The Ultimate Argument for Bitcoin and CryptocurrencysteemCreated with Sketch.

in #bitcoin5 years ago

An open letter to Dr. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist:

The Ultimate Argument for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency

Dear Paul,

I am writing today in response to your opinion piece in the New York Times entitled "Why I'm a Crypto Skeptic". I have read numerous pundits' and economists' takes on the key question you posed in that article, namely "What problem does cryptocurrency solve?", but I remain dissatisfied with their answers. While they all provide valid and convincing arguments, they neglected the one argument that I believe resonates above all others with the human spirit.

Your detractors to date have all argued from a strictly rational economic and monetary perspective. In contrast to their technical financial arguments, all of which have merit, I am going to provide a simple answer that addresses both the problem cryptocurrency solves and what it is actually tethered to in terms a layman can understand. As one will see below, the problem it solves and the tether that guarantees value for its users are flip sides of the same coin.

To address the problems cryptocurrency solves, one must understand the fiat monetary system, private central banking and its political machinations. The private central banks enjoy a monopoly on issuing currency as debt that, via inflation they control, destroys the purchasing power of the general public while redistributing wealth upwards. Inflation they are only able to create because they have subverted and suborned government to treat human beings as yield-bearing chattel.

You confirmed this by stating, "...fiat currencies have underlying value because men with guns say they do." This clearly delineates how governments have been corrupted to collateralize the lives of its citizens - citizens it is sworn to protect from coercion and extortion by private parties. By confirming coercion and extortion as the foundation of the current economic order you acknowledge that financial slavery is not an unforeseen side effect of the system, but what it was made for.

These is a huge problem, to put it mildly.

These objectively demonstrable facts lead then to the issue of tethering. What is cryptocurrency tethered to? The answer is simple: freedom. To their credit, people are waking up to the fact that they have been turned into commodities by a corrupt system of financial enslavement enacted for the benefit of private banking institutions and their cronies. Cryptocurrency represents an escape from the slave system and are tethered to the rational, emotional and instinctual human drive to be free.

I know you wanted to steer the conversation by stating "Don't just try to shout down the skeptics with...libertarian derp," but that was disingenuous rhetoric designed to delegitimize and denigrate the obvious answer. You may as well have said "give me a good reason for drinking water but don't mention thirst." Libertarianism, as you know, is based on the concept of liberty, i.e. freedom. If history teaches us anything, it is that there are no lengths to which humanity will not go to be free.

Freedom, more specifically the desire to be free, is the tether of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Crypto-enthusiasts are the new founding fathers who have pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the cause of freedom. One of the original founding fathers, Patrick Henry, may however have said it best: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

Sincerely,

Cupid Zero

p.s. If you want to know more about how people are figuring out the banking system, visit Banksterism 101.

p.p.s. In case you missed it, here is a link to Max Keiser's response to your opinion piece, and an article by Mark Jeftovic that provides a more utilitarian perspective.

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tags: bitcoin crypto economics freedom informationwar cryptocurrency

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This post has been revived by steem-forever!

What a fantastic reply to an award winning economist’s ( Grandpa’s) article.
The world keeps on “spinning” meanwhile!!

I will come back and read this later!

And did you ;)?

This gave me a nerd boner.

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I love that you quoted the wonderful "war inevitable" speech of Patrick Henry. I have used it every year in classes on American Literature and on Oral Interpretation. My children memorized it in their classical Christian school in 5th grade, too. Way to give Krugman a blast of truth!

Thanks, nice to see another educator on the freedom train!

Krugman and his ilk are never going to criticize or acknowledge the very thing that has given them unfair (and corrupt) advantage over everyone else.
I remain unconvinced about what Bitcoin and crypto are at the moment as it looks and functions in real-time exactly the same as the fiat currency masters. if something was going to challenge that system it would be nice if it actually looked and acted differently. Today Wall St. owns the cryptosphere so IMO Bitcoin lost when contextualized​ from a 2008 vantage point of usurping​ the current system.
Resteemed anyway.

I agree that the current cryptosphere is less than optimal. One of my earliest critiques of Bitcoin was that if the banksters perceived it as a genuine threat, there was nothing to stop them from just creating the necessary fiat currency from nothing to buy it all. That process does appear to be in process.

I don't think the cryptos success as a currency should be held against it, even if it does bear functional similarities to fiat, it is after all intended to provide a common means of exchange. That said, cryptos do provide faster and cheaper transfers than digital fiat and the funds in your wallet actually belong to you, something that cannot be said of the fiat dollars in your bank account.

This last consideration is an important one. Unfortunately many people labor under the misapprehension that the fiat currency in their bank account actually belongs to them. It does not. When fiat is deposited in a bank, it is legally considered an investment in the bank and becomes part of the bank's capital. The bank is under no legal obligation to return that fiat to the depositor, it does so however to maintain investor (i.e. customer) confidence and to facilitate its predatory business model.

Well said!

Thanks for your comment, if this line of thought appeals to you, my latest post The Faceless Leviathan is likely of interest.

Not all humans seek freedom.
And many will fight you to retain their chains.

I do not know if bitcoin will be freeing.
But, it is along that path.

And basically, it is so much better than our ponzi fiat money that once people try it, they will never go back.

  • Send money to china to buy something off of flea bay, without filling out a huge pile of paper? Check.
  • Getting acknowledgement that that money has been received? Check.
  • Be able to have all the benefits of a checking account without paying a monthly fee? Check.
  • Owning all of your money, Priceless.

I hope it is leading us in the direction of freedom, but challenges abound. Soo Chongs comment below is worth considering. As to the bullet points, the final one has great meme potential!

Great piece 👍and resteemed

Thanks for the resteem! Spreading the good word always appreciated!

From my article "How to Avoid Funding the American Deep State":

"Regarding how expensive and slow bitcoin transactions have become:

  1. The lead maintainer of the Bitcoin Core repository on GitHub, Wladimir van der Laan, works for the Digital Currency Initiative (as do Cory Fields and Gavin Andresen, who, however, hasn't contributed to Bitcoin Core since 2016, as far as I know). The DCI's current director is Neha Narula, who was a senior software engineer at Google. She's not the only one at the DCI who has a funny background.

  2. The DCI was co-founded by Brian Forde at the MIT Media Lab. Forde is a former White House senior advisor. And MIT Media Lab's director, Joi Ito, is a strategic advisor to Sony and a board member of the New York Times Company (among other things). Then there is of course the fact that the MIT receives hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government every year.

  3. In 2016, AXA Strategic Ventures co-lead a $55 million investment in a key funder of Bitcoin Core: Blockstream, for which quite a few Bitcoin Core developers have worked. At the time of the investment, AXA's CEO and chairman was Henri de Castries, who is also the chairman of the Bilderberg Group's Steering Committee."

Thanks for the info and the link. I went and checked out your post and it was chock full of amazing tips and information - I recommend my readers to take a look!

I am so so done with financial slavery...Give me liberty or give me death.

I'm glad @ned upvoted you!

Thanks for the kind comment. I am glad you are on board!

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