[HN Gopher] How does the FBI art crime team operate?
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How does the FBI art crime team operate?
Author : prismatic
Score : 40 points
Date : 2022-01-19 05:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (hyperallergic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hyperallergic.com)
| Lamad123 wrote:
| These stupid modals jumping at you on every click!!
| [deleted]
| Isamu wrote:
| So they mention money laundering. Serious question: does that
| explain at least some of the hype surrounding NFTs?
| rafale wrote:
| In the NFT/crypto world, you will see more liquidity mining in
| the form of wash trades in the hope of amassing a bigger share
| of a future platform airdrop (e.g. the much awaited but so far
| not happening OpenSea airdrop)
| vmception wrote:
| Nobody in the art space has a _worse_ experience when using
| NFTs (except maybe in transaction fees on some networks). It is
| _either_ the exact same experience or a better one.
|
| So, "yesn't"? It would improve the same aspects of the fine art
| world if thats what some market participants like art pieces
| for. You can move more money faster with crypto so if you want
| to rationalize those movements with NFT purchases - or just
| attract the people who want to do that but found crypto
| unrelateable before NFTs - then thats available too.
|
| A lot of these questions evaporate when you use them yourself.
| Its fun to imagine everything is a wash trade, but when a bot
| or person bids on your own NFTs and you use that money to pay
| rent or buy a car, you personally will then understand that the
| assumption is simply irrelevant. Its like "yeah, sure the NFT
| space is ripe for money laundering and wash trading, there are
| also other people buying and selling, the distinction doesn't
| matter"
|
| Even if the bots are money laundering, hoping to resell art
| they buy to someone else, are they _successfully_ money
| laundering? We don 't know and its not our problem, so who
| cares? People worried that the bids will dry up on artwork they
| own if they attempted to enter the space for investment? Who
| cares! Thats a risk for everyone in any asset class. Take the
| risk or don't.
| cryptoanon wrote:
| NFTs are hypothetically a good way to launder money but
| practically not so. Governments and chain analytics companies
| their tentacles wrapped around blockchains insofar that, if
| trying to launder money in size, you'll likely be discovered.
| politician wrote:
| I can't believe we dedicate law enforcement resources to policing
| what amounts to a global tax avoidance marketplace.
| vernie wrote:
| You make it sound pretty appealing.
| dapids wrote:
| username checks out
| tediousdemise wrote:
| How else do you expect LEO to get paid? They want some of that
| sweet tax avoidance revenue too!
|
| Jokes aside, taxes are an awesome social construct that should
| fund many essential things that citizens need such as a stable
| infrastructure, utilities, healthcare, public education, etc.
| The problem is that you can't really choose how you want your
| taxes to be spent, since the popular thing is to elect someone
| else to (mis)manage the taxes for you.
|
| Government mismanagement and corruption is pervasive at all
| levels - city, state and federal. I live in a high COL area
| with high taxes, yet the roads, schools, and other publicly
| funded things are trash. It's crystal clear that the money I
| pay in taxes is not being spent appropriately, so it's no
| wonder people try to avoid paying taxes altogether.
|
| We need an elective tax system that lets you choose where you
| want the tax money to be funneled. For a simple and naive
| example, say you have a flat 20% federal tax, that lets you
| pick which public institutions you want the funds to be
| delivered to. Maybe 5% to NASA, 5% to veterans, and the
| remaining 10% could be left up to the government to decide.
| This would be an example of "voting with your wallet," but it's
| just a fantasy. The government will never give that kind of
| power to us.
|
| So to this I say, just keep paying your taxes like the model
| citizen that you are, and don't question it! I hope you have
| fun paying the government forever on any private property or
| income that you have, since you have no choice. It's not your
| fault that you don't have a choice either, since it was robbed
| from you. You were born into circumstance. Almost all land on
| earth has been claimed by governments or private entities, so
| you have no where left to turn. Just by virtue of being alive,
| you owe the government overlords for all of your creature
| comforts: the water you drink, the land you live on, the food
| you eat, the hole you shit in, and so much more. They will
| steal your labor in exchange for pieces of paper that will
| ultimately find their way right back to them.
| space_fountain wrote:
| It sounds like what you are describing are just donations.
| Since taxes need to be redistributive donations are a
| difficult way to make society work. Some people are selfish
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Yeah, that's why I think making part of the taxes non-
| electable could be a solid choice. That way, you can still
| give the government _some_ autonomy for spending, just not
| _all_ of it (because from my jaded perspective, governments
| aren 't the best at decision making or execution).
| tarmon wrote:
| I'm just imagining government agencies running pledge
| drives for three months out of the year.
|
| In this system how would we manage a situation where some
| organizations are over funded to a drastic degree (though
| who decides that?) and other vital services (and who
| decides what is vital?) are underfunded? I'm not
| convinced that the American people could come together
| and vote with our wallets in a way that results in a
| balanced budget.
|
| Edit: I shouldn't have specified American, I'm sure
| plenty of countries would struggle with this :)
| tediousdemise wrote:
| Pledge drives, wow... that really puts things into
| perspective for me.
|
| It's a tragedy that an invaluable public resource like
| Wikipedia is forced to do pledge drives, while at the
| same time, the government spends trillions on defense
| against the better wishes of practically the entire
| population.
|
| I think I'd be comfortable giving the people some
| financial autonomy to try to change such a messed up
| situation. After all, you can't truly say that something
| works until you test it out.
| auntienomen wrote:
| OP username checks out.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That seems like the right thing to dedicate law enforcement
| resources to.
| sneak wrote:
| That presupposes that maximizing tax revenue is a net good
| for society.
| Tostino wrote:
| If they were putting their resources into actually stopping
| the tax avoidance, but instead they are put into going after
| those who scam the people trying to avoid taxes.
| [deleted]
| Tostino wrote:
| Text of the article for those who couldn't read past the login
| prompt: https://pastebin.com/iYu9LNLV
|
| (was too long to paste directly)
| afdsfadafd wrote:
| Pix or it didn't happen. (No pix and it did happen, I suppose).
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Pix or it didn't happen. (No pix and it did happen, I
| suppose).
|
| These two statements are opposites.
|
| What you want is this tautology p - q [?] !p
| [?] q
|
| By which you can see that "pix or it didn't happen" is
| equivalent to "no pix implies it didn't happen".
| treasfdfs wrote:
| Depends on what 'it' means, I was referring to 'it' being
| theft.
|
| Pix present => no theft happened, no pix => theft happened.
| It's xor rather than logical implication.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| p [?] q is still not equivalent to !p [?] !q, though in
| this case they're just unrelated rather than being
| opposites.
| treasfdfs wrote:
| It's (!p [?] q) [?] (p [?] !q) meaning 'either one or the
| other' ((no pics and theft) or (pics and no theft)). So
| its boolean inequality which is xor.
|
| Pedantry is kewl.
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