Bitcoin Forum

I don't know if anyone noticed but if you post in Anonymint's threads, he edits your posts to suit his argument.  Normally I have no regrets about posting but since he is messing about I will delete my replies in his thread and post here.

"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

Bitcoin was created by idealists who want to offer an alternative to fiat currency.  As such, its not fraudulent so can't ever be considered a Ponzi scheme.

"A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model that involves promising participants payment or services, primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, rather than supplying any real investment or sale of products or services to the public" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme

Bitcoin is already a working currency.  So its not any more unsustainable than any other project and as such it can't ever be considered a Pyramid scheme.

I can't edit your posts. There is no button for me Edit on a post of another user.

You say you are programmer but you don't even know how a forum works?

That seems like you editting my replies to me.  And since I have no interest in your doing so, I prefer to post my rebuttal in its own thread.

I deleted it because you completely ignored the points you had lost in the debate and I sent you a PM explaining why I felt you were insincere in debate and thus trolling. I only wrote that in PM.

Delete is not Edit. Two different buttons on a forum.

Winner.

I don't think we are qualified to judge option 3 - the economic bubble.

"the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH), or the joint hypothesis problem, asserts that financial markets are "informationally efficient". In consequence of this, one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns on a risk-adjusted basis, given the information available at the time the investment is made." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis

The market tells us a Bitcoin has great value based in all the info the market has.  We can only guess the future.  Personally I think that if Bitcoin only were used for drugs and for gambling worldwide, its grossly undervalued.  But if the efficient-market hypothesis is correct, we are all only guessing.

No I don't agree that ponzi requires a central con man. I think the definition only says that later investors fund earlier and no intrinsic value.


No it can't. I refuted that in spades:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=340686.msg3663722#new


Much worse than that. Nearly all will lose everything. And they will lose their freedom too. Mark my word.


All the people saying Bitcoin is a good investment are a fraud.

When everyone is destroyed, then they will all agree it is a fraud and start pointing fingers.

Enjoy your freedom in the meantime and prepare for a long time behind bars soon.

People change when they go from feeling good, rich to feeling angry, poor.

None of you have a gf or wife? You don't see how irrational women can be? Men are like that when they get fucked over with money.

Seriously?

women or men?

The notion that women are irrational all the time while men are only "like that" over money.  Is that your belief?

Not exactly. I am just saying that men will turn real nasty when they don't have money for that is their entire identity these days. They don't get women without it also.

I was using the irrationality of women as an example of how men will behave when they are really pissed off. Women tend to get pissed off about daily things such as when you don't give them some of your time. Men tend to get pissed off about dick strategy things. Being poor is going to be very hard on western men. They are not used to it.

I am used to it. I lived in Nipa hut and ate only rice and bananas when I wrote coolpage.com for million users. No problem for me. I can code any where.

You aren't helping yourself here.  Really, not helping yourself at all.

Women are rational within their home-community building goals. But their priorities seem quite irrational to a man at times, because our priorities are more competitive.

However, I probably don't speak for westerners any more, as men have become women there in some cases. We joke about that in the developing world where men are still men.

The women are happier here, because we let them be women. Not like all the birth control, abortion, equal crap in the west.

Sorry I am not a socialist. We will not agree.

If the belief that women are as capable of rational behaviour as men is your definition of socialism, you have every reason to apologise for not being a socialist.

We completely disagree.

Women are women. And men are men.

Women are rational yes, but not strategically rational. They base their decisions more on emotions of the small group centered around home and family which is very rational in terms of their evolutionary strategy.

If you deny this, you deny nature. Which most westerners do now deny nature. But the payback is coming 2016ish. Western civilization will collapse.

Actually my closest confidant on all matters I write about here is a very very rational and high IQ female. So I should qualify my statement by saying not all females. But my confidant is exceptionally rare.

