If your fellow citizens in aggregate really don't like what you do and want to stop you, the will eventually find a way. You want a society that does not police where money flows - which is a big change and there is no evidence that broadly people like to open the taps on things like terrorist financing, slave trading etc. So there will likely be some limits that societies like to enforce.
And of course they could attack crypto by taking over mining, policing any sale of hardware, making touching any crypto a felony, clamp down harder on any cause you want to donate to, etc. They might not win completely, but they might make things pretty uncomfortable for most that would want to use it.
Democracy is a very powerful technology, no argument there. But it can't overcome technical realities. It is better at adjusting to them and giving up when the cost gets too high.
And no, technologies do not freely diffuse through societies, some stuff remains pretty firmly in highly policed boxes when the cost of letting it run free is deemed to high (can you just go buy nuclear weapons, for example?). Who is to say that the cost of banning crypto would be too high - I have not seen the evidence for that (also not really for a ban, either)? That is a political decision, not a technical one. And, yes, there can be bad decisions with really high costs, no doubt.
Yep. Happens regularly.
> ...or pay for it to change?
And nope, certainly not. But crypto will fall into the same category - stamping out the ability to do the - rather simple - necessary maths would require horrific compromises that are simply not supportable. This technology has radically altered the power balance of moving funds around. Sure that isn't sunshine and roses, but at least we don't have to worry about so much about asset freezes.
Plus asset freezes are on the cards for shutting down protesting truckers. If we're living in a world where the Canadian government can attack truckers (of all people) with asset freezes why can't it happen to you or me? I don't see the much difference between myself and a Canadian trucker. I suppose I couldn't handle working hard for more than about 6 hours at a time.
I can believe that for some people the topic is high on the agenda, but really "most"?
I generally agree with you but don't understand this example: the concept of an LLC is not a technology that stands against law in a way that forces the law to adapt but is a construct that only exists by the grace of law... like, what would it mean to illegally form an LLC in a world that didn't agree with such actions?
A country that doesn't adopt LLCs or some similar method of pooling risk will tend to get overrun by a country that does. So people can try to stand against the tide by not allowing pooled risk and capitalism, then 50-100 years later the capitalists role over them because the wealth gap has gotten so large there isn't room for meaningful resistance.
Kind of like what happened between the USSR and the US, or Europe v. All Other Civilisations. You can technically choose not to use the legal ideas, but that is really just choosing to be overwhelmed by more organised groups of people. Much like how a military that refused to use guns would get overwhelmed by one that does.
Like I said upthread, this lasts until the second plane strikes the tower.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia brought a huge, unprecedented wave of financial sanctions. If cryptocurrency actually worked for private, uncensorable transactions, they would have shrugged this off and moved to Monero. Perhaps we shouldn't rule this out. But remember the level of law changes to privacy and surveillance rolled out after 9/11 as well. We've not yet seen the first terrorist attack that would not have been possible without uncensorable cryptocurrency funding; the response to that will be something to behold.
Privacy-coins could be the next big one. It switches accounting from being a tool of coercion (c.f. the famous case of the Canadian truckers) to something like air which just cannot practically be denied.
If politicians banded together and behaved like civilised adults then crypto would be worthless. But they aren't about to try that sort of radical change, so this tech might actually solve a lot of problems. With something like Monero I really do not see, at any level, how they could stop me doing stuff like donating to political causes I agree with. That is scary in some ways, but there is also reason to be optimistic.