Bitcoin Forum

Ever since I heard about Bitcoin 6 weeks ago, I've been trying to get my head round the implications of it. My initial instinctive reaction was that it will totally change the world, but my imagination is finding it hard to fully come to grips with all of this. I think it's totally subversive to the existing power structures. Since the dawn of civilization, the elites have held power by controlling the currency. Will they be able to control Bitcoin? Any ideas how the world and its power structures might change if Bitcoin takes hold?

Bitcoin may have the ability to turn the world upside down, or it may just fill a niche in the global economy. I think Bitcoin's impact will be exactly proportional to the level of actual financial oppression there is in the world.

Does that thought make any sense?

If the world of big money really is using the system to "enslave" the common person, then Bitcoin could be the tool needed to break society free, making money a democratic system rather than an authoritarian one.

If instead, the money leaders of the world have actually been keeping our best interest at heart, then I envision no revolution, just a truly brilliant form of money, easy to move internationally (among many other benefits).

That makes complete sense. It's difficult to gauge how much oppression there is if we've grown up with it and take it as completely normal. I wonder what it felt like to have the freedom of being a hunter-gatherer pre-civilization, and whether we could get that same freedom back now in an advanced technological civilization if the economic foundation shifted radically enough away from centralized control, and whether Bitcoin could have that kind of impact.

Newbies with insight here.

I guess I can't just filter everyone with <100 posts  :)

Psssh unfair. Not everyone with <100 posts says crazy things. Also, Flug: what they aren't telling you is that there are hundreds of posts like this already. Maybe give one of them a shot?

Like the freedom of dying from unclean drinking water.

Living in civilization is always a trade off, unfortunately with our inept and corrupt elites (USA) it is less and less worth it each day.

http://minecraftservers.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-17-at-5.15.41-AM.png

Like this.

If Bitcoin goes big, I can see a lot less poverty in the world. I dont know exactly how it will develop but there will be a lot less people suffering.

Why am I saying this? If you check history when humans organize around stable sound money there is much more progress and less "elite power". When human societies organize arond inflationary money suddenly discoordination starts to happen which leads to production problems making people poorer, and the gap between the middle class and the poor with the rich increases.

I guess it wasn't clear. I was not being sarcastic. I agree with flug and applaud and appreciate the posts.

Bitcoin enables massive theft evasion from the world's monopolies on force. Of course it will change the world.

Absolutely right. Keeps the bastards out of the pie, we get to decide what is worthy - not just their bottom line.

Candies, rainbows and streets of fucking gold...

Because gold would be worthless at that point.

I'm just getting the feeling that there are very few people who even come close to grasping the real significance of Bitcoin. I'm thinking that if Bitcoin is to the economy what p2p file sharing was to the music industry, then it's gonna take a lot of imagination to make sense of it.

My own favourite narrative is along the lines of: centralized power structures collapse, replaced by some kind of anarcho-capitalism which allows people to actually take responsibility for their selves and fruits of their own labour, after which everyone will realize that hoarding wealth was just based on fear and the forced scarcity of the old system, followed by the realization that giving away surplus to those who need it is incredibly satisfying, finally ending up almost by accident at some kind of anarcho-communism. Ta-da!

Just need to fill in the details :)

Anyhow I'll go searching the rest of this forum.

I'm not suggesting we go back to pre-civilization. (Altho check out Derrick Jensen/Endgame). I'm suggesting we can have civilization and clean drinking water, but without the existing oppressive power structures.

I don't think Bitcoin is ever going to replace USD or EUR.  If anything, it's going to end up as an auxiliary currency like silver or gold.  Rather than threatening governments, Bitcoin might actually help governments with their monetary policy once they start holding it as a "foreign reserve".

Don't be naive in thinking that bitcoin can be used to evade taxes. This might work with smaller amounts below 10,000 USD, but as soon as you start spending serious amounts of money (no matter whether 500 Euro notes or BTC) you inevitably leave a trail in meatspace.  

Well, it isn't. P2P file sharing is really only a way to distribute data. The biggest benefit to the average user is less risk at getting caught copying copyrighted stuff.

Bitcoin is not analogous at all. It is not about multiplying money.

The point about p2p is that Bitcoin has no central point of failure, so it's resilient. (unlike Napster and e-gold).

Except a that a centralization of mining could become a single point of failure if measures are not taken to prevent it.

So Bitcoin is just an electronic form of gold, and the elites will just usurp all of the bitcoins like they usurped all of the gold, and life will carry on as normal? You just ended my revolution before it began!

Yeap. But let's carry on this discussion on the assumption that Bitcoin can't be compromised. In what ways will this subvert the existing power paradigms? Will society itself become more p2p rather than top down? etc etc.

The "elites" never usurped gold. They created a government regulated gold certificate system that they controlled. F.e. in the USA receives the name of gold-exchange standard.

And therefore...?

The main benefit of Bitcoin is pretty obvious. You can reliably send money across the Internet sans expensive middle-men.

But until the whole economic "food chain" can work in Bitcoins, it's unrealistic to expect any major paradigm shifts. Anthing that you buy for BTC at the moment was probably bought from a wholesaler with USD or EUR to begin with.

We are lightyears away from an economy where all the basic materials, wages and taxes are paid in bitcoin.

In fact, any sane person should realize such economy is very unlikely to happen at all.

And therefore it's the first currency of its kind and therefore what are the implications?


I'm encouraging imagination rather than sanity on this thread

hardly its "enabled" anything-evasion, just simplify it a bit.
but wasn't completely solve the problem. not yet.

I respectfully disagree with your point that bitcoin will not replace 'legacy' currencies. Because as of this moment, that is exactly what they are. There isn't an "if" but merely "when", in my mind.

As for taxes, you are correct as the system stands now - but when bitcoin replaces legacy systems, it would be more difficult unless governments adapted to such a system. One poster in another thread made a comment that if companies pay in bitcoin, it would naturally follow that governments would require some kind of control for tax purposes. That is entirely possible, but I'm not sure if that would be enough to save the legacy tax-collection system.

I suppose we'll see...

Here's a good article by Rick Falkvinge of the Swedish Pirate Party about how a taxation system based on Value Added Tax might work:

https://falkvinge.net/2011/05/19/the-information-policy-case-for-flat-tax-and-basic-income/

I rather just see taxation thrown out the window. VAT? Yeah, like I am going to pay that when I can just buy from a tor-protected retailer that skips the parasites.

I don't really see why people think that Bitcoin would really change the balance of power.

What hinders people with lots of money to simply buy lots of Bitcoins? Of course not from one day to another, but in small packets over time, so that they own enough to have as much control in a "Bitcoin world" as they have now. I suppose this is already happening to a certain degree.

Or what hinders a government to impose similar legal regulations over Bitcoin comparable to the regulations which exists today? Even if Bitcoin in itself may stay independent, its always possible to regulate the interface between the currency and the "real world". Even if they can't get a grip on BC itself, they can control services like Mt. Gox and all the companies who trade in BC. While it's convenient to be able to trace money flows, it's not necessary to stay in control. You only need to be able to look into the books of one side of a trade to know gains/losses of the other.

Woops! I totally misread that as "can" rather than "can't." Thats my fault, sorry.