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420 sats \ 11 replies \ @elvismercury OP 1 Nov 2023 \ parent \ on: _Broken Money_ book club, part 3 bitcoin
It makes logical sense, but I'm unsure of how big the effects are in practice. In antiquity, there was no end of wars of conquest under hard money standards -- in fact, going out and looting other nations made a lot of sense, since their wealth was a giant honeypot. Rome encircled the entire Mediterranean with this strategy, and they weren't the only ones using it.
Moreover, my perception is that mercantilist attitudes in the Age of Exploration were massively driven by sound money -- trade was considered zero-sum, you wanted to export (to get gold) vs import (sending your gold out of the country). Much aggression and jockeying and war ensued. Although I admit my knowledge of this is cursory, am happy to have other perspectives.
Maybe my most macro take-away is that, in a complex world, complex phenomena emerge, and our ability to foresee how it will shake out is minimal: make a plan, god laughs. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I'm confident of almost nothing in life besides this.
I agree with a lot of that, but I have some random thoughts to follow up with.
Monetary debasement was common during antiquity (coin shaving, hole punching, etc.), as a way to finance wars.
The scale of war was much smaller: often seasonal and regional. However, wars often lasted for generations, so maybe that's a wash.
The spoils point is interesting. Maybe fiat changed the nature of war, to where we don't explicitly take territory and slaves as often.
The Age of Exploration opened enormous new trade opportunities for Europe, which is what financed those expansions. Modern wars don't seem to do that, but maybe they do for the individuals who start them.
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So much nuance.
It would be interesting to war-game (pun intended) what war might look like in a world where people across all nations had significant wealth in btc; and perhaps nations did, too. How would these forces interact?
E.g., it would seem to not make sense for wars of conquest, since it would be really hard to seize people's btc (though not impossible, contra maximalists) and the more btc someone held, the harder to seize it would be, as the institutions, norms, and tech around distributed storage evolved. But perhaps "wars of conquest" would come to mean something else, in time. But what?
The spoils point is interesting. Maybe fiat changed the nature of war, to where we don't explicitly take territory and slaves as often.
This one is really interesting, too. It is such a ... faux pas now to seize territory. Like, it feels gross and beyond-the-pale in a way that I imagine is quite new in the course of human events: of course you don't get to take over Iraq and slaughter its male populace once you conquer it. Perhaps forces unleashed in fiat are playing out in cultural norms, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill? What would the btc equivalents be?
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To add some humor, both warring nations find a neutral 3rd party. Create a 2 of 3 multisig with the pot going to the winner of the conflict.
But looking at the wars fought between Italian city states under a hard money world is a good example. Granted the Medici family could finance a side.
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I do not envy the people setting out the terms for that oracle to decide on :)
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Plus each warring nation would need to find a bitcoiner to help them sign the transaction.
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Talk about moral hazard. Ideally, the aggressor would lose something substantial.
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Ok, let's play that out. In an offensive war the aggressor puts up a pre determined amount. Ideally enough to weaken them so they can't try this again. The defending party being the one with the most to lose in a loss considering territory still has to put up a bit as well to lock up the transaction.
I can only imagine the debate at the UN, you've now made sanctions obsolete & going war adds more risk. Hmmm
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Sanctions made themselves obsolete by not working.
I didn't propose a specific form, so it's hard to "play out" my idea, but the point is to disincentivize invasions.
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True, I was just going with the idea it sparked in mind. Also I agree sanctions are the go to your room of geopolitics
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You hear a lot in btc circles about how sanctions are useless. Based on the little I know, there certainly does seem to be reason to be suspicious. I do wonder, though, if they're really as useless as bitcoiners like to maintain. Seems more likely that they have a narrow window of applicability, and, like most things, they get used outside of this window and consequently don't produce the desires results.
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I meant it less as an absolute and more as an empirical regularity of history. Sanctions have a really bad track record at accomplishing their stated goals.