Bitcoin Forum

Over the last couple of years(maybe less, not sure) I've known two people who both independently have gradually had quite a change in their views on politics, and free market capitalism in general as a result of observing and participating in bitcoin.

One of them has almost done a complete 180, and the other is more confused and unsure of what to think anymore. But needless to say both of them have soured on a lot of their previously strongly held ideas regarding how they expected people act given a free market and the benefits of unrestrained capitalism.

Have you witnessed peoples political opinions evolve as a result of seeing the real life 'Bitcoin Experiment', or have you yourself changed or maybe strengthened your own views?

I think most of the people are here because they have different political and economic views. Just reverse the cause and effect in your question.

I'm curious, can you expand a bit on the specific behavior that they have observed to be outside of their expectations?

Was it primarily thefts, scams, market fluctuations, illicit trade?  Or is it the constant calls for regulation?

I used to treat "deflation causes deflationary spiral" as an established fact, then saw it working fine here anyways and educated myself about it.

yes.

Well, with the one who doesn't know what to think any more, I think his change of heart has been primarily driven by emotion and seeing all the thefts, scams, and failures of bitcoin thus far. He hasn't told me anything about getting scammed or losing money, but I suspect he might have been burned at some point. He also really hates Mt.Gox and the fact that they are the center of the bitcoin universe at this point, and he thinks it's ridiculous that there hasn't been anyone to out compete them yet. I personally think that's a result of real world regulations restraining the market, and that if that barrier to entry was not there Mt.Gox would either be out of business, a non-factor, or completely overhauled and improved to compete.

The other one has definitely given it a lot more thought, and I can't exactly recreate all his arguments but some of the points that I remember are something like:
- The cost of defending your financial interests in a free market against other rational actors(self interested and unrestrained, i.e. will take any perceived advantage) outweighs the benefits gained. One example I remember him giving was a theoretical exchange closing once the amount of deposit exceeds the projected amount to be gained from transaction fees over some time period and just taking everyones money because that is the rational option.
(I personally think these problems can be solved and we are in the process of solving these issues now with bitcoin and some of the ideas like Open Transactions, coloured coins ect.)

- He believes that people underestimate tendency of the market to over-react to problems and self regulate after the fact in an ad-hoc and inefficient manner. Sort of correcting obvious problems after it's too late and doing it poorly.
(I kind of see the point here, it's pretty vague I think though)

- Some other random stuff how political ideologies in general are all flawed when you try to stick with one solution to every problem and that people should be more dynamic and less focused on pigeon holing themselves into certain systems.

There's more but I'm not sure if I can remember exactly. I should ask him again and check and if there is anything interesting I'm missing.

I think bitcoin just caused him to be more critical of his own political assumptions. I guess that's a good thing, but we have a long way to go and I think bitcoin and the culture around it is going to be improving a lot in the near future. As in all these problems that bitcoin is having are just going to make it that much stronger in the long run as people adapt and the market corrects itself. It's going to be interesting to see how it unfolds.

I suspect much of it is just normalcy bias.  But the 'Bitcoin experiment' is not a particularly well-isolated one.  It will take time, and a lot more growth, to reach a stable equilibrium.

No. My views have not changed. But it is providing endless hours of entertainment and education.

Bitcoin helped to take me from minarchist to market-anarchist. I was infected by the community and exposed to the likes of Stefan Molyneux, who really made the case for no-state.

Bitcoin for me is being an accelerator.
I'm simply going to the same direction, simply faster.

Before Bitcoin the word anarchist was synonyms with intent to cause kayos and disorder - meaning something negative like uncontrollable child adult screaming with no order.
After Bitcoin anarchism sounded quite appealing as a means of organisation.

My political view can't be summed up that simply (I seem to find some fault with most ideologies) but while enjoy the freedom to change my mind, Bitcoin has stimulates the fundamental questions needed to make some facts clear. So from here political processes derived from free market principles are way more appealing and practical than I ever though possible.

I look with at my native currency with a scrutinizing eye.

Not sure if this relates but-

Im pretty sure bitcoin has convinced me that p2p non biased systems are the way to go for most things.

Can you expand on why? Minarchist sounds like a very reasonable position and I wonder what benefits full blown anarchism would have over a minimal state.

Make it a survey or don't post this question "at all".

Reading some posts on the forum I have got a similar impression in a few cases but that is not my case. I think people are not used to having so much freedom and being responsible, and this is why they fall for so many scams. More time has to pass and people have a lot to learn in how to make the best use of their freedom.

I've become more dismissive of libertarians. Exposure to the forum has greatly reduced my estimate of their average intelligence level.

Bitcoin motivated me to learn more about money, and as a consequence I've become more dismissive of professional economists. Many of them actually are completely clueless when it comes to money.

Awesome. You do realize that money is part of macroeconomics. Most economists don't have any reason to ever care about it, except for those who specialize in this area.

But they should at least have some basic knowledge.

I would think anyone who calls them self an economist would have some basic knowledge. Do you have any examples?

In a deflation world when everyone tries to hoard USD, I don't see the benefit of BTC, but in an inflation world, BTC might gain some ground as a hedge for inflation

After financial crisis, everyone is still trying to save. When they put saving in action, the money supply need to be magnitudes higher than normal volume for transaction purpose

I believe sir that this is a slang term, and these people are actually called "Professional BullShit Artists"

Look it up, its in the dictionary
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bullshit+artist


The keyword here is HYPE

o.0

I used to think my only options were to vote 3rd party & hope one day the world would share my views & vote the right candidate(s) in.  Although I knew that would never happen, it felt better to try than to do nothing.  The bitcoin experiment has reignited that spark.  Something I thought would never happen during my lifetime, I now see as a real possibility in the next 20 years.  Real political change that will give more power to the people.

For me, the most surprising change was that my view on speculators got way more differentiated. Before, speculation was evil. Now – black sheep pump and dump aside – it is a service.

While it hasn't changed my views much, it has given me a direction to follow them.

Bitcoin changed my view on certain political and social movements.
Specifically, it taught me that a lot of people regularily confuse the word 'anarcho' with the word 'puberty'.

My views have changed a lot. I used to be a radical left libertarian before, I basically ran the Finnish arm of the Zeitgeist Movement for a couple of years. After being involved with Bitcoin for 1,5 years now, I don't identify with Zeitgeist stuff anymore, I see it as unrealistic and utopian. Bitcoin is on the fringe as well but it's not as utopian.

It's a libertarian dream from another perspective and I've basically embraced that perspective. More than anything, it's something that IS HERE and it works! It's not just a dream, it's living the dream. Living a roller coaster is closer to actuality but still, you get the point. Talk truly is cheap, we're here actually doing something. Building a new economy.

Money is both micro and macro. It's actually the insistence to view micro-processes through the lens of macro creates heavy distortions in understanding money. The whole concept of liquidity influencing demand for money gets lost that way. Krugman, for example, wrote papers in the 80s which clearly indicate that he understands it, but now, 30 years later, he seems to have forgotten it.

An economist should have a basic grasp of both micro and macro.

I can't blame someone for remaining ignorant of macroeconomics. I also don't take you very seriously. The most likely reason why you feel that most economists know nothing about macroeconomics is because you belong to a minority or so-called heterodox faction.

Macroeconomics is full of dogmatic factions. The factions all believe that their own group knows everything and that people outside the faction know nothing. If you want to pursue macroeconomics, you have to join a faction. Choosing to ignore these factions entirely and specialize in less divisive subfields seems eminently reasonable to me.

I went to a PhD program at one university. The university faculty all ascribed to one faction (no surprise they hire each other). I 'learned' that the other dominant faction was full of shit and held laughable views. I was never formally taught what those laughable views were. They were just irrelevant. This is typical of economics PhD programs. There is a war over who gets to be orthodox. It is like a religion.

There are also the so-called heterodox factions. Heterodox factions are not serious competitors with the two orthodox factions (freshwater and saltwater). No one even bothers to ridicule the heterodox factions. Heterodox views are fairly common outside of the ivory tower, but you are not going to get employed at a good university if you hold heterodox beliefs. There are a handful of low quality universities that specialize in heterodoxy (e.g. University of Mass at Amherst : Marxism, George Mason University : Austrian Economics). I think you are frustrated that your heterodox faction lacks broader support.