I am not putting down women. I love seeing them happy doing what feels most natural to them. And those like my confidant who are capable of strategic thought with me, wow I am grateful to God for such diversity.

What I resent is this feminism and socialism that tells us everything is fair. Bullshit. Everything is a competition. Even women are competing for what they want, it just so happens their priorities are more in the home+locale realm usually, but not all of course.

We push women in the west to be like men. And push men to be like women. This messes up the evolutionary strategy of women, which is hypergamy.

Men have a different strategy which is "I will have sex with anything".

here is a reference on this where I learned a lot:

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3000

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4934

Calling bitcoin a ponzi is soooo 2010.  ::)

Oh, Western society will collapse in 2016.  Since you are telling the future Mr. Nature, tell me something useful; what will the winning UK Lottery Number be tonight?

Of course you are not putting women down.  Why should they trouble their pretty little heads with such nonsense as Bitcoin when they could be working on a production line sewing clothes for us real men?

 >:(

Sorry if it makes you angry but women are not capable of the same achievements as men. Period. They prefer jobs that are planned out, very few can burn creative and strategic roads as well as men can. Some can. The CEO of Yahoo comes to mind as well as Barbara Liskov for the Liskov Substitution Principle, which is fundamental to all computer languages.

I  am  not proposing women sew all day in sweat shops, we can make robots for that now I hope.

I'd rather see her doing what ever she is happy doing, without you bastards (and your mass media mind programming) trying to tell her she has to be a man. Let her choose for herself.

Well now we know how you see women I can't wait to hear your views on Jews and Blacks. 

Can people please, please stop encouraging this guy and feeding his need to muddy the forum.  It's not intelligent, it's not insightful, it's dribble, babble, nonsense.

Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average IQ than even Germans. Blacks have the lowest average IQ. There are many smart blacks and many dumb Jews.

Other than that I couldn't say much except to know each as a person.

I suppose I could describe different physical traits of blacks.

Fair point.

I'm out.  Anonymint is on my ignore list.

Socialists must stick together and copy each other like mindless drones for alone and independent they are weak and incapable.

He still takes up a ton of space even on my ignore list.  He sounds like a friend of mine when he's off his meds.

I say 3. For the following reason:
Bitcoin is not generating enough revenue as a service. The bitcoin network is basicly a transaction service and bitcoins themselves transaction tokens.
Currently most of the income for miners is generated via block rewards and not via transaction fees.
I would feel far more comfortable if the bitcoins were still valued at $10 and 1.5k BTC paid out to miners for transaction fees. While that would mean basicly the same income for a miner it would mean bitcoin were actually damn usefull as a transaction service. On the other hand that would mean shifting like 750k worth of bitcoins per block assuming a 0.2% transaction fee, or at $10, some $7.5M worth of transactions per block (or $45M+ per hour, $1B per day or $30B per month).
Yeah, thats a lot, but basicly that has to be the current goal to sustain the network since that would generate about the same mining income in fiat currency as is currently achieved via block rewards.
Feel free to recalculate with different numbers for e.g. transaction fees, but since block rewards arent given out indefinately the transition to income via transaction fees has to happen sometime.

The price is not related to the present value of bitcoin.  Its related to the assumption that at some future date, adoption will be enough that the price is justified by scarcity.  Even if the only use of Bitcoin is for illegal drugs, that market is huge and won't go away and buying online is the safest and easiest way to do it.  That market alone will push the Bitcoin value significantly higher.

I've just bought a KnC KnCMiner Bitcoin Miner ASIC Jupiter so feeling pretty bullish about Bitcoin right now.

Same way as i see it, basicly. No different than shares in e.g. Twitter, fueled by hope for growth. But the transaction amount *has* to grow a *lot* to sustain long term surviveability.
Possible? Sure, Paypal was already moving $315M worth of transactions per day in 2011.

The expectation is that it will grow a lot.

So now we know your vested interests and why you were not being objective.

That is what I assumed.

