I very much doubt that. Its primary uses are probably porn and researching embarrassing medical conditions.
And TOR is rarely used. Journalists use apps like Signal now.
Absolutely not. Internet censorship is growing rapidly - worldwide.
A lot of "legitimate" websites like newspapers get blocked around the world and can only be accessed over Tor.
Signal does not let public fund jurnalists.
To say that stocks are about owning a company in practice is the same as saying bitcoin is just money like the dollar. It's true in theory, but it's not the practical reality of this moment in history.
However, my point is that people are not buying stocks to own OR to benefit the company. They're buying stock so that a "bigger sucker" will come around later and buy it from them and they can make a profit.
So I guess it depends on who we're talking about when we say "primary purpose", but for anyone who is purchasing stocks, the primary purpose is NOT to be an owner of a company. The primary purpose is to speculate.
Additionally the people who own shares own the company so what benefits the shareholders benefits the company and vice versa as their interests are the same.
Incorrect. That's what keeps the market for the stock liquid, and that contributes to value which the company can exploit through future stock issuing. Not to mention the indirect benefits to stakeholders within the company in terms of price and liquidity.
That is still a significant minority compared to USD as a whole. BTC as a whole is used for just that and gambling.
And it make sense that it would be so low. Let’s say you just got $1M in Bitcoin and you have to pay your suppliers $500k in cold cash. Not going to happen. Only from other criminals that take profits in cash. But there is obviously a limit to that. I think the point is that those 2% can help a lot in fighting the 25%.
The fear is that illegal commerce could be conducted without fiat conversion. That would require that regular commerce would also be done in the same currency that the criminals use. This is fiat’s game to lose.
And by the way, this is why I love crypto. It has promise as an amazing technology for choosing financial participation according to personal and private community values. Although I’ll admit we’re not there yet, and a lot of the stuff might now be owned by people we wouldn’t want to have power over us. We’re still in the phase of speculation and fear and power struggles. I just hope that fear of the old power structures doesn’t bring good people to ally with values that we would not want in a new system.
That's why people need to call BS on the current hype train. Otherwise, when a sufficient solution surfaces, people are going to distrust it just as much as the old power structures. And I'd say we're already getting close to that point.
The problem is, with equal distrust, people will tend to choose the option that doesn't require change.
I’m kind of neutral on which financial system prevails so long as it’s the best for society. I stand to gain a lot more if it’s the cypherpunk version, but, I’m not sure that the conditions that would bring that on would be good. The rule of all aspects of society by a maniacal banking elite is pretty dystopic too though.
Ultimately I think the best monetary system will emerge through competition among societies. Obsolescence more than decision. That might take a long time, and perhaps it’s too hopeful. What evidence do I have for that?
Overall how you feel about this in aggregate will depend on how comfortable you are with government power. Let’s even ignore the fact that Bitcoin today is being used to circumvent unquestionably oppressive governments (Venezuela, China, Iran). Even as a hardened libertarian, I’ll freely admit that Americans and Europeans live under a generally fair and just government. Bitcoin is still worth it as a fail safe against future totalitarianism.
It’s the same reason I support the Second Amendment. Having a bunch of people run around with guns probably doesn’t help much today, and may even have ongoing social costs. But it would make things a hell of a lot harder for any would be tyrants. Not that it’d be impossible, but small frictions can have big impacts on the course of history. That’s a civilizational insurance policy worth paying.
Yet, somehow the rest of the democratic world spins around just fine without millions of semi-automatic weapons sloshing about.
There’s only four independent democracies uninterrupted over the past century. Two have widespread civilian firearm ownership.
Are you suggesting that a few extra light weapons floating around in the 1930s would have stopped the Nazis and Soviets steam rolling across the Europe?
Are you suggesting civilian firearm ownership somehow prevented the Nazis from skipping over the Atlantic and taking over America? Why did America waste all that money on submarines and aircraft carriers, when they had such deep reserves of plucky gun enthusiasts at the ready?
I'm so confused by your comment.
No leader has unilateral control to unleash the full force of the military on their own citizenry. Imagine what would happen if POTUS tried to order a nuclear strike, or even aerial bombing, on an American city? The Joint Chiefs would almost certainly arrest him immediately. Ordering soldiers to fire on their fellow citizens drastically raises the probability of outright mutiny. This is true even in the most oppressive regimes. Even the Nazis were genuinely scared of average German citizens turning on them for perceived abuses.[3]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_2011 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Netherlands#The_...
None of the no-go areas sound like historical examples you would want to follow unless you like anarchy. They are messy pro-longed conflicts unlike eg Euromaidan.
Your othering use of ‘you guys’ suggests a derogatory view of this event, but your suggestion of its applicability to the text implies that it was a failed protest against ‘would be tyrants’. So it’s a little confusing ideologically, but your rational point is spot on. The notion of any kind of physical power held by citizens over the government was overwhelmingly refuted. Any weakness shown by lack of enforcement against the prior summer of violence, was shown to be fully at their discretion. Absolute physical power. No more delusions.
But we’re talking about crypto here, and the international response to this has apparently been an unprecedented wave of panic crypto buying, or equivalently, state fiat selling. Imagine what they must think. I believe the markets; not the ‘official’ sources, not the press, and definitely not social media.