The picture of Krugman indicates that I personally ascribe to the saltwater faction. In school, I learned the freshwater faction and I respect their views. The heterodox factions are, of course, completely full of shit.

PS What about econometrics? The third major sub-discipline. Being completely ignorant of this is okay?

I have formal education in mainstream economics and only became familiar with the Austrian school afterwards. I read non-Austrian sources as well. Empirical research, for example, can be interpreted from several points of view, you don't need to agree with the school of the person doing empirical research and his interpretations of the results.

But I'm also a stubborn skeptic. If someone disagrees with me, I expect him to argue, rather than just bullshit around. If it turns out in the end that I was wrong, it's no big deal. I want to pursue the truth, not writings of someone else. My research of Bitcoin, for example, brought me to a position where I defy both the gold standard branch and the freebanking branch of the Austrian school.

The most important point in economics is to identify assumptions, and that's where many economists fail. They make implicit assumptions without being aware of it, and they end up contradicting themselves. This has nothing to do with belonging to a specific faction.

There is a difference between being ignorant of something, and agreeing with something. So while I would say that economists should have a basic understanding of econometrics too, it does not mean that will allow them a better grasp of economic phenomena.

I feel like we have a different world view here.
90% of the time. I'm happy as long as the econometrics is solid. I could not care less if the thoery makes sense or does not make sense. Asblong as the empirical test of the theory is solid, then I'm willing to accept it. Thus it is much more important to me that all economists understand econometrics. I dont care as much about whether they understand theory.

i have changed my political view, i have become far more socialistic then i was when i started.
i have seen how the libertards behave, and that is not a world i wan't to live in.

To me, paying too much attention to mathetmatical relationship between two economic variables is dangerous in becoming a new breed of pseudoscience, like alchemy and astrology. I prefer falsificationism and deductive reasoning to verificationism and inductive reasoning.

To me, any approach that falsifies hypotheses using experimental methods qualifies as a science. Anything else is not a science.

(i.e. astrology is a valid science if it is subjected to careful empirical testing. The lack of empirical testing is what makes it a pseudoscience.)

I detest Austrian economics because it rejects empiricism, and is therefore not scientific.

This is not always a choice one can make given ones position relative to the solution.

Ah, but falsificationism and verificationism are not the same approach.

I don't see Austrian economics as science, similarly as I don't see mathematics or logic as science. Do you detest mathematics and logic as well?

On the other hand, the claim that Austrians reject empiricism is misleading. It's similar as saying that mathematics rejects empiricism. It can happen that empirical data contradicts some arguments Austrians have made (as it did with Bitcoin), and then you need to figure out how to resolve the contradictions. Either you can simply claim that Bitcoin does not exists (there are indeed people who take this path), or you can attempt to figure out where the arguments went wrong and change them so that they are consistent with Bitcoin's existence.

I personally go even further than the Austrians, and view the foundations of praxeology as assumptions rather than "truth". I have no problems challenging them and showing when there's a contradiction.

Oh sure, there's plenty of situations where you have incomplete information, but need to make a decision. But that's not finding the truth, that's fixing a problem. Those are two different issues.

Astrology has extensively been tested empirically.
And the austrian school certainly is based on empirical evidence. Maybe just not as much as you like.

Nah, not really. They are two faces of the same coin.
These tools apply to systems and one does not define 'truth' better than the other.
Good luck finding 'truth' in non-deterministic behaviour.

The idea that deflation causes hoarding (to any problematic degree) is a lie used to justify theft of value from your savings.

"Hoarding" = "investing less than I think you should". A person only has limited information to contribute to a market - anything beyond that only contributes noise. This includes one's assessment of who is a qualified investment delegate (like a bank). We shouldn't penalize uninvested savings... if someone can overcome their greed and know when to shut up, we should let them.

I apologize to everyone else for not learning this before the recent financial crisis.

It does, and I was there for about a year. However, once you realise that all these functions can be handled by the market, you see that the state is truly ridiculous. You have created an unaccountable monopoly on defense, police and arbitration; all backed by violence. Check out some Molyneux and you'll undoubtedly change your mind.
 
The difference is, I suppose, a fundamental understanding that the initiation of force is wrong. If you look at it from a pragmatic approach and if you look at if from a moral approach, the conclusion is the same. All the problems caused by the state derive from the violation of the NAP; the state cannot do anything without initiating force. A minimal state is still a state and the lack of respect for the NAP predictably results in chaos.

BTC born at a time when people all over the world are eager to save more after financial crisis, so it is right on the spot. Currently people are still save in USD since they feel it is still backed by the most powerful country in the world, but sooner or later they will realize that BTC is as good as USD.

Fixed that for you.

This might be a personal animosity but "Fixed that for you" is slowly becoming an issue in this forum. Miss-quoting people without even bothering to mark the changes gets me slightly mad.

ftfy

Ironically, the text I changed would have been easily marked to indicate the change (and normally I would but I was being lazy) but the image change, not so much.

Wuts with Psy's sudden second popularity surge? It's bigger than in summer! (No, I don't mean our local pro-Ponzi inquisitor, unless he's a Korean rapper, which would be awkward but useful in itself).

Err, anyway, @topic: Behavior of the Bitcoin economy so far was unsurprising to me. Thus, I didn't notice any major change in my economic and political views.

Deflation might be an exception. I hadn't thought about it much before I got into Bitcoin. Upon closer analysis, it's not as destructive as it seems at first. I still don't like the idea to allow monetary supply to decrease, as with Bitcoin's lost coins, but I can live with it now. Bitcoin has enough strong points to make up for it. 8)

Not sure. I'd never even heard of him/the song until a couple of weeks ago on that SNL sketch. Maybe it's that.


To return to the topic, I'd already started turning libertarian back in 2001. Since then, I've paid a bit more attention to the political process and, quite frankly, I find it astounding what they are getting away with and how badly things are actually going if you pay attention to what's going on. We're being robbed blind and only quite incredible increases in productivity have allowed it to be sustained for so long. I'd heard of bitcoin in the background in a few places and hadn't really paid attention but when I actually looked into it recently, it seemed clear to me that it's going to have a pretty major impact in the near-to-mid future, one way or another.

Really? While not without its trolls, this forum has impressed me with its participants' level of discourse and economic understanding.

The point is really driven home by the fact that what I want to say in response to a topic has often already been said, and said well, by someone in the thread before I can get caught up. I've started writing--then deleted, seeing my work already done--at least as many posts as I've made. For instance, making the a priori/a posteriori distinction in defending the validity of the Austrian school--I would totally have to have done that myself on most forums! A salute to thee, benjamindees!

OP: I consider Bitcoin's history thus far to be a vindication of my economic views, which are closely Austrian-aligned. That school does seem to have an outsize representation in the Bitcoin community, possibly because orthodox economists seem to consider Bitcoin 1) a Ponzi scheme, or 2) a doomed experiment due to a lack of indefinite growth in the money supply. I would be interested in hearing from an orthodox economist why he or she is interested in Bitcoin and why the happily-recovering, successfully stimulated global economy has use for some crazy new non-state video game money.

"Minarchy" still creates two classes of citizens: ordinary people like me and you, and "special" individuals who get powers that ordinary people don't have. In today's society they are the police, the judges, the politicians, and other bureaucrats. The only different is where the line is drawn in terms of defining the size of government.

Any system that gives power to a subset of the population will eventually fall prey to corruption.


This is spot on. What I can't figure out is why so many people accept violence acted against them (theft, proscribed behavior). Even when you explain it and people understand it, they are still OK with being subjugated! In my opinion this is mankind's biggest flaw.

Really? Simply because it offers a low txn cost payment system based on public memory. Here are completely orthodox articles which support bitcoin as theoretically valuable.

Here is an article supporting the use of public memory as a payment system, i.e. the orthodox economic theory behind bitcoin is well-established.
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr218.pdf (http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr218.pdf)

Here is an article describing how a commodity with no intrinsic value can be adopted as money.
http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/wray/631Wray/Kiyotaki%20and%20Wright.pdf (http://cas.umkc.edu/econ/economics/faculty/wray/631Wray/Kiyotaki%20and%20Wright.pdf)

Orthodox economists are simply ignoring bitcoin, not dismissing it. Economists who dismiss bitcoin are primarily Austrians. Look up their backgrounds.

