[ExI] Bitcoins Again

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-05-15 11:36, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 03:11:16AM -0700, Gordon wrote:
>>
>> That is certainly true. But if the US Department of Homeland Security
> Not my department, says Wernher von Braun.

This is a very important observation.

If governments were rational, cohesive actors they would implement 
policies to safeguard their interests and would avoid policies that 
threaten them. But the actual evidence shows that they are all over the 
place: the US is simulatenously supporting Tor (help freedom movements 
in the world!) and fighting it (pedophiles and terrorists are using 
it!), the different branches of the US military had to be forced by law 
to cooperate, the EU loves open source software and drafts laws that 
make it problematic... The Federal Reserve, Secret Service and DHS do 
not have a history of working together to safeguard monetary policy, and 
it is pretty unlikely they are going to develop one quickly.

(And this assumes everybody is rational, does not care about 
administrative turf and so on)

>> I funded my Mt. Gox account via Dwolla. For all I know, I'm now on some list at DHS.
> Everybody is on some list, somewhere. If you think you're aren't,
> you haven't done your due diligence.

Or somebody else has not done their job properly.

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University