Bitcoin Forum

So how many more coins need to be stolen before it's no longer a problem? What if coinbase were to disappear? Bitstamp? OKCoin? Houbi? Bitfinix? Are you cool with those companies having no oversight and all those people having their coins and fiat disappear overnight? I'm personally not. I believe in consumer protection.

Let the consumers be free to spend/transfer bitcoins whenever and whereever they want. But if companies are doing business on the consumers behalf, they should at least be held accountable to some standards.

Could you imagine if we followed your "Free market" corrections? Would you want to go to a doctor that doesn't have a license that is overseen by a board that makes sure he/she is qualified to treat you? Or would you be okay with dying knowing that eventually the free market will get rid of that doctor....and either another unfit doctor will take his place (and will be replaced once negilance occurs  by the free market) or maybe you will get a good doctor to take their place? Or maybe it doesn't matter since you'd be dead anyways right?

To each his own. I get it though, the argument is always protection. Fact is we have laws already, and they're sufficient. The people running those companies face a lot of criminal and civil liability. If they aren't being transparent enough, move somewhere else or get out and wait until something else comes up that fits your needs. If they steal your money, they've violated the law and they should face those lawful ramifications.

They are... we already have laws that protect against theft, fraud, and more no?

The assumption here is that a board wouldn't be created in a free market. Why?

Lots of shitty doctors get by your so called "boards" (a lot of which I'd guess are market-driven and not governmental) just like lots of shitty drugs and food/beverage get passed the "FDA." Your assumptions are that "centralized authority is benevolent and more intelligent than the people who vote those people into authority." I can't subscribe to that assumption because it's patently false. It's surely comforting for people that are lazy and would prefer to defer due diligence. I'm different I guess.

.@njcarlos:

If Bitcoin's biggest securities exchange, Havelock Investments, could be used as a representative unregulated business:

Each and every security on offer there is trading substantially bellow the initial offering price--as in pennies on the dollar.  Including Havelock's own stock.
And those are the winners.  The ones that din't simply run off, like NeoBee.
A bit off-topic, but sorta relevant,

To be frank, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm talking about Bitcoin's biggest securities exchange, Havelock Investments (https://www.havelockinvestments.com), and the Bitcoin companies represented there.
One of which was NeoBee (http://www.neo-bee.com/en/), the Cyprus-based Bitcoin bank that ran away with everyone's bits (http://www.coindesk.com/cyprus-issues-arrest-warrant-neo-bee-ceo-danny-brewster/)

For a believer in unregulated free market, you sure don't bother with particulars :D
No matter how attractive the idealized hypotheticals may be, IRL the shit's just fail and AIDS.

and Lehman bust how many people's money? LOL
what exactly is this grudge match against bitcoin that you are regularly involved in?
If you don't like bitcoin-don't invest or use it.
I have much more fiat than BTC, incidentally, and don't see any problem with that.

NeoBee is subject to the same laws all other companies are. What's your point?

So because I'm not actively looking for an investment firm or I don't follow all the developments in the BTC ecosystem, I'm wrong about free market fundamentals? How'd you make that leap of logic? If you're surprised that idiots con idiots out of money, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you're surprised people run businesses poorly, I'm also not sure what to tell you. However if your solution is to have some sort of circle-jerk safety net where everyone bails out everyone for making stupid choices in life, I'd rather not live in your society or advocate for a society that is more self-reliant. The fact is that early adopters take the most risk, no matter the industry, product, asset, etc. Bitcoin might crash to $0 tomorrow, who should be to blame? The earlier adopters who figured they'd cash out? Who is vetting them?

The correct analogy would be if every security in the fiat world tanked or simply ran away, and every bank in the world simply shut its doors with post-it notes saying "OKTHXBAI!"

Not just some, EVERY.  Get it?

You're just ignoring all contract and private property law which is and should be the essence and limit of "regulation." Those in charge of administering the regulations are as corruptible as those to which it is administered. You suggest that what I'm saying is some idealized world, but no more than yours.

anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Austrian economics would realize you dont invest or loan money (Bitcoin) in a deflationary (Hyper deflationary) economy currency. It is considered stupid if you know someone is going to have to pay back 1,000% in value due to deflation, and you trust he won't default. regulation cant solve what should otherwise be common sense.

investing during inflationary times is also a prudent strategy, but forcing monetary inflation with regulation to encourage investment cant solve what should otherwise be a market economy problem.  

Havelock is full of cheep lessons :D not lack of regulation.

It's not a leap of logic.  The majority of the world relies on regulations and governments.  You propose to break with that convention, so the burden of proof lies on you--you're the one who is making the extraordinary claim.
But I'm not asking for proof--I'm willing to settle for a show.  Unlike you, I am familiar with unregulated business--both the dysfunctional idiocy of Bitcoinland, and it's more competent IRL counterpart.  I have offered you Bitcoin's creme de la creme--Bitcoin's biggest securities exchange and Bitcoin's first Bank.  Along with every other business on that esteemed exchange.
Feel free to counter this with examples of non-drug related success stories.

interestingly, some people do loan out bitcoin through lending companies such as btcjam.com
Perhaps, it is OK to loan to miners, for example.
If you cannot make loans with bitcoin, it would be difficult to imagine bitcoin constituting a serious fraction of the overall economy.

Yes, Enron and Worldcom tragedies for me, please. Maybe with a little default swaps tragedy on the side.

Go play with some fiat. Bitcoin is for adults, not children.


So glad Harold Shipman turned out to be a fraud and not a fully licensed doctor. I was worried for a bit there.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Bitcoin would realize that Bitcoin is not a deflationary, but an inflationary economy currency.  Bitcoin's money supply is currently inflating at 10% a year.
Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of Austrian economics would realize that it has been kicked to the curb by modern economics.  Some parts of it were incorporated, others simply left out to rot--so that passing children could point their fingers and laugh.

Have you seen the state of the world lately? More regulations should fix what the regulations haven't fixed yet, though, I guess? Or maybe it's the proliferation of unlawful legal systems. All those upstanding regulators make such an effort to punish thieves and crooks, don't they?

I have a life outside of Bitcoin so I don't follow the industry, but I understand the technology and I've seen the positive energy going into positive projects. I don't focus on the failures and cheaters, they will exist with or without regulations. But I fail to see how the burden is on me to preserve what is natural. Centralized regulation/regulatory authority doesn't just exist, so I'm not arguing for its removal. You on the other hand are arguing for its creation and legitimacy. The burden rests on you to justify everything, not the other way around.

Bitcoin is unregulated business. Right now. It's doing just fine, and it will continue to do just fine without regulations if it were permitted to do so.

Many of us are asking for the show. All we get are weenies crying for regulation. It's like they're scared that it might turn out that the regulation emperor has no clothes so they can't permit something to remain unregulated. Leave Bitcoin alone and when it crashes to nothing, you can point and sing "I told you so". Suits me fine.

Your logic, in a nutshell:
We have cops, but we still have crooks.  Therefore, if we didn't have cops, we wouldn't have crooks.  Shit will take care of itself because mises.org.  Because positive energy going into positive projects.
Because don't give me concrete examples of fail in Bitcoinland 'coz who's got time for that?  I gots life outsid of Bitcoin 8)

What have I missed?

No, we have cops but we still have crooks. If we didn't have cops, we would still have crooks. Police departments are, on occasion, more crooked than the communities they police. If municipalities didn't monopolize policing authority and allowed for community-organized and competing policing authorities, the market would do a better job than the centralized governmental monopoly. See how I'm not for anarchy but for anti-authoritarianism? Pretty simple, not rocket science. You're likely the type to think citizens are smart enough to elect good government leaders but not smart enough to mind their community and person. That's definitely more logical. And if you need me to list the positive businesses in "Bitcoinland," you're just being disagreeable :) You know perfectly well that the majority of bitcoin business is successful.

No, weenies are telling you to man up and stop imagining that you're a failure because regulations.  You would be a lulzier failure without regulations.  Some high school kids would've prob'ly tied you to their bumper and dragged you around some Costco parking lot for luls.

You want no regulations?  Stop bawwing about it, and overthrow them statist oppressors, you whiny man-child.

Anyone with half a brain would realize Bitcoin's inflation is not comparable to fiat currencies inflation.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of history would realize Austrian economics has been kicked to the curb by incumbents who profit from Keynesian system.

If there was complete deregulation there would be Shipmans on every street corner -- in Victorian England there were.   Hardly a credible argument.

One question:

If self-regulation in Bittopia works, how come all the evidence suggests it has failed miserably thus far?

Not that I agree with the premise, but what makes you think it couldn't succeed given time to adapt and build? Or does success have a time frame?

The state does not have a monopoly on policing, see security guards, body guards, mall cops, etc., etc.   Educate yourself before typing.
And again, "there are cops more crooked yadda yadda."  Yes, there are.  There are 426 Hemi builds that can't outrun a Prius.  Extrapolating anything meaningful from that is simply idiotic.
The stale argument that "if you can elect a president, you can come up with sound working regulations for the nuclear industry" is just beyond duh ::)

Those are private entities and have no public authority. Those guards call governmental police. Now you're just being an idiot, and I was letting your passive aggressive snarky comments slide because they're childish, but really? And I said "on occassion," or do you like to mince words to suit your argument? No where did I say most, or even many, police departments are more crooked. Christ. /conversation.

Yeah yeah yeah.  Fiat's buying power has TRIPLED relative BTC in the year 2014.  

"We just never had a chance to make it work, IF we did, it woulda been awesome!"  Sure.  Show me some product :)

What authority would you like them to have that they do not have already?  You guys have so many daddy issues...

And don't just pick one thing and answer it.  Here's what you're responding to:

Don't worry, it's coming.

Trust me, I'm not worried :D

Bitcoin has an inelastic supply, so it is inflating faster than fiat, however the market demand is inflating at a few orders of magnitude grater than than supply, the net result is deflation, don't like it save your fiat in a bank.

If we lived in a Monetarists world, the algorithm would be inflating the supply to stabilize the price, anyone who thinks this is a good approach to managing economic energy i.e. rationing the finite resources of our limited planet, robbing 99.9% who dont know any better, hiding market identified needs, through the smoke of regulating, all the while pushing the agenda that your are protecting them from the bad actors, is supporting a bunch of moral delinquents.

Bitcoin did not appear in 2014.

I'm not sure what is more tragic, your short-sightedness or the fact that you literally spend hours on this forum trying to convince yourself you are right.

A quick look shows me you average 40 post per day on this board this month. If, as you have mentioned earlier, trading is not a cooperative game, then why are you here? Surely not for trading advice or insights.

Your insolence and high horse approach is certainly not helping anyone reconsider their interest for Bitcoin as well. So what is your purpose here?

Why are you so obsessed with Bitcoin.
 

No, you're wrong.
Bitcoin's price, in relation to USD, has fallen by two thirds this year, while the supply has increased by ~9%.  Basic supply/demand equilibrium suggests that the demand has ... decreased :(

isnt it is obvious that he was paid troll, maybe paid by the bank

The bitcoin product is already a tangible item and it is successful with a network of infrastructure built around it and the blockchain, and it is likely going to continue to receive building around it and the blockchain and imitations etc. etc. 

Bitcoin is also more probable to get bigger, rather than smaller with the passage of time.  Surely, bitcoin and the blockchain could die in the next 2-5 years; however, the odds seem to be against that and on the other hand, the odds seem to be in favor of the building on and around the blockchain is going to continue to take place to such an extent that bitcoin and the blockchain are going to become more and more common in more and more niches throughout the world.

