Bitcoin Forum

I answered 'Totally'

Somehow I wonder if I'll ever manage to free my mind from this whole project.

i don't even sleep anymore

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

You’re not alone. Bitcoin is way too exciting. >:(

I discovered Bitcoins about six weeks ago and curse the fates that had previously obscured them from me every day. It takes me about two hours to drive the bitcoin related thoughts from my head enough so that I can doze off for a couple of hours each night, but they make their way back in and wake me well before my alarm goes off.

My co-workers must think I'm doing drugs because I'm constantly sneaking off to check my email notifications, the current rate of exchange, any bitcoin related news, recent forum posts, etc. I'm fantasizing about new areas of business that I might venture into, as well as growing my current intrerests. Every piece of news I come across makes me think, "How will this affect the bitcoin market?" followed immediately by, "How else can I acquire bitcoins? What hasn't been thought of, yet?"

If I was a psychologist, I'd be tempted to write a paper on this.

I'm obsessed and euphoric. After giving it some thought, I think it is inevitable that Bitcoin will carry the day and bring down the banksters. It's exciting to watch it in real time.

My job is about letting people exchange bitcoins, what else can I say? ;)

the psychological papers have already been written. the (nonscientific but still interesting) classic is of course http://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/051788433X. i don't mean that reference to suggest that everyone using bitcoin is deluded, but you might consider whether obsession is rational and what opportunity costs you incur as a result. the public is inclined to be less obsessive than the early adopters, of course.

but i agree that the technology is fascinating. the sociopolitical dynamics of the phenomenon are interesting as well, particularly the marketing of the technology by 'satoshi' as libertarian (which, when you review his original messages on the cypherpunks mailing list, was intentional and strategic). that could have gone very differently and was managed very well in order to appeal to one group of people who could serve as early adopters.

Yeah, but you just bought and let it sit there  :P

When do we get MtGox 2.0?

When I decided I will start bitcointournament.com I haven't spent a day without being totaly concerned about bitcoins. Only one day did I not check the exchange rate and that was because I was on a feild trip untill 9 pm and I got a new gpu.

I wonder what opportunity costs you incur as a result of posting on this forum.

you mean me personally? not much yet. this is my tenth post!

if you mean the generic 'you', i'm not a hyper-rationalist. the forum's social, and that's fine. it doesn't need to be obviously productive.

obsessive checking of prices that you don't intend immediately to trade upon, though, is probably counterproductive. that is, it is probably worse than a waste of time. i say that knowing that it won't change anyone's behaviour, for obsessive forces are strong, as i am all too well aware personally.

I don't mean the generic you. Your posts suggest more reading than posting, and you only post in certain discussions. Also, your posts have a common theme. Do you agree?

I have seen new features added such as Dwolla and API related stuff.  Also I can imagine just the growth and dealing with the DDOS attacks has kept Tux busy. 

I would like to see more shopping cart interfaces to mtgox, though that does not necessarily fall into mtgox's responsibility to implement them. 

yes, more reading than posting would be a good rule for everyone, wouldn't it?

and surely everyone posts only in certain discussions. i wasn't aware i had a common 'theme', but i haven't thought much about it. i've posted in some technical discussions, some economic ones, and some frivolous ones. how many more could i have done? the pigeonhole principle would shortly get in the way!

maybe we need some wordsworth in this discussion:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Indeed.



Ahh, it wasn't the location of your posts that lead me to such a conclusion, it was the content.


Very nice.

My heart yearns to be free;
Alas, it can never be.

I has half serious half sarcastic. I know he's been busy and is adding important things. I just want it to be faster, prettier and cleaner working. 

You make it sound like it was planned, or managed even.

What if it was just organic, inevitable even, that something like this would be a product of thinkers like these?

Rational is as rational does.

Not sure how the euphoria fits in here but the euphoria of scientific discoveries and engineering "IT WORKS" moments, is just as intoxicating as the euphoria of making money off a bubble, unfounded or otherwise.

Roll the two together and you got a heady brew!

satoshi's early messages to cypherpunks are informative. there was a discussion of how bitcoin could be marketed to libertarians there, compared to alternatives (e.g., ones that relied on altrustically motivated groups).

That would be nice. But mainly I just want it to not be shut down.

