as you put it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44571293
Is that because, as you adroitly put it, you couldn't respond to the actual views on their merits?
Is there a reason you can't be civilized and simply say "I personally believe that government tracking and control of individual spending on legal stuff is okay if [insert your preferred benefits here] are realized, but I respect those who don't agree with me on that"? Here, let me lead by example:
I personally believe that crimes which harm others are bad, but not enough to justify government tracking and control of individual spending on legal things. I also respect people who feel differently (including you), because their opinions here are no more or less valid than mine.
Now you try?