On Fri, Jun 23, 2017 at 05:01:27AM -0400, grarpamp wrote:

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 6:12 AM, John Levine wrote:

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In article you write:

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The US and many other countries have for a long time required you to [declare cash at the border]...

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adding them to the list of cash-like things. all it does is make them subject to the same rules

Status quo apologist copout from those unable to consider working, cohabitant, symbiotic, even better, innovation, empowerment, and alternatives.

This really sounds like someone who hasn't read the bill, or didn't look at the words while doing so. It regulates physical things that one carries through customs. If the only way you can figure out to transport bitcoins is to print your wallet hash on a physical thing, you probably have issues beyond the scope of this mailing list.

While this *particular* bill may "only" impinge upon some trivial to some readers, parts of DC's... the underlying issue present in the linked posts is that bills are being floated and passed that hamper upon some aspects of these cryptosystems, of which philosophical aspects are forefront and capable of / postulated to being different, by design. And where there is one bill, there will be more, and then it won't be such a trivial side thing to those interests anymore.

Further, those people hardly understand the ramifications of even such bills they consider trivial. To do that they'd actually have to read the bills, and hundreds of pages of associated US Code...

These links should get actual readers started... https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5312 (a)(2) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/subtitle-IV

"Border" games are least of the change.

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So what exactly is *real money*?

The working definition for economists is whatever you can use to pay your taxes.

Who says?

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There are lots of things that are a step or two away from money, e.g., a gold coin which you can sell, but that doesn't mean they're money too.

Oh right, Governments banned those in the 1930's too. Can't have other entities (people) digging them out of the ground (printing) and transacting (DC's, blockchain, etc) privately amongst themselves with them, no no no.

This issue that no matter what people do, The Demoncratically Ordained will look for/ find, ways to tax, and outlaw/ ban those tx mechanisms which are more difficult or impossible for the oligarchy to tax, is THE fundamental issue that shall continue to arise. Fail to handle the fundamental - our ultimate, individual sovereignty and therefore ultimate, individual right to live, survive, buy, sell and do those things we are capable of - and we have failed to hold the oligarchy to account, or rather, hold them to do only that which is ok according to we the people, the true sovereigns, our community, all citizens of the world, or whatever other name we want to use. The oligarchy appear throughout the ages, as "Royalty", the super rich, today's bankers, the Democratically Elected, etc. - again, it matters not what name is used to describe those in power, but those in power, and we the people handling them, is the ultimate question of the ages. Fail to answer this question, and the rest is chasing dragons or windmills or the games of another's invention (in the current thread, chasing statutes). And a one off call to "save your DCs, phone your elected reps now" is never going to fundamentally handle the power dynamic between the oligarchs and the deplorables. I believe that you have no option but to find those you can en-union yourself with, and do so, on those foundations you can, as a group, agree to. Most (all?) of those foundations must be public, for the level of "groundswell" required to make any real change to the current global power dynamic order. At this point in the DC conversation, it is abundantly clear to many that the game for the pepes is already lost! "But why?!" I hear you call. Because the unspoken assumptions: when the statutes must be handled, e.g. by phoning your local reps, you are --assuming-- that those statutes bind you and must be changed in order to have your DC freedom. And so "the system" has already won - grarpamp, as you very correctly point out, this current statute is not the death knell, but you correctly see the (very real in the context of statutes) death knell - this is the statutory "thin edge of the wedge", and you are absolutely correct about this. And you're also correct that "it's not about this particular 'testing of the water' but the string of statutes to follow". Again grarpamp, you are absolutely correct. Bravo! Clap clap. If you think a feeble cp call to action will solve this fundamental, you are mistaken. Some other dynamic - a formative group dynamic, is absolutely necessary. Fundamentally new tech (e.g. "we have the right to travel amongst the counties and buy and sell" said the merchants and "landed gentry" at the time of the Magna Carta, and "if the King won't hear us this time, we shall off his head, like the last", and the kind 'wisely' listened), can sometimes unite folks. In the time of Magna Carta this was the wealthy land owners discovering and naming and asserting their "right to travel and trade, unhindered", and was a powerful enough concept to unite these wealthy land owners, and the great charter of English history was written. But the result came only from two things: 1. The heavy tax affront from generations of Kings. 2. The tech of "my right to travel and trade". 3. Unity of those empowered, and "we WILL behead the King if he do not agree". Count 'em again - two fundamentals! In the modern era, the heavy bullshit from above does not abate, so that item is ticked off the list. Some new tech - our right to mine and trade DC, and the king (the government controlled by the oligarch bankers) are unstoppably instituting their statutes of control over the new toy. So that's another item ticked off the list. The final item is missing though, with its two parts - both a) the unity of any relevant community of middle class (or indeed any class of citizens ...), and b) either the will within that (currently non-existent) group to absolutely continue to do, in action, those things we are told not to but we know are fundamentally our right to do, come jail, come court, come whatever, or alternatively a mechanism to off the head of the actual physical king (the titular kings of those in public government). Of course Jim Bell's AP could satisfy the last sub-point, but it's still absolutely not enough - unity of a relevant part of the population is the missing fundamental. Fail in your true grass roots, and you lose the war. The land owners of today are the executives of the mega corps, but their premise is almost universally the foundation of greed - Google and their "do no evil" could not survive the greed imperative, thus removing their advertising bullshit slogan, because ultimately it was nothing more than a slogan. Given their all but universal greed, empowering (((them))) more than they are already is not advised. Good luck,

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(This definition has some fuzz, e.g., are CDs and savings accounts money

Must be, because like their "real money", they lose value to printflation etc just by holding them. It's intentional.

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-- they use the same units as cash or current accounts, but bank rules don't let you use them directly to pay.)

CD's... certainly not with their time locked future value, that'd be suicide to banks, so they force holders to liquidate.

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I realize that there are people who have faith-based beliefs that money is something else, and who apparently believe that governments are all illegitimate and have no right to regulate anything*

True, Govt's codes grow very long, and ops very deep upon them, few ever really ch[o]ose that, explictly or implicitly.

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but you can find fringe beliefs about anything.

Like that the planets actually revolve around the sun?

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* - yet many of them expect someone to show up if they dial 911

Then their beliefs are in conflict there and they need to sort out that discrepancy in their thinking.