• Captain Aggravated
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    2 days ago

    To quote Brian Brushwood, “It’s just pieces of paper that we believe in.”

    • Sunsofold@lemmings.world
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      1 day ago

      Was not expecting to see Street-Fighter’s-Guile-as-a-magician quoted in this comment section… PR at all really. He’s come a long way since Scam School, I guess.

    • konki@lemmy.one
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      2 days ago

      The reason that you and everyone else believe in it is primarily because you need it to pay taxes, so the belief is not arbitrary.

      • brbposting
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        2 days ago

        Thinking of how I got here, reductively speaking:

        be born
        see parents buy food
        they use money
        i grow up
        need food
        i use money

        • konki@lemmy.one
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          2 days ago

          I agree, but that leads to an infinite regress of your parents observering their parents, etc. My argument is really about the start of this chain.

          • brbposting
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            2 days ago

            Ah I see!

            Convenience ought to have helped too! Though yes when the person with that monopoly on violence thing asks, you do.

      • explodicle
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        2 days ago

        You don’t need Bitcoin to pay taxes, yet belief in it continues to grow.

        • konki@lemmy.one
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          1 day ago

          That is true, but Bitcoin, like all other crypto"currencies", is a Ponzi scheme. Its value is driven purely by speculation, and the hope that it can be passed on to a “greater fool” for profit. This is true for a lot of financial assets, by the way.

          • explodicle
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            1 day ago

            You don’t think secure time stamps are useful?

        • konki@lemmy.one
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          1 day ago

          True, but somene has to, and they will create a demand for the currency. If I hear that Joe the baker needs money to pay taxes, and I want to buy bread from him, I know he will accept the government currency as payment for his bread. This in turn makes me demand money to be able to buy the bread.