BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: BldSwtTrs on February 14, 2014, 01:40:01 pm
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First, to what extent Bitshare X will be anonymous? Will it come with a weaker, stronger or same level of anonymity than Bitcoin?
Also, in the first whitepaper bytemaster mentioned an eventual implementation of Zerocoin, but not in the new one.
I understand that this will not come with Bitshare X, but is it still a possibility to implement something like Zerocoin in the following blockchain?
Imho it's a pretty big subject and a feature that is REALLY needed in the future.
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Agree. I am a little worried that the crypto space will either be completely anonomous or will make complete survailance possible. Both is horrible with different cases for society as a whole.
A case where complete anonimity is obviously bad: Someone goes short on a company's stock -> attacks this company (bombing plants, injecting poison into food the company produces) -> takes profits anonymously.
I think most people and reasonable officals like Benjamin Lawsky see it the same way. It is a balance and extreme positions to either side will have more extreme disadavtanges than advtantages.
Goal imo must be to distribute power as much as possible. Extreme positions to either side will fail here.
Communication and working together with officials and an open PR policy will help to walk this fine line between complete anonymity and survailance.
I believe the fact that I3 has a corporate structure will help a lot here.
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Agree. I am a little worried that the crypto space will either be completely anonomous or will make complete survailance possible. Both is horrible with different cases for society as a whole.
A case where complete anonimity is obviously bad: Someone goes short on a company's stock -> attacks this company (bombing plants, injecting poison into food the company produces) -> takes profits anonymously.
I think most people and reasonable officals like Benjamin Lawsky see it the same way. It is a balance and extreme positions to either side will have more extreme disadavtanges than advtantages.
Goal imo must be to distribute power as much as possible. Extreme positions to either side will fail here.
Communication and working together with officials and an open PR policy will help to walk this fine line between complete anonymity and survailance.
I believe the fact that I3 has a corporate structure will help a lot here.
I have been pondering this issue for a while and have come up with a possible structure that maintains decentralization and anonymity while allowing for a few points of reference. My own venture while having many similarities to DACs has an actual physical footprint, the risks, costs and profits involved are possibly huge so i've thought of using a "cell" strategy. It looks like a possible option to dealing with many issues that are limiting the crypto-space, for instance, by de-coupling central management and using user consensus, policies, strategies and changes can be adopted in an audit-able yet nigh untraceable way. pseudonyms are encouraged to protect all users. I am currently trying to figure out a method of one-time use deposit and withdrawal scheme for the exchange i am working on that will ensure that once a user confirms withdrawals and deposits of their fiat, their personal details are destroyed. Regulations here state that you must do KYC, but there are no post KYC regulations, as a result it is up to me whether to store or "lose" the data.
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Agree. I am a little worried that the crypto space will either be completely anonomous or will make complete survailance possible. Both is horrible with different cases for society as a whole.
A case where complete anonimity is obviously bad: Someone goes short on a company's stock -> attacks this company (bombing plants, injecting poison into food the company produces) -> takes profits anonymously.
I think most people and reasonable officals like Benjamin Lawsky see it the same way. It is a balance and extreme positions to either side will have more extreme disadavtanges than advtantages.
Goal imo must be to distribute power as much as possible. Extreme positions to either side will fail here.
Communication and working together with officials and an open PR policy will help to walk this fine line between complete anonymity and survailance.
I believe the fact that I3 has a corporate structure will help a lot here.
I have been pondering this issue for a while and have come up with a possible structure that maintains decentralization and anonymity while allowing for a few points of reference. My own venture while having many similarities to DACs has an actual physical footprint, the risks, costs and profits involved are possibly huge so i've thought of using a "cell" strategy. It looks like a possible option to dealing with many issues that are limiting the crypto-space, for instance, by de-coupling central management and using user consensus, policies, strategies and changes can be adopted in an audit-able yet nigh untraceable way. pseudonyms are encouraged to protect all users. I am currently trying to figure out a method of one-time use deposit and withdrawal scheme for the exchange i am working on that will ensure that once a user confirms withdrawals and deposits of their fiat, their personal details are destroyed. Regulations here state that you must do KYC, but there are no post KYC regulations, as a result it is up to me whether to store or "lose" the data.
did you lay that out in details somewhere? Or is it still in your head only?