I think Bitcoin has pretty much vindicated my beliefs rather than changed them, I believe in the Austrian school of economics but I can see the value in a currency like Bitcoin, if we're going to have a fiat currency then it has to be one dictated by the people, that said, I still don't believe that anything can top precious metals because they've been used in currencies and trade for years. I think the true value in Bitcoin is that even if the main sites for it get shut down the governments who are against it won't be able to do anything to stop it much like bittorrent, it's just too easy to set everything up we just need one country to legalize it and then everyone who has bitcoins will move there.

Yes, most definitely bitcoin changed the way I think about many things and educated me about a whole lot of topics.

It might also turn me into some kind of a radical... but not quite yet.

Stefan Molyneux recently made the argument in an interview (with VisionVictory, I think, search youtube), that a small state always has the tendency to grow so we would always end up with big government once again.

I'm not sure a state can be kept small.

This is true. So to minimize the system minimizes the potential damage caused by that corruption.

It's important to realize that there will be no perfect system. This is the mistake the statists make. Things will be perfect with just-a-little-bit more government. They accuse libertarian and like-minded people of being Utopianists but that is far from the truth, we merely want to move towards "as good as possible", not "perfect".

Quite possibly true. And it seems that possibly a democracy can grow even more than other forms of government. Western governments are way out-of-control now and are orders of magnitude larger than they were under monarchs (England's monarchy doesn't really count).

I was a left libertarian highly skeptical of "market anarchists" and libertarians. Bitcoin basically confirmed my views. It's still useful as a relatively low volume crypto-currency for TSR (which remains pretty much bitcoin's only large scale viable marketplace) but other than that it seems to be primarily a bunch of people who would screw over their own mother if it made them another buck or two. The fallacy of a perfectly self regulating free market has been exposed as the lie it has always been. Bitcoin will perhaps bootstrap itself into some sort of quasi-stable state without being destroyed by scammers, but I feel that the general character of a right-libertarian project has been plain to see compared to most left libertarian projects I have been involved in.

Many of the smartest and highest integrity people here are right libertarians, so I am not saying that all right libertarians and market anarchists are scammers, just that market anarchism is a sort of cesspool of ultra-greedy people who quite frankly, I don't want to work on anything with.

Awesome news. I am an economist, so I can't judge integrity (you need to have integrity yourself to do this). I learned from the forum that libertarians are idiots.
I'll take your word on it that they are dirtbags as well.

As if ignoring it will make it go away. It is the Austrians that dismiss Bitcoin that are the true idiots though given their ideology and Hayak's Denationalization of Money (http://www.amazon.com/Denationalization-Money-Analysis-Concurrent-Currencies/dp/0255360878) you would think they would be all over it if they were intellectually and ideologically consistent.


Isn't think just characteristic of humans in general?

At first i just had a feeling it was all a big show and the guys with the money at the top made all the real decisions...

Then i started bitcoining!

and now i know.

 :D

FTFY. It is more concise that way.

Just watch Ron Paul smash Paul Krugman on Bloomberg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEoGKpnutyA). Too funny.  ;D

Reminds me of something Max Keiser was complaining about. He argued that economics if full of voodoo mumbo jumbo.

I am coming from a physics education background. I think the best way to analyze economics is to think in terms of game theory, since economics is created by the interaction of people with different strategies and belief sets. The role of macroeconomics is then to lay the ground rules (incentive systems).

This is what explains why I think bitcoin is disruptive and revolutionary: In bitcoin the ground rules of the economy are generated by a consensus of the players. In centralized money systems, a privileged group of players is allowed to determine and manipulate the incentive system, thus corrupting the whole game and giving themselves a huge advantage over the average player.

After college I changed my views to socially-left/economically-center. I guess I was a pro-business moderate. After exploring Bitcoin and all the discussions on this forum, I've changed to anarcho-capitalist/libertarian. Ironically, it was all the economics and business classes and education I got from my state university that helped me understand why libertarian free-market economic theories are valid and would work. (P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

what?

Aka, what getting a university degree is called in American deep south, and within certain extreme righ-wing, armchair economist circles.

da fogg! I can read "elititst", I can decipher "librul" as "liberal", but I can only guess "ejukashun" as something close to "ejection", which doesn't make sense even after your eplnahation.

education?

The Bitcoin forum thought me about libertarian ideology and it's fallacies by first hand observation. At some time I even considered them bearable but not anymore, they are selfish, rude and hypocritical.

I still consider myself an anarchist and have assumed that libertarians share some of my views, but sadly from what I've leaned here nothing can be further from the truth. They propose a system where a binding contract is enforced by hierarchical structures which is ultimately harmful. Debt should never be considered to be backed by law because it undermines trust. Payment should be instant and the fulfilment of debt voluntary.
Bitcoin is a good example of a system which ultimately doesn't work with debt (or more specifically profiting from other people debt) and the recent failures within this community are directly linked to libertarian ideology.

OH you mean all those scams?   :D

Yeeeaaahhhh... Ron Paul made Libertarianism sound palatable for a second, then I got involved with bitcoin and saw all that stuff happen and all these libertarians coming out of the closet with what can only be described as psychopathicly extreme levels of greed here on this board aaaaand...

suffice to say I'm not thinking about libertarianism so much anymore.
Bitcoin has motivated me to research more deeply into the subject of economics than I ever thought I would... Until I discovered bitcoin and the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency, I really thought the whole of economics was nothing but the keynesian sort -- well, worse actually in my mind then; I thought economics was more like religion, something just made up out of nothing by tptb to enslave those that were born with shitty hands (of cards I mean; ya know that metaphor).
So yeah, Bitcoin has caused me to discover that economics is actually substantial.  Pretty deep stuff, with all that math and such.  I was just going over the main difference between the Austrian and Keynesian schools, and apparently it boils down to the Austrians think some equation or maths should be worked out with pure deductive logic, and result in a concrete number that represents something (value or something; it's that whole cardinal dealy versus the umm... ordinal dealy with the Keynesians)...  So the Keynesians use probability and inference as opposed to the Austrians prefer the deductive approach.
I remember Philosophy 110 -- Intro to Logic, and if I can teleport my mind back through all this haze...
Hold on, lots of haze...
Foggy...
Deduction is like, stronger than induction?  Is that correct?
Someone correct or clarify any of the above rambling; I cordially invite you all.  But yeah -- I wouldn't have given two skunks' snatches if it weren't for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin confirmed for me that strictly voluntary relations can work, in more ways than one.  For example, I have traded with over 25 people and only one of them scammed me (for a total of like 8 BTC total, which is a minuscule amount compared to what I have traded so far).

This observation, to me, confirms the well-studied fact that people -- strangers -- are, by and large, trustworthy and well-intentioned even when rules aren't being violently imposed on them, and completely destroys the notion that Mankind is malevolent and therefore it needs a magical group of men (who somehow magically won't be malevolent) to rule everyone else.  I mean, I knew it theoretically from obvious logical deduction that this belief was unfounded and pernicious, but now I know from first-hand experience that it is false.

It also showed me that there is indeed a way to practice agorism and tradecraft, swiftly routing around the psychopathy of the control freaks who do business as "the state".  Before Bitcoin, we knew they were wrong and malevolent -- now we still know they are wrong and malevolent, but we can actually start not giving a shit about them.

And, for that, I am profoundly grateful to everyone who has made Bitcoin happen.  Thanks everyone!

Wow, bitcoin has helped educate so many people about the evils of libertarian ideology. Go Bitcoin!

Elaborate?

Mmmm.   I posted on the wrong thread.  Sorry about that, carry on.

Bitcoin probably eliminated asdf's previous belief that minarchy was the only viable way to organize a society (probably because he wondered "But what about the currencies?" and Bitcoin came at the right time to prove that voluntaryist currencies can and do work).

It's like, you know, we're all repeatedly told for almost two decades that certain things X, Y and Z can only (magically, mysteriously) be made by this group W, and BAM! this guy F comes along and proves twenty years of "it's common knowledge, man" utterly wrong by making Y, and not just Y, but a superior Y.  F being Satoshi + every one of us, and Y being Bitcoin, of course.  After that, you kinda start suspecting whether it's true that only W can make Z and X too.  Doubt's always the first step in shedding false beliefs.