I think bitcoin is the first true techno-cult I have ever come across, with evangelical zeal at that.

I remember writing a sci-fi story about the rabid fanatical cult of Protocol 99, who destroyed the Autarchy of the Five Moons in their quest to divert enough energy into the governments Quantum-Transmitter and talk to a billion year old god-mind from M33. Bitcoins are a bit like that really.

:D

Yes, I check the progress of the project way too much. But I'm not religious about it.
Bitcoin is just a tool and I still give it about 70% chance to fail.

One of the reasons I think bitcoin will succeed is the fanatical element.

Any links?

It is my beleif that Satoshi is not himself a libertarian or anarcho-cap, and that libs and an-caps only think that bitcoin is somehow theirs.  In fact I consider bitcoin to be anyones. Makes monetary policy one more thing that government need not to worry its busy little head about and screw up somehow, like the rotation of the earth or its distance from the sun.

My name is Nes, and I've got a bitcoin problem ;.;
alms? alms for the poor?

Seriously though... since I learned about bitcoins, ive done little but try to earn them O.O its like my teenage years all over again... gotta catch em all...

as for the libertarian stuff... anarchy stuff.. Bitcoin is free of government intervention for the most part... lets try not to politicize it.. there are enough liars cheats and scoundrels in the world without bringing bitcoin in to it. Whatever your political leaning, a free currency is something we can all appreciate. (unless you are one of those walstreet bankers >.>)

I believe bitcoin will lead to the singularity. I mean some are already tending their mining rigs like children. Bitcoin drives humans to improve its capacities untill eventually  you might need the power of a black hole to mine a block - did someone mention mining with the large hadron collider ? :D

If anything bitcoin is an economic singularity proposed by Robin Hanson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hanson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hanson) which might be as profound on humanity as the agricultural and industrial revolutions - or not.

This makes it obvious why I obsessively check the news for mentions of bitcoin.   :)

:P i just dont want to go to bed because its currently in a slow upswing.... Don't want to miss selling at the right moment and make some cash...

up for newbies

lol... somebody should shop some 5850 boxes into the background in that picture :)

Today I was at work and I was thinking about how I just recycled all of this crap I had up there including some huge beige towers.  I was thinking of how good of a sleeper unit one of those would be to stick off in the cooled server room and grind away.

I believe this can be completely revolutionary. And being able to participate, even at small scale as I do, and see this happening is thrilling.
Just read the post that probably there are just a couple of thousand miners, this is just starting. Still there is so much mistery and social variables involved.

Sometimes I try to think of this as only a hobby, to keep my mental sanity I guess. :P

The problem for anyone who isn't a libertarian (or at least a classical liberal) is that if bitcoin succeeds, governments will not longer have central banking and debt financing at their disposal. Without that, they have only taxation. But they would need a tax rate approaching 100% to fund anything close to their current activities, and that's not likely to be very successful. The bitcoin-driven black market would crush the tax-laden "white market". So all their wars and social programs are going bye-bye. Bitcoin may not produce a stateless society, but it sure as hell would destroy the modern warfare/welfare state.

Thus why Bitcoin must be

https://i.imgur.com/kdKr3.jpg

I got laid off in 2009 from my animation job and then suffered multiple herniations in my back and have been stuck at home waiting for the doctors to call and say they can fix me. Since I can't really do much right now but work on the computer I decided to treat bitcoin as a sort of job. I work flex hours and earn a meager salary but with hopes of advancement in the near future. I started mining first then decided that people seemed to be focusing on bitcoin as more of an investment than as money so I setup BitBid to try and encourage people to buy and sell things with coins and get them moving around the network instead of just sitting on some high-risk investors home thumbdrive.

yea, now its my new hobby.:)

For me it's not a religion yet, but it keeps getting worse...

I'm all for the end of the warfare state. Don't get why libertarians hate welfare so much. In my country welfare means affordable quality health care, affordable housing for low income families (instead of the mercy of slum-lords etc) and subsidized income for pensioners and so on. In the US (i think) welfare seems to mean having money taken from you and given to people you don't like, don't resemble, don't consider your fellows, and don't consider to be in the same society as you.

Maybe that's the difference, in the US they shout "We're #1" a lot to make up for not really feeling like they're all on the same team. They do not got each others back, it's every man for his self, fuck the other guy I got mine.