We all need paciencia to witness the evolution of these expansions of the blockchain along with bitcoin.   And, that part of the reason why we have this expression... cut your goose loose!!!!, and get into bitcoin while the getting is good... otherwise we will see you later down the road.. you will still be welcome to enter into bitcoin, but the entry price will be a bit higher.

i have to communicate to the LamChop through all of you, i have him on ignore, i have been on here almost 3 years and he is the first troll i had to ignore, my apologies to the rest of you who are subject to his belligerent and persistent ignorance.

I am officially LamChop's ignorant, and it is bliss.  

2014 is not going to help you much longer. Use it at your dishonest convenience while you still can  ;)

Bitcoin did not appear in 2014.  Neither did the dollar.  WTF does that have to do with anything?
And no, I'm not looking for advice or insights, don't be absurd.  I consider eradicating idiocy my noblesse oblige.
U don't even need to thank me.

Gox put the project back significantly, indeed we are still picking through the rubble.  How many more such 'adaption events' do you think we would need?  Would you prefer the 'patient' dead?

For me, regulation has always been on the agenda for the Bitcoin and there was an opportunity (early days) to take control and self-regulate but it was squandered due to misplaced idealism.  In the history of human evolution we have shown our need for rules and structure to survive and thrive; the idea that something as fundamental as 'money' could be left to an anarchic 'structure' was pretty naive.

The BTC 'community' provided its own rope to hang itself with by allowing Shrem, Karpeles, Brewster etc etc to get any away with their schemes/incompetence; by the communities inaction/naivete they showed their inability to self-regulate and thus opened the door for external agencies to regulate instead.

You are probably familiar with the phrase:
"Charity begins at home"

but probably less so with the second line...
"justice begins next door"

Should be pretty obvious, that LambChops is a paid shill and disingenuous and engaged in tactics to distract from meaningful discussions in this forum by continuing to spread incorrect, misleading and garbage information regarding bitcoin.. and though at times it appears that he makes attempts at being entertaining, with those many cute cartoons that he is paid to find and construct.. though when in reality, he is a BIG ASS jerk... who is attempting to deceive people regarding their considerations about bitcoin and about BTC price movements and about the future of BTC.

I simply state facts, clear and verifiable, and you sperge out at me.  Why the butthurt, bro?

How noble of you  :D :D :D

It has to do with Bitcoin buying power having appreciated by several orders of magnitude against the USD since its inception.

That would show that demand does indeed supercedes supply and therefore the inflation of Bitcoin is not comparable to fiat currency inflation.

Idiot.

That may be a better practice because sometimes these trolls do seem to have a tendency to distract and to lure us into irrelevant and tangential and distracting discussions... and sometimes done through entertainment.

I don't see facts, I see convenient dishonesty.

I don't see clarity I see a troll hiding behind disingenuous arguments.

The only clear and verifiable fact we can interpret from you posting is that you are a mental case, or more commonly labeled, a psychopath.

Look, Bitcoin went up in price, bubbled, floated up to the surface like a bloated corpse, popped, and now it's slowly sinking.
Once the demand was growing (it had to, since Bitcoin started from nothing), and now the demand is dying.  Dying all year long, as is made obvious by the falling dollar price and dropping buying power.  
Today, bitcoin only buys 1/3 as much as it did in 2013.

Nothing lasts forever
Of that I'm sure

I crie evry tiem!

Bro, you're simply overinvested.  Let go of the butthurt and learn!

This is why it's so much fun responding to the trolling.

I probably made more posts today than any day since I joined this forum, most of them in response to Lambie Pie.

Banksters are getting desperate. Isn't it hilarious?

Thank you for not quoting the trolls.

Lol, did you guys realize that today's gubermint-sanctioned foil is not real tin, it's cheap ersatz tin--aluminum!
Looks sorta like tinfoil, but doesn't work like it.  Doesn't stop the thought-controlling beta-zed radiation in the sub-nanohertz spectrum--the kind favored by our Beneficent Reptilian Overlords, may they reign eternal!
Anyhow, we're in your brainz, running your thoughts!

Good night, lunatic fringe!

Really? Where? I don't see any volume.

Actually, last time I checked Havelock was registered in Panama, but not as a stock exchange; and operated with bitcoin, presumably to evade regulations by the US SEC and other agencies. IIRC, Neo&Bee "stock" was rather misleading to investors: the fine print said that it was not equity, but "shares in the profits of the first 2 years".  And the "business plan" did not explain how the bank could make money. The "stock" was primarily issued in another "bitcoin stock exchange" operated by Danny Brewster himself and registered in London, which traded only the Neo&Bee "stock".  Someone else did some sort of arbitrage between that and Havelock, where the "stock" was traded too.   When Danny ran away, the London "exchange" closed, and the "stock" was soon de-listed from Havelock.  All investors lost their money, except perhaps for a few lucky ones who sold their shares before the crash.

That is precisely the sort of scam that  the SEC was created to prevent.  (Whether it performs its mission thoroughly is another question.  It may well approve the COIN ETF, for example.)

Yeah, that's always the best plan for mass change, "go it alone and overthrow the government".

Tit.

Define success, define failure. Compare to the regulated world. (Hint: I'd suggest the price might suggest the Bittopia is quite far from failure so far)

If you want government regulated currencies, there's plenty of them out there and they're printing more and more each day. If you keep with it long enough, you'll probably get enough to build a fort

http://preparingyourfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/weimar2-270x3201.jpg

Would like some clarification on your opinion of this: do you mean community-organized and still free to use by the community? Or are you talking about privatization of things like the police and fire departments, where people have a bill to pay each month to earn use of the service?

Both would be fine I think. How those would be modeled I haven't given thought, but I don't see a reason why non-profit and for-profit entities couldn't compete in that space alongside a municipality.

Really? he murdered 250 people. It's a wonder there are any English left.

Okay, so in the case of only privatized entities requiring a fee, how should the people who cannot afford these very important services be treated?

I have read several proposals for private police/security forces. I don't go quite that far myself but the ideas do have merit. I think there's lower hanging fruit to pick and other fires to put out first in any case.

Volunteers, not-for-profits, charities, and/or state subsidies.

Agreed. I'm more or less in the same position I just don't like that the door is locked on the idea.

I fail to see why is the onus on me to define success and failure?  But (hint) I don't measure everything as 'price'.

What has unfurled thus far has happened, it is undeniable.  So, a laissez-faire approach has (as it always does) allowed scammers, crooks and incompetents to flourish because 'good men' were distracted by greed or overwhelmed by cowardice. 

Your argument seems to be that regulated markets are corrupt, therefore regulations are bad, it's such a 'strawman' as to be flammable.

As I said in my post above 'charity begins at home, justice begins next door' -- you want an unregulated system, as long as it doesn't bite you on the arse.  You complain about regulations but you had the chance to make your own but were too lazy/scared/complacent to make things happen.

You remind me of a story my husband tells: in the UK he would go on demos in the 80's.  He'd crawl from  some mellee, covered in blood (his own or someone else's) and be buttonholed by some idiot selling Socialist-worker, "Comrade, have you heard about the oppressive state machine?".

So, what will you do when the regulated BTC market eventuates, sell?
No, you'll just have a good old moan.


http://cp91279.biography.com/1000509261001/1000509261001_2033463483001_Mahatma-Gandhi-A-Legacy-of-Peace.jpg

Coward...........?

Because you're claiming that it failed?


No, my claim is simply that regulations have not solved the problems you seem to be claiming they do. Many regulations  *are* bad but for other reasons.


Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (pronounced [ˈmoːɦənd̪aːs ˈkərəmtʃənd̪ ˈɡaːnd̪ʱi] ( listen); 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of Indian independence movement in British-ruled India.

That's far from going it alone in my book.

Hmm, well as long as the least fortunate among us would be taken care of, I'd be willing to try it. You'd be surprised how many times I've asked this question and gotten responses that beat around the bush, only to drill further and find that, no, these people really thought that poor people don't deserve things like education or emergency services.

I don't believe anyone is entitled to such things. But whether people like yourself and others with kind hearts come together as a community, or structure local government to afford those services, is really a matter of preference. I do believe that if left to our own devices, we have a tendency to be charitable and caring to those that are less fortunate than ourselves, though.

There are many places where one is required to make payments to the fire department if you expect them to turn up in the event of a fire. If you wander around some older buildings in England, you can see the plates which indicated you had paid. A while back around here, there was someone who had not paid (not because he was too poor but just because) and his house caught fire. The fire department did show up... To ensure the fire didn't spread to his neighbors house (who had paid). His burned to the ground.

You do want the genuinely needful to be taken care of but you have to balance that off against the freeloaders. Private parties are usually a lot more careful about that than government.

Are people like you (who want this new system) going to be the ones to be charitable, or are you going to leave it to the "suckers" oops, I'm sorry, "kind hearts" like me to do it?

Sounds like a great way to pass the buck, and I couldn't disagree with you more. Relying on the charity of others seems like a great way to have absolutely no guarantee that shit will get done.


If you couldn't figure it out already, I think this is a very dumb way to go about things.

Hm, why would you think you're a sucker for being charitable?

Mandating services be provided to those who do not pay is no different than slavery to those who perform the services.

Quite to the contrary, I would say that if you are willing to appropriate the funds of others against their wills to achieve your goals, that is hardly a "kind heart".

A) I'm saying that's how I think people who agree with you will see me. "Cool, I saved some money on my taxes this year thanks to suckers like that person."

B) You never answered the question: would YOU be the one to do it? Would you even consider doing it? What if it were mandated that everyone had to put in their time? Would you still like the plan then?

A mandate to perform a service is slavery.

As someone who thinks taxes are fine, your "I hate taxes" argument has no effect on me. It's the waste of tax money that's the problem to me, and I hardly consider things like education and emergency services to be a waste, even if there does happen to be some wasteful spending going on.


Agreed. So maybe the government should, like, hire people to do it, and provide the service for free. That seems like a great idea, doesn't it?

But government only shifts capital from one private party to another, so someone is the workhorse slave that's threatened by force for non-compliance, with government skimming the top for acting as an empowered middleman.


A) I see. No I'd never take that position.

B) Would I donate? If I could and if I feel the organization is deserving, as I do now. Could I donate more if I wasn't being taxed so much? Yes. I don't believe in mandatory services because I don't believe in slavery, so I wouldn't be ok with such a thing.

Just in regard to the "shit getting done" part, consider...

http://philanthropy.com/article/Donations-to-Aid-Haiti-Exce/63756/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2014/08/29/the-als-ice-bucket-challenge-has-raised-100m-but-its-finally-cooling-off/

These are random, and a drop in the bucket, truthfully, but such showings suggest shit does actually get done when necessary. Keep in mind this is on top of being quite burdened with high taxation for the social services of health, education, public safety, etc.

I think we've sort of been conditioned to shift our faith in humanity to faith in government, unfortunately. Though it's quite obvious they make up a subsection of humanity so they're clearly subject to the same deficit of caring the rest of humanity (seemingly) possesses, for some reason they seem to be held to a higher degree of respect or belief that they will do the right thing(s) when laymen won't.

I hate seeing my taxes being wasted. I know where my money and labour should be put to use to improve society in a more beneficial way then the government currently does.

If you spend your own money and labour directly on social projects, you become much more invested in the result.

Do you get any satisfaction sending a tax cheque to the government? Do you get satisfaction directly helping someone in need with money or moral support?

The safety net we currently have is full of holes and increasing the size of the net does not promote inclusion of the less fortunate into the healthy portion of our society. Just the opposite, it alienates them.

We are a social species, and government is undermining that aspect of humanity by trying to look after everyone, which is impossible.

