I decided to remove the following section from the blog post because it is both controversial and being misunderstood. I would love to discuss this in greater detail in a future post.
For now I would like to clarify some things for those who have already read it:
1. The logical conclusion is that all "property" is actually assigned by consensus and thus by consensus all property can change hands. Even property you have on your person. This starts to sound like a case for legitimising taxation and "government ownership of everything". To be clear, I do not believe that this is a good or proper way to organize society. Personal property and property rights are a concept that must be defended by society or everything else falls apart due to inability to perform economic calculation. My point was only that violence is not necessary to create a government capable of enforcing property rights *IF* all of society can reach a consensus on property rights.
2.
@Thom If you want to argue about the definition of terms, then "government is violence" is a stance that I tend to agree with (historically). But this is mostly because of how we as freedom lovers have chosen to define government in our minds. We have associated government with violence, theft, inefficiency, corruption, and slavery. We have stipulated that "by definition government must use force" and "by definition if it doesn't use force then it isn't a government". Those are OUR definitions and those very definitions are working against our cause which is to create a "well ordered society that doesn't violate the NAP".
Others associate the term "government" with security, protection, safety net, order, and peace. They associate the term "anarchy" with "chaos" and every man for himself. If you tell someone that you are going to take away their government they will fight you, even if they hate their government. If you tell them you want to replace their government with a new government that still protects them from crime, from foreign invasion, provides for schools, universal health insurance, and welfare without any taxation, prisons, or armed police then you will have their attention.
You simply cannot reach the masses on a logical level using "our terms" we must reach them using their "terms". The rational thinkers out there can see that there is a significant difference between a non-monopoly government following the NAP and a monopoly government that violates the NAP. It is all of the people who have pre-programmed gut reactions to resist any attempt to "eliminate" government that we need to reach by redefining the term "government" to be something that we are also OK with.
## Cryptocurrency isn’t Property
To understand how a blockchain can be used to create a non-violent society we must first dispel one of the most sacred beliefs regarding cryptocurrency: that a crypto-currency is property. If we believe that all value is perceived value then a crypto-currency is nothing more than value as perceived by others. Since we cannot control the perception of others we do not control the value of our cryptocurrency.
Taken a step further, what makes one fork of a blockchain valuable and another worthless? It is merely the perception of the individuals of society that choose to value one fork and not another. Going a step further, an individual with coins has no right to demand everyone else in society accept their transfer of funds. The rest of society is free to voluntarily decline to process his or her transaction. This would have the impact of rendering that individual’s coins worthless (freezing their account).
While no one likes to have their account frozen in part or in full this action does not constitute a violation of property rights nor the initiation of aggression. It is the moral equivalent to earning a bad reputation. No one likes to have their reputation tarnished whether deserved or not. Unfortunately it is not something you own, but something others think of you. They own their thoughts, not you.
This means that from a NAP point of view a society built on a blockchain may freely change how it wishes to interpret the information contained on a blockchain without violating the rights of the individuals.
This means that inflation on a blockchain isn’t theft. It means that the blockchain can vote to freeze your account or reallocate your balances without actually stealing anything from you. It means the blockchain can charge negative interest rates on your account without it being morally wrong nor aggression. In other words, it means there is a huge degree of flexibility that is possible for a society built on a blockchain without ever violating the non aggression principle (NAP).
Not everything that is morally permissible is beneficial to society. Just because a blockchain may legitimately freeze your account, inflate, or charge negative interest rates does not mean that these attributes will garner support from society. The defining characteristic of a blockchain based government based on the NAP is that members of the society are free to leave for another blockchain. This means that free market competition will drive a blockchain based government to adopt policies that are fair and widely accepted or its currency will lose value and influence.
Topic: 2016 Vision Blog Post (Read 27363 times)
