Very revealing how self interest can blind a type of person to an obvious scam. This guy got lucky but they almost had him. I can’t help but think of crypto.
I think we need a new form of marriage that lasts a set 20 years and then the assets are divided evenly unless they both choose to renew. Changing the last name of the woman advances the idea that she is now property of the man. Marriage is a contract and needs to be updated to fit the modern world. Of course accepting that it is a contract for companionship and sex “reduces” women's status, so since nobody will admit that truth, we can’t call it the contract it obviously is and update it accordingly. Not that I’m knocking marriage. I should be so lucky. But maybe we need to get past the ideas that A) you can own a woman and tell them what to do and that they can’t have sex with other men and B) that trading goods, money or opportunities for advancement in social status for sex reduces the value of the woman. For all the moral superiority we claim over primitive religious cultures, we have a long way to go to recognize the basic realities of human existence. The primary motivations for most people indirectly revolve around sex and money. If you take those things away, people will shut down.
You have some pretty odd ideas. In particular I find it bizarre to frame a mutual, symmetrical commitment to monogamy as "owning a woman and telling them what to do". Marriage is nothing more or less than formal recognition of the human tendency to pair bond, and distaste for infidelity is neither a cultural quirk nor exclusive to men.
In terms of infidelity, this attitude doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. If I meet a woman and start a relationship I’m not rationally going to hold it against her that she’s slept with other men before me, and if the relationship ends I wouldn’t be concerned if she slept with other men (or women I know) after me. So then, why should I be so concerned if during our relationship she sleeps with other people? Disease and paternity issues can be managed with protection and DNA testing. You know, I wouldn’t dare tell someone they aren’t free to do as they please with their own body. They might turn around and ask me why.
I would dare tell my wife that she can't sleep with others. Just as she would tell me the same.
We bond via oxytocin especially during sex. My wife and I have committed to only bond with each other. It's something we both want and have chosen.
I'm not saying others have to but it is a very common expectation. Rooted in our biology. There are many things we can manage with modern technology but sometimes life is better not having to.
I’m afraid our collective genetics does not tell of a history of fidelity. The standard successful procreation strategy involves children through many partners.
And besides, aren’t sexual experiences enjoyment? Why deny yourself and your partner pleasure and variety? You could both agree to not let the other watch TV and just glare at each other over every meal, but that’s going to get old pretty fast.
Not that I’m against marriage as it is today, but for the fact that for a decision that so radically defines the lives of those involved, I think there should be more deliberation in the details.
However there is a biologic reason for male jealousy. It's a good strategy to ensure your genetics out compete others. It ensures you don't waste your resources raising someone else's children.
Female jealousy ensures that she has a provider and protector during the vulnerable period during pregnancy and child raring.
The rape and pillage strategy was probably the most successful but it's a no longer and accepted practice.
>You could both agree to not let the other watch TV and just glare at each other over every meal, but that’s going to get old pretty fast.
Please tell me that is not what you think marriage is limited to.
We raise children together.
Build our family together.
Explore the world together.
There is so much fulfillment in a long term committed relationship. If all I thought it was is watching TV and glaring at each other, then I'd hate that too. If that's how your parents or people around you treat each other, that's horrible. I'm sorry your experience has been like that.
I agree most people today should not be entering into a marriage as they only view it as 'till inconvenience do us part.
I would rather have no legal method of separation from my wife other than infidelity. I made a commitment that is going face challenges. Like Ulysses bound the mast I want to be bound to my wife. So I have external forces binding me to that agreement.
Much like a personal trainer at the gym helps hold you accountable and achieve greater things than you could on your own.
The thing is, speaking for myself, every 5 years or so I’m almost a completely different person. Same context, different tenant. People change and they get bored. Maybe they don’t want to commit the entire rest of their lives to a single relationship. Divorce is the norm already, so let’s just standardize it and reduce the trauma.
Sure if you can get your partner to sign you can set whatever terms you both agree on. Fully customizable. But most death-do-us-part marriages aren’t honored, so that may not be the best deal for you because since that contact comes with no predefined exit strategy, if you have assets that means litigation if someone wants out.
For consideration. Not saying anything for or against here.
