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Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

> find it highly amusing that the same people making the argument of rejecting states and fiat currency and regulation and structure are frustrated that their attempts to use those structures requires them to adopt all the parts of it...

This holds true for so many Bitcoin related disputes. I also find it highly amusing when bitcoin using champions of rejecting regulation and structure mysteriously seem to need a great deal of it when heaven forbid things don't go as they hoped.

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Anarchist Profits And Socialized Losses

Not entirely new. 2008? Profits to the banks losses (bail-oiuts) to the tax payer

I was trying to play off the phrase 'privatize profits and socialize losses' from that time period.

Explain to me how getting back some 5% of what you're owed, when they recovered 80% of it, is "socialized losses"?

Also explain to me how this is similar to 2008.

well for starters it was a joke not a serious argument.

Yes because bitcoin is all about not having courts. /sarc

There is a pretty big difference in my mind between the kind of over regulation people dislike and simple enforcement of basic fraud and theft laws.

Could you explain, in detail, that difference?

Whether or not they profit him, obviously.

Yep. When I need the law on my side, it's "simple enforcement". When the law is on the other side, it's overregulation!

The former reflects classical liberalism, which is the belief that the government should get involved when fraud or aggression has occurred, and deter crime through deterrence.

The current regulatory system reflects the belief that government ought to preempt crime by creating centralized gatekeepers that impose blanket bans on entire categories of voluntary exchange (e.g. securities issuance), that are only lifted on a case-by-case basis if one is approved/registered by/with that gatekeeper.

Probably things like bailouts, the Fed insuring things it has no business insuring, etc. Basically he seems to be espousing libertarian economics - prevent people from actively harming me, but don't try to otherwise actively participate in the financial system.

For sure that argument can probably be made, but that's not really the point I think myself or the parent comment is making. If you follow the kind of "code is law" style rhetoric of some crytpo-currency evangelists, we can supposedly build a system that doesn't require "laws" or regulations as we know them today at all. Reality it seems often disagrees, especially when disputes inevitably arise. I'm simplifying greatly, but there's some truth to this idea in practice I think.

I know. The bizarre conflation between advocating for a free market and advocating anarchy is surprisingly common any time the topic of cryptocurrency comes up.

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