Wouldn't it be nice to have rules without rulers, where every single person was sovereign?

edit: Proudhorn said it best: We went from monarchy, where one person was sovereign, to democracy, where the majority are (sudo) sovereign, and the next logical progress is anarchy, where everyone is sovereign.

You previously mentioned volunteerism for something that's ridiculously hard work that requires trained individuals to do. I don't know about you, but my training for putting out fires involves "dump some fucking water on it?! I dunno!"

Donations to pay trained people would be better in the sense of we don't have a ton of people doing shit they have no clue how to do. But aren't donations kind of like treating taxes as "pay what you like?" What if under the donation system, someone decides "eh I won't donate, fuck 'em, someone else will pick up some slack!" What if a whole lot of people do that? Who's freeloading now? Now you've got some suckers, excuse me, "donators," picking up the slack for everyone who doesn't give a fuck to do so.

For that matter, how can you say donation campaigns are "random and a drop in the bucket," then say "shit does actually get done." with a straight face? Not to mention charities can be more wasteful than governments, and most people don't spend the time to educate themselves on how much money they're donating is actually getting put to use for the thing they're trying to support, instead of getting shuttled to advertisement and administration. How's that for faith in humanity? Charity, like recycling, is a nice way to say "I did good" when you didn't actually do much of anything.

I have faith in neither humanity nor government. But I've read plenty of stories of what happens when a government collapses, and let's just say those people really got to see just how little you can trust your fellow man. You don't have friends? Well guess what, now you don't have supplies or food, either, because the people with friends just came and took it all away from you to support themselves. In that world, it's join or die.

In the taxed world of government, it's join or die (read: pay taxes or get arrested), too, I understand that. But at least in this instance, my toilet flushes when I take a shit in it, and I don't have to steal my food. That alone is worth the tax fee to me.

Anyone catch that wall at like 398?

Also, anarchy = good. government = obviously shit. I am glad this community has the politics it does. It makes a great thing great in another dimension.

Yeah that tends to be about the extent of the anarchists argument...

That's the beauty of it. The burden of justification lies on the violent party. The one that wants to govern others.

It's not my job to explain why I don't want to be governed, it's your job to explain why you want to control others.

Yeah because gov does so well at anything it does.

The problem is, government is a beast that gets bigger and bigger and cost more and more and while at it, waste more and more money in the process.

I think gov is a necessary evil. The problem is, it consumes everything around it as it grows bigger. A even more of a slap in the face, is when it helps people that should not be helped, and slapping those that do have a legit reason for help, get screwed over.... just because politicians want to play politics.

Governments are in the business of making the wealthy more wealthy, at the expense of the masses and the planet.

But....teh roadz!!!1

So I can be clear, you are speaking of total anarchy, right? No government whatsoever. No military, no police force, no firemen, nothing. Is this correct?


I think the term necessary evil is fair. What I don't understand is how not having a government would be any benefit to those in need, when you've got plenty of people arguing that others don't even have the right to essentials like education and emergency services, let alone any need based assistance.

Anarchism doesn't mean no fire service.

Anarchy is just a correct alignment of morals, it's not a practical suggestion on my part. What we have is the "rule of law" for the poor and unlucky whilst we have socialism for the wealthy.

Until people understand that violence can't be the first resort to solving problems, our species will remain primitive.

WHAT ABOT TEH ROADZ

and teh prisons/indoctrination camps for children, I mean schoolz!

When I lived in the UK i had no issue paying tax for things like social welfare, the national health service etc.

What I dislike is paying tax to fund the EU, $150,000 a year rent for somalians who just came off a boat (true story), police who do nothing but enforce speed laws and ignore crime, an offensive military, the war on drugs, 100% pension plans for politicians who work 20 years and then retire at 50, the neoliberal policies of the last 20 years including huge bank bailouts and QE (both of which have been nothing but welfare for the rich) and give billions a year to foreign dictatorships (foreign aid)

I'm somewhat of a socialist-libertarian, I have no problem with society providing a safety net for others, including welfare + healthcare for the poor, you can even throw in road building to the things i'd be happy to pay tax for. I just don't want to pay tax to bomb random brown people, enforce immoral drug laws, enrich a tiny percentage of people or support overseas dictators.

Oh the bi-monthly statist bash is back, great!


government = obviously shit for MORAL reasons (which I leave for the moralists to explain) and reasons of efficiency.

The reason is that centralized structures produce distortions in the information flow due to the absence of efficient feedback mechanisms.

In other words in a centralized system power does not reside with the participants who have the most accurate information at their disposal. This tends to produce decisions which range from laughably misguided to horribly dangerous.

Let me quote something, because quoting a book will make me look smart:


And so we are setting up boards to assess the quality of doctors in order to protect patients and this comes with all the incentives for corruption and slacking off. Meanwhile the non-experts are told not to rely on their own judgement and experience, but rather to trust the assessment of the authority. The result is a population with a mentality that says that basic aspects of their lives, such as their own health, are not their own responsibility. Thus we become reliant on those in authority to provide us with what we need, because we have given up the responsibility to do this ourselves and this is a dangerous and vulnerable situation to be in. Furthermore as the quote above illustrates, this is hopelessly inefficient.

I am willing to entertain the notion that during that part of our history when information could not move faster than a horses gallop, centralized structures were the only way how to unify a large enough part of society necessary to achieve economies of scale. Maybe. Possibly. But with information flow becoming faster and more resilient and with the emergence of the internet I'd argue that our systems of resource allocation and decision making are due for a serious revision. Cultural and societal progress is as always seriously lagging behind technological progress and we are living in a world of 21st century technology, yet keep managing it with a 19th century mindset.

Those of us who are quite sure that this is bullshit and could never work - I politely ask you to stand aside and let those of us who are willing to try do just that - try and potentially fail. If we do, you'll be proven right and we'll have some more data. If we don't and we indeed do come up with superior decentralized alternatives to present structures (such as Bitcoin) in the end your lives will be improved as well and the only way I can see for that to be a problem is if your egos get hurt, because they were too attached to your particular ideologies.

EDIT: to further clarify - I don't subscribe to the neo-darwinian "survival of the fittest" theory of society. I think there are two basic ways to ensure survival in a given biosphere - predation and cooperation. The more complex an environment gets the heavier it sees to tilt towards cooperation and symbiosis. Because synergy I'd imagine.

This means I am not against social safety nets, access to education and health care etc. I just happen to think we need alternative ways of providing these, because our current system is fundamentally flawed. Yes, it works to some degree, but with the amount of resources it is taking in, the laws of probability dictate that it is bound to do something useful. I am also willing to put my money AND my time where my mouth is - this is why most of my Bitcoin transactions, BY FAR, are donations. To artists who entertain me and causes which I would like to support (think Seans outpost or the guys fighting Ebola in Ghana - 600watt put a link here two days ago) and I am more than willing to help fund and set up institutions providing basic necessities of life for the unfortunate. Because I consider myself lucky and sharing feels good. But only if it is done of my own free will, not under threat of violence.

You act like once you give them your money they will do what you want with it.

heh

Can I have a bitcoin to go help starving babies being attacked by wolves?

1K3sdfJaMBs873lLshjolasdfj320Jabsdlfauq3224

haha gold.

This reminds of the last state vs. anarchy debate we had on here and inevitably the subject of roads was brought up. And it wonderfully illustrated a rather subtle point about all of this. Proponents of state-managed institutions often rely on the argument that they are the only way to provide certain things we need, such as roads. Just one lone soul (Richy_T, bless his discordian heart) pointed out that, yes, without government we may indeed have no roads, but would this not mean that we don't need roads? Right now road construction is enormously resource intensive and the resulting infrastructure is being used by gasoline powered vehicles. The result is a lot of pollution and horrible traffic. Maybe there are cheaper, more efficient, less harmful ways of extending infrastructure (such as subways, trains, etc.) but for now we won't find out, because the people in charge are convinced they KNOW what is needed and they are going to provide it. Whether you and your wallet like it or not :D

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003286649/56d4de3b262fffb0d7995395355300a6_answer_2_xlarge.jpeg

http://38.media.tumblr.com/e928e00ad360b44409d0df9115abffd0/tumblr_n34dymlSiB1r7dd67o1_500.jpg

http://i0.wp.com/thelibertarianrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/tumblr_mcof6lHWUS1rxs13eo1_500.jpg?resize=300%2C225

http://starthere.the11thcommandment.org/wp-content/plugins/authpro/content-builder/assets/images/images/who%20will%20build%20roads%20banner545.PNG

http://images.therealfuckingnews.com/1/1545364fdfc7c5b8.jpg

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/21/21a8b6391c0e67b4b1afa1870b51820cbbeca0cf8b583f50cd606465460cb042.jpg

Enjoy driving your Tesla on a dirt road.

I do have a choice, I don't pay any tax* because I can't control where it will be spent

*I pay 7% sales tax in the country I now call home, that is the only tax I pay

No it would not mean we would need no roads. How does one even reach that conclusion?

By the way, I haven't said a word about roads before this. I don't know how that came up, seems like weak debate tactics, but whateves.

All of you seem to focus on the cons of government, but it's not like everyone doesn't already know those. At the end of the day, you can say the burden of proof is on whoever, but the reality is, the way I want it is the status quo, so in essence the burden of proof is placed back on you, whether it should be or not. Do not think this means that I accept the burden of proof but am throwing it in your face. It's just that I could just ignore you like the government will and what would you do?

With that in mind, now tell me, what are the BENEFITS of anarchy over government. Because all I see is everyone pointing out all the cons of government, but we all know those already. You're not really adding anything new. You see, because while you all are focusing on your "lulz road" argument, I'm asking "well yeah, government is kinda shit, but tell me how anarchy wouldn't be, or how it would be significantly less shit." Because if it's only going to be slightly less shit, it's not really worth the effort, and if it's going to be more shit, then it's just a terrible idea.

In response to your longer post that I won't quote in the interest of space, Eris, it's all well and good to propose what should be done, and you ask people to step aside and let you try, but what is the PLAN for HOW to do it? Nobody who isn't in your choir already is going to agree to that without a plan that makes sense.


Seems reasonable enough to me. I don't think I have a problem with anything you've said.

That contractor made a fortune off that work. He got paid and his cousin also got paid to clean it up.

The roads "argument" is purely fun for me. I know YOU haven't mentioned it and it's not meant as a serious argument which should convince anyone of anything.

I remember you were here to debate this the last time around and I think we covered the point of "how would we be better served in anarchy" for a bit. My attitude towards this is the following: you may say that it won't work out well I might say it will but in the end none of us know. We have insufficient data and all we have to go on are our personal biases and random related observations from other systems. My basic argument here is that yes government does mess up a lot of things very badly. Many of us know this. That's why exploring alternatives should be considered a high priority IMO.

This subject is endlessly complex, because it touches on pretty much all areas of life and involves our ideologies, belief systems, basic assumptions (linguistic and otherwise) so just establishing common ground for debate just by agreeing on some basic definitions and concepts can prove an insurmountable problem. I enjoy a good debate, though. As mentioned, my basic argument as to WHY decentralized systems are preferable goes back to my bolded theorem about information flow. My answer to HOW decentralized systems would provide the superior solution is that we have no way of knowing, because if we did, we wouldn't need them. We could just set up a centralized system and do exactly that. The whole point of decentralized systems (besides their resiliency to attack) is that its information processing capabilities are orders of magnitude more efficient than those of their centralized counterparts. In other words, ALL of us are smarter than ANY ONE of us and the solutions brought forth tend to be unexpected.

I'll be around later to derp around in this debate if it is still going on.