In Québec, both spouses keep their surname after they marry. In other words, you must use the surname you were given at birth to exercise your civil rights, for example
when you sign a contract,
or apply for a driver's licence.
Even if you married outside Québec but you are domiciled in Québec, you must exercise your civil rights using the surname you were given at birth.
However, in your social life you can, if you wish, use your spouse's surname.
Women married prior to April 2, 1981
If you are a woman and married prior to April 2, 1981, you are entitled to use your spouse's surname to exercise your civil rights, provided your were already doing so at that date.
However, if you decide to exercise your civil rights under your own name, you must first notify the relevant departments and agencies.
That’s a good compromise, keep both names. And the kids if any can start with the last names of the same sex parent then choose one or the other when they become adult. It’s easy enough to retire these aged concepts. In a way the marriage contract is a technology to be advanced. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for a startup here, marriage 2.0. Trouble is people will see the contract as negotiable from then on. Custom marriage contacts would become the norm leading to new lifestyles, perhaps including communal partnerships, and further, women would have a great deal more leverage depending on which variant of the marriage contract they are willing to accept. Although it could be said their bargaining power would be restored rather than increased since it was clearly taken from them in the past using religious shame tactics.
This in only Quebec AFAIK. But FWIW, Canada in general is pretty progressive that way. While actual marriage exists for those that want to, there's no reason to marry just because of tax advantages as there is in other countries. After a relatively short amount of time (a year or something like that) you can apply for a "common-law marriage" status and you basically get all the same things as if you were married.
It can be argued that the resources spent on keeping Bitcoin running are disproportionately high to the utility it provides. Some would even say that the utility is negative, as it facilitates money-laundering.
Let me guess. From the time you are replying you are probably from west Europe, live under a stable democracy and financial system and have very broad interpretation of what constitutes money laundering - that is anything outside the current financial panopticon.
You probably cannot imagine why permissionless currency that can't be controlled by government is a desirable thing. After all you've never lived under tyrannical governments. It's not like there are say 45 countries in this planet where woman are forbidden to manage money, have a company or even a bank account. Pff... preposterous right? Why should allow Mohamed to send money to his mother in Palest... I mean commit money laundering?
My trouble with the argument that crypto will liberate underprivileged classes in general is that it seems to miss key holistic issues I'm enumerating below. Perhaps I'm wrong, and I'd appreciate knowing the way I'm wrong.
1. Crypto wealth only translates into real wealth if there is either (a) vendors who accept native crypto as tender or (b) there are exchanges that convert from crypto to authorized legal tender in a country.
However, it seems (a) has not happened in a meaningful scale without (b), and (b) has been frustrated because of underlying price volatility, high fees, low transaction processing compared to traditional finance, etc. There's the problem of "too many cryptocurrencies" which frustrates user choice.
(I'm aware independent proposals to "fix" all of this have been proposed, but there don't seem to be any clear winners e.g. stablecoins should have "fix"ed price volatility, but the leading stablecoin - TerraCoin - collapsed.)
The net impact of this is that people are cut off from real-world markets they live in. Someone who has no access to traditional finance will not have an easier time purchasing goods and essentials with crypto wealth, and this their ability to participate is only marginally improved.
2. Crypto has higher barrier to entry than traditional finance because it requires higher than usual technical literacy, which people in these classes don't have. Wallets need protection, smart contracts need auditing, and so on. I would struggle getting people to use (say) hardware tokens.
3. There's nothing ultimately stopping governments from banning crypto exchanges or crypto vendors or more if they really want to prevent the disenfranchised from getting some. They might not eliminate the network, but they can certainly go after people for suspicion of participation in it (such as vendors). The crypto model requires governments to be foiled by technical limitations, but this is rarely the technique they need.
Based on all of this, it seems like basically you need to solve the problem of vendors really caring enough about crypto for regular folks to get an advantage when the advantage is not clear. Is this not the case? What have I missed?
With the possible exception of Afghanistan (although the Taliban can't seem to get even their own policy straight), I don't believe there are any countries where "woman are forbidden to manage money, have a company or even a bank account". For example, all those are not just possible but common in Saudi Arabia.