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Agree. I am a little worried that the crypto space will either be completely anonomous or will make complete survailance possible. Both is horrible with different cases for society as a whole.
A case where complete anonimity is obviously bad: Someone goes short on a company's stock -> attacks this company (bombing plants, injecting poison into food the company produces) -> takes profits anonymously.
I think most people and reasonable officals like Benjamin Lawsky see it the same way. It is a balance and extreme positions to either side will have more extreme disadavtanges than advtantages.
Goal imo must be to distribute power as much as possible. Extreme positions to either side will fail here.
Communication and working together with officials and an open PR policy will help to walk this fine line between complete anonymity and survailance.
I believe the fact that I3 has a corporate structure will help a lot here.
I have been pondering this issue for a while and have come up with a possible structure that maintains decentralization and anonymity while allowing for a few points of reference. My own venture while having many similarities to DACs has an actual physical footprint, the risks, costs and profits involved are possibly huge so i've thought of using a "cell" strategy. It looks like a possible option to dealing with many issues that are limiting the crypto-space, for instance, by de-coupling central management and using user consensus, policies, strategies and changes can be adopted in an audit-able yet nigh untraceable way. pseudonyms are encouraged to protect all users. I am currently trying to figure out a method of one-time use deposit and withdrawal scheme for the exchange i am working on that will ensure that once a user confirms withdrawals and deposits of their fiat, their personal details are destroyed. Regulations here state that you must do KYC, but there are no post KYC regulations, as a result it is up to me whether to store or "lose" the data.
did you lay that out in details somewhere? Or is it still in your head only?
Lol, there is a half done paper that i passed to someone who can articulate things better than i, i'll have it on noirbitstalk.org Monday morning. If you check in the ALT DACS section you'll see the ANN for the CANDIDATE DAC. It falls under "CANDIDATE" because it is not autonomous but is decentralized and leans towards the corporate side of commerce. I have many docs to complete and publish over the next few days, so you'll see a lot of the driving ideas in print. I tend to be technical rather than articulate so i chose to finish the coding first then figure out how to put my ideas on paper. :( if only i could talk like i type.
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I believe that the markets will produce results independent of any individuals political concept of what is 'good' or 'bad' and that attempts to engineer a proper-balance between privacy and transparency will likely fail, it is like trying to mix oil and water.
In the case of BitShares X, the privacy consideration is more or less identical to Bitcoin.
In the case of Keyhotee Wallet, it will add increased privacy to both Bitcoin and BitShares X through dividing one transaction with many inputs going to one output into many transactions with a single input going to a single output and entirely eliminate the reuse of addresses. This process will make network analysis much harder.
In the case of Zerocoin technology, I have played with it and would like to integrate it in a future product.
As far as the Short, Poison, Profit potential is concerned, this cannot be prevented... see 9/11 for an example of people who did this with our current system and yet were never caught.
A business would counter this kind of attack with insurance which would make the Short, Poison, Profit attack backfire as it would yield profits for the company rather than losses. If the company attempted to perform a false-flag to commit insurance fraud you are no longer dealing with anonymous individuals!
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I believe that the markets will produce results independent of any individuals political concept of what is 'good' or 'bad' and that attempts to engineer a proper-balance between privacy and transparency will likely fail, it is like trying to mix oil and water.
I agree.
It is very important to have a fully anonymous currency just in case the US government decide to take advantage of the transparency of the network and thereby lead humanity in an orwellian society. (And the more I think about it the more I think this scenario has a high probability)
Maybe the market will choose the transparent currencies while governments don't mess around. But the day the power decide to become evil then it is essential to have the possibility to switch to a fully anonymous currency.
In the case of Zerocoin technology, I have played with it and would like to integrate it in a future product.
This is a wonderful news!
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As far as the Short, Poison, Profit potential is concerned, this cannot be prevented... see 9/11 for an example of people who did this with our current system and yet were never caught.
There was no material profit taken from 9/11 though. Attacks like that could become a business model. No one wants that.
A business would counter this kind of attack with insurance which would make the Short, Poison, Profit attack backfire as it would yield profits for the company rather than losses. If the company attempted to perform a false-flag to commit insurance fraud you are no longer dealing with anonymous individuals!
...this would still increase overall costs and therefore would not be profits for the company.