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/048/c/4/a_man_chooses__a_slave_obeys__by_nathand251_d4_by_ninja_zexion-d76w5nc.jpg

I choose the moon  ;)

We do have information: we can look at areas where government collapsed and listen to the stories of the people stuck in that kind of life. Those stories are never good, you never hear anyone say "man I was so happy we had roving bands of gangs out to rob our supplies and food."

You might say "well yeah but that's due to a sudden collapse," to which I would respond "well how else is it going to happen?"

It's one thing to say "I believe in smaller government, or more localized government." It's quite another to say "fuck government and who needs roads!"

Every large scale modern day problem can be traced back to one thing: Weakness. In this case, big gov vs small gov, the big gov proponents are the ones who don't think they would do well in a more competitive world. Those are the weak. And because they make up the majority of voters, this is the world we live in.

The root of the impending downfall of the west is democracy. It causes bigger and ever-growing governments which always, eventually, leads to socialism/communism.

Most of the people, who are against the government in general, are the ones who actually spend less then 5 minutes a year, on who to elect to lead the government. These people are lazy and without any sense of responsibility, and they want the government to work great, without them having to contribute any work themselves.

People get the government that they deserve - so immature and irresponsible people get the same kind of an government. When people elect those, who scream louder with the help of their campaign budgets, then it's no surprise that the government gets leaders of low quality.

Other way around. People who spend no time on politics merely bitch about the state of things - and vote for whoever has the prettiest smile and promises the most handouts during commercial breaks. It takes active interest to be opposed to big government.

This is not about big government vs. small government, is it? If it is, someone should let me know, because I'm pretty sure this is about government vs no government.

Indeed.

I think if most anarchists ever got the government they dreamed of they'd be penniless, starving or dead after the local band of marauders came through.

That's called survival of the fittest, not necessarily a bad thing imho.

Did you pay for the panopticon surveillance dragnet  that logs in the national database that you probably just took a shit because it records your flushing habits and timings of when your oven switches on? Is it worth your taxes to have armies of psychologists making shit up to feed to mainstream news teams to create widespread confusion and fear when an administrative pollster measures favour for the latest military action flagging?

"Join or die taxation" just gets a whole lot more sinister when you realise you're pulling the yoke for a gigantic killing and enslavement machine and there's nothing you can do about it except fucking pull harder and hope like hell it is someone else that is gonna get killed by the machine.

Most of the pro State comments make out like the State is benevolent, all current evidence to the contrary. We're not talking anymore about big versus small govt., it is a big, facist, malignant, growing out of control  beast of a system you are supporting.

So it's not a bad thing if 30 people decide to group together to bash you over the head and take your stuff?

lol no it's called gangs of people roaming, raping, robbing and killing. It's the most ruthless and heavily armed people winning, nothing to do with fitness.

The world will not, and did not before its time, descend into chaos without a huge police state to watch over us all. When gangs of marauders roam the earth, people will defend themselves in equal measure. There has always been crime and always will be, its nature merely shifts depending on local circumstances.

Again, this is solely based on weakness, in this case fear and physical inability.

It always sucks to be the victim, make sure you're on the winning side.

What's your reason for being involved in bitcoin?

How old are you? Have you ever been in a war zone?

Please explain how you will defend yourself in "equal measure."


Thanks for making my case about having no faith in humanity.

Yeah, like when IS marched through Iraq and Syria, slaughtering, raping, robbing and what not. The people fought back equally and the whole Islamic State thing never happened, right?

Yeah this kids officially a dumbass.

Anarchy: absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

Did the government ever saved you from dying in a war zone?
Did you know it's almost always governments who decide to go to war?

Don't bring a gun to a drone fight.

I asked my questions because it was apparent from your answer that you have no real experience of life outside of your cushy existence, whereever that may be.

I'll answer your questions

1) I'm involved with bitcoin because it's convenient for my business to accept it
2) Yes
3) Yes

How about you answer my questions?

All I see is people talking about "survival of the fittest" and "make sure you're on the winning side," which seems to support my definition of it. If that's wrong, then perhaps some anarchy proponents don't even know what anarchy is by your (presumably different) definition, so why don't you enlighten us if we're so wrong? Or you know, you could continue to talk down to people while adding little of substance, which seems pretty typical for anarchists.

It is quite sad this whole discussion about which human should rule us, while the underlying question is ignored.

The underlying question, a question asked over 6000 years ago by the devil himself, should man govern themselves, instead go having god rule over us?

God then allowed humankind to govern themselves under satan, to prove a point, that point has been proven time and time again, a human leading over other humans will only cause pain, injustice and suffering.

The only one fit to rule is god, choosing anyone else to rule you results in joining the government of the devil, and it off course will lead to suffering.

Don't be stupid and choose for the kingdom of god, there's no other viable option.

Anarchists are somewhat right in the way they are saying a human government is unneccesary/evil but they forget that a form of government is eventually needed to prevent total chaos, thus, even anarchy is wrong. Become a citizen of gods kingdom and reap the benefits of a truly benevolent king who only wants what's best for you, one with both the power, wisdom and will to improve this world, who actually prevents dead and disease, and does not wage war. This kingdom will come, make sure you're part of it.

The answer to the question asked millennia ago will be closed soon, and all human government will be wiped from the earth and replaced with the kingdom of god. This is the essence of the bibles prophecies. This is what Jesus was all about.

Sounds like something the Islamic State would say, insert a few "kill all infidels" and "death to the jews"

I make my own drones.

My age is not relevant. It's childish to ask for it.

You're right, Anarchy have many definitions and it is pointless to talk about something people have very different definitions.

I wish people knew some basic about discussion before talking.

That's what I figured. You probably still live at home with your Mom don't you

Of course your age and life experiences can be relevant to shed light upon the kinds assertions that you are making; however, it could also be an ad hominem attack if your youthfulness is being used to minimize and/or patronize if you were making otherwise valid arguments/observations.

Please explain me the urgent reason to disclose my age?

That's actually very interesting, but unless those three bikers actually stop IS, they're not very relevant. IS are an example of what ends up ruling in a vacuum.

Fair enough, saying I'm an adult should be enough.

I was asking because he genuinely believes that people who are murdered simply failed to be fit enough to survive. I can't imagine anyone with much experience outside of a very cushy life in the suburbs believing anything so ridiculous.

I questioned his age and whether he'd seen human brutality up close because they're both pertinent to understanding how he could hold such a belief.

It's what the bible sais, you're free to belief it or not. But fact remains, no government in human history has ever done what they promised. And no government was ultimately non-corrupt.

Is anarchy the solution though? No, it's not. Only a kingdom ruled by a king that is not human will be the answer to our problems. That king is Jesus himself.

I'm not asking you to take my word for it, I'm just trying to tell you there's a third option everyone forgets about, and the government question is more important than most people realize. In fact it can decide how your life plays out in the next couple of decades.

1) actively support a human government
2) anarchy
3) actively become a citizen of gods kingdom (the option many people forget about)

Please consider returning to gods kingdom, as god is the only one who can rule over us to our own benefit. God cares about us and can provide for all our needs and he will.

More weakness. Sophistry instead of sound arguments. Your "faith in humanity" is just another variant of "but my feels!".

The world is a harsh place, and it won't get any easier with an outlook like that. Work on constructive solutions.

Well, sometimes, I find that people with limited experiences will sometimes make arguments that they fail to realize are naive.. but maybe 5 or 10 years later will come to realize that some of their arguments were lacking in several respects... And also sometimes with age we learn how to frame our arguments a little better in order to make them stronger b/c they are NOT filled with absolute assertions... So ultimately what I am saying is that there may be aspects of your writing that reveals your age, even though you are NOT disclosing it.

On the other hand, if you think that it is unfair that your age is being targeted, then you may want to consider ways to reframe your arguments or at least to concede on certain points until you research further into them... Sometimes a sign of fitting really into the adult world is to possibly concede a few points or maybe delay by saying that you will look into some things further.....or even to concede that some observations are beyond your current set of experiences.

Fixed that for you Mr Abu Mosa

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/08/22/1408669062602_wps_1_JUST_IN_ISIS_spokesman_Ab.jpg

FTFY

Crypto Anarchy Cyberstates and Pirate Utopias. - Pete Ludlow - (Tim C May, David Brin et al)

http://monoskop.org/images/4/42/Ludlow_Peter_Crypto_Anarchy_Cyberstates_and_Pirate_Utopias.pdf (http://monoskop.org/images/4/42/Ludlow_Peter_Crypto_Anarchy_Cyberstates_and_Pirate_Utopias.pdf)


Cyphernomicon Timothy C May


http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/cyphernomicon/CP-FAQ (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/cyphernomicon/CP-FAQ)

For people interested in cryptography, and in the topics being discussed today regarding "anarchy" and society, and the state and defining and redefining the definitions of its reach and its boundaries in an ever increasing technological age, then the above is some good/interesting (essential?) background reading. 

Definitely experience levels and even age could be relevant to assessing how one comes to such ridiculous beliefs.... especially when people are making claims about free market and survival of the fittest and all those kinds of bullshit generalizations that may NOT play out in a variety of circumstances (including the real world), and this time, I had attempted to avoid getting into some of the discussions of the role of government because it seems that people frequently make some pretty out-there assertions and really fail to particularize the multifaceted existence of government.

In this regard, government screws a lot of things up, but I cannot embrace the diving into various solutions that causes us to throw out the baby with the bath water or to get rid of government without having various functional systems in place.. to replace it (if that really were some kind of meaningful objective).

Why is it pointless to gather information on the opinions of others? If it turns out that it's the different definition of anarchy causing the dispute, then a simple clarification from the anarchists would indicate that, and we could further the discussion.

So again, somebody, enlighten us "weak statists" about what makes you big strong anarchy man.


You're ducking his real point and you know you're doing it.

It makes no difference if you're 16 or 60, the question is have you ever seen human brutality from anywhere outside of a computer screen? Have you ever witnessed it, experienced what it's like to be there, to be a victim of it? Because if you can't, then you really have no earthly idea how you would actually respond in that situation.


Uhh, you do realize I said I lack faith in humanity. It is my belief that many do not commit crimes out of fear for the law, not out of any moral obligation. Furthermore, it is my belief that if shit hits the fan, a great amount of people that didn't need to commit crimes in our current society will be willing to do anything up to and including murder to ensure their own are fed.

Is a world where you could wind up with the business end of a hammer in the back of your skull without warning a world you want to live in? Is a world where leaders are decided by how bloodthirsty they are, and power vacuums are created constantly a world you want to live in? If so, then I'd ask you the same question: how much human brutality have you experienced?

And if you truly think you're "hard" enough to survive in that environment, just remember that unless you're the hardest guy in the world, there's always someone harder.

How do we want a society with no rulers to be? Unfair question, we don't know, and we don't want to know in advance, because that would be exactly what we do not want: a society planned by some rulers.

It is not to be done by a revolution. Just try with user payment, freedom, when a balance is found, sell it off. No school system can exist totally without user payment and with total regulation. The same goes for health care, roads and whatever. Just relax on the use of force, man, see what happens.

thank you
I've had some experiences with human brutality:
Witness of murder.
Witness of rape.
train suicide by brother.

It could always be worse, but I think my share is above average.

What are your experiences?

You forgot the human rights, which would reduce the absolute freedom of others, the right to self defense, the right to association, and the fact that people like to interact and have a productive society with rules.

But the problem arises when you entrust someone to speak gods word, interprete his laws and let him enforce that law with violence. Make sure you speak directly to god himself, and you are good to go. It is a possible definition of anarchy.

As I said before, we have evidence of what happens when government suddenly collapses. The results are not good, and are indicative of what you can expect from your fellow man, which is little to none unless you were friends previously (and even then you worry they'll turn traitor). Just because it happens in a more peaceful way does not mean that you are really putting a lot of faith in humanity to simply trust everyone to do right.

