joenakamoto on Nostr: Reply from my anti-Bitcoin colleague. Who fancies replying to this? Sats sent of ...

Reply from my anti-Bitcoin colleague.

Who fancies replying to this? Sats sent of course 🫡

“Yeah this is where you’ve lost me now with the central bank conspiracies.

If you’re concerned with the socializing of losses that’s a matter for regulators, which most central banks usually aren’t. The same people who are pushing the narrative at the highest levels of the Fed being the root of all corruption are also the ones who lobbied policymakers to defang regulators and massively deregulate financial markets in the 1990s. They criticize government for being ineffective, and then do everything in their power to make it ineffective. This is a classic playbook of right-wing economic thought which has permeated into the platforms of political parties the world round, from the Republicans to the Tories to Georgian Dream.

Central banks are part of the social contract. They are able to introduce (they aren’t always the wisest, but they are able to) policies that can help mitigate the effects of financial crises. The pandemic relief in the United States is a perfect example. At the order of the government, they were able to provide small benefits to people to help live through the pandemic.

Now crypto people, especially the bitcoin maxis, often froth at the mouth when this example is brought up, as people spending about 1,600 bucks on rent and food is apparently an immeasurable evil and despicable tyranny, despite it being an objectively positive societal good.

If people are truly concerned about the inflation this could cause (CEOs, “founders” and the beloved “builders” of the world create far more inflation than small stimuli for food do) there are myriad controls that policymakers can introduce to mitigate inflation, they just never do because of the prevailing political forces that view any sort of proactive move from government, other than a monopoly of violence, as an act equal to tyranny.

Instead (because apparently collective or political action is not viable or legitimate in libertarian thinking) we have to for some reason literally reinvent money in the form of this technological silver bullet (I’m looking at the cotton gin and the gatling gun) to cure the ills that are the result of capitalism as usual.

In end, this idea of a Bitcoin standard doesn’t seem like anything new to me at all. It’d be the late 19th century all over again. Early adopters would be the robber barons of the new era, issuing private money as they please and developing Bitcoin based derivatives. Bubbles and busts would still happen.

What’s more we’d be at there mercy of these feudal early adopters to provide more monetary supply in the event of shocks and crises, which happen with no less frequency in a deflationary system.

The technological silver bullet becomes more fuel for the dumpster fire it was supposed to put out.”