Stefan Molyneux is a philosopher (he runs Freedomain Radio, the largest philosophical conversation in the world) who is very much pro-Bitcoin and pro-voluntaryism.  Stef was the one who "converted" me to voluntaryism, so-to-speak.

Whoa, Krugman looks like he could be Ben B's cousin! LOL!

You don't often see self-deprecating humor mixed with vitriol.  Interesting combo. ;)

The number of people you educate is inversely proportional to how dark your ignore button is.

Did bitcoin changed my views? No, I've seen a new opportunities with cryptocurrency, gave hope for higher efficiency of economy... What changed... no what shaped my opinion about this things were educational materials associated with it.
Mainly "Money as dept" and "The american dream" as well as some thought giving discussions here, on bitcointalk.

Rilli.


I'm aware of some obstinate hard money advocates who refuse to consider anything but gold and silver to be money. I don't really think of them as the vanguard of Austrian thought. Most Austrians I've read find cryptocurrencies legitimate and praiseworthy.

I wasn't questioning whether the economic mainstream is down with abstract/novel forms of money. I was talking about the derision toward Bitcoin I've seen from those pop economists who, like yourself, aren't ignoring it (Mr. Lol Krugman (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/golden-cyberfetters/), for instance). It's Bitcoin's eventual supply cap, lack of state sponsorship, and absence of the potential for unilateral devaluation/counterfeiting that seem to have a lot of subscribers to the fashionable politics/economics of the day talking smack about it.

Still curious what potential you see in it, particularly vis-a-vis fiat--as well, I suppose, as your take on the latter's survivability going forward.


Philosophy here. Epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics (specifically political philosophy). The discipline has served me well at analyzing the rigorous microeconomics embraced by the Austrian school (and separating it from the empirical/social science nebula that has coalesced around this core). I wouldn't doubt physics has provided you angles of insight into econ that are both novel and salient. Speaking of interdisciplinary approaches, I'm reminded that I have some Mandelbrot (http://www.amazon.com/Misbehavior-Markets-Fractal-Financial-Turbulence/dp/0465043577) I need to read!


If I had to name the point at which I became firmly and uncompromisingly pro-liberty, it would be reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in undergrad. My best friend's an economist and provided my introduction to the rest of the Austrian X-Men pantheon.

For those still mulling over their ideology, Stefan does a pretty good job in this vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhSsIpjtzY&noredirect=1) of countering some tough questions for libertarians (http://www.reddit.com/r/austrian_economics/comments/ltrg1/jon_stewarts_19_questions_to_libertarians/) that Jon Stewart apparently publically asked (as well as unscrambling a lot of confused premises--a generally reliable sign someone has a better handle on a topic).

No.

Bitcoin isn't a means to achieve a political or economic end. Those who use it as such are cheating the system. Bitcoin is a novel financial system enabling worldwide monetary transfer. Bitcoin kills two birds with one stone: it is both a store of value (a ledger) and a medium through which parties can exchange (a transportation system). Neither of these goals have anything to do with a specific political ideology nor a specific economic school of thought. That is the secular beauty of Bitcoin. And I will not take it for anything less.

how is "enabling worldwide monetary transfer" not an "economic end"?

Only Neo-Keynesians and fans of Paul Krugman would claim that the poor being able to work less for more would be a bad thing which is basically what you say if you say you support an inflationary currency.

Science is defined by the principle of positivism. And it is two parts, not just emperical testing.

Positivism states that 1. A theory must be logically self consistent. and 2. A theory is false if it does not match reality so much as once.

"Math" is often seen as the strongest science of all - however it contains no empirical testing.
No one has ever ONCE tested if 2+2 does indeed equal 4 - it is simply a result of undeniable logic and mathematical axioms.


Similarly Austrian theory focuses on setting up axioms and from that deriving theory while mainstream economists try to fit simplistic formula down over adapting intelligent agents - and on top they reject empirical evidence.

The Austrian school IS a science and in fact it would also be wrong to say empirical evidence plays no part: One of the first tenents of the Austrian school is that the markets/humans are adapting agents - A new perfect economic theory would immediately be abused by traders and thus rendered false.
This theory is testable in that indeed markets are adapting to change all the time. No one has ever seen a market NOT reacting to massive inflow/outflow of something important like money, resources or energy. Not once.

LOL. This is how you test your "theory"?

Your exposition reads like astrology.

A sound rebuttal there.

Hehehehe.

(I'm assuming Richy_T was being sarcastic :-) )

Let's keep this thread on topic.  Let's not allow people who think that mockery amounts to argumentation to derail the thread.

As bobitza said in the second post of this thread, the contrary of your question is true in my case.  Because my political and especially economic/financial views have changed radically from the status quo "Blue Pill" perspective in recent years, I have finally been compelled to learn about and get involved with Bitcoin as yet another means of diversifying my wealth holdings outside of "the system".

This is true of me too.  I got to know Bitcoin a few years after I had understood that voluntaryism is, essentially, correct and ethical.  When I understood Bitcoin and what it meant, I had my "a-ha" moment about Bitcoin; right then and there it became obvious that Bitcoin would play a major role in the popularization of voluntaryism.  I can also recognize, at the same time, that all my Bitcoin interactions confirmed that the central tenets of voluntaryism are correct.

So it's more like voluntaryism informing me that Bitcoin is a good thing, then Bitcoin in turn informing me that voluntaryism is a good thing (in that order).

Put two apples on a table to your  left, then put two apples to your right (use the globally (and for all we know, universally) accepted definition of "2").  Now join the two sets of apples together.  For the globally accepted definition of "4", ask yourself if there are now 4 apples on the table.  If so, then you have successfully tested, and verified, that 2+2=4, given the accepted definitions of "+" and "=".

If not, then you probably shouldn't eat those apples :-)

On what do you base this accusation?

what's the accusation? the claim that "the poor having to work more" is "good" or the connection between "inflationary currency" and the "poor having to work more"?

I have no idea. The original statement was poorly worded. Clearly, Paul Krugman is good and people who disagree with him are bad. Lethn's statement appears to suggest the opposite. Perhaps Lethn could clarify?

Could you unpack this statement a little bit? I've heard Krugman argue that the failure of austerity measures in the current recession is an empirical argument for more accommodative monetary policy (c.f. discussion with Spanish central bankers and economists). Are you saying that because Austrian's refuse to view the failure of austerity as a reason to embrace money printing, they reject empiricism? Or are you referring to something else?

I believe Austrians do tend to be more rationalist, but I suspect there are austrian-leaning individuals who are more empiricist as well. I think monetarists just tend to have a shorter time-scale for their empiricism (e.g 0-10 years) than Austrians (10-200 years). Additionally, the foundation of austrian empiricism, currency competition, can only exist where the foundation for monetarist empiricism, central bank money supply manipulation, does not.

Please help me understand your point of view.

-bgc

Hopefully cunicula won't mind me chipping in. Austrian School separates economic history (empirical analysis of past data) and economic theory (deductive reasoning). This does not qualify as science, and I agree with cunicula in this respect. I view Austrian School more like logic or mathematics.

But I don't view large proportions of mainstream economics (in particular macroeconomics) as a science either, rather as pseudoscience, like astrology or alchemy. It's allegedly empirical, but has a terrible empirical record. But I don't hate it. That would be an emotional reaction and not scientific. Also, occasionally mainstream economists make perfectly reasonable arguments as well. For example, Krugman's 1984 paper "The International Role of the Dollar" is insightful and with a minor modification applicable directly onto Bitcoin.

Yes, Austrian economics does not believe in hypothesis testing. Austrians maintain that Austrian theories are true and that seems sufficient to them. It is explicitly faith-based. Austrians maintain that mathematicians use faith-based axioms too, so that their methodology is akin to mathematicians.

However, Austrian economists also oppose the use of mathematics in economic theory. They also oppose the use of measurement. For an Austrian, all matters are black and white. Therefore measurement is irrelevant. Drawing an analogy between the Austrian school and mathematics is misleading at best. It would be more accurate to claim that Austrians borrowed their methodological perspective from theology.

One of traits that Austrian economics shares with theology is its profound reverence for intellectual authority. Debates frequently refer to old texts, such as Mises' Human Action. Whoever holds views that coincide with those of the masters is judged correct.

Rather than take my word for it though, please look at the holy book itself: http://library.mises.org/books/Ludwig%20von%20Mises/Human%20Action.pdf

Reading this should give you a good idea of what Austrian economics is. You should not moderate your contempt for this stuff. It deserves more than any one person can possibly offer.