It's not a matter of preference in my case. What I would personally prefer does not fit either extreme in these latest pages. What I am saying is this: We are dying. Socialist countries have sub-replacement fertility rates (meaning not enough kids are being born to sustain the population). Other countries, what we commonly think of as backwards, do not. Iraq for example has a fertility rate of 4. All western countries are at or below 2, sometimes well below. We are being outbred, and will eventually be so badly outnumbered that we will lose our place as major players on the world stage.

The reasons socialist countries don't do well in the baby making department are complicated and well beyond the scope of this discussion, but suffice to say that we either dial the welfare state way down or we lose most of our political and economic clout within a span of 50 years, and likely a lot less than that. From there it's a short jump to being invaded, and failing to fend whoever attacks us off.

My preference, if I were to put it in such words, is that my grandkids have a safe country to grow up in. That western countries remain strong enough to fight off anyone who doesn't like us. At this current rate, they will not.

Explaining what good anarchy brings instead of talking about what bad government does is like asking to explain what good comes from someone not getting whipped without bringing up what is bad about being whipped.

It says more about you than me to believe that only teenagers like freedom.

So you can't be bothered to explain what good your ideal will do, but we're supposed to entertain the argument "government = no flying cars?"

By the way, your analogy doesn't work out, because as your own people admit, you have no idea what will happen, and it could turn out that anarchy is nothing more than getting whipped twice as hard.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3sgwbCjTC1qigurzo1_500.gif

ITT:
Anarchists claim the ability to unite, when needed, to combat roving gangs of marauders.
They think governments are nothing but thieves, looters and extortionists--armed gangs of marauders.

Why are you yakking it up, anarchists, instead of ably putting down the these statist thugs?

I doubt you would listen.

Smart roads, self charging roads, no need for fuel, more lanes, more competition...


The government telephone monopoly was broken in 1984. You would have been on the side of people who felt that anarchy in the phone industry would leave us all without any phone service or as was argued at the time "you will need 5 phones in your house connected to 5 different companies".

Someone saying "we could advance phone technology to have phones in your pocket calling unlimited long distance calls at one flat rate" would immediately be shot down as a crazy optimist with no clue about what would happen.

Better to play it safe and stick with one long distance and one local phone system.

Most libertarians who wish to live without a government have no idea of how things would work or of how they would manage their communities, once you succeed getting rid of your government, what will happen is a state in complete CHAOS followed by people trying to build an organized community to fix things then people chose people or people fight people to make things works and then you get to a point where you make another government, you would think that you achieved something by doing so, but this comes from your lack of understanding/trust to your previous government.

sure thing kid.

Your entire ideal is based upon paranoid xenophobia?

You can check out http://www.bitpools.com to see an example of how people can come together for major projects and vote with their money without being forced.

A bunch of anarchists...using the Bitcoin blockchain to vote on how their money is spent...who woulda thunk it.

Statist pigs:  Controlling all of the inhabitable surface of the Earth.
Anarchist:  Controlling exactly nothing.

Weak.

Yah, so why don't you anarchists get together and overthrow evol statist pigs?
You know you wanna.
Weakling :D

@octaft:  Like you, I once tried reasoning with these nutters.  Until it became clear that I would have better luck reasoning with a rusty shovel.

Just because I think no government would be worse, doesn't mean I think everything the government does is great, nor does it mean I agree with everything they say. I'm just picking what I perceive to be the lesser of two evils.

I would love to see how your way would work out, if only for curiosity. I just don't want the experiment to happen where I live.

Or just bypass them. Like creating an alternative currency and not using their system.

Perhaps one that is decentralized and cannot be shut down.

The ability to have a choice...

wouldn't it be nice?

You have had several milania to "bypass them."  How is that working out for you, weakling?  And if you feel you've succeeded, then why all the moping about the evols of gubermints?

You looked into your own soul and saw chaos and horror?

Stop whining and begging, and take from the statist oppressors what's rightfully yours!

Too weak, too scared, or too lazy?

In the US the last rebellion did not succeed and the US government continued to get stronger. I doubt they will get overthrown nor would I be part of it. They will fall on their own without anyone's help.

"Crypto Anarchy Cyberstates and Pirate Utopias. - Pete Ludlow - (Tim C May, David Brin et al)

http://monoskop.org/images/4/42/Ludlow_Peter_Crypto_Anarchy_Cyberstates_and_Pirate_Utopias.pdf


Cyphernomicon Timothy C May


http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/cyphernomicon/CP-FAQ

For people interested in cryptography, and in the topics being discussed today regarding "anarchy" and society, and the state and defining and redefining the definitions of its reach and its boundaries in an ever increasing technological age, then the above is some good/interesting (essential?) background reading"


it seems to me that the issues we are talking about, are actually evolving , both sides of the "argument" and that looking at things in a totally linear way is not going to help.

The world is (as it always has been) changing, and evolving, and I am hoping, as many people are, that we can get past the most crucial elements of society , being decided, or ruled by "the business end of a hammer"

The world has changed a lot in the past 100 years, and will continue to do so.

There are very clear, and very real arguments for evolving the current systems we have in place, "government" as it is today is far from perfect, and far from the answer to everything.  Pure "anarchy" in the terms, that 12 years old see it, is of course far from perfect... (nobody serious, or genuine in the wish to debate sees "anarchy" as being the definition of no government at all, imo)


There is a very good case that some of the roles currently undertaken by central governments, can be replaced, as many roles will be, by other mechanisims, which are fairer, less expensive, more democratic, and that reduce the potential for abuse at the hands of power hungry and evil pigs , that seem to flock into politics. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the more centralised power is, the more the potential for corruption at the core becomes a problem. The same reason that communism did not work, is the same reason the system we have now does not work.  If any of the jobs currently undertaken by swindling politicans can be replaced by a machine or public votes or protocol or a combination of all of the above, and the result is good, then I am all for it.

To say, that you must have a plan, to replace government is fair enough, however, it does not mean that the conversation is over , or that you have come to a solution yourself. Semantics, is still semantics.  The problem is real and is becoming more and more evident, and the discussion will continue because of this alone.

  The idea, that something that has never been possible before, can be made possible in the future, is also acceptable, and even probable, the idea that things will stay the same for ever, is highly unlikely.

 There is nothing wrong with questioning and exploring everything, yes, everything, from the ideas of "anarchy" or "libertarianism" to the concept of government, big government, small government... there would not even be anything wrong, with taking the best bits fro everything, and leaving the rest, an coming up with something that is possible in the coming ages, and that works, or at least works better than what we have now. I am a proponent of change, of progress, of adapting, of evolution.. and also of accepting the realities we face.

 Anyone that is not concerned about the path that we have been taken down in the past, and more importantly actually the hole we have been taken down, in the past 20 years especially, and continue to go down, in terms or big government and big finance and big industry, and the implications that it has for future society,  and the things happening right now as we speak, that have far reaching implications on our political and our society and our futures, and humanities future... is just not paying attention.

There is a very grave risk from crony government, and their cohorts, to the liberty and future, anyone that ignores this, has their head in the sand.  

To question, is not necessarily to mock, and it is not necessarily to evoke and entrench ones self in a polarising manner.

 It seems to be a waste, if all one is interested in is bickering the same old tired positions, while the world is busy morphing before their very eyes, and making the arguments of both sides almost redundant, or worse, too late to question anymore.

 Big government , it is starting to become evident once again, is not a good thing.

 No government, no systems rather , at all is not a good thing either.

 Guess what, there is something inbetween!!

 With technology, and minds and people and the will to question, explore, solution finding... things that were not possible     before... become possible...

Things change.

Things are changing.

Evolving society, evolving law and government and techology are all happening. (and are all double edged swords, and none are closed loop systems)

If people like it or  not, the debate about these things and the potential for change from de-cecentralisation, and automation, is on the menu for discussion, they are part of the body of potential solutions to problems, that ARE real, and the solutions are being explored and will continue to be explored, and no doubt will have some impact on the future of this world, not only in terms of business, but in terms of governance and society too.  That much is for sure.

 We have to be careful though, as the government at the moment, and their puppet masters in big industry, are continuing to attempt to continue to have absolute control over the architecture of society, the very veins that the structures of society stands (indeed this is how power is mantained, be it oil or water etc but more and more so no it be in the realms of information and data (inc money))

Having control of the architecture, in this case,  of information renders privacy as void, which means that there is no free speech, there is no opporftunity for true political dissent, there is no chance of a meanigful revolution in the event one is needed, there is no freedom of choice. The more they control the architecture , the more ability they have to control the bottlenecks. Bottlenecks in societys mechanisms for protecting itself from a government overstepping the mark. This is essentially bad.

There is , and will be a solution, and things will evolve, to think otherwise renders one a dinosaur, and frankly a bore.

 People need to step up to the plate, and more and more people around the world ARE doing just that, there is more and more dialouge and more and more innovation and more and more potential and more and more technology that is coming on line that is going to change the world (bringing new problems along with it as well as solutions)

 At the moment, the closest thing I can see to chaos, is the suicide mission that the governments of the west seem to be taking us all on, unless they have got a big secret plan, it seems they are intent on self implosion (US, Euro, UK)  and none of us want that... but yet... that does not seem to stop them, and I bet our votes are not going to change that ever. We might get a chance to test that "power vacuum" version of "anarchy" that keeps being brought up.. and if we do, it will be the government and their crony masters that brought us to that point. Great job, nothing to see here... no room for change, or improvement, or discussion I am sure.

So the state was more successful than anarchy--what a surprise!

Aha.  The anarchist approach to dealing with problems:  do nothing, shit will take care of itself 8)

@empowering, re. ur wall of text:  But then you thought the "rally" was taking us to the moon.  How's it goin'?

collectivism...gotta love it

FTFY.

I'd say most of the bitcoin investments nowadays are from people looking to make more of that dirty green fiat money, instead of people looking to put a dent into the system. They are not destroying your ideal: they are assimilating it.


No, I've read numerous stories on what regular people experienced living under those conditions, and am very thankful I have not had to go through it, myself.

That is fine for them. As long as I can still use bitcoins for what I want. I stopped caring what other people do long ago. I am moving forward, toward freedom.

What is it you want to use Bitcoin for?

Yes dear... coochy cooochy cooo... awwhhh look lambchop is dribbling again... owwwhhhh who is a cute wickle lambiechoppy woppie... awwwwhhhh sooo cute...

SO CUTE!!! awwhhh (pinches fat little baby face)

SO CUTE !!!

AWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH  LAMBIE WAMBIE CUTIE POOTIE..


(tldr love you  :-* :-* :-*)  

(edit I really meant what I said the first time)

And how are your statist overlords interfering with that?  Anyone who wants to exchange goods for Bitcoin today can, as I understand it.  And always could.
The problem's not too many people want to :-\

You missed the part about me caring what other people do.

silence damn it, I'm on everybody's ignore list.

edit: nevermind, already found the answer.

Its not that not many people want too, its just has to be easier to understand. Theres people like you who run around screaming ponzi scheme!!!! ELEVENTY!!!! at anyone that will listen to you. Bad things stick better than positive things. Just the way it is. Plus this is something new. Add in the fact that there needs to be some regulations. Once regulations ( I hope common sense ones, but then again that is asking alot from elected officals ) watch out.

Stop bullshiting.  Find me a single post where I say anything about "the end of Bitcoin" in the affirmative, and I'll give you an internet.
And now that 280 proved to be the [temporary] bottom, everyone suddenly bought at 280.
Lie better or lie less :-\

Ah, so you want to spend Bitcoin like money, but you don't care if anyone takes it as money.
Anarchist logic at its finest!