AM, you misunderstand the greater fool theory.

The greater fool theory justifies overpaying for something I don't have confidence in, on the assumption some idiot will come along and pay more for it. As such, if I say to you, "I'm speculatively buying bitcoins because I think they are at least as valuable as the current spot price and will be worth more in the future" you're just going to have to take my word that I'd genuinely rather have a bitcoin than whatever value near $500 they're currently trading at.

Value is a subjective judgment. I cannot prove to you that bitcoin's value is greater or equal to the current spot price any more than you can prove to me that bitcoin's value is objectively zero. Arguing with someone that something they own and feel has intrinsic value doesn't have intrinsic value is a pointless exercise in futility. If something doesn't appear to have any intrinsic value to you, congratulations, stay out of the market for those things.

So we wager a bet?

I will be sleeping. Reply and I will deal with you when I awake.

Yes he deleted my post, too, when I asked him to name one Ponzi schema, which is transparent like Bitcoin. Everybody can see the source code and can imagine where the higher price comes from. And there is no company or person behind Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is a protocoll.

Sure he sould not name one, so he has to delete such uncomftable questions...

I mean, it was just too obvious AM was trolling.
Geez, advocating a CPU-only altcoin as an alternative. Sure, and just how exactly do you want to regulate that? You can burn any algorithm you can run on a general purpose processor onto a dedicated chip.

That is what I thought, just like your username blablahblah. ;)


There is one unarguable truth here, eventually collectivists run out of other peoples' money. ;)

And that is more or less 2016ish. Certainly no later than 2020, western civilization will be in shambles.

Hawker's morals will go right out the window, when butt hurt changes to stomach empty.

Like totally chill out with me dude. Have another hit on the bong wookie.

I wasn't going to participate in his strawman non-argumentation, since Bitcoin is not transparent (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341594.msg3666776#msg3666776).

And also this:

That incorrect assumption is why I am a world-class programmer and you are not.

Is that what you told yourself when you put me on your ignore list?

Only one person is on my ignore list, anth0ny. That is because IMO (at least when he is responding to me) the information content of his posts is freakishly, microscopically low.

I just don't want to continue arguing the Transactions Withholding Attack with you because (after 8 pages of discussion) I am satisfied already that no one can refute it. You and readers are free to believe what you want.

NOW I'm offended.


I'm simpy amazed that this is what you took away from those same 8 pages.

That is ok. All will be proven soon enough. That is why I am the programmer and you are not.

You might be the programmer, but don't forget that when it comes to economics, you'll forever be my student.

The difference between fantasy and delusion (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341594.msg3661186#msg3661186), is only the whether the hair grows on the palm of your right or left hand.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

This is such a noob thread its not even funny.

Anonymint, there is a difference between a ponzi scheme and a bubble. In a ponzi/pyramid scheme, the system must be supported with growth at all time, else its worthless. In a bubble, no such growth is necessary; instead, there merely needs to be no impetus to break the bubble. Even if Bitcoin is a bubble, you can't call it a ponzi scheme, for the same reason you can't call traditional fractional reserve banking a ponzi scheme: They do work without growth, so long as there is no panic.

Whether or not Bitcoin is really a bubble is yet to be seen. One might argue that if the bubble doesn't pop, Bitcoin is still inherently a bubble, just one that has remained inflated so long it has solidified itself against popping, since, if everybody did indeed sell and nobody bought, it would be nearly worthless. This is true of almost all money, though, so its sort of just a terminology troll.

As for all this other crap, the answer is Anonymint likes saying everything and anything inflammatory just to be 'rad.' Nothing to see here.

I wrote in email:

---

You still don't get it (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341594.msg3666284#msg3666284).

Feel free to fill up the butt hurt form (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=338975.msg3642882#msg3642882) and submit it to air your grievances.

