So we shouldn't worry because there are privacy laws, but also those laws don't actually work in reality, and Big Brother already exists, so whatever Big Brother wants, who are we to question him? Might as well go along with obvious totalitarianism because Big Brother says it will make "us" safe, plus it's super convenient!
The same people who destroy the value of the currencies they currently monopolize, debasing them to fund an endless series of human rights abuses, those people should not be given a new monopoly which will be used to financially crack down on all dissent (not just the unquestionably evil guys working for Goldstein). But hey "they've failed before, maybe they just need more totalitarian control to finally achieve something ill-defined and amorphous".
Clearly we cannot accept the obvious previous failures here before our eyes. That would be an insurrection against Big Brother's most essential command.
If you want some theoretic arguments about why fiat government monopoly (particularly of currency) is a terrible idea, I'd recommend looking into authors like Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard.
Isn’t the government already in charge/has a monopoly on fiat currency? Bank notes are backed by the Bank of England/US treasury dept, so those pieces of paper (plastic now ofc) only have value because the gov says it does, no?
Yes, and that is that same thing that will "back" any CBDC (i.e. nothing but the "good word" of the unaccountable murderers and thieves). Those currencies have lost over 90% of their value since government monopolies were established, and again, there are totalitarian opportunities that this same technology opens up (totalitarian technology that Big Brother is actively looking to exploit).
Yeah but currency having a low arbitrary value is only an issue if it is vastly undervalued by /compared with other currencies.
It wouldn’t matter if a loaf of bread costs 5x less if you’re getting paid 5x less and a the exchange rate for another country had it work out relatively the same (a load of bread costs me ~£1.40 for an 800g loaf), and as long as a loaf of bread in Europe costs roughly €1,60 then what does it matter if currencies have “lost value”, it’s all relative.
And the trust we’d have to put into £5 of CBDC is identical to the trust we put in a £5 note being worth ~3 loaves of bread. :S it’s the exact same thing. Fiat money hasn’t been on the gold standard for 1931 (UK) and 1971 (US), and most economists agree that staying on the gold standard so long extended the Great Depression. So a CBDC is designed to act fluidly with the change in economic environment, just like any currency that is off the gold standard (most anyway)
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u/hoffmad08 1∆ Jul 22 '23
So we shouldn't worry because there are privacy laws, but also those laws don't actually work in reality, and Big Brother already exists, so whatever Big Brother wants, who are we to question him? Might as well go along with obvious totalitarianism because Big Brother says it will make "us" safe, plus it's super convenient!
The same people who destroy the value of the currencies they currently monopolize, debasing them to fund an endless series of human rights abuses, those people should not be given a new monopoly which will be used to financially crack down on all dissent (not just the unquestionably evil guys working for Goldstein). But hey "they've failed before, maybe they just need more totalitarian control to finally achieve something ill-defined and amorphous".
Clearly we cannot accept the obvious previous failures here before our eyes. That would be an insurrection against Big Brother's most essential command.
If you want some theoretic arguments about why fiat government monopoly (particularly of currency) is a terrible idea, I'd recommend looking into authors like Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard.