}
Privacy is an essential and integral function of human dignity, and without it none of us can develop into the healthy, successful, creative beings we all have the potential to be. Privacy is not about "hiding something bad." Privacy –including when it comes to money – is about being human.
What Are You Doing in There?
You wouldn't let even a close, trusted friend watch you go to the bathroom every day. You're not doing anything "bad" in there. It's just. Private. So why should you be forced to reveal other highly personal information about yourself – and to complete strangers no less – day in and day out?
Bitcoin and crypto in general get a bad rap when it comes to the emerging, modern war on privacy. In mainstream media crypto has often been painted as the money of terrorists, drug pushers and child traffickers. Nevermind that statistically this idea is laughable, with the USD obliterating the competition when it comes to financing violence.
Still, the misguided narrative perdures: "What are you worried about if you've got nothing to hide?"
Well, personally, I'm not worried about anything. When taking a shit, taking a shower, or planning an investment strategy, I require the option of privacy. Those aren't "bad" things I'm doing. They are simply nobody's business but mine, and without privacy it is impossible to get them done effectively, with my human dignity still intact and respected.
If anyone would like to challenge this by demanding I shit out in the open in front of them every day so they can see it, or report how much I spent on canned whisky high balls last month so they might personally determine if I'm worthy of my next UBI paycheck, I would be delighted to hear them make such a psychopathic case. The scary thing is, this is the road we're on, right now.
Reasonable Expectations of Disclosure
In a perfectly free-market, completely privatized world (that is to say, one of no "public property" supposedly owned by violent collectives called countries which claim said property by way of mere arbitrary decree) property owners would be perfectly within their rights to make requests of me.
If I'm going to a large assembly hall, for example, there might be security at the door asking to pat me down. I'd have two choices: consent to the security check, or choose a different assembly hall with a no-pat-down policy. This is different than the statist model which does not allow for competition. Governments simply dictate all inhabitants of a certain geographical region must run their businesses or finances in one prescribed fashion, or suffer violent penalties if they do not.
Instead of being able to choose an airline that doesn't allow security workers to undress women with scanning machines, grope young children or harass elderly people in wheelchairs, everyone is forced to partake of the same uniform, garbage "service."
In similar fashion, regardless of what I am doing with my cryptocurrency, I am now told I must voluntarily (take all the time you need to think about the absurdity of that one: "must voluntarily") report my dealings to complete and total untrusted, unknown-to-me, other human beings I've never met, employed by some group called the IRS. If I don't, or make a mistake due to their ambiguous instructions, I can be extorted, caged, or killed (if I resist the former two). This is, of course, pure psychopathy.
Finance Is a Creative Act
Creating wealth requires privacy as much as creating a work of art. Privacy affords humans the ability to experiment, think things through, make mistakes without fear of mocking reprisal, waste time and do seemingly silly and disjointed activities that are yet absolutely integral to arriving at a successful final product, plan or solution. Privacy is the petri dish for innovation, inspiration, and new ideas.
It's well known in psychology that overbearing and overprotective parents stifle their children's growth and healthy development into confident, capable adult humans. If someone is always watching you and waiting to correct your mistakes, you will never be able to relax enough to actually learn something, let alone love it or become highly skilled at it.
How then could it be possible for an economically struggling individual to put together a good financial plan, when the state is demanding he spend progressively more and more of his precious and dwindling work time to supply tedious documentation on highly personal financial information, which the state can then vindictively use to further penalize him if he makes even a small mistake reporting said info? And the real slap in the face: the penalty for mistakes is almost always to pay even more money, which he already doesn't have.
The creative act this man was engaged in is now completely stunted. You can't grow a carrot by pulling it out of the ground and checking on it every day. Sadly, the state is not interested in our growth, but control, power, and dominance.
Closing the Crypto Blinds
Central Bank Digital Currencies are already in development across the world, Universal Basic Income is a hot topic, and medical passports are now viewed as legitimate by a large percentage of the global population. It matters not if you don't wish to participate financially. It matters not if you don't want to support your government's totalitarian violence in war, medicine, or immigration policy. It matters not if you don't understand how to report crypto on your taxes. You must participate. Or else.
The masturbating peeping Tom of the state, the overbearing, angry and abusive nanny of financial surveillance is always right outside our window, hovering over our shoulders, breathing down our necks. Videotaping us. Beating us. Locking us away in tiny rooms. Logging our transactions. Threatening us with violence from disturbingly remote distances with vague, indecipherable language delivered nonetheless in unmistakably firm and accusatory tones. Siphoning and feeding on our very creativity and the all exploitable information our stolen private lives provide them.
Keep the blinds open! shrieks the pervert under his breath. You're doing it wrong! rails the enraged, apoplectic nanny. Show me what you're hiding! booms the violent, drunken father. The state is exactly all this. But for adults. It's time to cut them out, by any means. Cash transactions under the table. Trading labor. Barter. Crypto. Black and gray markets.
There is absolutely no shame in keeping one's own money. And there is absolutely no shame in using crypto technology to conceal transactions to close the blinds on these intruders. In fact, the financial spies are lucky to not be like real peeping Toms who get caught – beaten to a bloody pulp in the streets. Their time is running out, though.
As more and more people wake up to the inalienable rights of the world's smallest minority – the individual – the more the non-violent will learn to stand in their own solitary financial power, and defend it.
So, now I'm going to end this, and go take a shit. With the door closed, like a truly suspicious bad actor.
-GS
*My long-form articles on HIVE are posted here, and @ read.cash exclusively. Thank you for reading.*
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