So, how do you explain Austrians rejecting the intellectual authority of many 20th century economists? And if it is theology, what specific "holy" book do they rely on, and why do they keep insisting on using things like Supply/Demand/Quantity/Price graphs, or velocity of money calculations? Unless those things are faith-based too.

Yes.  It proves there are way too many naive anarchists in the world.

Yes.  One naïve anarchist is too many.  Bring him to me and I'll talk to him in order to help him be less naïve.

:-)

You are not getting it.

1) Scientists formulate a theory.
2) Based on the theory, they make predictions.
3) They then analyze real world data to see if it conforms to their predictions. If not, then go to step 1.

No theory is perfect. Science is just a recursive algorithm for refining our predictions about real world behavior. Theories never achieve perfection. They just improve incrementally over time.

Austrians say "the fact that economists can't make accurate predictions proves that we are right. We never claimed that our theories could produce testable hypotheses. Those guys with the testable hypotheses are the charlatans." Austrians are theologians. When a scientist meets an Austrian, the proper greeting is to dump a barrel of excrement on him or her. Austrians are not worthy of any respect whatsoever. They are the sworn enemies of science. The fact that they employ charts, graphs, and tables while spouting their theology just makes them all the more pernicious.

[Cunicula quakes with anger at the very thought of abandoning science for theology.]

The analogy between the difference between physics and mathematics; to Krugman and Austrian holds.
Praxeology is based upon the belief that some things cannot be adequately explained by trend fitting; as a trend only fits, until it doesn’t anymore.  Praxeology tries to explain the reasons behind why such actions take place; thus can make predictions what could happen in the future.

Austrian’s core is two-fold; it is based upon a set of philosophical axioms that don’t need to be empirically tested. (By definition you don’t need to test a philosophical axiom!)  The heart of the Austrian’s philosophy is that humans should enter in voluntary relationships; that the institutionalisation of aggressive violence is always bad; no-matter the said ‘productive’ outcomes of such a policy.  It is not a question if a society would be more or less economically efficient with such policies.  All policies that require aggressive violence are not even considered as available (said moral) options.

Austrian’s then take the second step to explain why, (not just philosophically), but economically, voluntary interaction leads to the economically most efficient society.  Thus is built upon philosophical axioms, and makes use of logic and reason.  None of this is REQUIRED to be empirically tested. Why.   The same reason why mathematics doesn’t need to be empirically tested: Proofs.


Overall this has nothing to do with theology as that is the formal the study of God’s interaction with humanity and this world.  Theology is externally focused.  Philosophy is internally focused.

Huh? I guess we haven't had many Austrians on this board then, cause I've never seen anyone like that. Most of the arguments from those arguing against you have been of the type "If you do this, based on economic theories and logic, we would expect that to happen. And, what do you know, of you look at this part of the world, or this part of the economy, that's exactly what's happening!"
Let me know if you ever run into those Austrians you speak of.

Ugh. Excuse me while I vomit for a while.

Philosophy is also based on faith-based axioms. While that is reprehensible, regular philosophers have an excuse for being jackasses. They study stuff which lacks any real world manifestation. So if you ask them, "why don't you take that to the data?" They can say "gee, we would really like to, but in our field there are no observable data at all."

Austrians work in a domain with abundant data, but refuse to pay any attention to it. They say well, we assumed we were right and we don't need to find any evidence to support that. After all the fact that we are right follows directly from our axioms and axioms do not require empirical validation by definition. This is my main objection to Austrian economics. It is purposefully teleological. In science, teleology is avoided. For Austrians, teleology is worshiped. If you don't believe me go read the holy book linked to above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology#Teleology_and_science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology#Teleology_and_science)

Besides the complete rejection of empirics, Austrians also refuse to use mathematics. This is a big problem for them because economics typically gives rise to ambiguous predictions (i.e. there are multiple factors which offset one another and theory provides no prediction about which of these factors will be most important.) Thus, there is a need for quantification. However, Austrians reject quantification. Instead, they focus their attention on simplistic theoretical settings that do not produce ambiguity and therefore can be analyzed without mathematics. Not surprisingly, this leads to a simplistic world view where everything is seen in black and white terms.

Listen to the libertarians oversimplify things and paint everything in black & white terms on the forums. Austrian economics is partially to blame for their faulty thinking.

Go read the holy book to familiarize yourself with Austrian doctrine. You are speaking heresies and you don't even know it.

Austrian references to real world phenomena are selective. As in all pseudoscience, anything that conforms to their expectation is viewed as a confirmation of their theories. Anything that fails to conform is rejected as irrelevant. Accordingly, they do not require any weighing of evidence to support their beliefs.

Here is a joke about Austrians:

Q: How do you know you’re dealing with an Internet “Austrian”?

A: An Internet “Austrian” is someone who has correctly predicted FIFTEEN out of the last ZERO episodes of hyper-inflation.

Please go to betsofbitco.in and put some money on these predictions (i.e. bet on gold and gas prices rising please). I am currently taking BTC from Austrians. However, now that we are approaching the end of the year, my anti-hyperinflation bets are getting crowded out by opportunists. Since you are an Austrian, I feel it is your philosophical duty to contribute to my winnings. Help stack the odds very heavily in my favor again. [They still favor me, but I am greedy.]

Okay, a final difference. Economics attempts to be a positive science not a normative one. Austrian economics is normative, not positive.

i.e. Austrian economics makes silly moralistic statements about violence (see above; sounds like theology doesn't it?)

Positive economics takes issues like optimal labor coercion as its subject matter.

This is more important than it seems at first glance. Austrians see coercion as a black and white issue. Economists ask instead how can we duplicate the outcomes of a fully coercive labor arrangement through voluntary exchange. Once we show that this is possible, the notion of coercion can no longer be seen as a black and white issue. i.e. the outcomes associated with slavery can be duplicated through a decentralized market arrangement. If so, how can we both oppose slavery and support all forms of voluntary exchange? There seems to be a contradiction here. Either that or a bizarre moralistic view where we care only about the means through which objectives are achieved and not about consequenses. It is fine to have a slave, but you can't take him by force. You have to do it through a  clever series of market-based transactions.

Take for example highly unequal societies such as the Caribbean islands following the abolition of slavery. If you can't coerce a slave using violence, how can you assure that he will work as a slave? The free market solution is to sabotage his outside options. As an alternative to working as your de-facto slave, he might choose to work as a subsistence farmer. This cannot be allowed. To prevent this, you purchase all available irrigation necessary for subsistence farming. The planter may not be able to force the freeman to sell his land, but he can deprive him of the ability to survive by farming it. The ex-slave while nominally free must work for the planter or starve. This is what Austrians call voluntary exchange.

From what I have read in quotations, cunticula is waging a lie/sophism based campaign to discredit Austrian economics (note not refute, but discredit).that tells you he is obviously dishonest and acting in bad faith. And offtopic too. Why don't we just ignore that troll and his off topic ramblings, and go back to discussing the original topic?  Thanks.

"One thing that rather troubles me is that most people's standard for determining that some viewpoint, claim, etc., is "cooky," "insane," etc., is not by how far it departs from reality, but rather, how far a departure it is from the status quo.

Even things which most people correctly dismiss as nuttery, are not dismissed for the right reasons; they are always dismissed only because it is a radical departure from the establishment line, not because it is a radical departure from reality.

No wonder people who embrace a respect for persons, non-aggression, and therefore, oppose the existence of government on moral and practical grounds, are dismissed as nuts. The world is a place of primarily violent crackpots who accuse the reasonable of insanity, and yet people wonder why much of the world is such a horrible place."

Exactly.

It does sound like he's building straw men. I don't know what I would call myself (Austrian or not), nor anyone else who self identified as AnCap, but none of them seem to fit cunicula's description. Maybe he just need an enemy to rail against, or needs to justify his extreme dislike of anyone he doesn't fundamentally agree with, so he makes up these boogeymen to parade in public and fight against.

I think this is the reason.

A sociopathic individual is a person who is perfectly able to identify emotions in others, but incapable of sympathizing with those emotions himself.  This makes him an especially effective predator, since his unique mental constitution enables him to play others like a fiddle, manipulating and profiting (financially or psychically) from them, by pushing their emotional buttons.  Examples of sociopathy abound -- from the not-so-intelligent sociopath who scams old ladies out of their retirement money, to the extremely intelligent sociopath who scams workers via inflation.

