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Before I get started I would like to say I am an advocate of a virtual, peer to peer currency and bitcoins to an extent. I think some of the worst aspects of capitalism as well as huge amounts of power have manifested themselves in the finance sector and it would take something as radical as bitcoin to take the power back.
I am interested in why anonymity is important in bitcoins. Some of the other "worst aspects of capitalism" are the tax dodging multinationals that lie and cheat and as a result prevent the fair distribution of wealth amongst the population. Surely if bitcoin was adopted widely as a currency this would only worsen matters as there could be no means of taxation and thus projects like public health, education and law would break down.
What is the problem with making transactions traceable. Would this not make a virtual peer to peer currency more likely to succeed?
Bitcoin is private by default, but one of the Bitcoin devs maintains a noprivacy version.
– Nick ODell – 2013-04-12T16:45:23.427> "as a result prevent the fair distribution of wealth amongst the population". That's something other than free market capitalism, incidentally. – Stephen Gornick – 2013-04-13T04:58:09.093
1@StephenGornick who said anything about free market capitalism? – rogermushroom – 2013-04-15T17:43:15.093
@zode64 fyi, this question is getting votes to close not because people disagree with your position (though I'm sure some do) but because it's hard to give a clear factual answer to this rather than an opinion, and stack exchanges are designed to serve as reference material rather than as a forum. Perhaps you'd have more luck on bitcointalk.org or in the chat? – eMansipater – 2013-04-16T05:09:01.297
@eMansipater thanks for clarifying, I am familiar with how the SE sites work and totally understand. I do however think this question creates a bit of a paradox in this case because if there were a clear answer then it could be provided but the fact that there isn't answers the question quite definitively but also results in it getting closed. – rogermushroom – 2013-04-16T16:20:28.087
@zode64 I don't think the lack of a precise answer means what you think it does here. Rather, I think your question would inherently require a personal opinion. Consider asking the same thing of other technologies, i.e. "why is anonymity important in TOR" or "why is anonymity important in email" or even "why is text important in email". All of these questions end up quite philosophical rather than factual or specific. Then when you add to this the fact that Bitcoin is not especially anonymous anyways and only becomes roughly so when users go to great lengths to hide their actions... – eMansipater – 2013-04-16T18:35:57.587
@eMansipater on the contrary, the answer to your example questions is that, on a technical level they are not and that might have been informative in the early years of those technologies. In addition to that, your last sentence is also informative and doesn't address a philosophical point. I think my mistake is that the way I have phrased the questions might encourage a philosophical answer. – rogermushroom – 2013-04-17T14:42:18.427