“Truth? You can't handle the truth!”

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Salvaging scrap helped wedding couple save thousands

Cost of living: 'I worry about money more than my uni assignments'

Cost of living: Large rent rise causes 66-year-old to live in a van

Thousands of children sharing beds due to overcrowding

Cost of living: Pet owner would 'rather starve' to feed cats

What is the UK inflation rate and why is the cost of living rising?



Never not at it.

[The Legendary Shark]

Official Problem - People don't have enough money.
Official Reaction - People need more money.
Official Solutions - CBDCs and Social Credit.

Unofficial Problem - Rampant money creation reduces the value of money.
Unofficial Reaction - Devalued money makes everything appear more expensive.
Unofficial Solutions - Decentralized money creation, decentralized digital currencies, more Austrian Economics solutions, a ban on planned obsolescence, any politician losing an election to be shot*.


*Not really a serious solution, but we can all dream...

[Hawkmumbler]

Crypto currencies are, of course, famous for being stable and dependable, and have never once crashed.
Not a single time.

Supplanting a systemic issue with an similarly ineffective, yet more esoteric alternative, doesn't really feel like addressing the issue at all.

[The Legendary Shark]

Okay, say you're right about crypto - that's only part of the solution. Decentralizing money creation or, rather, ending the global monopoly enjoyed by a vanishingly few private banks and returning the mechanism to public hands would be a massive first step (which would also prevent these private interests from undermining crypto, thereby increasing its stability) and, I say, a vital first step towards economic stability and the long-term goal of doing away with money altogether or at least as much as possible.

Planned obsolescence must also be done away with as it is unbelievably wasteful and polluting.

What would some of your solutions be?

[Hawkmumbler]

Decentralizing money creation or, rather, ending the global monopoly enjoyed by a vanishingly few private banks and returning the mechanism to public hands would be a massive first step (which would also prevent these private interests from undermining crypto, thereby increasing its stability) and, I say, a vital first step towards economic stability and the long-term goal of doing away with money altogether or at least as much as possible.

Planned obsolescence must also be done away with as it is unbelievably wasteful and polluting.

This would honestly be the sum of my own solutions, and to which we can agree wholeheartedly.

Just scrap crypto entirely, it's a symptom of the diseased economic system itself not a solution to it and is inherently designed to be pumped-and-dumped.

[The Legendary Shark]

Okay. The blockchain is, however, good for other things as well such as registering cars, property, etc. I agree that crypto is still money, and in my view money is something we really should be looking to retire, but so long as we insist on needing money crypto is as good as anything. It's also safer than banks, which are again teetering on the edge of collapse as we speak.

[Hawkmumbler]

It's also safer than banks, which are again teetering on the edge of collapse as we speak.

Profoundly untrue, afraid to say.

If we're also coming from an angle of becoming more environmentally sustainable as a species (which is unanimously a good thing, which unfortunately seems to be becoming a controversial take) then the simple running costs and minting of crypto has a terrible environmental impact.

[The Legendary Shark]

Thanks - I'll look into those links when I get some spare time.

[Jim_Campbell]

Thanks - I'll look into those links when I get some spare time.

No... you won't.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Thanks - I'll look into those links when I get some spare time.

No... you won't.

[The Legendary Shark]

I haven't had time to go deep into this FTX thing so far because it's quite complicated. However, according to The Grauniad, as of April 13th FTX has recovered $7.3bn (£5.8bn) of customer funds, of which the biggest sum has been in "category A crypto" tokens. I can't be sure, of course, but until I can find out more I assume that the crypto tokens were more easily recovered due to the nature of the blockchain which (as I'm sure you know) records every transaction in millions of widely dispersed and separate ledgers. In order for such a massive fraud to be perpetrated by a bank only a handful of ledgers would have to be altered but in crypto it would involve altering literally millions of ledgers all around the world, and even then the alterations would leave fairly blatant concomitant errors in previous and subsequent blocks.

So, until I know more I'm still of the mind that legitimate cryptocurrencies are indeed safer than banks.

I have still to read the scientific paper quoted by the Smithsonian Magazine in the second link but the first thing that jumps out at me is that crypto mining is being compared to the beef or crude oil industries instead of the traditional banking system - which would be the obvious comparison to make.

[Dandontdare]

not looking good for crypto in the US

[The Legendary Shark]

not looking good for crypto in the US

Interesting.

My take on this is that it's not cryptocurrencies per-se that are at fault here but the corrupt financial institutions trying to profit from them, which sounds all too familiar. Although neither you nor the article directly argues that cryptocurrencies are at fault, this seems to be the impression that is trying to be made. This could be said of virtually anything, blaming corporate or even personal greed on the currency itself - which is correct, to a certain extent - so as to say that everyone from pickpockets to bank robbers to tax-collectors to corrupt bankers only broke the law because of the nature of money.

I am not a fan of any form of money, finding it to be a fundamentally toxic element in our world's civilizations, but crypto at least has anonymity going in its favour. However, all currencies are fundamentally unsound - especially since 1971(?) when the most important method of monetary control was swept away following the abandonment of the gold standard. 

Once humanity finally leaves behind our current primitive mindsets and methods, money will be seen for what it actually was - a mechanism for social, economic, and philosophical control.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Once humanity finally leaves behind our current primitive mindsets and methods, money will be seen for what it actually was - a mechanism for social, economic, and philosophical control.

I think most people realise this already. Most people come to this conclusion this once they notice they have to do things that don't benefit themselves to survive. Like getting a job or whatever.

I think crypto-currency is flawed due to the energy intensive nature of mining/producing it.

It seems to me that using up finite resources to produce currency makes things more expensive and devalues the currency?

[Leigh S]

This Crypto Currency issue seems to talk to the heart of the circular arguments we end up having regarding the Honourable Sharks thinking

System A doesnt work because humans are awful, exploit it and misuse it for their own gains

System B on the other hand, would work much better because humans are fundamentally good and dont look to exploit systems.

Obviously, I take some systems might be better at encouraging co-operation and avoiding coercion, which is what I take from Shark's outlook, but as this cryptocurrency example would seem to show is that there's no system that will self regulate for the benefit of all its users