Author Topic: Reaching out to the Left  (Read 4652 times)

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Offline bytemaster

The left/right divide is a false divide...   

The only divide that matters is freedom / slavery divide.

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Offline gamey

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There is actually a good deal of overlap between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party.  This shared sentiment dovetails into themes of decentralization IMO.
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Offline luckybit

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Although not explicitly stated, it is pretty clear that the vast majority of those who know what the acronym "DAC" stands for embrace some libertarian variant of anti-authoritarianism. We almost never see anti-authoritarian leftists in our midst.  In this, we are missing out on an incredible opportunity.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/bitcoin-for-activists-what-you-need-to-know

Only very rarely might one see a band of Rothbardians or Objectivists willing to stand up for their beliefs in front of a water canon in freezing weather, but hold an IMF or Bilderberg Group meeting, and leftist radicals will show up in large numbers in spite of tear gas, concussion grenades, and dogs.

That's the kind of dedication that we need!

Considering that Bitcoin is associated with money, per se, and leftists typically hold money in disdain, we might get some traction among them with BitShares.

For example, someone could use BTS ME to issue Protest Hours (XPH). The movement organizers could exchange XPH for anything else of value, including BTC, BTS, BitUSD, etc., that rally organizers could use to reward protesters who show up at a rally. After the rally, anyone in possession of a unit of XPH could use it to redeem from the movement organizers some fraction of what the rally organizers paid, or better yet use the XPH as a medium of exchange within the activist community.

If the shares circulated as an intra-community medium of exchange, a would-be radical just getting started would be able to look at the market prices of the different movements' shares and either join one with a high market cap or help out one of the underdogs.

Alternatively, the movement organizers could fund their activities with a Distributed Autonomous Charity.

Either way, rather than compete for attention among existing Bitcoin users, we could recruit within a largely untapped market that includes environmental, food, anti-exploitation and anti-human-trafficking, pro-choice, feminist, LGBT, and peace activists. While one might not agree with their agendas, decentralization does imply diversity of thought, and they do have the numbers on their side.

I've already done this. They know about this forum and are registered. Just because there is no obvious left-right that we can see it doesn't mean they aren't here. I think if you want to reach out further you have to avoid the left-right paradigm entirely and focus on what all human beings want.

It's clear on the left and right that we don't want what we currently have and we cannot sustain what we are doing. The differences that divide the two factions of libertarian are trivial in my opinion and I think the vast majority can be convinced to look beyond it if it can be shown that Bitshares is of practical value. If the basic human needs and concerns can be met then only the most hardcore dogmatic political fanatics will cling to their traditional views in spite of practical solutions.

The other way not to scare people away is not to discuss divisive political topics, and to invite everyone to the conferences. That is why I suggested we invite all sorts of people from the decentralization community. Additionally I've brought some to the forum so they have interacted but possibly were scared away by the zeal of Bytemaster (which is a good thing at times but intimidating to people who don't understand the technology to grasp his arguments). Not everyone in the community takes some of the extreme positions as Bytemaster and even among those who do, perhaps would wouldn't use the same words to express it (for example Bytemaster not believing in intellectual property has to be explained to people who don't understand digital technology).

The main argument the left is making is while they are anti authoritarian just as right libertarians, the left embraces socialism, basic income, universal healthcare, the commons, a sharing economy and so on. This is due to the fact that the right (although not too many on this forum) have a blind spot which somehow accepts extreme hierarchy and authoritarianism from private corporations while blaming everything on the government. The left libertarians on the other hand seem to have a blind spot toward the government while blaming everything on large corporations.

Additionally the left for some odd reason seems to promote some of the demurrage, inflation and credit policies which to my understanding would keep everyone economically disadvantaged because no one could save or invest (except the government perhaps?) while at the same time favoring redistribution. A criticism I have of the right is that the right talks about charity, and building community without government, but never actually does it and instead lets large corporations own the fundamental resources for survival (centralization of power). Both perspectives in my opinion lead to ugly dystopian futures.

My view is that large institutions and hierarchy in general cause the problem and it doesn't matter to me if it's a corporate, religious or government hierarchy. The same sort of problems happen when you have corrupt people with too much power at the top. Approach the left by making it obvious that the left-right paradigm is obsolete in the face of technology being developed. The premises that many of the redistribution based solutions were based upon may not be valid anymore, but at the same time those on the right have to concede that it's unacceptable to accept just any form of capitalism because not all lead to a free market and what we have now is the worst of the left and right combined.

Show how this is not a "right wing libertarian" community, but a decentralization community. Decentralization is something the left and right both support. Then leave it up to each community to determine what they do with the source code. Let's refrain from calling anyone left or right, and focus on reaching communities who want to achieve similar ends in the grand scheme because left and right is not helpful for anyone not trying to divide and rule.



« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 01:19:20 am by luckybit »
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Offline CWEvans

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Although not explicitly stated, it is pretty clear that the vast majority of those who know what the acronym "DAC" stands for embrace some libertarian variant of anti-authoritarianism. We almost never see anti-authoritarian leftists in our midst.  In this, we are missing out on an incredible opportunity.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/bitcoin-for-activists-what-you-need-to-know

Only very rarely might one see a band of Rothbardians or Objectivists willing to stand up for their beliefs in front of a water canon in freezing weather, but hold an IMF or Bilderberg Group meeting, and leftist radicals will show up in large numbers in spite of tear gas, concussion grenades, and dogs.

That's the kind of dedication that we need!

Considering that Bitcoin is associated with money, per se, and leftists typically hold money in disdain, we might get some traction among them with BitShares.

For example, someone could use BTS ME to issue Protest Hours (XPH). The movement organizers could exchange XPH for anything else of value, including BTC, BTS, BitUSD, etc., that rally organizers could use to reward protesters who show up at a rally. After the rally, anyone in possession of a unit of XPH could use it to redeem from the movement organizers some fraction of what the rally organizers paid, or better yet use the XPH as a medium of exchange within the activist community.

If the shares circulated as an intra-community medium of exchange, a would-be radical just getting started would be able to look at the market prices of the different movements' shares and either join one with a high market cap or help out one of the underdogs.

Alternatively, the movement organizers could fund their activities with a Distributed Autonomous Charity.

Either way, rather than compete for attention among existing Bitcoin users, we could recruit within a largely untapped market that includes environmental, food, anti-exploitation and anti-human-trafficking, pro-choice, feminist, LGBT, and peace activists. While one might not agree with their agendas, decentralization does imply diversity of thought, and they do have the numbers on their side.