I know I should be happy about bitcoin being a legal tender there. Despite all of this, I consider El Salvador as a freaking medieval country that is able to jail women for spontaneous miscarriages for years, where human rights mean nothing. What’s your thoughts on this? Would you consider or are you considering moving there? If yes, what are your arguments?
It's great that Bitcoin is legal tender there, but that doesn't outweigh the many shortcomings it has. We'll see more Bitcoin adoption and some of those locales might be more attractive in other ways. I see El Salvador as more of a potential vacation destination than place to relocate to.
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For salvadorans I have only one thing to say...
Legal tender means nothing.
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I unintentionally moved there a little more than a year ago. Went for Adopting Bitcoin, then prolonged for six weeks, and found it so compelling that I ended up more or less staying. Didn't do the tourist stuff, just working remotely and surfing. There is a very high degree of soft freedom in the areas that matter to me. It's very safe in the places I've been. The visa-free tourist stay of 180 days is flexible and really handy. The police have never hassled me and have been friendly and warm, like almost all of the people. The weather is great, particularly to escape winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Most of all, you can live entirely using bitcoin, including for buying property/real estate (and ES has no property taxes), the waves for surfers are world-class, and the mountain roads and scenery are amazing, especially on a motorcycle. When I went home (to Europe), I found myself back in ES after a month. It's not perfect by any means, but it works for me. We'll see where it goes.
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you can live entirely using bitcoin
Wish we were there too! Thanks for your reply.
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I would never move there. It seems like a great country but it’s a Bitcoin honey pot. It would be easy to just spot and 5$ wrench attack bitcoiners. Money likes silence.
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Important to stay anon there and don't wear jewelry
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It enough to have fun on the Bitcoin Beach once to become a target, imho.
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No country is perfect. These laws probably existed long before Bitcoin came into the picture. Bitcoin is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't solve everything overnight.
where human rights mean nothing
It's a little ironic though, anti-abortion movements (also framed as pro-life) are usually framed as being in favor of human rights (the rights of the baby). And there's no shortage of people who think this way in every country (especially if it's part of their religion). The only difference is most of them haven't managed to put laws in place that imprison people.
I wouldn't really call this a dilemma. It doesn't matter which country you look at there's always going to be many things you disagree with. I'm sure there's plenty of El Salvadorians that don't share the same sentiment as their governments.
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Not sure why you have to move to a country only because is bitcoin friendly, there are other things more important to consider like the culture, language, infrastructure and services.
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It's a tough one. Most of what governments do are bad. However, there are laws that are reasonable, like murder/rape/theft/etc being illegal. For those, the state violence, perhaps, could be considered like a mandated 3rd party defense against violence. I'm not sure what I think about the forced acceptance of Bitcoin. Perhaps on can argue there's some kind of higher force being acted upon the citizens of El Salvador, via the IMF and US that make vendors accept dollars. In which case, forcing them to accept Bitcoin isn't that bad. They sort of made a concession. They can't get rid of their dollar base because the repercussions of that would be severe, but just adding Bitcoin as legal tender, seems kind of minor to me. Ideally, people can use whatever currency they choose, but that's not where the world is.
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"I'm not sure what I think about the forced acceptance of Bitcoin."
In practice, people and businesses in El Salvador freely choose whether or not to accept bitcoin. The country essentially just encourages and makes bitcoin use possible.
After more than a year of basically using only bitcoin there, it's very compelling to be able to do that, and I don't have any desire to return to using fiat.
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That's good it's not forced.
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human rights is a socialist shitcoin. the concept is always used to enforce bigger government.
Read about natural law instead.
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Well, and then there is this Salvadorian law that imprisons women for stillbirths for decades.
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Do you have any proof of the last time it was enforced?
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I think you can google it yourself.
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You are the one with the wild claim. The burden of proof is on you.
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Had pupusas the other day... I was underwhelmed. Will have to try the other dishes though.
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