In short: a sociopath gets your money (or your obedience) by manipulating and threatening you with misery or pain, and he is not affected by his behavior being evil.  If you didn't obey and someone killed, caged or ruined you for your disobedience, the sociopath will have no problem shrugging that off and blaming you, the victim.  That's the fundamental kind of person that the sociopath is.

There is, however, one situation that will push the sociopath's buttons: someone unmasking him.  Someone unmasking a sociopath -- revealing a sociopath for what he really is -- is a threat to the sociopath's profit and control over his victims.  Understandably -- in the sense that you and I can comprehend the behavior of a lion or any other predatorial beast -- the sociopath usually reacts to this threat by attempting to viciously destroy, defame, discredit and nullify the "enemy" (and the enemy's sensibilizing influence) over his victims.

As we saw before, the whole range of sociopathic stratagems to suppress humanity are available to the sociopath -- ranging from telling your Auntie Tilly that you want her dead (so you're out of the picture and he can continue sponging off her savings), to having you "suicided" for blowing the lid off on a corruption scandal.  Somewhere along this spectrum rests the common practice of sabotaging online conversations with lies and insults, as you no doubt have witnessed here; this is not directly violent behavior, but it's clearly antisocial behavior just like all other sociopathic behaviors are.

Since Austrian economics does unmask sociopathic individuals who parasitize society, it would stand to reason that cunticula -- sociopath himself -- would attempt to viciously defame and discredit Austrian economists and their contributions to human knowledge.

That's why he attacks me, that's why he attacks you, that's why he attacks so many other people here.  His goal is to suppress what you have to say about the sociopathic system he supports, but he can't really intimidate you because you're online; thus he attacks what you say and your character; this is also why he doesn't use the ignore list -- he needs to know what his "enemies" are saying so he can sabotage their participation.  Thank God I don't have to know him in person, cos otherwise I'd have to deal with the real possibility of an angry little man constantly yelling at me to shut up, possibly being violent in order to get me to shut up.

This is my humble analysis of what you've witnessed so far.

Firstly, I'm sorry that presenting such ideas makes you ill.  As I'm quite healthy; I can only make the assumption that you, cunicula, are sick.

See, this is why you have such a problem with 'libertarians' is that they reject the core of your argument on moral grounds.  They unmask you as a sociopath.

You hold a fundamentally incompatible premise:
“Aggressive violence is reasonable if it leads to better economic outcomes.”

While an Austrian would hold:
“No economic outcome is reasonable if it makes use of institutionalised aggressive violence”

Since you don’t believe in the non-aggression principle; you show that you don’t restrict yourself to moral thinking.  That you believe that any means is justified by the end.
Being moral is an end in itself. There is no requirement for an economic reason. The philosophy that such an action is moral is enough.

Austrians (and libertarians) do not believe that the end justifies the means!  They believe that how you get to an outcome is critically important.  They want to create a environment that is healthy, so that good and healthy fruit can be grown.

Yes, I prefer to think for myself rather than restrict myself to your so-called 'moral thinking'. I don't agree with your "axiom" that the "morality" of the means used should be given infinite weight. I don't even agree with your categorization of means into moral and immoral. I would prefer to think freely rather than encumber myself with dogmatic restrictions. My morality is different from yours. It does not admit a God. It does not admit a Natural Law that acts as a stand-in for God. It depends only on my own sentiments and feelings.

That is why I compare you to a theologian. You are telling me what to think. You are telling me what you think is moral and immoral, and you expect me to agree with you.  If I disagree with your axioms, then you call me a sociopath. The theologian would call me a heretic. The theologian speaks of forbidden fruit. You speak of healthy and unhealthy fruit. To me they are just fruit. I hate you both passionately.

Though it does not justify my conclusions, it is worth noting that my concept morality is close to that of Adam Smith and thus to the original foundations of economics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments) Austrians introduced gross perversions into what was once a sound concept of morality. Some people can't resist contaminating everything with theology.

Using Bitcoin is helping me learn to manage my money, and has given me interest in economics and cryptography.

I am simply stating what I believe.
I regard anyone who would accept aggressive violence as moral as a sociopath.

K, then. I regard anyone who would presume to decide for others what is moral and immoral as a theologian.

Are you all convinced yet that cunicula is a sociopath, masquerading as a "freethinker"?

violence is essential to life. To try to 'educate' or 'socialize' it away is utter folly. You have a fear response for a reason, you have a rage response for a reason. Both act as safety valves on different situations.

Heads up everyone: Note the surreptitious change of topic from "aggressive violence" to "violence", followed up by "well, violence is essential" (which is trivially true of some forms of violence, but definitely not of aggressive violence).

Classic sociopathic sleight of words; gato por liebre, we Spanish-speaking people say.  With the omission of one single word, firefop completely changed the category of action that was being discussed, thus sabotaging a discussion about aggression (well, attempted to sabotage, haha, such nonsense does not escape me).

There you go, gentlemen, you just witnessed -- right in front of your eyes -- one example of how liars, charlatans and other forms of sociopaths peddle their malevolent shit.

So, who wants to bet money that the next time someone addresses firefop about the topic, he'll fog and confuse the issue -- exactly like he just did -- once again?

Violence, yes. Aggression, no. Do try to keep them straight.

That is quite ironic, since it is the libertarian's stance that you should be free to follow your own moral codes - as long as you do it on your own property- and that no one has the right to impose their moral codes on others, while it is the Keynesians' stance that politician economists should decide what is moral and immoral, and force those moral codes onto others (e.g. socialism).

So does that mean you regard those who pass such morality codes as minimum wage laws, social security/welfare, housing subsidies, etc as theologians?

Those are legal codes. Why must you bring in morality?

Those legal codes are legislating morality. The legal codes make the statement that it is immoral to have people earn too little, it is immoral to let poor people starve, and it is moral to make sure everyone has a house. They also make a statement that it is moral to take things from those who have things to take, in order to make all those moral things happen. And since these moral decisions are made by Keynesian politicians, and forced upon even those who would disagree with them, by your own words those Keynesians are theologians

Why are you assuming that the law was constructed with moral objectives in mind? Did God create the law in your book?

I thought politicians created the law and that politicians were self-serving. Why would they have designed laws in order to make moral things happen? I think rather that they designed self-serving laws. In societies with strong, powerful states, these self-serving laws tend to coincide with the interests of average people. In societies with weak states, laws coincide with the interests of a narrow group which the ruler depends on for support. Typically, it is a happy thing to be a citizen of a strong state. You can then live in an environment with reasonable laws that support general prosperity. It is a very sad thing to be the citizen of a weak state. You then live in a state with arbitrary laws designed to support the prosperity of a small group at the expense of everyone else. The main reason why places like China are oppressive is that the rulers/ruling institutions are not stable enough to ensure control over the country.

There are exceptions when rulers do stupid things, of course. But stupid rulers are not the main problem. Even when a strong state does something really stupid (e.g. Soviet Union), their citizens still tend to fare much, much better than citizens of weak states. The main problem is that states are too weak. Weak states are forced to rely on brutal measures that leave the bulk of their citizens poor, while enriching small elite groups.

AnCap, in my view, means many weak states. This is equivalent to enslavement, poverty, and brutality. Statism means freedom, prosperity, and security. Yay Statism! Down with AnCap.

Funny how cunticula accuses people of being "theologians" while he has unwavering faith in a certain class of Holy Scriptures.

Funny how a man who doesn't want to be the victim of aggression is a "theologian" while a man who supports aggression is somehow not a "theologian" while he certainly defends and supports the actions of embodied deities on Earth and their Holy Commandments.

Funny how "do not aggress against people" is a "theology" (that miraculously does not involve obedience or reference to any representative of any god or other sociopathic authority), while "obey these papers" (which obviously involves obedience to representatives of gods or other sociopathic authorities) is somehow not a "theology".

Do you see how the sociopaths operate manipulatively by reversing and perverting fundamental ethics?

Of course the sociopaths are going to be supporting a particular morality they identify with -- the morality of obedience to the people who can have you shot or caged.  Of course they won't call that morality a "theology" -- that's just an insult they reserve to denigrate the ethics of decent people who don't support such atrocity.