Elsewhere it's more like "Sure, me casa su casa, let's pool the heating bill and the medicine cabinet".

Anyway like I said, fuck the warfare state.

Near the top left of each forum page is a figure for "total time logged in". I'm reluctant to admit that mine says 21 days. Admittedly that's spread over almost a year. Who has the highest figure?

Thus summing up the entire Libertarian philosophy pretty succinctly. Libertarians are a minority in the US, outside the US they are irrelevant. One of the more successful attack vectors within the US will be to link Bitcoins to Libertarians (and other fringe groups), thus making it the "currency of teh crazy".

I do find all the anti-government early adopter types pretty amusing in their hypocrisy as well. The guys with many thousands of Bitcoins who jump on anyone who suggests another block chain or Bitcoin 2.0, etc...If these guys are so against giving up their meager wealth in Bitcoins, how do you think those who have far more in fiat currency are going to react? The ones who really do have their hands on the levers of power and use them daily. Do you honestly think they are going to idly sit by and let you start a new currency on them and make their holdings worthless?

Bitcoin will not get wide acceptance in the world, because if it begins to, the powers that be will come down on it hard with massive PR campaigns that will tie it to child molesters, drug cartels, and fringe militia groups. They will also liberally apply money laundering laws as well. Exchanges will always be a central point of failure, and quite frankly there is no place on this earth you can operate an electronic exchange that has enough liquidity that the US Government or its allies cannot reach.

Me? I'm just along for the ride, mining away and taking as much of these Libertarians' money as I possibly can. They've already paid for my 14 new rigs, and are doing a fine job of paying for the remodel of my house. Bitcoins could go to $.25 and be made illegal in every industrialized country of the world and I would still come out way ahead.

Gee, that sounds an awful lot like...

Actually there is a sweet irony there, but you probably missed that. Besides I will be giving back to society by donating a large protion of my future profits to President Obama's re-election campaign ;)

The phrase 'giving back to society' is usually for giving them good things.

He is. He is trying to save us from Sarah Palin and the rest of the terrible republican candidates.

Why don't you give your money to a cause that will actually help people, rather than a surveillance state war monger (no better than Bush)?

Definetely!

I hope my judgement is not being too clouded by it, but I think it's important to be aware when you are so much into something, that it may cloud your judgement.

Also, I think I annoy everyone I know by talking about BTC so much :D

Do you mean the part where you called anti-government types 'hypocrites'?

Do elucidate.

1. Because it is predicated on force.
2. Because charity isn't even really possible when one is forced to give, and I WANT to be charitable.
3. Because it deprives me of the ability to choose who receives my donations, and who handles the distribution.
4. Because it makes people dependent on the state, which is an instrument of violence.
5. Because it aggrandizes and empowers the violent and avaricious political class and the bureaucracies associated with it.
6. Because it creates government-run monopolies and deprives people of choice in who provides their needed services.

I could go on, but hopefully those reasons suffice.

By electing another member of the War Party, only this one rides a donkey. Precious.

I don't think this guy has the slightest clue what libertarians actually believe. I find that very few critics of libertarians do. Protip: libertarianism is an ethical philosophy in opposition to initiatory force. Start there and do some logic.

aye, obama isn't much better. Admitedly he did meet most of his campaign promises... atleast half way, but he also shoved in some sickening shit over the last few years.

Sadly, we have no alternative yet, every single candidate is as bad as the last.

as for libritarians? i don't care, i'm a liberal socialist and fiscal conservative :p I don't want to go to war, I don't want black projects and waste spending everywhere, and the government should get out of my bedroom. But I want the social programs that feed, clothe, and take care of the millions of people below the poverty line. If possibly I want those systems improved, but almost every candidate just wants to strip mine them to line the rich pockets.

Can you link to any specific examples of this?
All I recall reading are messages pointing out why differing blockchain philosophies are undesirable but they are still encouraging people to try and create their crazy alternate block chains. No one other than namecoin actually has though.

what promises did he actually deliver on?
http://newsgnome.blogspot.com/2009/03/official-list-of-obamas-broken-promises.html (http://newsgnome.blogspot.com/2009/03/official-list-of-obamas-broken-promises.html)

If he promised to destroy whats left of the US then yes hes delivering.

