>Ah yes, the notorious bitcoin that stole this data and extorted people. Curse this troublesome software that has gained sentience wreaks havoc on the world.

I see this exact argument -- almost word-for-word -- applied to guns.

I don't presume to know anything about you personally, nor about your political opinions, but I've encountered many west-coast, left-leaning, tech-industry professionals support $TECH on the basis of individual responsibility, whilst simultaneously opposing guns due to their potential for misuse.

What this tells me is that the "X isn't good or bad, it just depends on who's using it" argument is weak. It's weak in the sense that it doesn't capture the nuances that might make someone support bitcoin, but not guns.

(Again, I don't presume to know your thoughts on gun-ownership. I'm making a more general point.)

I think in this case there's enough blackhats in this world that do this for fun. Don't think cryptocurrency changes anything.

You don't have to "think" whether it "changes anything". You just have to observe that yes, in fact these problems did not occur on such a scale before cryptocurrencies came along, and given their obvious role in the process, Occam's razor would suggest they do change things unless proven otherwise. At which point one would want to examine the problem more deeply, which thankfully others have and which you can Google, to see exactly what role cryptocurrencies play. For example you might want to read: https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-role-of-cryptocurrencies-...

What you say is untrue. Black hats have done things on this scale for as long as this scale has existed.

RATs, malware, spam, ransomware, scareware, worms, all this existed in the largest scale possible before the advent of crypto currency.

Doxing, messing with people, leaking sensitive files, pictures and other media, has existed on massive scale before crypto currencies.

It's the scale of the internet itself, and the amount of money involved, and the fragility of connected systems, that has lead to the increase.

I'll grant that cryptocurrency adds even more of this badness. It's definitively increased the number of bad actors. But this is not the driving cause.

Their 'obvious role' is only a role for some actors. Not everyone is financially motivated.

It's also easily measurable, the revenue of a ransomware-as-a-service group (this exists) is an easy jaw-dropping number to display.

But that number does not capture the damage done by actors not financially motivated. Hell _the_ largest and _most_ devastating attack ever was not financially motivated at all. I'm of course talking about NotPetya. Whose damage and impact easily dwarfs that of the financially motivated ransomware groups.

If an argument is applied inconsistently, that is not necessarily a flaw of the argument.

True! But then again, some arguments lend themselves to inconsistent application, usually because they aren't precise enough.

What I'm getting at (albeit awkwardly), is that I wish your argument included some notion of threshold. At what point do you consider the potential for misuse to be so extreme that the technology should be banned? If you don't address this point, you sound unreasonable to many.

The point I meant to address here, is that Bitcoin is incidental to this crime. The criminals stole data and blackmailed people. Bitcoin didn't do that. If Bitcoin didn't exist, criminals would still steal data and blackmail people. Blackmail existed long before Bitcoin. Perhaps it's marginally easier because of Bitcoin, although accepting your payment for crimes via a system where all transactions are public record doesn't seem that smart to me, but whatever.

Banning things doesn't stop criminals from using them. It doesn't even stop many otherwise law-abiding people. Many of the people who support banning guns are able to recognize that banning drugs doesn't stop people from using drugs and banning abortions doesn't stop people from getting abortions, so why should banning guns stop shootings?

If you want to stop people from doing something, you need to figure out why they're doing it and remove the reason that causes them to do it. The existence of guns doesn't cause people to shoot up schools. Likewise the existence of Bitcoin doesn't cause people to blackmail. If it's not the cause, then removing it can't remove the effect.

> If it's not the cause, then removing it can't remove the effect.

You’re confusing “root cause” with “causal”. Guns do “cause” murder insofar as they facilitate the act of killing. The same argument can be made for Bitcoin facilitating blackmail.

Whether or not banning either technology is a worthwhile trade off is debatable, but an effectively enforced ban is unambiguously effective.

Facilitating is not causing. These are two different things.

Just about any object can facilitate the act of killing. A car, a bowling ball, a swimming pool. Do these things cause murders too? That's not how causation works.

A car can facilitate going to the store. Does the car cause you to go to the store? Of course not. You go to buy the thing you needed. The car is just a means.

Facilitation is literally a mediator or moderator in an effect. It is not a root cause, but it is part of the causal chain. As such, acting upon it can reduce the effect.

Simply put: an effective crackdown on guns, cars, snowballs, scissors, and Bitcoin can absolutely reduce the associated downsides. The question isn’t “is it effective”. The question is “is it worth it”.

The question is absolutely "is it effective". There's a reason we do root-cause analysis and five-whys exercises. If the source of the problem is not corrected, the problem does not go away.

If your basement is flooding from a burst pipe, maybe you can "reduce the associated downsides" by bailing it out. This doesn't fix the problem though, does it? You're actually prolonging and exacerbating the issue by not turning off the water from the source.

Temporary band-aids that address the symptom rather than the disease are not effective in the long run. They also often come with secondary effects and unintended consequences that create additional problems.

> Ah yes, the notorious bitcoin that stole this data and extorted people. Curse this troublesome software that has gained sentience wreaks havoc on the world.

I suppose you're also against NPT? Or do nukes gain sentience in your world?

Sure, nuclear weapons and crypto currency are the exact same thing and pose identical risks to the world.

Governments voluntarily agreeing to reduce their weapons is also the same as forcibly forbidding people from using a useful technology. Top notch analysis.

> Sure, nuclear weapons and crypto currency are the exact same thing and pose identical risks to the world.

> Governments voluntarily agreeing to reduce their weapons is also the same as forcibly forbidding people from using a useful technology. Top notch analysis.

Governments "forcibly forbid" their citizens from developing nuclear weapons. Similarly so for things far less dangerous than nukes because, you know, "less dangerous than a nuke" isn't exactly synonymous with "safe". I can't top your "top-notch analysis" though, so this will be my last reply.

Right, if we forbid one technology that's dangerous, we must also forbid any technology that could in any way be used in a negative manner, right?

Cars can be used to run people over, better forbid those. A hammer can cave someone's head in, better forbid that. People can drown in water, better forbid that too. After all, we wouldn't want to be inconsistent.

It's not like we would ever consider using any kind of judgement and conclude that the benefits outweigh the risks for some things. That's just silly.