<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 3:32 AM Lee Alley <<a href="mailto:lee@morganalley.com">lee@morganalley.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<p>Right, so let's look at this by the numbers (or the
paragraphs)....<br>
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<div>On 21/05/2021 20:02, Phillip
Hallam-Baker wrote:<br>
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<div style="font-size:small">I find
the Trotskyite-Libertarianism of the coinsplainers to be
a crushing bore. The arguments are infantile, ignorant
and insulting.</div>
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<p>Yep, categorise someone into a coalition of the "loathsome". So
far so good <span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">✔</span></p></div></blockquote><span class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I chaired a conference on Digital Cash, including alt-currencies in 1996. BitCoin is not new, it is merely the latest in a long line of Ponzi schemes, gold bug schemes, etc. eGold, GoldAge... there were many and the feds crushed them all.</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I coined the term 'coinsplainers' from 'mansplainers' because these people invariably begin their response to any criticism by telling me I an ignorant of a field I am generally considered to be one of the top experts. The assumption being that the only reason someone could possibly disagree with them is through ignorance.</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
<p>(Also shows zero clue as to what a Libertarian actually is, vs
what the corporate press ignorantly likes to brand them as)</p></div></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I am not the only person who finds the self styled 'Libertarians' to be aggressively authoritarian. The reason I bracket them with the Trotskyites is that the ideologies are essentially based on the same notion of ripping up the existing social order so that they can replace it with a new one more to their liking. At no point do they show the lightest interest in the consent of those they would govern, they are merely the 'sheep'.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">The fact that Libertarianism is a Trotskyite creed is further demonstrated by the fact that large numbers of Trotskyites have moved over. The 'neo-conservatives' began as a Trotskyite faction at NYU, they switched in the mid 70s as it emerged that they had ratted out the Communist faction to Hoover's FBI. 'Spiked', the Libertarian rag heavily promoted by the Koch network is run by the former editors of a Socialist Worker rag.</div></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite">
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<div style="font-size:small">Don't
be fooled by the techno-babble, these same people have
been at the same old libertopian schemes since the mid
90s. Every time it is different, every time it is the
same. The Feds crushed e-Gold which was beyond reach of
government. Then the Feds crushed gold age which beyond
reach of government. BitCoin is the reason gas prices
soared last week with the Colonial Pipeline attack.
Fixing cybersecurity is expensive. Criminalizing
crypto-currencies is a much cheaper approach.</div>
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<p>Create straw man arguments without any context and only tenuous
relevance then burn them (interestingly showing an "I'm on the
govt's side and I'm here to help"* admission) before showing
catastrophically naive economic illiteracy (I've never seen people
accuse dollars of being the reason behind bank robberies or the
reason they got mugged, and I missed that bit in the thread about
the trillions Obama, Trump and Biden have spent/will spend pretty
pointlessly that your grandchildren will have to pay back, to say
nothing of letting your children clean up the inflation heading
our way).<span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"> ✔</span></p>
<p>* Where help == govt crushing anything that threatens its total
control of everything, or people doing things for themselves<br></p></div></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I have done cyber security for 25 years. If an obnoxious group of people call me stupid and tell me that the government can't crush them, it amuses me to show governments how to do just that: Go after the exchanges, go after Tether.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">That someone disagrees with your unconventional economic views does not make them 'naive'. Nor is being on the governments when the government is trying to stop gangs of international criminals who are holding critical infrastructure to ransom a bad thing. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">BitCoin and company are currently using more electricity than the entire nation of Argentina. That is not a small country by any measure. The entire premise of BTC is proof of waste. I find that offensive. The naked greed that the crypto-currency world shows putting their crypto wallet ahead of the planet disgusts me. And calling me names isn't going to discourage me either.</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><blockquote type="cite">
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<div style="font-size:small">I see
absolutely nothing moral in crypto-currencies. Anyone
can prattle on about 'freedom'. Tump's jackbooted goons
stormed the capitol on Jan 6th in the name of 'freedom',
they called everyone who opposed them 'sheep'. By their
fruits shall ye know them: grarpamp's language clearly
shows him to be a bully. His only concept of 'freedom'
is there being nothing to stop him bullying others.</div>
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<p>And in the denouement, up the ante on the ad hominem, calling
grarpamp a Trump goon with the implied accusation of fault in all
this. <span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">✔</span></p></div></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I did not call him a Trump goon, I merely pointed out that his use of language is the same, as is yours. You have not set out to address any issue I raised in good faith, your only interest was to try and bully me.</div></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><p><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"> </span></p>
<p>This is a masterclass in gaslighting but never, ever addresses
the points raised.</p></div></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">You describe your post perfectly.</div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Faced with a concrete, representative example of the harm done by BitCoin, your response is whataboutery. BitCoin is the most expensive means of moving money there is right now. As of today, transactions cost $22 each which is vastly more than any rival payment scheme. Absolutely the only reason to use BTC as a payment mechanism is if the transaction is criminal.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Ransomware would simply not be profitable without 'untraceable' cash. Internet sales of child abuse, illegal drugs etc. would not be viable without the same. The only quasi-legitimate use of BTC was using it to evade China's currency controls which is what was shut down last week. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I don't use the term 'crypto-currency' because cryptography has been my professional career. I prefer the term criminal-currency.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">The Colonial Pipeline event was the beginning of the end for criminal-currencies. China has been worried about the effect of evading currency controls for quite a while but Colonial Pipeline was the event that caused the axe to fall now. Jim Cramer on MSNBC switched from being a criminal-currency booster telling people to put 5% of their assets in BTC to being strongly opposed boasting that he has sold out and bought a farm with the profits. The appearance of NFTs was further evidence that peak crazy had been reached.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">I saw exactly the same thing in the early 00s, Back then people would attack me for pointing out that 'hackers' were causing criminal damage and they weren't just doing it for fun. Kevin Mitnick had 50,000 stolen credit card numbers on his hard drives when he was caught. And then people started being hit by emails trying to get their bank account details and suddenly the reporters got it - these people are criminals, we should stop interviewing them as folk heroes and start talking about how to stop Internet crime.</div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">The tide is certainly beginning to turn.</div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>