I read both threads. As someone with no stake in BTC right now I am very interested
in reading about the potential flaws before I invest. I appreciate all of you including AnonyMint who
took the time to present clear arguments on the merits of bitcoin. Despite the unnecessary flames and insults the thread overall is quite informative.

As someone who is an outsider (no skin in the game as of yet) I would have answered yes to the now closed poll asking if bitcoin is a pyramid/ponsi scheme. I think it is but its one unlike any the world has ever seen before.

1) The technology behind bitcoin is undoubtedly revolutionary. Something like bitcoin will no doubt be the currency of the future.
2) Bitcoin has several flaws mentioned by AnonyMint the worse of which is the unsolvable income concentration that I agree will doom bitcoin to being a minor player in the future.
3) The price of bitcoin will likely crash and stay crashed at some point in the future. Not at 0 but at some number a lot lower then the majority of buyers paid for it.

Where I disagree with AnonyMint's arguments is the consequences of these facts. AnonyMint envisions a future where all the world's wealth gets sucked up into bitcoin leading to a massive horrendous crash. This is not likely to happen.

Instead I believe the Bitcoin bubble is completely necessary. As was mentioned earlier in the thread a true stable and successful world wide cryptocurrency needs to be widely distributed and dispersed and widely mined ideally by CPU mining. The only way to accomplish that is to role out such a currency to a world population that is largely primed and excited to receive it.

The role of Bitcoin is to prime the world for its successor.  It is transparent and this will make it naturally self limiting. The higher the bubble grows the more resentment there will be towards those who got 10,000 + coin for almost nothing. This will naturally prime the way for Bitcoins successor.

For any successor to bitcoin to succeed and actually become a distributed world wide functional currency it will need to be widely adopted from the start. Bitcoin will establish the conditions where that can occur so I view the coming bubble as a largely good thing.

Actually you and I entirely agree. Very astute. I was actually pitching that outcome but it may be difficult to discern among the constant defense of the prior points. I stated two possible outcomes.

1. Bitcoin goes to $trillions market cap and we have systemic default problem on our hands.

2. Altcoins or other factor halts the ascent before that happens.

However, #2 forks into basically two possibilities and one of them is very scary IMO:

2a. Altcoin(s) and decentralized competition.

2b. Government supply electronic fiat currency.

I've known for a long-time what the government's strategy was, and now they are starting to reveal it:


They can accomplish it with the market failure of Bitcoin.

They have two main vectors of takeover:

1. Regulate the people and business who use Bitcoin, since it is not anonymous.

2. Technical takeover employing Amazon (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336350.0) et al.

I am not too worried about government fiat crypto currency.
I think we are entering an era where it will soon become clear to the masses that fiat currency is a bad idea.
This will add fuel to the Bitcoin bubble. It will also undermine any government attempt to launch a fiat centralized cryptocurrency.

So I guess I am optimistic about the future of some yet to be invented altcoin. I am also seriously thinking about investing in bitcoin. I think we could have some ways to go before the huge crash. We are somewhere in the middle of the pyramid right now.

As has been mentioned in the news bitcoin is a perfect asset bubble.
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-bubble-2013-11

These things can go on for way longer then one would think they could.
Look at the recent housing bubble. That was obvious for years but it kept going and going way longer then I ever thought it would.

What makes me hesitate is I have not yet figured out a way to be confident I get out in time.

My opinion is watch the market cap. As long as it it less than a stock, we shouldn't be near saturation. I figure 2014 or 2015 is the top based on current doubling rate. Maybe 2016 at most.

I am very worried about the government fiat, because neither the geeks nor the libertarians can really see what is going on here. They are so complacent.

My group is the only one on the planet who is taking action as far as know.

There are others designing altcoins, but they have a different focus.

And I know a lot of people and receive a lot of information flowing to me.

Hope I am wrong.

Some governments are certain to try and issue fiat cryptocurrencies but I doubt these have much chance of success.