Strike at the root already.

I feel more fond about my guesses. I feel like I've been pretty correct with what I considered wild guesses and found out that they actually were kinda conservative.

I consider it to be way less occultism and learned that it is way more based on kinda random human behavior than I thought. I now understand that it's more like you can, if you have many "users" (agents?) in a system use statistics and compare them with empirical data to find out what's going to happen, but you can have really bad luck with choosing the data. Most likely I am just really bad at it.

This manifested my (wild) guess that economic systems are based on societies and makes me think things could change rather quickly, if people are educated. However, while I consider this to be way more possible (in theory) than before Bitcoin I also consider it to be way harder (practically) than I thought earlier.

I now have a more global view on things and an even bigger aversion from generalizing ideologies. They are way too big and too complex and a communist socialist can be closer to to a libertarian capitalist than another communist socialist and vice versa, even if they usually would never acknowledge this to themselves. I am the same, but it doesn't matter, because people seem to do a a pretty good job overcoming this as long as they know what they actually want and aren't just blindly agreeing with what they consider to be their ideology. Makes me think of nationalism and religion/atheism.

Last, but not least I learned that money isn't as important as I considered it to be. It's really nothing, but a random tool and whether it exists doesn't really matter at all; just like the free market. Sociology seems to be way more important and as someone who hates it or doesn't even consider it a real science that's probably the biggest change of views.

Also politics doesn't seem to matter at all. So basically, if people are stupid, neither money, nor politics won't change that. The same is true for smart people. So all in all being critical in the way a real scientist/researcher/philosopher is (with that I exclude people that just have some title/degree and/or are on TV shows) seems to be the most worthwhile thing. So if you want to change something, maybe figure out how to make people like that and maybe teach them self-criticism. Or just don't care, because nothing matters anyway. Seems to be both true.

Because politicians want to get reelected, so they do things like, "I want to be seen as a nice, moral guy, so lets pass laws that help the little guy. There are a lot more voters who are 'little guys' so that will surely help my reelection." Same reason they pass laws and resolutions banning gay marriage, abortion, etc. They believe it is moral to do so, and hope the rest of the country does too. They don't do it because they've sat done with a pen, paper, and a ton of economics books, to try to figure out how to make things better.



Holy shit!  :o :o :o. This is the most genuine example of double-think I have seen yet! Weak states are bad because they use their total and absolute power to enslave and brutalize their citizens, and strong states are benevolent overseers with no power over their citizens, who let them do whatever they want and prosper? Damn, you are NUTS!
You know what the difference between USA and Stalin-era USSR was? One country was afraid of it's citizens, too weak to control them, and relied on their input and approval for everything it did, and the other country was too strong for any of it's citizens to oppose it, and controlled every aspect of all its citizen's lives, to the point of being able to take over 6,000,000 of those lives. Either you are some seriously f'ed up Orwellian psychopath, or you have some crazy notions about what strong and weak mean.

It's clearly the former. WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Nah, the USA was and is an extremely strong state. Perhaps the strongest in the world. The USSR eventually collapsed (though in its heyday it was a relatively strong state). States that are prone to collapse are called weak states. It means the rulers/ruling institutions have a weak hold on power.

When you have a strong hold on power, then you collect revenue through things like income taxes. When you have a weak hold on power, then you collect revenue through methods that are much easier to enforce (i.e. the printing press, taxes on imports, state control of mineral resources).

When you have a strong hold on power, you can collect revenue fairly evenly from all citizens. When you have a weak hold on power, you can only target your extraction efforts on social groups that are too feeble to oppose you (typically the poor). If you target rich elites, then the military shows up at the presidential office with the tanks pointed at the dictator.

When you have a strong hold on power, no one significant wants to topple you. When you have a weak hold on power, there are credible threats out there that seek to oust you. To neutralize these threats, weak states employ brutal methods of repression. For strong states such measures are counterproductive.

You should consider reading up on political science. You are not familiar with the terms used to describe states in that field.

Y'all talking to a truly mad person.

Did you mean to say "philosopher" or are you saying there can be no morality without religion?

Regarding the latest part:
It looks like when you say "strong" states you mean "resistant to corruption", and everyone else is assuming you mean "more redistributive". In that sense, I can't see why you'd use the Soviet Union as an example of a "strong" state. It was big, but also very corrupt (even early on) and relied on brutal methods of oppression. Since we're talking political science, do you use some metric for measuring "strength" of a state quantitatively, or a ranked list or something? Basically I want to check that state strength (however defined) correlates with more/fewer human rights violations.

I don't know how we switched from economics to ethics, but Austrian Economics is strictly value free. Austrians are frequently libertarians, but that's a separate, philosophical, issue.

It is also not true that it is based on authority of books. There are plenty of points where various Austrians disagree. The Keynesians are dogmatists. You can see that when they analyse the Great Depression and the current crap we're in now. Both of these time frames correlate with unprecedented monetary, fiscal and regulatory expansion of the activities of state. The Keynesians conclude from this that these expansions were insufficient. Using the word "empirical" to describe the Keynesian methodology is a very long stretch.

It has confirmed to me that humans don't need governments any more. The internet allows the collaboration of private individuals across all segments of society, geography, nationality, who can successfully work together to solve massive and complex problems. Linux is the huge example where private individuals developed massively robust software in a collective manner. A human is a human, the internet is a "nation" of humans. Open Source, Wikipedia, bitcoin, these are the beginnings.

Hmmm... value-free huh? Well that would be an improvement, but I am not sure that most Austrians would agree with you.

Hmmm... either the word 'value-free' is being used in a bizarre way or these two guys are talking about completely different things. I don't know what to make of it. Someone care to reconcile these seemingly incompatible views?

Yes to no objective morality without religion. There is a subjective morality that is a function of individual feelings. I don't know if that counts as morality in your view.

I'll get back to you on the next part. It is difficult to come up with an adequate definition of weak vs. strong state. A helpful, easy-to-read book here is "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson. They claim far too much in my opinion, but it is a good book nonetheless.

Stefan Molyneux would like to have a word with you (http://www.freedomainradio.com/FreeBooks.aspx#upb).

I would not like to have a word with him. He is a piece of shit. Dostoyevsky would like to have a word with you.

If you reject a philosophy simply because it disagrees with your beliefs, and not based on its merits, How does that make you better than a theologian?

I don't think it has any merits other than those accorded to it by my feelings. I don't see how it could.

I recognize and accept that your feelings about morality may differ. That makes me better than a theologian.

Your logical fallacy is... (http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic)

Well said.

Very true.  In fact, religious morality is the exact opposite of objective -- it is arbitrary, full of magical exceptions, and not based at all on relevant material fact.  Once again, cunticula has it exactly the other way around.  Does not surprise me.

cunticula IS a theologian (of the statist variety), who just happens to like yelling "theoogians!" to anyone who doesn't share his own theology.  It's entirely unsurprising that he would attack Stef -- Stef has made a number of arguments that essentially prove cunticula is a sociopath.  He can't actually respond to the arguments, so he switches to personal attacks.  That's what a sociopath would do, to avoid being unmasked.

This could be the most dangerous experiment in human history, maybe human itself will be destroyed by this experiment

There have been many bubbles in human history, but with any other bubbles, central bank can always reduce the money supply to cool down the crazyness (and crash will become unavoidable). This bubble however, could develop itself into a blackhole and suck all the values in the world into it, and no one in the world can control this monster

With traditional bubbles, when most of the people have get hold of the inflated asset, the game is almost over. There is an exist for any kind of investment strategy. But for a currency, no one will get satisfied, everyone want a little bit more, the investment is endless

LOLWUT?

Yup. Cryptocurrency is the end foretold by the Mayan prophecies.

I'd argue there's a bias towards equating "morality" with "good". I, too, can't see any way to have morality without a supreme authority. This doesn't mean there's no right and wrong, the responsibility for deciding what is what is simply left to the individual.

Not necessarily. It's perfectly possible to live morally without asking yourself, "Would God want me to do this to them?" All you have to do is change that question to "Would I want them to do this to me?" If the answer is no, don't do it.

I remember watching a russia film <pyramid> a while ago, people exchange everything they have to get a special kind of bond since the return is doubled every week or two

You just confirm how clueless you are about Austrian Economics.

