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GregL's avatar

Well said.

"... I thus argue that the United States is headed for collapse."

Paul Rosenberg argues that we are headed for a declining standard of living versus a collapse. Among his arguments are that there are too many productive people who have the skills to do just about anything and that the instructions for doing those things are widely available.

https://freemansperspective.com/why-you-shouldnt-believe-in-a-full-spectrum-crash/#more-11979

I would also add that options like Bitcoin make it harder to block transactions between productive people.

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Chris Bateman's avatar

Hey Max,

I want to thank you for these two pieces arguing from blue and red team perspectives in favour of cryptocurrencies. I remain a crypto sceptic after reading these, but I am to a fair extent an economics sceptic too, so the hill to climb is much higher in my case. 😁 It is still interesting to me to see how these arguments are being advanced, since my connections intersect with crypto libertarians in a few places, and you speak well for your team.

Of the two, I think the conservative argument you advance is more compelling. The progressive argument is vulnerable to the accusation that saving is not something the poor have ever shown themselves capable of practicing or affording, and the related objection that investing that money in another asset that would gain in value (silver, or Magic: The Gathering cards, say) would have the same result, and arguably would be more a better option.

But I think if your goal is to win over the centre to crypto you need a very different tack. The argument that crypto is akin to a Ponzi scheme gained a lot of traction (certain well-funded institutions may well have spent time and money to make this happen). I think the core problem is that what keeps crypto alive is the faith of crypto libertarians such as yourself. This is hardly an original a problem - what do people think allows the dollar to have value...? But there's a credibility gap here that is going to quite tricky to overcome. I don't have any skin in this game, but in so much as the cypherpunks are one of the viable movements afoot, it still matters to me.

Hope these remarks are helpful!

Chris.

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