One writer who's work I highly recommend is John Mauldin
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/about-us/john-mauldin/

He has a free newsletter that is very informative. I first learned about bitcoin from this newsletter.
He lays out a very convincing case that we are in for a world of hurt in the near future.

Personally I think it will start in Japan. Before too long Japan with their current trajectory is going to be in a situation where it becomes obvious to everyone that that the only way they will ever pay off their crazy high government debt is to keep printing money.

Once it becomes obvious to all that Japan has not choice but to print and keep printing (they will choose this over default) we are in for some nasty inflation. Not just in Japan but in all the countries playing around with QE (which is pretty much everyone).

By the time the show is over there will be little to no faith in fiat as a store of value in my opinion. If things play out this way any centralized government crypto is destined to be a huge flop.

Sure you are. If you had at said you took a couple of word classes i might have actually believed you.

It will be global coordination of the G20 that create the new electronic currency. See my upthread links from Armstrong (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342007.msg3671543#msg3671543).

They can just morph Bitcoin. See my Transactions Withholding Attack.

Btw, I follow Mauldin and many others. Michael Pettis and Martin Armstrong are two you should read also (Mauldin knows them of course)

Pettis is the China expert. He has a recent blog about Japan's future.

Armstrong ran the worlds largest hedge fund at $3 trillion

http://mpettis.com/

http://armstrongeconomics.com/armstrong_economics_blog/

I agree with you, the entire system will come crashing down.

And that is precisely how they will get a global electronic money fiat.

Hungry billions agree to accept a solution. The destroyed nation-states won't be able to offer a solution.

The only solution will be a global debt restructuring and new currency regime.

This is crystal clear, and Mauldin knows this. He is just a gatekeeper for the central banks as is Pettis. They both belong to the CFR.

You should wonder why Mauldin is pitching this Bitcoin mania to you. He like Max Keiser are working with the system. Only Armstrong tells the truth about Bitcoin's future.

Armstrong is the true outsider (I think?).

CFR?

Thanks I have not had a chance to read either of them I will check them out when I have time.

I think you are underestimating the distrust that the general population will have of fiat currency after having so recently been burned by a collapse.

I don't have time to read your transaction attack thread tonight but even if such a thing happened people would simple leave bitcoin for an altcoin that was more robust. Once burned by a fiat crisis I don't think the population will ever trust fiat especially with a multitude of non fiat alternatives to choose from that are no doubt in the works.

My grandparents lived through the great depression. It changed them. Their entire lives they were crazy savers and never wasted anything.

A fiat crisis will likewise change our generation. We will become crazy fiat haters. This is why I don't think a centralized fiat system will succeed.

Here is the article from Mauldin on bitcoin from 5/2013. Its an interesting read (whenever you have time not too relevant to this conversation) I felt it was fair. Did not really pump bitcoin much. In fact their take was that government would probably try to outlaw it. Looks like they were wrong on that one at least so far.
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/ttmygh/bit-happens

People won't see it as fiat. It will be of course sold to them with propaganda just like Bitcoin was sold by Max Keiser et al to goldbugs as the better gold.

People are myopic and gullible (i.e. a form of "stupid" or preoccupied), don't forget that.

Fork won't stop my attack.

Sorry you are naive on all this, that is why you aren't worried as you should be.

CFR = Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.cfr.org/) a creation of the establishment akin to Rockefeller and his Trilateral Commission (http://www.globalresearch.ca/controlling-the-global-economy-bilderberg-the-trilateral-commission-and-the-federal-reserve).

Note due to compartmentalization not every person (e.g. Angelina Jolie) in the CFR sees themself as a gatekeeper. They see themselves as part of a greater good.

People are stupid but getting burned tends to make them pay attention. We shall see.

I am out for the night have to work tomorrow.
I think you make interesting points (delivery could use some work however).

As the saying goes you catch more flies with honey then vineger. I think you would find more converts if you were a wee bit less confrontational in your post.

I enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for the interesting read.