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I mean I DO agree with you that full transparency would lead to survalilance and total control which would be horrible in many ways. But this should not lead us to close our eyes towards as horrible things on the other side of the anonymity/transparency specturum. Idiologies (simpliefied and moral categorial systems) help us to close our eyes to the complexity of the world. LET THIS MOVEMENT BE DIFFERENT! No ideologies, only means to ends/goals.
There was a post somewhere else pointing to this video http://altcoinpress.com/2014/02/altcoins-rising-bitcoin-the-altavista-as-google-waits-in-wings/
The first presentation has a simple and i think valid point: You wount just install your own system apart from the establishment. If you win with your appraoch your system becomes the standard. So there is no way around having a society (world) wide discussion because everyone would be effected.
Governments, as imperfect as they work, are the enitites deciding on laws on behalf of te society as a whole. Governments, next to the media, other social movements, everyone, are players that should be involved in this anonymity/transparency discussion.
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Governments decide laws on behalf of special interest, not society as a whole.
As far as philosophy is concerned, I do not subscribe to end justifies the means approach even though many (most?) do.
So if the market demands privacy then voluntary transactions will produce this result and make a profit by doing so. If the market demands transparency then I suppose we shall have transparency; however, such lack of privacy over financial matters could be worse than the scenarios you are concerned about.
Remember, lack of privacy is only *one* means of achieving the end of 'accountability'.... after all, suppose someone took out a short position and profited as a result of food being poisoned. That doesn't prove knowledge or involvement and without some other kind of evidence is not even a basis for violating their rights or a warrant.
I would suggest that the deterrence against such attacks can be achieved through some other means than the one suggested. Privacy need not be sacrificed in the name of public good.
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...LET THIS MOVEMENT BE DIFFERENT! No ideologies, only means to ends/goals...
Note that this is itself an ideology, and as bytemaster suggests, a very dangerous one. It's also incomplete. What ideology defines these ends/goals that apparently we're pursuing without regard to costs?
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Governments decide laws on behalf of special interest, not society as a whole.
> I totally agree here. "Society as a whole" is an approximation.
As far as philosophy is concerned, I do not subscribe to end justifies the means approach even though many (most?) do.
> The concept is meant to take into account different goals and different means: The means of government survailance for my perscoallny doesnt justify the end of security because another goald is compromised on the way.
I described "means to ends" as opposed to idiology which has no goals but to have a stable perspective on the world and make sense of the world this way.
So if the market demands privacy then voluntary transactions will produce this result and make a profit by doing so. If the market demands transparency then I suppose we shall have transparency; however, such lack of privacy over financial matters could be worse than the scenarios you are concerned about.
> Could be. I didnt say what is worse or better. What I said was: Let's not just look at one side. The other thing I said was: Idiology makes you do that (having pre known solutions without analyzing pros and cons of a solution).
> I totally disagree about the market being able to deliver a transparency solution because this would need an agreement to have it. In a world of individuals no one would have an incentive to compromise his privacy if the other ones doent. So there has to be an agreement by all to compromise their privacy. This is a freerider problem and can NOT be served by a market.
Remember, lack of privacy is only *one* means of achieving the end of 'accountability'.... after all, suppose someone took out a short position and profited as a result of food being poisoned. That doesn't prove knowledge or involvement and without some other kind of evidence is not even a basis for violating their rights or a warrant.
> Doesnt prove it, right. But if the attacker is having 99% of the shorting volume in a day/week/month and he is known. Law enforcement would have a starting point. And the system would work if law enforcement would do a good job plus if it would not be corrupted in some way in that perticular respect. [to demonstrate what I mean by ideology: Some liberal idiologist (not to be confused with someone that is highly valuing liberal values!) would have an opinion here right away as soon as he hears the words "law enforcement" and "coruption" in one sentence. Law enforcement is often corrupted but that doesnt mean it mostly is. Tha's why I said "that perticular respect"]
I would suggest that the deterrence against such attacks can be achieved through
some other means than the one suggested. Privacy need not be sacrificed in the name of public good.
> Do you have some of these other means on your mind?
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...LET THIS MOVEMENT BE DIFFERENT! No ideologies, only means to ends/goals...
