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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   31971 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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So long as crypto interacts with the conventional finance system, it will always be at a disadvantage. It is playing a game that it will always lose because the US dollar is backed by the world's hegemonic superpower and crypto is not. The fact that the majority of its current user base sees their hopes and fears rise and fall on its USD value will always make it less than it could potentially be.

Crypto has already lost because it does not solve any practical problems, and the anonymity and fungibility that were major selling points before 2013 have proved easily undone by determined governments. Paypal is convenient and fast, crypto is neither of those. Crypto is like the world's costliest hobby or overvalued open source project. It has no hope of ever being a contender in the US or global financial system.

Paypal is compromisable and has in fact been compromised. The financial aspect is not even really an interesting direction of discussion, centralization risk on transact should be obvious to anyone paying attention. Take a look at what the merchant bank empire is able to do to the porn empire if you question power of transact centralization. as the heel crushes and the bones break the wisdom in investment in anti-stomping insurance becomes clear.

doesn't onlyfans work with credit cards? same for almost all porn sites. the fees are high at times, but it seems to work

did you actually not hear about the recent time Visa and mastercard made pornhub, the king of the porn space, bend the knee? More truthfully it was the NYT that put out a report that single handedly knocked the largest porn company on the internet out of existence until it purged more than half of its content off the site. The only thing stopping this weapon from being turned directly against dissidents is precedent, and barely at that. Can you say it would surprise you if DeSantis donations were cut off mid campaign if he looked dominant?

there are 1000s of porn sites and all seem to be doing fine except for that one and a few others maybe. That is the risk of allowing anyone to upload anything without moderation or screening, which they have fixed, and is a problem that was unique to pornhub. Most porn sites screen the performers for age. This risk is not just limited to porn sites, any site that allows user generated content is at risk of being cut off. if porn is so badly threatened by this, why are so many sites .

The only thing stopping this weapon from being turned directly against dissidents is precedent, and barely at that

It's also possible to oppose government overreach but still think crypto is an impractical solution

If you can appease this latest demand by the censors then there is not problem

Is this even convincing to you? I genuinely don't know if it's worse faith to assume you're making this objection in good faith or not. You don't see why someone might be concerned that two, demonstrably cowardly, corporations being able to basically wipe any business on the internet out of existence if pressed hard enough should be concerning?

Yes, I saw the blasphemers crushed under the boot of the master but look at all the prosperous people whom have not yet had their insides turned into a fine slush by the master! Surely this is an optimal system!

corporations being able to basically wipe any business on the internet out of existence if pressed hard enough should be concerning?

I am just talking about bitcoin not being viable as a payment alternative. This does not imply supporting tyranny . The collapse of SilkRoad showed how hard this is, at least in the US, and this was with 2013 technology. Feds are much better at tracking crypto.

Are you under the impression that you cannot buy drugs on the internet using cryptocurrencies? It was not a technological failure that got Dread Captain Roberts(PBUH) taken down. And if the feds can track Monero transactions they've shown no indication.

And if the feds can track Monero transactions they've shown no indication.

That is possibly mistaking absence of evidence for evidence of absence. The feds try to track onramps/offramps of Monero to BTC or to fiat. This is partly why so few exchanges accept it. I think in fairness Monero is the most viable of the cryptos since it does have a practical use case. It seems like a bargain for this reason relative to the others. BTC seems most suitable for 'grey market' activity, stuff where the feds will not get involved, but not mainstream in which credit card is faster and more convenient . To bring this back to adoption, even if every porn site uses BTC , this is still small relative to the overall economy. Porn is not that big in terms of GDP despite all the traffic it gets. For someone buying goods on Amazon or Walmart, bitcoin probably offers no advantage over what already exists.

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