[liberationtech] The bitcoin terrorists of Idlib are learning new tricks

[Marc Sunet]

So what specifically is immoral about cryptocurrencies in your opinion?

Also, throwing grarpamp in the Trump sack was a bit out of the blue? He 
had some good points if you just ignore the writing style. Some groups 
are ringing bells about cashless societies, for example (last link in 
Spanish):

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/24/you-cant-pay-cash-here-how-cashless-society-harms-most-vulnerable

https://collateralbits.net/la-maldicion-del-dinero/

This mailing list always turns hostile for no reason. Since you are 
experts, why not educate people when somebody raises a point here?

On 5/22/21 9:18 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 3:32 AM Lee Alley <lee at morganalley.com 
> <mailto:lee at morganalley.com>> wrote:
>
>     Right, so let's look at this by the numbers (or the paragraphs)....
>
>     On 21/05/2021 20:02, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>>     I find the Trotskyite-Libertarianism of the coinsplainers to be a
>>     crushing bore. The arguments are infantile, ignorant and insulting.
>
>     Yep, categorise someone into a coalition of the "loathsome". So
>     far so good ✔
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>     (Also shows zero clue as to what a Libertarian actually is, vs
>     what the corporate press ignorantly likes to brand them as)
>
> 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'.
>
> 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.
>
>>     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.
>
>     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).✔
>
>     * Where help == govt crushing anything that threatens its total
>     control of everything, or people doing things for themselves
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>>     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.
>
>     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. ✔
>
> 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.
>
>     This is a masterclass in gaslighting but never, ever addresses the
>     points raised.
>
> You describe your post perfectly.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> I don't use the term 'crypto-currency' because cryptography has been 
> my professional career. I prefer the term criminal-currency.
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> The tide is certainly beginning to turn.
>
>
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