I am a programmer. Many geeks (often the most productive ones) are not good at English prose delivery. We speak Klingon to the computer daily.

Bitcoin is an experiment that is working atm, generating money and value, but that value is determined only by the usage and that as far as we know, bitcoins are untraceable, if that changes it will break down like any Ponzi scheme or Pyramid....

That is already known to false in most cases.

Well you can trace it to some degree to a point of origin ( address ), but you don't know who is the owner of that address, as in name, DoB, and so on...

In most cases the NSA and the "Club" do know this. They can get it from your ISP and IP address or by correlating emails, spends with credit card from same IP, etc, etc, etc.

You have to be both expert and lucky for that not to be increasingly the case.

VPNs, new email address that is used only for bitcoins, you can make fake documents ( PS ) and use them to create accounts and send them if you are asked for them, open bank account on a fake document and so on...If you have nothing to hide, as in, you trade it just for sole purpose to make money, then that doesn't concern you, but if you are selling drugs, guns, sex and so on, then well, you will probably be smart enough not to give away your real identity.

So then we agree that the anonymity in Bitcoin is not mainstream, so it has nothing to do with the price valuation. I don't think investors could justify such huge projections of currency value if only illegal markets are to be the norm.

I cannot reply in the other thread for some reason, but here's my take.

I think Bitcoin shares characteristics of many things discussed as follows:

Ponzi -20% (there are no central divs/payouts, but the earlier investors get rich from new investors money)
Pyramid - 20% (nothing is being sold, but it does require ever greater new entrants to keep price momentum)
Greater Fool - 10% (as above needs new investors willing to pay ever higher prices on no intrinisc value)
Facebook - 50% (buy it now because it will be big and then it'll somehow be worth what we've paid for it and more)

- I bought BTC and sold them and made a profit. I am like 99% of BTC buyers and have no interest in BTC for transactions. It's simply a means to make a short-term profit.

The reality is that now the vast majority of BTC buyers are like me and of the recent new buyers almost all of them are (or are there seriously people who believe the chinese are buying BTC to spend them).

I have been making the same point about lack of real transactions for a long time and no-one ever has an answer. As has been detailed it simply doesn't work for most normal transactions (too slow/too volatile in price/lack of recourse for buyer) as follows in comparisons:

vs cash/cards in person - too slow, I can pass someone banknotes in a shop and we are done in 5 seconds, I cannot wait 10mins to 2 hours for the BTC to pass

vs credit cards on-line - there is no price-saving and I lose the right to protection I have with cards and on-line is where I need protection most

vs Western Union etc for money transfer - I might be able to save money on fees, but I don't know what the currency will be valued at when it arrives

I keep asking for stats on real transaction on Bitcoins (ie buying legal goods/services) and guess what where aren't any and no-one wants to dig too deep because the truth is painful.

Also look at this forum, this forum is the pinnacle of Bitcoin users, the best educated and almost every thread is about mining and price speculation.

Cannabis is illegal in my country, so the price is high if you wanna buy it and you will get a jail ( probably ), in Holland it's legal, you can trade it, buy in coffee shops, smoke in the street. Apply that to bitcoin, only the larger part is sued for that "illegal" stuff and the rest for normal trade. Price is dictated by many things, in this case one of those things is the need to buy something you can't in relative security.

Please stop quoting peoples with yellow buttons. It makes the ignore feature useless.

I wouldn't invest in Bitcoin is this illegal use was the dominant justification.

If drugs become mainstream, I will move away from society. That is once reason I moved away from the USA and stay away from Thailand (even though they have strict drug laws, they seem to attract too many foreigners who use them).

I understand and support individual freedom, and maybe drugs are going to become extremely widespread now with Bitcoin, and so maybe that is a wise investment.

However, I am hoping society will continue to fight drugs harshly as they do here in Asia for the most part with life and death sentences.