Ahh you mean like the Tides Foundation, or the Joyce Foundation, or the Brady Campaign...yes I have been considering donating toward causes that advocate social change. And yes I know that Obama is simply BushLite™, but he is a far better choice than anything the Reich Wing is going to put up. If Obama was 1/10th the liberal he is portrayed to be then America would have single payer health care by now, like the rest of the 1st world.


The irony is indeed truly wasted...nevermind.


I know what they believe in theory. In practice they tend to be gun toting assholes whose world outlook is "Got mine, fuck you", which they justify with an ethical philosophy they call 'Libertarianism'.


I cannot, and I concede the point on not being able to take the time to sift through the many posts that happen on this board daily. Perhaps I got those threads mixed up with the ones calling for the early adopters to give up their fortunes, which I absolutely do NOT advocate. If the early adopters can reap great rewards for their work, more power to them.

---

Bitcoin 1.0 will fail. The only question is when the powers that be will break out the banhammer and how many they get in the intial sweep. I think sites like Dwolla and MtGox will be the first to go.  As I said, exchanges will always be a central point of failure. Having multiple exchanges does little to mitigate things. Even if you had a 100 exchanges in different countries across the globe they could still mount near simultaneous strikes on all of them, and honestly, the Bitcoin economy can only support a few robust exchanges.

In the meantime, I happily sell what I mine and keep the market liquid. When the music stops and this game of musical chairs ends, I intend to have a majority of my holdings in fiat currency. As much you anti-government idealogues want to believe, those in power will never give up that power without bloodshed, and since they own the armies and police forces, they will win, every time. It may not be just, or fair, or right, or whatever, but that is the way it is. I give it a year on the outside before the first arrests happen.

Oh, and if you actually think you can win in court...then you've probably never been through the legal system. For those in the US, imagine your attorney attempting to explain Bitcoin to 12 'average' Americans...ones that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. This will be after the massive PR campaign to demonize Bitcoin.

Anyhow I have spent way too much time and resources on this post. I have been posting here under other monikers for a few months now. I usually do not discuss politics as that may inhibit business transactions, but in this case I could not resist so I created this name. I must admit that I get massive lulz from transferring wealth from Libertarians to liberal causes.

@OP: I sincerely apologize for the thread derailment. It was not my intent and this entire discussion should be in the political forum.

He promised higher energy prices.  He delivered on that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4

If those sites were brought down, and there are enough alternatives, prices might go way up because of increasing scarcity.
*might*


This is a good point. That's why we need to push harder and try defeat ignorance.


I do agree that real power holders won't give it away without a fight. But I also think progress has been made trough human history and inequity can be diminished.

Looks like kiba does, at 80+ days:
https://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?action=stats

I'm second. :)

I'm third ;)

i picture kiba as about 18. if that's roughly right, then by that measure he's been logged into this forum for more than 1% of his life!

(as an aside, i sometimes want to test my intuitions about people based on just their posts, because i have the feeling i'm good at it, having studied empirical linguistics and psychology at one point and tied them to other computational research i've done. for example, i'm certain kiba is young, and he's very likely american, with writing patterns that suggest an influence from the american south. he could have immigrated, have immigrant parents, or have experienced some other factor that led to greater strengths in nonlinguistic skills, at least those related to formal english grammar. i don't mean that as an insult, of course! he has some awareness of coding, but not at a systems level like yours or mine; his most proficient language is probably php. i suspect he is ethnically asian. i don't have a good sense of educational background, but i'd guess he completed american high school or is about to do.)

I can't believe I've been logged in for almost 1% of my life...

Your guesses about Kiba are pretty accurate from what I've read.

I'm pretty sure you're way off on that one. I'm not sure of Kiba's age, but I'm pretty certain he's not from the U.S., and English isn't his first language. Perhaps that is why you get the impression that he is young?

