But it's an ill wind that blows no one some good -- the Gox thing has roused a stirring peroration at Business Insider by Erik Voorhees, calling on his libertarian comrades, many of them dispossessed Bitcoin billionaires, to be brave and not give up the dream, and it has warmed my heart with the gift of laughter. Here's the fiat-currency shot:
And finally, the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation" to save us from the evils and incompetence of man. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence, only enshrined in an authority from which it can wreak amplified and far more insidious destruction.If only man could throw off the chains of regulation, I wouldn't have to pay these speeding tickets. I'd own my own damn privately-run toll road!
Let us not retreat from our rising platform only to cower back underneath the deranged machinations of Leviathan.We're never going back to your so-called economy! The internet has freed us to recreate the barter system without having to lift anything heavy, and we're going off the grid forever without leaving the comfort of our subdivisions!
The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world. This is the harsh truth. We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance, and we put ourselves at risk in doing so...Except in the physical sense, for any of that, though my Eames chair could probably use some readjusting.
So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess?
Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately. If that matters to you, as it does to me, then hold to that thought. You will see through the smoke, and your wounds will heal.And that right there is the tell. Whenever a libertarian -- raised on the Virtue of Selfishness, and inclined to believe that the dismantling of society will inevitably benefit "producers" such as himself, and is therefore a good thing whatever happens to the sheeple -- starts talking about how the world needs whatever racket he's got going, hold onto your virtual wallet.
Somewhere out there, at the crossroads of Narnia, Galt's Gulch, and the Floating City, there's a world where the dream will never die. And when Voorhees and his pals finally all go there, maybe we can have some peace and quiet around here.
(h/t @M_DiPaola)
UPDATE. Lots of good comments, some suggesting new names for the freedom currency: "I propose that we call 1/100 of a bitcoin a 'rand,'" says PulletSurpise, "1/20 is a 'ron,' 1/10 is a 'hayek,' 1/4 is a 'friedman,' 1/2 is a 'galt," and five bitcoins is one 'weimar.'"
My favorite comes from @benzero: douchemarks.
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