Post AnsIbHCes98dMItdfE by feld@friedcheese.us
(DIR) More posts by feld@friedcheese.us
(DIR) Post #Anp6Hzl3j8a8pM9API by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-08T05:36:28Z
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management of the US dollar is now in the hands of… the people who’ve been buying a ton of bitcoin in a bet on the imminent death of the US dollar.
(DIR) Post #Anp9qebAgmgRCTjwtU by mattlehrer@definitely.social
2024-11-08T06:16:19Z
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@interfluidity this reminds me that it’s illegal in the US to take out a life insurance policy on someone else because it would create a financial market for murder
(DIR) Post #AnpA4qluE69P0bWwng by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-08T06:18:50Z
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@KarlHeinzHasliP i think the planet would be even less likely to survive a bitcoin standard.
(DIR) Post #Ans2Nvj3oaTPiUfNJo by Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net
2024-11-09T15:36:51.234997Z
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@interfluidity why is that bad?
(DIR) Post #Ans33M7IbBirRJkzcu by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T15:44:20Z
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@Hyolobrika sometimes people are glad to win bets by helping them come true.
(DIR) Post #AnsEKj2bidJixO30pU by Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net
2024-11-09T17:50:44.685394Z
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Ok, but what's wrong with the US dollar dying? Especially if it's then replaced by something better (such as a censorship-resistant cryptocurrency).
(DIR) Post #AnsEywGzwR7pZwxCsK by Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net
2024-11-09T17:58:00.311851Z
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Maybe deflation is bad. Idk enough about economics to say anything about that.But it's worth noting that a cryptocurrency doesn't have to be "deflationary".
(DIR) Post #AnsIbHCes98dMItdfE by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-09T18:23:25.647503Z
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@interfluidity I don't know how to break it to you but the US dollar has been in the hands of people destroying it for over 100 years now
(DIR) Post #AnsIbHpeXAKXJF8mRc by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T18:38:31Z
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@feld i’ve maybe devoted years of my life to thinking through this stuff. and, um, no.here’s a presentation that directly addresses what you misinfer from that graph.https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2017/10/Fiat-Is-Effective-Minitalk-light-edit-to-share.pdf
(DIR) Post #AnsIiSIk0ZPno2AHQW by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T18:39:50Z
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@feld here’s maybe a more concise and entertaining version.https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2019/10/uber-but-for-slavery-2019-10-30-post-edit2.pdf
(DIR) Post #AnsJS0Z1T2PV6JV9sG by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-09T18:47:38.757226Z
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@interfluidity never stop studying, you're not there yethttps://ia904501.us.archive.org/5/items/english-collections-1/Economics%20in%20One%20Lesson%20-%20Henry%20Hazlitt.pdf
(DIR) Post #AnsJS1bBcTjeJJWOsy by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T18:48:03Z
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@feld not new to me.
(DIR) Post #AnsJeBdO8LVguULo00 by amerika@annihilation.social
2024-11-09T18:50:17.449117Z
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@interfluidity @feld It's not the fiat currency, it's the entitlements spending.
(DIR) Post #AnsJmEPpg0ADqwqWeG by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T18:51:44Z
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@feld you might address the basic point that the dollar has retained and gently increased value over time as long as it’s been held in the form of zero-credit-risk Treasuries. your graph just shows the existence of a mattress tax, not a weakness of the dollar as a store of value. while crypto has been a terrible store of value, because a currency has to accommodate those who expect to store negative values (be indebted) over fixed periods.
(DIR) Post #AnsK5d9nud905bbDBQ by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-09T18:52:45.522069Z
3 likes, 1 repeats
@interfluidity > Fiat money is an instrument of state poweryeah and that's a bad thing, a very very bad thing.Today's problems are directly related to QE. You can't even have "uber but for slavery" unless QE exists. All the things we hate today only exist because QE made it possible for people to access a nearly infinite amount of cheap capital to fund their disruptive ventures in the hopes that someday they'll profit when the competition is eliminated
(DIR) Post #AnsK5dcWBs73Wf28wK by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T18:55:11Z
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@feld QE does much less than you think. But you are getting to the actually interesting questions. Fiat is extremely effective. It’s a tool of statecraft. The question is whether its effectiveness is a good or bad thing.
(DIR) Post #AnsO8utAqHClljdvJA by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-09T19:00:47.453807Z
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@interfluidity QE got us into the mess of needing to do a trillion dollar reverse repo every night to keep the banks afloat but okay, it doesn't do anything. It's only like one of the most powerful tools the Fed has.
(DIR) Post #AnscZwRYZLUNldVQTw by Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net
2024-11-09T22:22:23.929197Z
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@interfluidity @feld Giving people power is good if you trust them, bad otherwise. Since we can't all agree on who to trust, it's better to, as a society, trust no one.
(DIR) Post #AnscvuQwiqHFu9hAci by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-09T22:26:22Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
@Hyolobrika @feld that is why we invented the institutional state. it’s very much the same story as the blockchain. there’s a central power (central ledger) but no small group of people controls it, only a large decentralized community. we can trust that community, and enjoy the (absolutely extraordinary) benefits that can derive from central authority.but, in both cases, there is always an attack surface.
(DIR) Post #AnsvhovAJrqbsmpFK4 by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-10T01:54:24.613149Z
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@interfluidity @Hyolobrika asserting the "institutional state" is more decentralized than bitcoin is detached from reality and so is the insinuation that there is a "small group of people" controlling bitcoin
(DIR) Post #Ansvhq580JPXTyUiUS by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-10T01:56:42Z
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@feld @Hyolobrika I made no insinuation that a small group of people control bitcoin. I made an analogy between the trust strategies. Devise a central authority (the whole point of a blockchain is to define a single, unified legder) maintained and controlled by a very dispersed community. Then if you trust the community, you can trust the authority.
(DIR) Post #AnsvkR5jNEYYqT0yHY by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-10T01:57:11Z
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@feld @Hyolobrika i was not entering into any kind of pissing match over degrees of dispersion.
(DIR) Post #AnswaM3DMMDWGpaulk by feld@friedcheese.us
2024-11-10T02:05:33.949626Z
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@interfluidity @Hyolobrika there is no community to trust. The whole point is it's trustless because math protects the network. Nobody can change bitcoin without getting 51% of the community to agree and install software that modifies what the chain is capable of doing.
(DIR) Post #AnswaMyduq9d8wSmHY by interfluidity@zirk.us
2024-11-10T02:06:34Z
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@feld @Hyolobrika that is the community you are trusting. you trust this community enough that it seems implausible to you that 51% would change the rules adversely.