And you also haven't addressed how blockchain would improve women's lot, compared to, say, a stack of US$100 bills.
Countries score a zero on that survey if "women do not have the same rights as
men to open a bank account at a formal financial institution." The word "same" is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there, and does not equate to your assertion that they're entirely unable to open accounts: for example, historically in Saudi they had to use separate bank branches run by women for women.
And oh, Western Union is more than happy to send your stack of filthy fiat to Palestine:
> It's not like there are say 45 countries in this planet where woman are forbidden to manage money, have a company or even a bank account. Pff... preposterous right? Why should allow Mohamed to send money to his mother in Palest... I mean commit money laundering?
I haven't seen much evidence that crypto is actually heavily used for this. Its main use case remains mostly "tech casino" with huge costs.
Ooh yes and the value of bitcoin dropping 2/3 in a year is a wonderful thing for those oppressed countries right?
Are these people getting value for money with crypto or is someone fleecing them an awful lot for the privilege or not using fiat? Always these third person anecdotes without any actual evidence.
The other thing is not being controlled by government seems to imply either not controlled, or controlled by 'good' people, of which neither seems to be turning out true in any case.
Your oh so enlightened west European point of view misses the fact that the fiat in this case is not the dollar or the euro. It's the Turkish Lira, Bolivars or Lebanese points. It's not the money that France controls and prints (its not euro) for their ex-colonies.
Is everyone using bitcoin good people? Definitely no. Is it used by criminals? Yes. Drug dealers are definitely criminals, just as the people protesting for fair elections in Belarus or the feminist coalition fighting to end police brutality in Nigeria. Those are all criminals.
But If you have any idea of how can these people participate in the economy without permission (stables fail here) that isn't volatile please let us hear about your idea.
People commonly use Dollars and Euros in those countries to store their cash. I have seen this first hand, especially in South America and there are advertisements for that everywhere. Where that is illegal, crypto is/can be also illegal.
My country currently charges me 1%/mo for every USD/EUR account, there is no cash in ATMs for months and no way to take more than a vacation penny with you when you leave.
Where that is illegal, crypto is/can be also illegal
There’s a big difference between illegal and physically seizable.
Paper bills are scarce and pack a premium in these places. Meanwhile someone could learn marketable skills over the internet and receive digital currency. You can argue stables are better but those aren't trustworthy.
I actually am from a country in South America with very weak democratic values. I've been blessed with skills that are marketable. I might or might not commit """money laundering""" every month to feed my mother and brother.
I hope you do realise that while you are saving lets say half of your money from the incompetent government or whatever is the case there, at the same time your South American oligarchs are using the same token system to steal billions from yours country, and from you indirectly.
What you are proposing is eventually devolves to the social darwinism. You have a global aggressor - your government. You have a lot of citizens i nthe country, both rich and poor. All were hurt by aggressor (financially), rich less so, poor - a lot. Now you introduce a new system in the equation - tokens. It works like a private pipe from a shared pool. Now the individuals are are more proactive, smarter, and richer will utilise such pipes earlier and more thoroughly, funneling money to the offshores. And people not utilising such pipes/tokens are left "having fun staying poor". You personally is simply hoping to save your own money faster than aggressor takes them from you.
The problem is that you country will be in the worse position when such "money saving" system will be working at scale.
I hope you do realise that slang names like beta, soy, avocado eaters etc. is predominantly used by conspiracy theorists themselves. All those flatearthers, climate change deniers and so on.
Don't waste time trying to label me as a caricature of the side you don't like. Politic ideology make people say ridiculous things like calling someone sending money to his elderly mother a global aggressor. It doesn't matter if it's left or right.
I called your government aggressor, not yourself, based on your previous comment that said "very weak democratic values". I live in the similar country, so I made a common analogy.
Honestly, I don't get you can live in a country which is (presumably) constantly raided by some sociopaths in power and don't hate them more than anything else. I certainly do hate such people in my own country, because of whom we are in the second hundred of any country rankings. And to combat their financial crimes, the only possible solution is a hard control of all "schemes" of moving funds. Including tokens.
