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The common theme of most of the above points is that the freedom of the innocent will be reduced or their suffering increased if the change is enacted, while less innocent people can continue to ignore the rules. It's oppression of the weakest.

In general, society should be very careful with the things it bans. Prohibition is a hammer best left for extreme situational outliers, not one that should be used for each and every thing someone happens to dislike.



I'm sure all of these examples (encryption, guns, abortion, crypto currencies) are considered by some people to be that extreme situational outlier, and needs to be banned yesterday.

Mine is proof-of-waste crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, or Ethereum before the PoS merge. Too much CO2 for too little gain.

(There's also the Ponzi aspect, but I don't think we need new laws to ban Ponzi schemes: if a crypto currency turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, just sue them for making a Ponzi scheme.)


Unfortunately, societal amnesia means we will never learn this lesson. We will continue to ban things too much, and be too oppressive, until it becomes too overwhelming and a revolution happens. Rinse and repeat.




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