Note that this is itself an ideology, and as bytemaster suggests, a very dangerous one. It's also incomplete. What ideology defines these ends/goals that apparently we're pursuing without regard to costs?
No one defines these ends! It is an open discussion which should involve as many people as possible.
I tried to further describe what I meand by idiology the the post above.
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This is a freerider problem and can NOT be served by a market.
This single statement implies some assumptions I reject. By saying it cannot be solved by a market you imply it must be solved by force. As such you have given up looking for market solutions and accepted the shortcut of force.... that the end (solving the free rider problem) justifies the means (government force).
The free rider problem is a economic fallacy: http://www.simpleliberty.org/taota/the_free_rider_fallacy.htm
So while you argue utility and against ideology, I argue principle. My principles are very simple and are the foundation upon which everything I am working toward is built: namely don't do unto others what you don't want others doing unto you. If that ideology gets in the way of so-called potential solutions then they obviously are not complete solutions.
I recognize your greater point though of being open minded about potential solutions, my only point is that you shouldn't rule out market solutions to problems with a broad assumption as that is being closed minded and ideological...
Now I have no interest in starting a debate about who is being ideological or closed minded, so please don't take anything I have said personally. I am arguing with the ideas, not with you as a person.
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Now I have no interest in starting a debate about who is being ideological or closed minded, so please don't take anything I have said personally. I am arguing with the ideas, not with you as a person.
Dont worry I dont take anything in a bad way :)
This single statement implies some assumptions I reject. By saying it cannot be solved by a market you imply it must be solved by force. As such you have given up looking for market solutions and accepted the shortcut of force.... that the end (solving the free rider problem) justifies the means (government force).
I would like to be proved wrong because the state solution is faulty! The prevailing soultion is to have an agreement of as many people as possible (on questions like taxes (yes, no, how) etc.). And you are rigth there is force (mostly the thread of force) applied to those that dont agree. Most states exclude some unalienable rights from these agreements. But, and I think you agree, the process can be faulty (what is unalienable? Also the definitions of these unalienable rights can be bent) and with the non-unalienable rights rarely all will agree.
But the "state system" does deliver some things: It protects most rights which most people agree the be most valueable and those are (basically: see faults above + possibly corrupt law enforcement) granted to all individuals (if the state system if working right!) in the same way independent of the economic possibilities to afford these rights. There are a few more things but that is the core I would say.
A differnent solution would have to improve upon this system.
All I wanted to say is that any solution should be approached from the same neutral standpoint and dis- and advantages of any system should be taken seriously. This is the responsinility of any actor that can have an effect on peoples lives in an indirect way.
edit: I will read the article you suggested as soon as I find the time to.
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But the "state system" does deliver some things: It protects most rights
I must laugh out loud at this claim... the state system systematically violates every possible human right. It kills more people, robs more people, terrorizes more people, than any organized private crime could by several orders of magnitude and does so with the approval of the majority. Why am I more afraid of government than I am of private criminals? At least there is something I can do about private criminals to defend myself.
So lets focus on ways of protecting rights without violating anyones rights. First rule of protecting someones rights: do no harm. Modern approaches to protecting rights goes something like this... "you were robbed, so lets go rob someone else so we can track down and punish that thief". It would be better to let the thief get away with it than to become a thief yourself. Especially because in 99.9% of all cases, you end up robing more from others in the pursuit of this thief than the thief robbed from you in the first place.
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So lets focus on ways of protecting rights without violating anyones rights. First rule of protecting someones rights: do no harm. Modern approaches to protecting rights goes something like this... "you were robbed, so lets go rob someone else so we can track down and punish that thief". It would be better to let the thief get away with it than to become a thief yourself. Especially because in 99.9% of all cases, you end up robing more from others in the pursuit of this thief than the thief robbed from you in the first place.
Specifically, what kind of robbery do you mean that the states does in the case described?
I must laugh out loud at this claim... the state system systematically violates every possible human right. It kills more people, robs more people, terrorizes more people, than any organized private crime could by several orders of magnitude and does so with the approval of the majority. Why am I more afraid of government than I am of private criminals? At least there is something I can do about private criminals to defend myself.