Sure, in some utopian world it would be nice to have something resembling bittokens, only in a scalable and working state. But in reality such system break so many things that it's closed to dystopia than to utopia.
He said "one can argue", he did not claim he was 100% right. They are definitely points that you can debate around, they are different from what The Economist was talking about.
Apologies, I was being facetious because I was tired, and I think your previous comment was correct. I did the non-HN thing and misinterpreted (towards negativity) the original to which I first replied.
“Facilitates money laundering” is another way of saying “preserves freedom”, they are two sides of the same bitcoin.
The argument of whether governments and payment processors should have the power of prior restraint on all transactions (e.g. by going cashless) or not is older than cryptocurrency.
The question is - are benefits of token systems outweigh the negatives? Since the purpose of all these systems is law avoidance (both "legitimate" and "oppressive", all of laws), then in my opinion negatives are much much bigger than benefits. And I say this as a person who can benefit from tokens, i.e. send my money cross border without any legal oversight. But in reality for a the few grey private transaction, the majority of this system usage will be utilised by corporations, billionaires, shady governments, mafia etc. Tokens in the current state are net negative for humans. And hypothetically tokens with control and oversight and protections are just overall worse and more limited digital "money".
And the US dollar punches well above its weight in "preserving freedom", despite all the rules, all the enforcement, all the regulation, all the threat of violence, all the drug wars.
Since the only possible real use case of tokens is law avoidance, then it is logical that we collectively as humanity are worse off while select tokenbros are legalising stolen money or skipping paying taxes/fees and profiting from this scheme. It's a tragedy of commons case.
Sure. The thing is, tokens provide a solution for ANY law avoidance and can be used by ANY person. That's the problem. As soon as the very short period of nerds inventing and using the system passes, then big sharks come. All the billionares washing their stolen and almost stolen money are very fond of tokens, some are actually making money in that space, people like Alex, Sam, Giancarlo, Paolo, Zhao etc.
Since fiat is mostly just used to enable war, and most all war, especially in modern history, is senseless slaughter: we should do everything we can to subvert fiat.
First - I think you are wrong about "war" part. I'm reasonably sure that global military industrial complex mostly uses digital money transfers. I think what you were talking about was a small scale rebel or terrorist armed operations, but those are rounding errors in the scale of proper war industry.
Second - you are quite right that cash is used for that and without it such activities will greatly diminish. Though I suspect that they will switch to barter economy.
Third - that will happen soon. Some governments are already restricting cash, though mostly the ones that are doing so are fighting not against wars or cartels, but against their local oligarchs funneling money from the country (the same problem I described in other comments). Many countries have already restricted moving cash across the border, so there it's not used for this a lot.
> I'm reasonably sure that global military industrial complex mostly uses digital money transfers.
It seems like your concept of fiat might be wrong. Fiat isn't synonymous with physical tender. Fiat is just sovereign money in whatever form it takes, digital or otherwise.
Governments enforce fiat as money because it allows them to finance whatever war and other endeavor they want with an endless supply of money that they conjure out of thin air. Whereas taxes are at least paid by people, fiat is a way to steal money from ordinary people by debasing their money.
> I think the entire crypto portfolio is not just completely worthless, but actually has a negative value. It’s worth less than nothing.
If this is the case, then I would like to propose the following:
Following the axiom that "It's worth less than nothing" & "crypto has negative value", that would mean that you'd be willing to pay other people to own crypto, since it's deemed to be negative value.
To prove this claim, a payment of $100 made out to me would suffice.
Obviously not. If something has a negative value for society, it doesn't make sense to incentivize its ownership or use. I also think methamphetamine has a net negative value (perhaps outside of certain narrow medical uses), but I won't pay you $100 to take meth.
But if you manage to abolish cryptocurrency, or meth for that matter, then I will gladly pay you $100.
“If the $15,500 level breaks for Bitcoin, there is not much support until the $13,500 level, followed by the psychological $10,000 level,” wrote Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.
What complete bullshit. Who listens to these “analysts”? All he’s stating is that the price can fall, and then later when it does he’ll pretend that he knew something secret that we simpletons all can’t see on the chart. If the price is falling as the bubble bursts it will likely fall more. Thank you genius.