The few places that I need to spend money already take it. I can use localbitcoins for the rest.

Even if you are witness to and experience a large number of negative life issues, you likely need to be able to effectively account for those kinds of experiences in your communications prescribing how you would like the world to be.  No one can force you to see the world in a different kind of way, yet listening and interacting, reflecting and considering the variety of possibilities can inform empathy.. and hopefully each of us are able to develop empathy as we experience a variety of negative outcomes. 

If you have adequately reflected and considered your life experiences, then you should let your thought stand as they are, even though several posters here seem to have concluded that you come off as a bit out of touch with real life sufferings.. 

Ic.  Well, enjoy your Bitcoin paradise then, glad you're content :)

Thanks. Enjoy your statist paradise.

Well cause and consequence. The market will make it advantageous for people to accept it and therefore they will.

Or not :-\  Or our Reptilian Overlords will ban it if it becomes a threat.
Anyhow, largely irrelevant, since Elwar's already got what he wants.

Governments can make any law they desire. Whether they can uphold the law is a whole other issue (if too many oppose it they cannot).

How does "I've never experienced living in a lawless state and am glad for that" equate to "I've never experienced human brutality?" Besides, with your examples of human brutality, I think almost all of us experienced that or the emotional equivalent at some point in our lives. Anyway, who's to say you're not making it up? Who's to say I'm not making it up if I do share my experiences?

I see no point to it, I was just pointing out that what he was asking you had nothing to do with your age.

Yes I can, but not in English, we've been there before.

Please, your fooling yourself. It does not matter if us unwashed masses oppose anything. The only thing that matters is money and re-election, as for re-electiing, there are enough stupid people that would vote for whoever, even when its clear the intentions are not what they say.

You don't seem to really "get" statism, right? It's about a concious compromise around the establishment of rules, which is by definition no paradise.

Thus far it's been nothing but solid win for the governments.  Anarchists: zero.

If anarchy actually works, why is it the standing winner of the Darwin Award?

I will show you the evidence if you want.
This discussion is worth absolutely zero when we don't take each others word for what we say.

Like I said, I never really asked, I just called you out for ducking the other guys question, to which you gave a presumably honest answer so I stopped focusing on it.

In spite of any of what either of us has been through, I'm not sure it would be worse than having to hold the fear of it happening every single day.

Hey guys, how about we keep the debate well-spoken, friendly and polite?

Right now I have to praise octaft for the way he presents his arguments, that's the way of someone who is actually listening to what other people have to say instead of just waiting for his turn to speak. Remember friends, DISCORD CAN BE FUN! Just keep it friendly, eh? In the end we all want to make the world a better place.


IMO this is about systems. We are critiquing the current system (centralized government) right now. Big government vs. small government has as much of a place in the debate as government vs. no government. Personally I'd be in favor in trying any form of shrinking and localizing of government, alas my bias here is that this just doesn't seem to work.  Just like some people seem to feel that no government doesn't seem to work. Regarding that idea:


addressing the bolded part: yes you are correct, that is my answer. So far we have had sudden collapses. I'll address the related question in a minute. First I want to point out something regarding this situation.

Today we are almost entirely reliant on government to provide many of our essential services. Education, health care, infrastructure, defense, dispute mediation, even food production in many cases - all of these are provided to a large degree by government and often by government only, with alternatives being forbidden. This puts us in a position of dependency. This is actually a decent argument for decentralizing these services. Even while assuming the general benevolence and competence of the government in providing the services (about which I have serious doubts but this is not the point right now) it seems clear that such a position of utter dependence is dangerous. Because what if the government fails? For several generations we are living with an expectation of our needs being met thanks to this big provider so why would we spend our time worrying about creating alternatives? We have no alternatives, because our culture claims we don't need them. So yes, a collapse of government in these conditions will almost always be a catastrophe.

So "how else is it going to happen"? The alternative to sudden collapse which catches us off-guard would be either a preparation for said collapse, or even the actual "controlled demolition" of government. This involves creating alternative infrastructure for delivering resources and services. Once functional and tested alternatives actually are in place, the fear of the aftermath, of the chaos following the collapse of established order, would diminish significantly I imagine. One reason why so many people are willing to accept government as a "necessary evil" is this lack of alternatives, which makes a future without government even more scary, because of the uncertainty. Better the devil you know...

I'm happy to say that we are actually proceeding quite nicely in terms of building the technological infrastructure for decentralized alternatives of government. Decentralized ways of sharing and storing information without censorship have been deployed throughout most of the world by now, so communication has largely been set free and we are working on doing the same with value-transfer - another, higher-level form of communication. Once that has proliferated I imagine we can finally start building tangible, open-source, crowd-funded things like homeless shelters, hospitals, schools etc.

One thing which is rather slow to change, but change it does nonetheless is the culture. Our collective operating system as I call it. We can debate the benefits of smaller government or anarchy forever, but as long as the culture which underlies these institutions remains unchanged, the institutions themselves won't change. So what sort of shift in culture is needed? That's a whole big discussion in itself but I'd say it begins with a deeper sense of awareness of the consequences of our collective actions and a deeper sense of personal responsibility for the world, our environment and the society that lives in it. Actually feeling compelled to clean up your street and save that forest in your backyard instead of complaining that the designated experts (government) doesn't do enough about it. That sort of thing.

Entering "JayJayWallsoftext" post-length territory...over and out.

This argument again.

After the collapse and then the following anarchy, who will be providing the electrical power to run your local wallet? who will provide/maintain the network infrasrtucture and routing, etc. to make BTC trades possible?


etc.

Someone willing to make a shitload of money providing services which are so desirable I imagine.

Seriously, is that so hard to imagine?

Look at the mess you've managed to get urself into!  You've lost two thirds of your worth in 2014 alone!  And that's compared to the dollar, which we all know buys 1/10 of what it did last year because gubermint.  So you're basically worth nothing :D
Come to a real bank and let us help u!

http://s29.postimg.org/hd1kv0s1j/bank.jpg

Some people have no imagination.

Oh, I'm sorry. I misread it.

It's easy to imagine, the problem is there is no historical data showing anything similar.  None.
And when one government collapses, another one takes the reins.  Not anarchists.

ITT: bunch of rich westerners who think that laws prevent them enjoying their lives to the max.

NITT: bunch of poor people who'd cut your throats with a broken bottle if it wasn't for the protection of governments.

Nah, you get power vacuums where there is no government, except what happens is the biggest group of guys decide they'll form a government to rule over the others. You can't stop people doing it

That's why I advocate evolution instead of revolution. Throw down your government and you'll get a new one which is just as bad. The way forward is to make government unnecessary. Like I said - maybe the case is that we needed governmental structures in order to get to the point of technological development we have now reached, but I propose that this status should be challenged and re-examined periodically.

I have a question for those people, who have taken a stance of "the government is necessary" in this debate. You may be convinced that it will stay necessary forever, regardless of whether you like it or not. But let's forget about that for a moment. The question is: "if it somehow turns out that a society doesn't need a government to function, what would be your reaction to that?". I mean would you be happy that we can get rid of the "necessary evil" after all or would you have a problem with that? Genuinely interested.

ARGH so much shit in this thread.

Someone really just said anarchism is desired by privileged westerners? Sorry who is enslaving and maintaining the subjugation of the global working class? It's various governments and corporations (same thing).

How is it that the richest continent on the planet in terms of resources (Africa) has the poorest citizens?

Fuck you and your slave masters that have convinced you that their institutions are trustworthy.

Africa is a good example of how anarchy actually turns out. The guy with the biggest stick/largest horde of AK47 wielding men becomes the leader, forms a government, robs everythign he can until a guy with a bigger stick/larger horde comes along.


That would be fantastic, if in the future we can find a way to make society function without the threat of force I'd be all for it

Can you think of an efficient mechanism for that?  Advocates of Democracy claim that it's already in place--periodic elections.  Sure, in reality that's pretty anemic, but what's the alternative?


Of course people everyone would like to get rid of "necessary evil"--the "evil" part of the phrase strongly implies that.  The "necessary" part, OTOH, implies that it's necessary :)

well sometimes I get angry like this, too...but then I tell myself that most of the people in opposition to the dismantling of government aren't evil or malicious. They just don't see it the way I do and genuinely seem to believe...

Anyway, no point in further cementing the stereotypical imagine of the angry rebel without a cause anarchist throwing molotovs at the IMF meeting. I do understand your frustration, though. I go back and forth between Robert Anton Wilsons endless optimism and George Carlins bitter cynicism saying "yeah fuck them if they're that stupid so let's just watch them burn and enjoy the show".

No, we'll just keep fucking you instead.  Relax, u'll enjoy it more!

  ~Your Reptilian Overlords.

How does one derive "trustworthy" from "necessary evil?"

I do like Robert Anton Wilson myself, and also George Carlin.

Frankly, short of us creating some super intelligent AI to watch over us and make sure we're not thieving from and killing each other when we get the opportunity I do not have faith in humanity not to do so.

Near where I live a migrant worker recently murdered another over a $1 or $2 gambling game. According to the rather gore-loving local police he nearly decapitated him (that's where I got my NITT idea from)

How would you prevent people like that from cutting each others heads off in your world without rules?

Welcome to every government in the history of the world.

The poor people would TRY. Funny thing, how much money you have has little to do with how you do in a bottle-throat-slitting contest. Not to mention people above a certain treshold would have people handling that part for them.

Big state vs no/small state isn't about money, anyway. It's about the kind of society we live in.

I suspect we all want to make the world a better place, but have wildly different ideas about how it actually works today and what is to be done :D peace


Yes I can think of many alternatives but they would probably be no good. I argue the (admittedly rather difficult to defend) position that we have no way of knowing what a superior way of managing things will look like, because if we would, it would cease to be superior. This has to do with how chaotic systems tend to self-organize at higher levels of coherence without any known cause.


This idea applied to societal organization basically means that free interaction between any and all people should produce levels of coherence which are more complex, more resilient against damage, more efficient (in terms of resource usage) and unexpected.

The way I see it is if I climb onto a pedestal now and start espousing ideas about how to fix this, that and the other part of society, what I am doing is claiming that I alone am smarter than all of the kings, presidents, committees, voters, bureaucrats etc. who ever tried tackling these problems. No I'm not and in recognizing this I am deferring to the wisdom of the crowds. But not in a simplified democratic manner of "let's each cast a vote and force everyone to do whatever the majority decides" that's not what I'm talking about at all. In fact when I am talking about anarchy I am not talking about chaos, not about the absence of rules, but the absence of one universal set of rules mandatory for everybody. The stability and resilience is a function of diversity.


At the same time the "necessary" part says something about the personal bias of the speaker, not about the nature of the situation. Truth is we don't know.

I wasn't replying specifically to your post, more the general gist of the placaters in here :P

And yes, I too flip between "forgive them for they know not what they do," and "fuck all of you, die you cunts."

It tends to be the lack of imagination that winds me up the most:

X is good.

Government did X.

Therefore government is necessary (and possibly something I'm massively in favour of) and there is NO WAY IMAGINABLE of achieving X without government.

And to carry on the "Africa" example, you just need to take what you are saying further until you end up with nukes. It is Africa's political elites the subjugate their populous' to their own ends.

Watch some fucking Chomsky.

Hey shroomsie talk about something else for a change. What's your opinion? do we need a government?

How many things are wrong with this question?

Anarchism means without rulers, not without rules.

The world we have today, with rulers, failed to stop the migrant worker from murdering another migrant worker.