... you are being sarcastic. I always depends on the perspective. I agree that what you said is a valid perspective. BUT IT IS ONLY ONE AND A VERY ONESIDED PERSPECTIVE. It is so hard to find people that look at things from different perspectives and acknoledge them all. It is calmming for anyones mind to not have ambiguities. It makes things easier. But it is not realistic and sometimes harmful. Humans biggest desire is to lower their fear and therefore try to build a consistent word perception system. Shortcuts (no ambiguities) are easy but not realistic.
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tax: money taken at gun point (or through fraud) with passive acceptance of the majority
robbery: money taken at gun point (or through fraud) with passive un-acceptance of the majority
The amount of money collected by force (via taxation) to punish thieves is greater than what is stolen by the thieves.
I am very well aware of other perspective, but I firmly believe that you cannot hold two contradictory views and be right about both of them. Simple logic. It is clamming for anyones mind to NOT have to resolve ambiguities and to engage in cognitive dissidence and double think. Such mental shortcuts are preferable to admitting to themselves that at the end of the day they are willing to kill someone (their own family even) who merely disagrees with them. They justify these shortcuts to resolving such double think by declaring the situation ambiguous rather than opening their eyes to see the truth.
I agree that humans biggest desire is to lower their fear, this is why they seek power over others. It is fear that causes people to resort to theft and governments and tyranny. The opposite of fear is love and love is not afraid of what others might do in the absence of force because love would never kill someone over a disagreement.
So while we cannot control others, we can control ourselves. We should advocate love and not fear.
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Now I have no interest in starting a debate about who is being ideological or closed minded, so please don't take anything I have said personally. I am arguing with the ideas, not with you as a person.
Dont worry I dont take anything in a bad way :)
This single statement implies some assumptions I reject. By saying it cannot be solved by a market you imply it must be solved by force. As such you have given up looking for market solutions and accepted the shortcut of force.... that the end (solving the free rider problem) justifies the means (government force).
I would like to be proved wrong because the state solution is faulty! The prevailing soultion is to have an agreement of as many people as possible (on questions like taxes (yes, no, how) etc.). And you are rigth there is force (mostly the thread of force) applied to those that dont agree. Most states exclude some unalienable rights from these agreements. But, and I think you agree, the process can be faulty (what is unalienable? Also the definitions of these unalienable rights can be bent) and with the non-unalienable rights rarely all will agree.
But the "state system" does deliver some things: It protects most rights which most people agree the be most valueable and those are (basically: see faults above + possibly corrupt law enforcement) granted to all individuals (if the state system if working right!) in the same way independent of the economic possibilities to afford these rights. There are a few more things but that is the core I would say.
A differnent solution would have to improve upon this system.
All I wanted to say is that any solution should be approached from the same neutral standpoint and dis- and advantages of any system should be taken seriously. This is the responsinility of any actor that can have an effect on peoples lives in an indirect way.
edit: I will read the article you suggested as soon as I find the time to.
The state doesn't protect rights, we do. You cannot put the responsibility on the state to do anything that you wouldn't be willing to do. The state is as flawed, as biased, as broken as everything else in society.
The state is good at coercion, killing massive amounts of people, propaganda, taxing people, and we all give to the state. To keep up the illusion that the state protects us, the state gives welfare benefits and other social programs so that people feel as if they need the state to live. This encourages inherent dependency on the state and people are raised to believe that the state is like a parent to them and their children. This is no different than the ruse that the church pulled in the past at the peak of it's power. Organized religion convinced people into thinking that the God was the father of man and Jesus the son of God, the father of the church was the father of society, that the man is the father of the household. This led to the divine right of kings and was used to encourage people into accepting the rule of man in place of the rule of God.
The ultimate centralization of authority resulted. The state was meant to be an evolution away from feudalism and the divine right of kings. It was founded upon certain principles designed to protect the liberty of the individual but it does not mean that the state is necessarily the most efficient protector of individual liberty.
I'll go on record and say I'm not very ideological. But I do agree that if you can solve societies problems in a way which does not require a concentration of power into the few, but which benefits everyone, then why use the state if you can do it in a better way?
I don't think every function of the state will be replaced. I do think a lot of the social programs can be done better than how the state is doing it, more efficiently, and that the solutions people developed over 100 years ago need competition from the private sector. I will admit that the private sector as it is today cannot solve problems such as poverty and that is why we have the state playing the role of Robin Hood. But the problem of poverty is sometimes exacerbated by the state which enforces artificial scarcity to maintain the status quo.