Gold won't develop into such a bubble, since people can not easily exchange anything with gold (they have to identify the quality of the gold bar they get, they have to physically transfer the metal etc...), they can only use money to inflate the gold price, and the money supply is controlled by central bank

You failed to explain how the quote below is 'value-free'? Does anyone else think this quote is 'value-free'? Or is this quote a misrepresentation of Austrian economics? 

Heat about the slew of gold-backed securities? Can't they turn into a bubble?

Why should I address what da2ce7 says? I don't know who (s)he is or if (s)he published anything. But based on a first look, the post just seems like several things mixed together.

I recommend you check out the wiki entries on Praxeology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology) and Catallactics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catallactics). Austrians adhere to the subjective theory of value and reject interpersonal utility comparison.

-> I want to rape girl.
-> Would I want them to do this to me?
-> Yup.

k.

(Just for the sake of argument).

You enjoy being forcibly penetrated?

Your view of morality didn't state anything about girls randomly growing those things.

Anyway, hey, I'm sure that's some guy's fetish.

No myrkul. The question is to ask is, "Would I be capable of rational thought without a supreme creator enabling my ability to do so?".

Your question is illogical. God (if you believe he exists or not) cannot be God if you are able to act independently of him. A "one true supreme creator" isn't something we could label and put in a box. Is he all-supreme or not? If not, then he isn't God.

I didn't say she'd use a penis.
Safe for Work (http://broomss.com/images/broom%20handle/6_broom%20handle.jpg)
NSFW (Don't say you weren't warned) (http://www.adameve.com/adult-sex-toys/strap-on-sex-toys/sp-plus-size-strap-on-11829.aspx)

You, however, did say you would like to forcibly penetrate her.
You further said:

Therefore, you stated that you would like to be forcibly penetrated. If this is not so, then you might want to retract your statement.

"Just for the sake of argument.  Just to see how it feels".

BAHAH.

If you want it done to you, then it's not rape. That there is wishing to force yourself on someone without their consent, and wishing they would force themselves on you with your consent. Please think things through before hitting Save.

To me, BitCoin is still very much in its infancy and has a lot of hurdles to jump over. My political views are unchanged despite my interest in the currency.

What I'm really paying attention to is BitCoin economics. Trying to see what kind of future the currency has.

No. Free market capitalism has always rocked my world and made it whole. :) and even if it seems like trading money, it's more like trading goods for goods or services to me. Need potatoes? I'll trade you some eggs.

No, Bitcoin has only confirmed my political and economic views.  8)

For years, I have been kicking and screaming for a viable competitive currency and a way for human beings to escape the bondage of central banks and transact freely in the new, digital world. Little did I know a ninja warrior flying the banner of Satoshi was fighting to make this dream a reality. When I first found out about Bitcoin I was a bit skeptical, and questioned whether or not it was a legitimate currency or a shady underground market. But my skepticism quickly waned as I learned more about it and joined the community. Now I am a Bitcoin crusader!

Down with the fiat machine!!! Down with the Fed!!! 8)

Getting more and more in touch with libertarian ideas I'm a bit scared as I don't see solutions for some things that I think you definitely need a state for.
Yesterday I saw a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGVtgIWDrMc) of a libertarian who brought the example of selling his 4 years daughter into sex slavery to save her from starvation and of selling himself into slavery to pay a surgery for his daughter. If that is what libertarians dream of then I'm scared of bitcoin being the tool to force it upon the world. Yet I have some hope for the good in mankind so it will not come that far.

Most of us are minarchists, not complete anarchists. I believe the function of the state is to supply a military, maintain law and order, et cetera. Sex slavery would be a human rights violation, thus illegal -- government would focus on stopping real crimes like this rather than arrest college kids smoking pot.

Selling your daughter isn't something that you can do. The problem comes with a confusion in the meaning of the term "your" daughter. Yes, she is your daughter in the sense that the daughter/father relationship is pointed at you as opposed to any other male on the planet, but she is not yours in the same sense that the car in your driveway is, or in the same way that the driveway itself is. She's not your property, she's her own.

As for selling yourself into slavery to afford an operation, I believe they call that "employment" nowadays.

So you're saying that the four-year-old sold herself of her own volition?  Was the father's responsibility eschewed because he does not own the four-year-old?


Libertarian Joe says "slavery == employment" ...

soooo...  Is sex slavery just employment in an environment of greater sexual harassment than usual?  Or, maybe just similar to the every day run-of-the-mill whoredom? ???

And, if slavery==employment, what is freedom?  Being a bum??

You're assuming that the sale is legitimate. It's not, that's why I said, "Selling your daughter isn't something that you can do." not, "Only the daughter could sell herself." It's widely accepted that people under the age of 18 cannot contract. Since she cannot contract, she cannot sell herself, and the father doesn't own her, so he can't sell her either.

The father's responsibility is not based on ownership of the child. It is based on ownership of the actions which brought her into being. He did the deed, now he has to do the time.

I didn't say "slavery == employment" I said "selling ones self into slavery == employment" She didn't sell herself into slavery, did she? So, she's not employed, is she?

Self-employment/entrepreneurship.

That you consider the concept that no person is endowed with the right to commit violence on another "weirdness" completely explains your misconceptions about AnCap and libertarianism in general.

Tell me, does the Bill of Rights give rights, or list them?

You can still be a tax-slave. So it's not necessarily freedom.

Sounds a bit like some sort of radical or fundamentalist constructivism.

OK, then:

When you read "No person has the right to initiate the use of force, threat of force, or fraud upon another person or their property," it removes that right, and the possibility of that right, from you. That statement destroys the right to aggress, just as the bill of rights creates the rights therein.

Well, that's a good point, but within the context of the discussion, tax-slavery isn't a factor.

Yes, when someone holding a fallacious concept of reality runs up against something that contradicts it, this conflict always occurs.

Because you are still lost in peek-a-boo land, where things disappear if you're not looking at them, you'll run into a lot of this sort of cognitive dissonance. Especially when you try to navigate your living room in the dark.

Telling you that you are wrong about your conceptions of reality is not an ad hominem. It might be uncomfortable, and therefore seem like a personal attack, but it is not you I am attacking, it is your incorrect world view.

That's precisely what I did.

You admitted that you were experiencing cognitive dissonance: "it re-introduces the concept of rights, but applies a meaning that's different from the one I already adhere to. That creates a kind of conflict."

I explained why: "Because you are still lost in peek-a-boo land, where things disappear if you're not looking at them, you'll run into a lot of this sort of cognitive dissonance."

Your beliefs are the problem. I'm not attacking your credibility, I'm attacking those beliefs which cause your misconceptions.

We weren't discussing the NAP. we were discussing your world view - which, incidentally, causes a misconception in the definition of rights, in turn causing your understanding of the NAP to be flawed.

Already the case in 1st world governments; poor inner-city kids and country kids have crappy schools, wealthy rural area kids have very well funded high quality schools.


Ditto; free clinics, crappy insurance, and not checking issues until you have to go to the emergency room v.s. "Cadillac" insurance plans and personal healthcare concierge.


Social contracts, debts that can not be dismissed through bankruptcy (e.g. student loans), and the rest is straw man. Sure, you could buy a person in a society without government, just as you can in one with a government, but that person doesn't have to acknowledge your ownership of them, and likely no one else will, so if they leave or refuse to work for you, you're Sol. Just like it is in a society with a government.



Money is already a part of the equation in government run justice. The only difference is that this money is also used to help make unjust things legal. You can't make something unjust legal without government, so you're only left with justice and money.


That's how the legal system works now: before anything reaches a court, each person is required to go through negotiation, discovery, and be a judge and jury. Only when they fail are they allowed to take their case to court. Things like surprise evidence and witnesses that you see in the movies are extremely frowned upon. And just because you will likely get yourself shot if you found yourself in NAP society because you don't know how to behave yourself, doesn't mean everyone else will too.



There is no difference between a NAP community and your local community. If you are friendly to your neighbors and expect them to be friendly to you, if you don't steal their stuff and expect them not to steal from you, if you borrow things from them and are willing to let them borrow from you, you are already practicing NAP. If, on the other hand, you currently live in a communist country, where the government owns everything, and you have and expectation that any of your neighbors are free to walk into your house and take anything of yours, and you can do the same, because everything is community owned, then I could see where you would be confused.