So I guess I will choose to remain ignorant of such a market, and assume it will remain insignificant.

Note I am not in favor of forcing all countries to be harsh on drugs. I have a friend from NL and he was doing drugs recreationally all his life. Unfortunately now he is dying of Leukemia, probably as a side-effect of the drug use. Well I guess he enjoyed his life. We all have to die someday.

Most of the people come to the bitcoin world need to first understand why fiat money is the biggest ponzi scheme, and then they will have a better understanding why bitcoin appreciate so fast

It is not bitcoin who is appreciating, it is the fiat money whose value is dropping dramatically. At first people would accept the fact that the value of their goods measured by fiat money will also drop against bitcoin, but later they will realize that it is only fiat money's value dropping, so they will raise the fiat money price of their goods/services eventually

You are agains't drug use? Do you know a place on earth where every person is "clean"? Drugs have always been and always will be. And as i read most of your threads and posts i thought that people with an higher iq are able to see the konnex why the US (and other cons) called a war on drugs. If drugs would be decriminalised worldwide the drugcartels (cia,etc) would lose a big amount of their income. And if that money would not be spent on prohibition, lawenforcment, jails (which is getting quite a profitable branch in europe) but on education we would have a lot less problems.
And Leukemia, probably as a side-effect of the drug use? Mkay.. Which drug exactly?

Social issues are best left to the local community to decide. The mayor where I lives shoots all the druggies and the snatches. Therefore our city is rated one of the safest in the world. He says if you don't like it, you can leave. He invites criminals to come here to die.

There is no BS a war on drugs here in this city, because they just execute with no trial and no nonsense. Druggies get 3 warnings, they must either leave, stop, or die. I am contented with this.

I've seen personally what drugs do to people I care about. Start with a simple drug like maryjane then it escalates to heroine. Thank God that person is off of it now.

Yeah there are still some drug use, but very, very minimal where I am. I like being around these simple people and not all addicted on coffee and chemicals like westerners. Just purely natural, not even any make-up. I prefer life very close to nature. I prefer women who eat the head and eyeballs of the fish and don't say "ew". Meaning I look down on aristocrats and people who can't "rough it".

Guys please don't feed the troll.

Ok i see. You saw what drugs do to people and you did what? Watched them fall?
And the good old MJ to blame. Nice. Tell that jamaicans. They are all on heroine :)

"Social issues are best left to the local community to decide" Ah mkay. Now i understand why a lot of people here often disagree with you. You should expand your horizon a bit imho.

Huh?  ???

I did not write that watched someone fall without attempting any rescue.

Oic you like MJ. Okay but we don't tolerate that here. Don't come here, you will end up dead. And don't breath that nor bring your smelly clothes near me, as I don't want that chemical going inside me.

I don't choose to live in Jamaica. I choose to live in a city that is drug-free. Okay they like MJ there. Okay you think it is good.

Every person can choose which community they like to live in. Vote with your feet (migrate).

Why would libertarians disagree with allowing a local community to decide?

Because you are all socialists? And druggies (at least MJ-users) too?

P.S. i consider even chocolate and sugar to be drugs. I don't consume them. Not even soda pop. I consume only naturally sweet fruits when I want sweet. That doesn't make me better than you. Just different. And I don't want to associate in person with people who consume these chemicals, because I don't like the influence and I don't like what it does to their behavior and demeanor, etc.. Therefore I  think we can't live in the same local community. It is better for us to have separate communities. Socialists think we must all tolerate each other. I disagree with that. I don't have to tolerate you and you don't have to tolerate me. Separate is better.

Ok got it :) And every person can choose which drugs to take. Else there would be no demand for them right? Anyway. We'd not get far with this discussion.

And i'm not a socialist :)

You can choose which drug you want, but not in a community which has voted to not allow them. You will need to migrate to one that does.

If the community loses the technological ability to control that, then that will no longer be true. In which case, I will live away from society if there are druggies around.