If a world without rulers also failed to stop the migrant worker, this would not represent a failure of anarchism any more than the murder that did happen represents the failure of government.

So your question itself is wrong.

We live in a world that, despite numerous laws and extraordinarily expensive law enforcement agencies, still fails to stop migrant workers for murdering each other over a $1 or $2 gambling game.

Why not live in a world where those murders also happen, but at least we don't have to pay the salaries of a bunch of people who fail to keep their promises to prevent it?

Because they are niggers.

Not even kidding. They have an average lower IQ, they are less empathic than other races, I personally know two black teenagers who can't tell the time on an analog clock (didn't believe it until I saw it).

Africans are dumb, man. Goes against the PC code to say it, but that's how it is.

Yeah, you're saying exactly what I said, the guy with the biggest stick becomes the elite.

Now you're blaming the guy with the biggest stick.

Before he came along, it was anarchy. Someone came along and took over.

You cannot prevent someone from taking over if you don't have anyone in charge.

But if such social systems were indeed more resilient, we would have Anarchist societies?

Wow.

Just when i thought i couldn´t get any dumber in this thread today you came by.

Wow

In places without effective law enforcement agencies and criminal justice systems, is the murder rate higher or lower than in those places with them?

It depends wether or not you count the murders perpetrated by those supposed to prevent it.

Wow that's a fresh one on the ignore list!

Pretty expert trolling there :D

ANYWAY

JustusRanvier thank you for having the patience to insert some intelligence into the conversation, I seem to be incapable of bringing anything constructive to the side today.

I used to be all "militant" atheist, and it bugged me how religious people would always try to place the burden of proof on me. As if I could prove a negative, and as though I was the one rejecting the default belief of a human.

Now it's the same with statists (we need a more derogatory term for them). Personally I see them as teachers pets. Arse holes that call the police rather than just talk to you face to face. People who employ middle men at everyone's collective financial expense.

Anyway I'm rambling.

Sorry for not being constructive people. If I can add something that hopefully no one can agree with it's Chomsky's definition of anarchism.

Anarchism seeks to identify and reject intelligent institutions of authority, to hold them too account and to place the burden of justification on them, 100% of the time.

Africa is not Anarchic, it is power doing what power does.

Somalia did pretty well...  A libber paradise!

http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/south-park-season-13-7-fatbeard-somalia.jpg

Effective at what? Their stated aims? Or their hidden agendas?

And before someone responds with something about "reptillian overlords," how about acknowledging the failure of the war on drugs (if we are to believe its stated goal) or it's success if its goal is to enrich drug barons and prop up a prison industry at the expense of the bottom 15% of the USA.

Then the war on terror (WOT?)

stated goal: stop terrorism.

Logical concealed goal: use terrorism to cause terrorism. Profit from endless war.

If law enforcement stops bad people doing bad stuff, what happens if those people rise to a high position within the law enforcing institutions? Do we rely on the system itself to oust them? Because that doesn't seem to work.

No now you're just trying to insult people because they don't agree with your opinion

Seriously, with no rulers, you get lunatics who want to force their will on others putting together a mob and becoming rulers.

Like I said earlier, short of some super intelligent AI to oversee us we're never going to be capable of not having rulers.

It's human nature. There's always going to be some guy who wants to take over, no matter how perfect you are not everyone can see the advantages of living in a perfectly free society, and they will form a group, and they will try to take over, by force if necessary.

Some degree of rule is always going to be required to stop people from taking over

Effective at finding the perpetrators of murder and other crimes which violate peoples rights.

I said earlier I disagree with the war on drugs etc, you're preaching to the choir on that one.

I love when people invoke "free speech" for something like this.

Free speech only applies to the government. It does not offer you any protection from the public ripping your ass a new one for saying dumb shit.

So TL;DR:
Agencies [allegedly] fail at some of the tasks allotted them.  Solution:  get rid of the agencies.

Heads sometimes get headaches, sore throats and toothaches.  Solution:  cut them off.

I love your reaction to the racism.

What about the most powerful government in the world stealing its citizens money in order to pay for police to murder minorities with near impunity, and to lock up a quarter of them in prison for non-violent crimes that the population turns a blind eye to because of centuries of propaganda against the drugs of their choice?

How do you defend this, while reflexively rejecting racism?

I object to illegitimate authority figures just as much, if not more.

Obama's rise to power to celebrated as heralding a new era of cultural growth for the USA and the whole world, while on any moral level he is a disaster. An attacker of civil liberties, a practitioner of obscure and secretive unconstitutional powers that are being used to murder individuals placed on secret lists for secret reasons without a trial.

I'll try to bring some scientific arguments in this racist ?debate?
First, people are different. Races are different, but it doesn't mean we have to disparage one another.
The most important source for the differences is evolution, because comparative advantages in Africa
are different than ones in Europe. If I'd have to live in Africa, my life expectancy would be much shorter,
for many reasons, but mainly for resistance to infections. Mutations that make people infection resistant
don't come free, sometimes they can make people dumb. Sickle cell is an example, quoting:
The origin of SCD lies in the malarial regions of the tropics where carriers are protected against death from malaria and hence enjoy an evolutionary advantage.

A health analogy that would be far more appropriate:

A cancer kills its host. Solution: do your best to resist and defeat it.

If you are addressing me... my reaction to the racism just displayed on this thread does not preculde me to having other objections to other unnaceptable situations...  however I do not know about you, but of all the things I have seen on this thread, that was the most vile bullshit ever, to not react would not be right.

Ino, right?  The things them darkies get away with nowadays >:(

Starting with the premise that law enforcement agencies = cancer sorta begs the conclusion, no? :D

made me laugh out loud for the first time in this thread today, bravo

So wait, did you put me on ignore or are you agreeing with me?

i don´t think scientifically humans can be classified in "races". anthropologists, paleontologists, ethnologogists, biologists are not working with the word "race", since it does not apply to the present living human beings.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_classification)

Lol. idk what an epoch is.

So yeah back to the point...

TDM!!!!!

My Beneficent Reptilian Overlords pay me in hedons.  I'm hooked :(

It's 2014.  There is no place on this Earth for those opinions.  They are utterly, utterly wrong and deeply offensive to every human being with a brain, a conscience and half an education.  Please leave the Internet.  You're not welcome here.

Never stop thinking that!

  ~Your reptilian friend.

I didn't think it was possible, but I actually I find this post more offensive than the one to which you were responding.

With items obtained from a government, as provided by an even bigger government. Gotcha.

No one said that the governments are intrinsically good.  Simply that you are weak, disorganized, and wholly incapable of putting up meaningful resistance.

Well that's just weird.  :P

I guess we're both allowed to be offended.

For one thing, free speech is awfully overrated.  Free speech is powerful.  As we know from the holy book of Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.  The cave dweller to whom I was originally responding would not understand this.

Good point. I don't have an answer to that, let's see what Discordian catma has to say about this:


Clearly we are living in the age Bureaucracy today. The self-organizing systems theory did say that this high-level order emerges out of chaos, so we will need to have a return to chaos first, before that can happen.

Oh well, who's to say I am not ready?  :D

Relax dude, it's just the internet.

This *is* the world we live in. And if you live in a country where your government has a disagreement with another government, things get unpleasant. Though the US is managing to export most of its conflicts at the moment so it's largely hidden.

Wow, that is some shitty racism there, Well, you have some serious issues and it tells allot about your character... but hey, lets not forgot that Europeans exploited Africa (and Africans) for centuries, this is why Africa suffers today, all Europeans fault.

BTW, I am born and raised in Africa.... best years of my life.

It's the young adults that tend to be more left leaning in the first place. I know I was light socialist until my early 30s.

Well I agree on the racism part but can't say yes for the European's fault part. You sounds like you having the same prejudice like him.

There's a brutal, bloodthirsty gang rampaging unchecked in the US right now. They rob travellers at gunpoint; execute pets for fun; beat up, kidnap and/or kill anyone unlucky enough to be targeted by them; and break into random houses at night for thrills.

Civilization manages to survive this constant onslaught now, so I imagine in a world in which this gang was not automatically supplied with limitless money and resources via taxation, it would survive even better.

Fucking Annoying.

Your reply failed to demonstrate that you are any more responsible in handling free speech than the person you were criticizing for a lack of responsibility.

you will be shocked of how many people were killed while Europeans occupied and colonized African countries, many African tribes extinct because of the barbarian acts of European in that land, they treated natives worse than animals.



https://i.imgur.com/FsTrDwe.png

Doesn't mean it's ALL europeans fault buddy. Plenty of places were colonised with the natives treated like shit and turned out just fine.

no, racism and the open rejection of racism is not the same category.

Well said. 8)

Still not entirely sure what's rubbing him up the wrong way anyway.  I'll try not to lose any sleep over it.

give us an example ?

... for the natives? :P

Canada

I lost track, but am I the caveman? If so, please explain to me how such a resource-rich country, full of people who are JUST LIKE US, managed to be under our thumb?

exactly what I meant... eventually things turned cool, but not for natives. take South Africa, and most countries of north Africa as an example.

I [sometimes] agree with the whole Nietzschean lion bit, that we have to tear this rotting thing down to the ground before we can build anything new in its place.  and I also think that

For this truly is the best of all possible worlds
And in this world
The best of all worlds
Why I'm the best of all short-order fry cooks--Hamburger Martyr

http://s3.postimg.org/oal44966b/Capture.jpg

i advise you to get a history book. start looking after medivial ages. check "european expansion". check "colonialism". check "slave trade".
europeans have tried to occupy, intervene, colonize etc etc for about 4 centuries. some stayed well into the 1950ies and all left chaos.

LOL, again turned out good for who ?

Who is a native? we may all be alien realy

Singapore

Hong Kong


Australia

The USA

Bermuda

India

Malaysia

You're changing the goalposts, we were talking about how they currently are. Their current state.

I'm suprised nobody already claimed that the holocaust didn't happen! The stupid are running loose on this forum lately   ::)

Explains a lot. But very well, as you are temporarily off ignore here is my serious response.

Yes, America had slaves for a while. And in the century before that, Africans had European slaves. And in the centuries precediing that, the Arabs enslaves both white and black folks. With the main difference that while both blacks and whites wanted male slaves for labor, the Arabs primarily wanted female slaves for sex slavery.

We are all focusing our wrath and enmity in the wrong direction.

And now, back on ignore you go.

yea, lets wipe-out a whole race and replace it, then tell people it turned out to be good ;) exactly what Europeans tried in Africa.




your examples prove that you really didn't understand my statement or have no idea of what you are talking about, most shocking is USA and Australia being on that list, proves the ignorance of some people.

Er why, cuz I proved that you're wrong?

Claiming every single problem in Africa is entirely Europeans fault is pretty much as bad as the dumbass niggers post earlier.

now you are making shit up, where are your evidence ? I've never read a history book mentioning the above, can you at least back your shit with evidence ?

"all" was a metaphor, and not every single problem, but I meant the majority of CHAOS.

Google is at your fingertips.

The nature of arguments on the internet is such that it is all but impossible to convince people that they are wrong. If you are truly interested, look it up. Convince yourself. Look to factual sources, not some random guy you are probably going to put on ignore.

With the best will in the world, I think you really need to read about the history of the places you've mentioned.  The indigenous peoples there did not, as you seem to be implying, enjoy the arrival of foreign colonials who enslaved their poor, robbed their rich, usurped their leaders and dominated their territory for decades, ultimately diluting and/or utterly overwhelming their cultures entirely.

