ALL surveillance and control, all AML, KYC and all violations of privacy are completely unethical, immoral and illegitimate. All of them! As recently as the 1990s, one could purchase stocks without providing identification. Bank deposits below arbitrary thresholds required no explanation or documentation. Cash transactions, regardless of size, were presumed legitimate unless specific evidence suggested otherwise. The default assumption was that individuals had the right to conduct their financial affairs privately, with the burden of proof resting on authorities to demonstrate wrongdoing before intruding upon that privacy.
This historical norm was not an oversight or a failure of governance, it was a recognition of a fundamental principle. Free societies operate on the presumption of innocence, treating citizens as autonomous agents capable of managing their own affairs unless proven otherwise through due process. The current system inverts this relationship entirely, treating every citizen as a potential criminal whose financial activities must be continuously monitored and pre-approved by state bureaucrats. Given how KYC for everything short of going to a rest room is being normalized, the world needs more privacy protecting tools, not less.
Had a discussion on this with the philosophy department at my school yesterday. We have a moral obligation to assume people are doing their best and trying to be good. To assume guilt before it has been proven harms your very soul
You can say that again but even if you put that assumption aside, legal systems that punish first and ask qsns later are dangerous especially when you disagree with the state
What recourse do we have except to boycott their scammy systems? Yet, we refuse to.
Bitcoiners refuse to turn this into a boycotting, freedom revolution. If not us, who else is there to lead the charge against the system?
It's discouraging to watch the community who understands the fiat scam the most also making excuses for why it's okay to be complacent... to not fight back.... thinking that hodling Bitcoin is enough.
That's what apathy does mate, you will have the hardest money in the world and every reason to boycott an oppressive system but still choose to comply with it's diktats.
Do you believe there is a world where we establish an equilibrium with state power (for instance, cryptographer allows users to preserve the privacy of messaging or at least make it expensive for state's to try to snoop on our messages) or do you think it ultimately ends in freedom-loving people being considered outlaws?
I think that's not set in stone. If people become complacent and don't resist or counter efforts to enslave them; freedom will be slowly outlawed and with the serfdom being the new default. Imho, we have about 3-5 years to get our house in order and build tools/systems that make it almost impossible for the state to continue violating property rights and freedom.
I believe that life begins 65 years after conception in MA
postpartum depression justifies killing your children
Someone's batting for the triple
I'm wrong. This is perfect for books&articles as an essay.
It's actually from an article that is under construction. Thank you for the validation mate, this tells me that i am on the right track :-)
BTW, I really enjoy reading your stuff, and I'm glad you post on SN.
Thank you so much for that compliment and i appreciate the fact that you do take time to read what i share. :-)
It's a good one. I don't see the books&articles connection, and bitcoin beginners is tangential, but solid P&L.
You really set the gold standard there. Not much shoe horning, if I recall.
That was 30 years ago; now they want to control everything—from what we buy and eat to how we think.
And the screws seem to get tighter each day especially with the recent efforts to regulate AI in the name of safety. It's all just control being handed down in different ways
The acceptance of freedom was always a facade, they simply didn't have the tools to monitor everything until now.
And they will not only use the tools for surveillance but for bringing in the censorship industrial complex harder than ever. Now with social media where a lot of data is used for training not to mention the coming CBDCs. It will be a censors' paradise
I get the point. Privacy shouldn’t mean you’re treated like a criminal by default.
It’s crazy how we went from “prove you did something wrong” to “prove you’re allowed to do this.”