You can be a capitalist but if everyone does not have access to capitalism then you create poverty based on the fact that only people in certain clubs can access capitalism. How many people out there who are young, educated and American but they don't own any assets? They don't have stock, they don't have bonds, they don't have trust funds, they could get a loan for college but not a loan to start a business or to buy capital assets.
Why is it we are willing to give young people a loan to go to college but we wont give young people a loan to invest in dividend paying capital assets? Why are there artificial barriers to keep unsophisticated investors from being able to invest but they will let anyone buy a house or a car? Why is it so hard to get investment to start a business but so easy to go into debt getting degrees?
And that is just in the United States. In some other countries people young and old don't even have bank accounts. Who decides where investment goes? If we have crowd funding then we do, but if it's centralized then who decides? The central bank? So if there is a war then hundreds of billions or trillions get invested in that but not very much investment for solar or decentralized renewable energy generation?
The state is not going to change anything. Only the private sector can make changes in accordance to the will of the market participants. And I'm not saying that because I think the state can't be used, but because people have been trying to use the state for generations without much success but those people wont even consider trying a different approach. Use whatever approach works with the least amount of violence.
Bitshares does not require violence. The state does require violence. Violence is not in any of our self interest but many people choose to use it as the first resort which is bizarre to me. If you empower the state with the death penalty, or the ability to tax one group of people, who is to say that those powers wont be turned on your group of people in the next election?
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tax: money taken at gun point (or through fraud) with passive acceptance of the majority
robbery: money taken at gun point (or through fraud) with passive un-acceptance of the majority
The amount of money collected by force (via taxation) to punish thieves is greater than what is stolen by the thieves.
I am very well aware of other perspective, but I firmly believe that you cannot hold two contradictory views and be right about both of them. Simple logic. It is clamming for anyones mind to NOT have to resolve ambiguities and to engage in cognitive dissidence and double think. Such mental shortcuts are preferable to admitting to themselves that at the end of the day they are willing to kill someone (their own family even) who merely disagrees with them. They justify these shortcuts to resolving such double think by declaring the situation ambiguous rather than opening their eyes to see the truth.
I agree that humans biggest desire is to lower their fear, this is why they seek power over others. It is fear that causes people to resort to theft and governments and tyranny. The opposite of fear is love and love is not afraid of what others might do in the absence of force because love would never kill someone over a disagreement.
So while we cannot control others, we can control ourselves. We should advocate love and not fear.
I understand the problems with taxation as a means of solving every problem. People seem to think if we just tax and spend that the government can solve any problem. Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
But taxes were actually cut during the last war (at least for the people who aren't middle class), while the middle class tax rate stays the same. The middle class salary stays the same, the cost of living rises (which makes no sense with our technology).
Something is broken. I accept taxes are necessary for war and government is good at war, making UAV's and mega weapons. What about everything else? At some point the tax and spend model breaks down because math says it must break when there are more people without jobs than with jobs.
So the private sector must have a greater role or society is going to collapse in my opinion. It might take 5 years, might take 10 or 15, but taxes cannot go up forever, less jobs will be created as businesses and technology becomes more efficient and then who are they supposed to tax?
I read an article that Cryprus is going to give something like guaranteed minimum income, but how do they plan to pay for it?
To do stuff like guaranteed minimum income you must somehow expect infinite economic growth, infinite job growth, and to somehow perpetuate the current system forever. I don't think we can do that for another generation before it will collapse politically.
But they are free to try it and I hope it works for the countries that give it a try. I'm just skeptical about how they could do it with inflationary fiat currencies, loads of credit and loads of debt on top of the taxes and job losses.
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Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
Forcing one person to pay for a war they want nothing to do with is hardly ethical. Without taxes there could be no war. Thus taxes are the root cause of war and the reason why we do not have world peace.
A ruler-less society cannot be conquered by an invading army without genocide because the people would not be conditioned to accept a new authority.
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Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
Forcing one person to pay for a war they want nothing to do with is hardly ethical. Without taxes there could be no war. Thus taxes are the root cause of war and the reason why we do not have world peace.
A ruler-less society cannot be conquered by an invading army without genocide because the people would not be conditioned to accept a new authority.