I'm curious what your intuition says about me.

no, that's what's tricky about it. he's definitely spent significant time in america, probably most of his life, but what you're suggesting is why i left the possibility of immigration or immigrant parents open. it's an unusual hybrid, statistically. i very much doubt he's even a recent immigrant to america, however. i'd call him 'mostly american'.

sorry, kiba, if the personal attention is unwanted! i just think it's interesting.


for you, my sense unfortunately doesn't go much beyond 'white american', likely not from the american south, but not from the northeast or west either. american midwest, probably. likely raised american upper-middle-class, but that's sometimes hard to say; i just strongly doubt your parents were poor. college educated, not a kid. long-committed libertarian, very much of the george lakoff 'daddy' type (though of course that characterises most people here, and most libertarians, very strongly, almost by definition).

i'm not always right. i wouldn't have guessed jaime frontero was 60, for example. certain patterns stand out, though. for example, i get a good read on people like cypherdoc (i could likely guess his american state, age, politics, and educational background) and a very indefinite read on someone like eMansipator. also, some superficial things just leak but don't say much about individuals; for example, it's clear to me that both mike hearn and bytecoin are british-educated and probably british-born, but i can't tell much about their personality traits. (i'd hazard a guess that bytecoin is oxbridge and mike is not.)

it's interesting how much information people sometimes leak without realising it.

Originally from the northeast, single mom worked two jobs, self educated, hadn't even though about politics until a few years ago, at which point I rapidly progressed through liberalism and libertarianism. My current social philosophy is anarchism, more specifically a voluntarism/anarchism without adjectives.

Also, not sure what you mean by "daddy type", but I don't get along with my dad's side of the family.

Nice try, but I think you're overconfident in your abilities.

Totally

Addicted

If I'm not staring at a realtime chart, poking through this forum, fixing mining rigs, ordering new parts, searching for new parts or on bitcoin-otc or something bitcoin related then my eyes are closed.

With my eyes closed I can still see my candlestick chart and the last ticker price of BTC as I doze off.  When I wake up I make a wager with myself about how much a bitcoin is now worth on mtgox.  When I lose, I pay myself in bitcoin and the bitcoin client even tells me that I just sent money to myself.  If I'm right, I just buy more bitcoin.

....and the NAMECOIN....don't even get me started there...

Help me.

Please.

some of that's actually quite surprising to me, both intuitively and statistically. very few people who write like you are entirely self-educated after american high school, for example.

but like i said, i'm not always right. for what it's worth, i wouldn't have been confident enough to make these guesses about you except at your prompting. i'd still bet on what i concluded about kiba; i wouldn't bet on what i guessed about you.

i'm still curious if i'm in fact actually right about kiba, but in case he doesn't want to say, i'll try to redeem my predictive abilities in your eyes with some guesses about cypherdoc: older than the typical 'young' crowd here, white, male, spent at least substantial time in california, probably a doctor or dentist (though his username alone suggests that) in a small or individual practice (rather than a large hospital or large group practice) and willing to draw significant income from cosmetic or otherwise optional procedures (that is, it would be surprising to me if he were an orthopedic surgeon or a cardiologist, rather than a plastic surgeon or someone who did lasik treatments, microdermabrasions, or laser hair removal).


no, it's nothing to do with personal family. it's a fundamental outlook that underlies some political beliefs in many people. it's characterised by propositions like 'the world is a harsh place. life is properly a struggle. individuals are responsible for what they do and shouldn't expect much from others. people are fundamentally selfish.'

Well, you haven't met many of us, then. The libertarians I know are the most generous and compassionate people I know, which is why they reject the political violence that people like you adore so much. I wouldn't hang out with people who had the attitude you suspect us as having.

Funny - you are applying a wildly inaccurate caricatured view of libertarians, but you certainly have the elitist, holier-than-thou snobbery of progressivism down pat. Unlike you, however, I wouldn't suspect all progressives as having the same attitude. In fact, I don't think you actually believe what you're saying either. It's just too absurd. Thus I name you "troll" and end our conversation.

On the internet unk knows you're a dog.

Gotta go, my owner just got home.

Bitcoin is climin' in ur windoze

I'm starting to believe the year 2009 should be the new year 0.

A v. wise man once said:

".... the LOVE of money is the root of all evil ... "

.... bitcoin, it is not what you think, or hope, it is. Take some days off, think about your life, get your affairs in order.

Then another wise man countered with:

".... the LACK of money is the root of all evil ... "

ברוך אתה הביתקוין אלהינו מלך העולם

Baruch Atah Ha'Bitcoin, Eloheinu Melech Ha-Olam

It's snatchin' yo people up.

Hide yo keys, hide yo wifi