For me it’s much simpler and more fundamental than that. I think people can make their own choices and it’s not the state’s place to meddle in those choices. If someone wants to get a second mortgage on their house to buy an ICO, I say more power to them. Why shouldn’t people be able to take risks they’re comfortable with? Some of those risks might pay off. Regardless, even if it was the equivalent of flushing money down the toilet, I don’t see it as anyone’s right to interfere with that personal sovereignty.
Why can't people make their own choices and purchase any cancer drugs they choose, regardless of whether the FDA has vetted them at ludicrous expense?
Why can't people make their own choices and buy poultry off the back of a van rather than from an FDA-inspected distribution chain?
Why can't people make their own choices and dine at restaurants that can offer lower prices in exchange for not undergoing inspections, or, for that matter, city building code inspections? Believe it or not: having invested in more than one local food venture, those expenses are intimidating and a blocking issue.
You can believe all regulations are pointless and that the market would handle those issues better than the state. I don't agree, but you'll have an intellectually coherent argument.
Otherwise, you should find an argument specific to the particular regulation that's troubling you today.
That's totally fine. I do not even a little bit agree with you, but it's fine to be a hard libertarian or an ancap. But most people aren't ancaps, so a persuasive argument against ICO regulation is probably one that doesn't depend on your audience themselves being ancaps.
I think you’re greatly overestimating the popularity of your opinion. If a ton of people didn’t agree with me the SEC wouldn’t need to step in and put a stop to it. It’s that so many people want to do this that they are now meddling.
I absolutely agree that lots of non-ancaps think the SEC should stay out of ICO regulation. But so far as I can tell, they haven't these arguments through. I've seen only two forms of pro-free-ICO argument on this thread:
(1) Special pleading arguments that suggest that despite the fact that tech startups have little to no inventory, trivially simple expenses, no financing obligations outside their equity raises, and, for the forseeable future, no significant revenue --- that is, despite the fact that tech startups have virtually none of the attributes that make producing audited financials expensive --- they should be exempt from SEC disclosure rules.
(2) Arguments suggesting that adults should be free to enter into contracts without protections because regulations have been obsoleted by the Internet.
Argument (2) I get, and acknowledge. I do not agree with it, but fine.
Argument (1) though makes no sense, and if someone would take the time to pursue it carefully, I'd be thankful.
How does your argument handle the issue that it's not possible to ask every single person in the country to understand how cancer drug safety works, how food safety for poultry works, what makes a restaurant kitchen safe, and how to properly construct a building that won't fall on your head? All those in addition to the hundreds of thousands of other things I'd have to deeply understand in order to keep myself safe?
It is not possible or reasonable to expect people to have enough information on all of these topics in their heads at every moment they might make a decision.
Not only that, the people who want to open a restaurant in an unsafe building or sell you tainted meat have a clear incentive to hide that information from you and from everyone else.
In this world, how could anybody make a good decision on the thousands of things we buy or use during daily life? Even with perfect information, which is strongly disincentivized?
Regulations solve this issue by hiring the government to figure out and enforce the best way to prevent these issues so that every time we go out to dinner we don't have to ask the waiter "Which of these walls is load-bearing?".
Reputation and expert advice cover this. Check Yelp to see if anyone got crushed to death before you dine and you should be fine. Snark aside, there’s a lot more transparency now than when these laws were designed. A lot more competition too. The market will weed out truly bad actors.
"The Albanian Civil War, also known as the Albanian rebellion, Albanian unrest or the Pyramid crisis, was a period of civil disorder in Albania in 1997, sparked by Ponzi scheme failures. The government was toppled and more than 2,000 people were killed."
> Why shouldn’t people be able to take risks they’re comfortable with?
Because when enough of these nimrods makes the wrong decision at the same time, you get catastrophic failure and the rest of society is left holding the bag.
They then go whining to the government which, in turn, enacts regulations to keep these things from happening again.
If we're just recapitulating the statism-vs-anarcho-capitalism argument, we can probably put a bow on this part of the thread and everyone agree to disagree.
I don't think I'm arguing against rugged individualism as an ideology, moreso the belief that the choices we make as individuals don't affect the people around us, which seems to be the repeating mantra from anarcho-capitalists.
You can go to Vegas right now and blow your life savings. Should that be illegal too? We need to stop the mollycoddling and let people make their own decisions (and yes not bail them out if those decisions turn out to be wrong).
You can indeed do that. But very few people do, because when you try to mortgage your house to bet your life's savings at a craps table, your spouse refuses to sign the paperwork, because everyone knows that for a working class family, spending $10,000 at a casino means you have a problem.
The same is not true of investments, which can be very persuasively marketed to normal people without gambling problems. Which is why the SEC cares so much about how securities are marketed and promoted, and why you can sell stock in virtually anything as long as you (1) register and (2) publish audited financials documenting how crazy your business idea is.
If the “problem” is marketing then the solution is counter-marketing, not regulation. Ideas should compete against each other and not be forced with the threat of violence (the state).
You’re right in that we fundamentally disagree so won’t go anywhere here. I appreciate you arguing in good (enough) faith though.
> you get catastrophic failure and the rest of society is left holding the bag.
You didn't respond to what I said. When enough people make a large mistake, the effects go beyond just the individuals. At that point, it's no longer a "personal choice," it's damaging to the whole.
I did: “and yes not bail them out if those decisions turn out to be wrong”
Of course any action at scale will have impact beyond the individual. I do not believe the state (or anyone else) can determine what’s best for everyone. Such a thing is not possible and instead is used as cover to remove personal freedom.
The state isn't meddling in those choices. The state is simply saying that if you're going to offer a security, you have to disclose things about it. Thus, enabling people to make those choices.