If you'll forgive me I'm going to bow out of the conversation at this point.  I'm pretty sure trying to educate racists and the innocent-but-ignorant the Internet isn't in my list of things to do. ;)

@mmitech I enjoy agreeing with you so profoundly on this one.  I don't think that happens all that often - a pity the topic isn't related to BTC really.  ;)  But seriously, I wouldn't waste your breath on these people any more. 8)

No, I am damn sure about my information, and the things you are talking about is just an act of a deep shit racist low life, people like you are the cause of most of the conflicts in this world.... you ignorant judgmental peace of shit.

it is one thing trashing one individual, but it is another thing trashing a whole race, trashing a whole race means that you judged a fucking whole race as being one individual that shares one behavior and one character and one personality.

A wise decision from a wise person... ;)

you are right, it is just a waste of time and energy.

Stockholm syndrome.

In any large enough group of people where power imbalances are natural, you will have some of the strong who bind together and decide to parasatize the productive. These people are often called bandits, outlaws, whatever. In time, this becomes formalized and you have knights, lords, kings and such. This allows the neo-bandits to draw from the ranks of the productive and go pillage neighboring knights, lords, kings and such. The concentration of power causes this to be a stable situation. Because people tend to rationalize their situation (proven fact), they come to accept this state of affairs as a "good thing" and you end up with such nonsense as the divine right of kings.

In the case of the US, a tool for power, the gun, was introduced to the hands of the peasantry, allowing for a rebalance of power which duly followed. In no small part was the rifle, primarily a hunting weapon, responsible for the overthrow of the British government which was still largely arming its soldiers with muskets. Unfortunately, the formalism of government was too strong (likely partly because many of the founding fathers were rich landowners) and although things did move largely towards self-ownership and individual power, they left a core which over the intervening years has been able to consolidate and grow its power, leading to something which, well, we all know the things we dislike about the government so I won't go into that here. And no, you don't get to pick and choose, you get the package. All of it.

So here we are, governments are wild, out of control and banditing more than they ever have, even when they were a bunch of outlaws sitting around a fire in the hills sharpening their daggers. Meanwhile, despite efforts to suppress, the people they prey on add more and more tools to take care of themselves. It's time for another redress of power.

Bullshit, you're both changing what I said. I said there were countries that had been colonised and turned out OK.

Now suddenly your'e saying I should find countries that have been colonised and not changed at all? Is that what you want? Countris where colonialism took over, had no impact, changed nothing and everyone lived happily ever after?

That's a bit different from countries that had been colonised and turned out OK, but if completely changing the meaning of what I said is how you two pretend to win internet arguments then cool.

short version: the  mediterranean and europe had an enviroment that caters better towards agricultural civilisations with even basic technology. With better food production less human resources had to be employed towards basic needs. This resulted in faster technological development and bigger civilisations.

But I can imagine this is to hard for you to comprehend! It's like trying to explain evolutionism to a creationist.

Careful about that ignore button, you don't wanna remove people who have something to add but who you merely not agree with. This is a general warning to all btw. One of the biggest problems we face is the inability to consider opinions that contradict our currently favored worldview - such things are transient.

So you are saying that my ancestors made better decisions than the african ancestors, and this benefit is being passed down to me?

Ever thought of geological conditions?

Or do you mean that because your ancestors settled in Europe they were smarter?

Well only a dumb ass creationist would think this is a viable answer in the first place. Can you comprehend, from an evolutionist point of view,why your responses are a contradiction? Or don't you have the IQ for that.

No need to answer...

Children are not racist.  Human beings in isolation are not racist.  On the contrary, humans have an innate tendency to marry outside their immediate group.

Racism is learned, and a social thing: always the result of some part of a population fighting against another part for resources, jobs, power, whatever.   Skin color and other superficial traits are just an easy way to define who is "us" and who is "them", especially if the two groups came from different parts of the world.  But when those markers won't work, some other marker can be used -- language, religion, pedigree, etc..   Skin color only became significant in Europe when European countries established colonies abroad, and had to separate themselves from the natives to prevent them from infiltrating their local administration and weakening their control.  In the Americas, physical appearance was instrumental to oppress the natives first, the African slaves later.  Skin color worked in the US initially, but when races started to mix, the "whites" had to invent the "one drop rule", based on pedigree, to preserve the "black"/"white" dichotomy.  Hair and eye color are as conspicuous as skin color, but were never used as "racial" markers in historical Europe, for the obvious reason.  Religion, even just the brand of Christianity, served for the purpose  in Europe for centuries after the Protestant revolt, and is still used in Northern Ireland, Palestine, Bosnia x Serbia, Hindus x Muslims, and many other places.  I have been told (don't know if seriously) that the only distinctive marker that Serbians and Croatians could find was the alphabet used to write their language.  In India, the caste system seems to be maintained mostly by pedigree; that is also how the Japanese separate themselves from the pariah who do "impure" jobs, and from the "Koreans" who have been living in Japan for generations.

"Race" is not a biologically meaningful concept.   Racists hate modern genetics, because it thoroughly trashes the axioms that they built their worldview and their lives upon.  Humans are exceedingly mobile and promiscuous, and genetically varied.  Skin color is a trait that evolves quickly in response to the environment; the light-skinned American natives in Patagonia probably descended from dark-skinned Peruvian natives who descended from light-skinned Siberians who descended from dark-skined Africans.  Under the skin, there is much more diffrerence between individuals of the same race than between the "average" individuals of two different races.  (I recall a marathon in an Olimpiad, many years ago, when the first three places were an Italian, a Japanese, and a Kenyan -- who crossed the line within a few meters of each other, after a 40'000 meter run.  That means, less than 0.1% difference in their running speeds.  So it seems that race is a totally negligible factor in races, at least.  :D)

If one rounds the average time between generations to 30 years, a person living today had about two ancestors of the same age living 30 years ago, four living 60 years ago, and so on.   600 years ago --- that is, 20 generations ago -- the count would be 2²⁰, which is about one million.  While Caesar was having fun in bed with Cleopatra, some 2000 years ago, each person alive today had about 2⁶⁶ slots on his genealogical tree.  So, in order to ensure one's purity of blood, one has only to verify that none of those 73'786'976'294'838'206'464 ancestors, give or take a few quintillion, was African, Jew, Latino, Pariah, Hindu, Mongol, Samaritan, or whatever other "inferior race" is in one's book.

Of course, most of those potential ancestors were the same person; that is to say, the ancestry of one person may have been "only" a few thousand distinct individuals, 600 years ago; and probably "only" a million, 2000 years ago.   Still, those ancestors were probably scattered all over the world; and each one of the person's genes may have been inherited from any one of those ancestors, almost independently.   (If you are French, for example, you may well be a descendant of the king of the Carijó from Southern Brazil, whose son was taken to Normandy in the early 1500s and there died as a respected citizen, with many children and grandchildren.  Recently I learned that, according to ancient historians, some of my ancestors may have came from Paflagonia (not Patagonia!), a kingdom on the northern shore of the Black Sea that I had never heard of before. It is told that they left their country to fight in the Trojan War, and could not return home because of a coup d'état, so they wandered around and finally settled in the marshes where Venice is now.  Oh, and I bet that I am also a descendant of Caesar and Cleopatra, through their son who lived in Rome before being forgotten by History.)

No human population on Earth has been isolated from the rest of mankind for more than about 50'000 years.  One population of Negritos, in a small island of the Andaman Archipelago, may win the title as the most isolated. To this day, they kill anyone who lands on their island, even shipwrecked sailors.  They have been there for 60'000 years, perhaps, since the sea level rose and the land bridge to the Andaman was submerged.  But no one knows how long they have been applying that highly selective immigration policy.  Anyway, 60'000 years may be enough for natural selection to change some vital traits (like resistance to local parasites, tolerance to local diet, and making enough melanin to stand in the tropical sun without your skin immediately divorcing you), but not enough for really fundamental changes.

No culture has been so strict about racial purity that it could prevent "foreign" genes from jumping the fence and climbing through the window.  Even the "modern men" of Europe are now known to have interbred with the "primitive" Nanderthals that they replaced some 30'000 years ago.  African and Asian individuals have been traveling and settling down in Europe, and vice-versa, since humans developed feet.

Fact is, we are all of the same race -- the Mongrels...

collectivism...gotta love it

Interesting POV, but I think you missed my POV. Even if I believe that - statistically - African blacks are intellectually somewhat inferior to European (more or less) whites,
my point is that they have other genetic advantages that make them fit to live in Africa (where I would die). And I don't see them as "sub-humans" or other crap like that.
Why is the egalitarianism so strong, even among educated people? I believe that people are borne different, live different and die different, and this is not racism.
However I prefer to think that in my DNA there is some Neanderthal and not Denisovan or archaic African hominin. :D

Individuals are different in many ways, but the differences between two random individuals of the same "race" are much larger than the difference between the averages of two "races".

In my life as teacher, I have yet to see evidence that "intelligence" (whatever that means) is a matter of genes.  On the other hand, I have much evidence that it is not, it is a matter of culture and attitude.  For example, when I was an engineering undergrad, more than half of my classmates were sons of Japanese immigrants. "Japanese" then was synonym of "nerdy guy who studies hard and gets the top grades". That's because their parents (who mostly came to Brazil to work as farm laborers) valued education highly, and pressed them hard.  But the next generation of Japanese-Brazilians was nothing like that; on the contrary, they were often the laziest lowest-scoring in the class.  My explanation for the difference is that their parents had absorbed the Brazilian culture in place of the Japanese one, including in particular a laissez-faire attitude towards their children's education.

But that is not what racists want to hear, because the whole point of racism is to "prove" that *all* people of the other "race" should be kept out of good jobs, government posts, land, good schools, our women, whatever -- because they are intrinsically "inferior", and should just accept their "proper place".  

There are many things wrong with that view, starting with the fact that, for any measure, the distributions of two "races" will overlap so much that a good-scoring guy of either "race" would probably have higher score than, say, 80% of the guys from the other "race".  Also, as any computer programmer knows, differences in "hardware" (genetics) are usually dwarfed by differences in "software" (learning and attitudes); and, even for the most complicated tasks, a 10% increase in "computing power" may not make any practical difference.  Finally, racists implicitly assume that people who score higher in some measure should have more rights to something than people who score lower; which is a non-sequitur.  

In fact, egalitarianism is not saying that "all humans are equal", but "all humans, irrespective of any differences in any measure, should have the same basic rights".  Such as the right to vote and be voted for government posts, live wherever they want and afford, put their their kids in the same schools as anyone else, apply for any job, marry whoever would accept them, and so on.

Egalitarianism is so strong because many people, even educated ones, eventually realize that it is a good idea.  ;)

Suppose, just for fun, that there was a country where a certain race - say, white people just for an example - was held in high regard just because of the color of their skin. Would that be equally "bad"?

Like being white in Asia you mean? ha

This is just a hypothetical. Curious what the anti-racism crowd think.

Apparently they don't think very much. Well, nothing new there.

I confess that my thinkpower is not enough to even begin to understand the argument.  Oh well.

I don't have anything against that kind of companies. If you want government regulated companies, then put your money there, but don't force everyone running a bitcoin exchange to be regulated by the government, and therefore any trader/investor to use regullated companies. As a libertarian I don't want any government meddling.



They already are in the unhampered free market. Their profits depend on how much their are trusted by their consumers. To win money, they have to please consumers, not regulators.



Yes, I would like to be able to go to a doctor that doesn't have license. I would also like to be able to get a taxi that doesn't have any license. Or to be able to buy drugs from a seller.

It's the consumer who has to decide whether he wants to buy a service or not, not a burocrat. Licenses are just a form of monopoly given by governments. They artificially lower supply.

Right.  Until you get owned by another libertarian.
Then you run to teh nanny state and its courts to waste my taxes.