There are arguably plenty of charismatic leaders who would jump at the chance to commit genocide, and who are quite capable of recruiting followers with or without the support of an established government. That said, with access to better communication regarding such situations, there are also arguably plenty of people willing to stand up to such people with or without the support of an established government.
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Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
Forcing one person to pay for a war they want nothing to do with is hardly ethical. Without taxes there could be no war. Thus taxes are the root cause of war and the reason why we do not have world peace.
A ruler-less society cannot be conquered by an invading army without genocide because the people would not be conditioned to accept a new authority.
There are arguably plenty of charismatic leaders who would jump at the chance to commit genocide, and who are quite capable of recruiting followers with or without the support of an established government. That said, with access to better communication regarding such situations, there are also arguably plenty of people willing to stand up to such people with or without the support of an established government.
Exactly, market demands will create voluntary solutions for the common defense. However, there is a limit to how much people are willing to voluntarily consume of their own resources to fund a war against someone far away that they have never met.
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Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
Forcing one person to pay for a war they want nothing to do with is hardly ethical. Without taxes there could be no war. Thus taxes are the root cause of war and the reason why we do not have world peace.
A ruler-less society cannot be conquered by an invading army without genocide because the people would not be conditioned to accept a new authority.
Some wars were necessary. How else would something like genocide be stopped if people aren't forced to go to war to stop it?
Taxes were important because in a time of war it's more ethical to tax people and pay for the war than to not pay for the war.
Forcing one person to pay for a war they want nothing to do with is hardly ethical. Without taxes there could be no war. Thus taxes are the root cause of war and the reason why we do not have world peace.
A ruler-less society cannot be conquered by an invading army without genocide because the people would not be conditioned to accept a new authority.
There are arguably plenty of charismatic leaders who would jump at the chance to commit genocide, and who are quite capable of recruiting followers with or without the support of an established government. That said, with access to better communication regarding such situations, there are also arguably plenty of people willing to stand up to such people with or without the support of an established government.
I don't believe that is possible. Only governments have the weapons necessary to take down genocidal tyrants. How are we supposed to protect human rights without war? The people who abuse human rights don't just stop on their own and the threat of war is the only thing that protects human rights anywhere.
You could say we have no human rights, but if we were to ever have it then it would require some kind of military to enforce it.
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How is forcing someone to go to war and kill someone not genocide in itself? If there really is something terrible going on then you will have plenty of voluntary support.
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Well I think the problem we face here is the assumption that just ONE country would have freedom and thus have to defend itself against aggression from neighboring territories with governments. I am suggesting that a free market solution would indeed be global and thus there would be no governments anywhere once a market based solution to securing our liberty (against government intrusion) is found to be effective.
(http://www.startamilitia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/blade-of-grass.jpg)
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How is forcing someone to go to war and kill someone not genocide in itself? If there really is something terrible going on then you will have plenty of voluntary support.
So you don't believe in just wars? Terrible stuff goes on all the time and governments oppress people everywhere. The only thing I've ever seen stop it were other governments who forced their people to go to war. Citizens within the country aren't going to be able to stop it without support from governments outside the country.
As a result that is why we have a CIA/KGB/SVR/FBI and all those three letter agencies. They overthrow governments or they defend their status quo.
The point I'm making is the weapons to oppress and genocide the world already exist. There is nothing we can do now except stop making more and protect the world from what exists. I don't think we can avoid war and I think the threat of war sometimes can protect rights and lives. I think in some cases a war is the only answer to save innocent lives and I don't think humans in mass will step up to save lives of people they don't know without being drafted or compensated in some way. I don't think the money to compensate them could exist without taxes.
So for that reason we are stuck. If the USA decided to get rid of taxes then the other governments of the world would gain a dominant advantage and people in the USA would be oppressed by the tentacles of other governments who don't believe in any human rights. So our rights wouldn't be defended if there is no military to defend them.
The ideas you speak of are theoretical and I'm not convinced that ordinary people can stand up to trained mercenary armies.
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I have goals with incomplete solutions, but I believe a solution does exist. See if the free market were to create a system that through voluntary cooperation could handle crime and in fact keep government employees accountable then it would slowly decay the influence of governments world wide until they were no longer necessary and no one had to worry about invading foreigners.
I think this is the mental trap people fall into, believing that only one country could find freedom without it spreading world wide.