You’re talking about programming control, I’m taking about macroeconomic control. Switching to crypto removes many of the levers of macroeconomic control, or it shifts the control over to exchanges, mediators (courts), miners, validators, whales, and - probably not what crypto boosters want to hear - governments, who remain the power brokers and can easily assume these roles. Moreover, if crypto boosters think banks won’t use their enormous capital, power and overall economics expertise to shift into one of these roles, they’re delusional. I feel like crypto boosters think that banks just “don’t get it”, and this is ludicrous…banks have hundreds of years of institutional economic knowledge and experience. Economics doesn’t just get invalidated by crypto.

All of this ignores the fact that crypto is highly susceptible to volatility and scamming overall. Crypto has a larger more complex attack surface at the application layer, and this makes it substantially more risky particularly as malicious technology advances in that domain and can quickly outpace the technology required to secure against it.

I don’t have much hope for the US. They seem to believe that anything other than unregulated crony capitalism is communism.

Power is distributed by implementing and enforcing effective regulation, not by removing it.

The point of crypto is to remove control of currency, so does it do that or not?

Except for the brain dead governments that spend our money hoarding it.

You honestly believe power will move away from the banks to you, holding a miniscule fraction of crypto (probably) if you’re lucky enough not to have it stolen in a pump and dump? Do you seriously believe that power won’t just concentrate somewhere else? That removing economic control won’t cause unintended effects?

“you guyz are so dumb, I understand all of this stuff because I hang around on crypto subreddits listening to other wealthy scammers tell me how economics works”

Yeah, fuck banks, give all the power instead to the exchanges, governments and whales. Give up any ability to mitigate or manage global economic crises. That’s so much better.

The naivete coming from crypto bros is amusing. “Let’s turn our global economy into history’s largest pump and dump scam…as long as I’m not the one holding the bag!”

Good lord man. I’m not having a philosophical discussion about idealism and materialism.

I’m not religious and I don’t believe in the supernatural, if you need to know. I’m by training an engineer, physicist and mathematician.

I also don’t believe that any ideological system can approach perfection, and I’m pragmatic enough to understand that if you believe that, it is borderline delusional.

I don’t think China has a perfect society and I expect I would not be happy there. I’m perfectly happy here with 3 kids, my pets, my wife (who owns a small business), a modest house and a family cottage, on a decent salaried job, in a country with a reasonable approximation of universal health care (I wish it were better), that makes attempts at regulating the excesses of capitalism with social programs and government oversight, that gives some freedoms in respect of rights, that values individual liberty and doesn’t get in your business on everything, that doesn’t overwhelmingly exert its will outside of its territory, that allows me to build a small consulting business and occasionally rent our cottage, that has a proud military history of which I have taken a small part, that is open to immigrants and ranks very high on multiculturalism and low on racism, that has enormous economic potential with one of the most educated populations in the world, that ranks highly in press freedom, democracy and economic mobility.

My country has problems, but you’re not going to convince me that I’d be better off under a government like China, or a Marxist ideal, even if I thought it would be possible to change this country without enormous violent upheaval in which, very likely, members of my family or friends would suffer and die.

And as I’ve tried to say since my very first words on this topic, you’re not going to convince me that a government organized according to Marxist thought will be - unlike every other human organization in history (that is, not ideal, but in practice and based on historical evidence and experience) - somehow a utopia that is incapable of oppressing people or attempting to exert its will on others who do not consent to it.

Having said all of that, my claims are clear. What is your objective in this discussion? Of what are you trying to convince me?

I’m not saying we don’t need to interact with them but economic size doesn’t tell me anything about their moral, ethical or political stance.

And I would suggest that pointing to a book describing political ideology as a means to justify how a political ideology is not subject to the same compulsions as every other human political organization has in recorded history - and indeed how China has in modern history - is the very definition of idealism.

No u

Are you planning to follow me around this whole thread humping my leg trying to get attention? I get it, you hate liberals. Move on bro.

Because after all the negativity and bad faith, and given the fact that we’re all talking past each other, I’m trying to decide if I care enough to attempt to back up and actually try to understand and/or come to a point of mutual perceived benefit.

And frankly I care much less if the person is notat the very least within my sphere of interest from a political and economic point of view. If the ideas they’re espousing have not chance of being implemented where I live, I care much, much less about who they are or what they think.

Well I’ll be honest you seem like the only one I walk actually having a constructive discussion with, and I urge you to read some of the other replies to me that have insulted my family, suggested I’m a fascist apologist, or even told me to kill myself.

I don’t believe I’ve gone anywhere near that with any of my responses.

I hope you can understand that I’m not really seeing any upside to this anymore.

I’ve responded to about a dozen people, friend. I’m not going to rehash it here.

Which country do you live in?

What made you think I was Canadian

I didn’t, which is why I don’t see why I should care.

I’m Chinese in China all my life.

Uh yeah, and you think that China is superior and the rest of the world is full of failed humans and failed states. There is no good faith here. Why do you care to defend yourself or convince others?

We’re talking past each other, as I’ve said to many others on this topic. I’m willing to acknowledge all kinds of great things about China, including the decision in this article, but I’m fairly certain there is no reciprocity and in fact I’m sure you cover your eyes to many of China’s failings.

But I don’t need to impress you, I’ve got a great life, a good family and a job that makes me happy. Try as you might, you just don’t matter to me, which is why I said we should both just move on.

If you’re not Canadian why would I care what you think or do, and why would I waste energy on a discussion that is personally insulting?

kys

Oh yeah you’re a real decent human.

If you say so.

Cool quote. I like Sartre. I’ve used the “don’t believe in words” many times. And I’m not an anti-semite, just so you know. I’ve many Jewish people in my life.

But I’m not trying to redefine anything. I just don’t want to talk to you or anyone about it anymore.

To begin with, you should use the word ‘claim’ rather than ‘assume’.

You assume all intervention is violent

No I don’t. OP did when they hoped for increased militarism.

You assume international violence is imperialism, or creates imperialism.

No I don’t. Foreign military adventures are not always imperialism.

3. You treat the idea of an actually anti-imperialist framework as an unknowable impossibility.

You’re starting to get to what I was claiming, which is that unchecked power backed by ideology convinced of its moral, ethical or political superiority will eventually aim to spread itself, likely through violence, military or otherwise. Marxism is no different, and the implementation of it in China is not showing any moral superiority beyond what I’ve seen in history from any other soon to be superpower, colonial or otherwise. We’ll soon see how that plays out in Taiwan I’m sure, which will be the next example of China’s ‘beneficence’.

I admit I didn’t read anything past your three points because your first two interpretations of my claims didn’t impress me (so I’m not really interested in how you rebut the claims you made up) and moreover this entire exchange with everyone has been insulting and lacking in any good faith whatsoever so I’m disinclined to attempt further discussion with anyone.