Hope that is clear.

I put a P.S. in my prior comment that I think it makes it easier for us if we segregate by preferences. But technology will decide if the community has this power or not.

As far as I can see the community will retain this power, because drugs are tangible and can be discovered in shipping with better technology for sensors.

Isn't it safer for you to move to a community that allows MJ than deal with blackmarket and danger of going to jail.

As i said above. I do agree with you in some cases. But drugs have always been and always will be. No matter how hard they will be prosecuted. That's a fact. Proven by history.

And i do live in safe community (with "druggies" around) where i do not have to lock my door. Not even at night.
Thanks for assuming that i do drugs. Stop thinking in boxes. It can affect your mental health.

PS No need for a blackmarket here. A variety of drugs would grow. You'd just need to step out and grab them.

I didn't assume you do drugs. Why do you assume I assume? Watch those boxes you sling around, they come back and hit you.

Rather I didn't bother to exclude you so as to be impolite as I felt you were to me.

Just because there will always be drugs, doesn't mean a community can't drastically reduce their use.

There are no significant drugs where I am.

Safe is not enough, I don't want the presence of druggies near to me.

Growing is very dangerous here. Buying from growers is the blackmarket.

What is your point? Are you trying to say it is futile to crackdown on drugs? That is obviously false where I live.

Obviously lies such as War on Drugs don't work, because they are lies. The CIA is running the drugs.

Seems you think freedom is an absolute. I don't. I am a realist.

1st) Oic you like MJ. Okay but we don't tolerate that here. Don't come here, you will end up dead. And don't breath that nor bring your smelly clothes near me, as I don't want that chemical going inside me.

2nd) Isn't it safer for you to move to a community that allows MJ than deal with blackmarket and danger of going to jail.

I think we'll not manage to get consensus here. No offense.

Where I wrote "you", I was thinking "druggies". I said I didn't bother to exclude you, because I felt you were being impolite also.

I think the point you were trying to make to me is that drugs are big business and will always be?

I wrote upthread that if drugs will be the major use of the coin, I am not interested in the coin.

I don't think drugs are the biggest business, and don't need to be the major use of money. I sure hope not.

I have a broader vision for decentralized money than just drugs.

Afaik, drug use is much higher in the Caucasian and Latin American countries than in the East and SE Asian countries. I didn't verify it by googling stats.

As long as people will be repressed by moralists and their view of what is "right" to them - yes. It's just a shelter for the desperate (ab)users and they will not stop seeking for it. Which closes the circle for me. Decriminalise the users and a lot of problems will be gone.

Honestly I am conflicted on this issue. My minanarchist values hate to have government dictating to people. I would love absolute freedom. Yet I can only conclude logically that absolute freedom is another form of a jail.

It is simply impossible for people to do whatever they want and not impact on others in the community. Thus each community has to decide how tolerant or strict it wants to be. Thus at least we have a diversity of community types to choose one that best matches our individual choices about tradeoffs.

Thus I conclude that "Decriminalise the users" every where is much less freedom than "let the communities decide".

One rule for every where is very intolerant, even if you think it is a rule of tolerance.

Minanarchy is much more freedom than anarchy.

@AnonyMint

So Branson is publicly promoting a ponzi/pyramid now is he? Putting his whole reputation on the line. Really?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101220710

I think not. If that is not proof enough for you Bitcoin is legit, than you are beyond help.

Well I guess that wraps that up. Bitcoin not a ponzi/pyramid. The end.

WTF, you are projecting.
Idealists are more likely adopting Bitcoin because they want an alternate to Fiat currency.

Its value is created by idealists because they are prepared to invest in it, the herd that buys in for a quick buck fit your projection that's why we have bubbles, (or runs on the bank)


Re: Is Bitcoin a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme & what are the ramifications?
Neither, it's a P2P risk distribution virus and it will spread, think of it as a distributed socialised savings insurance.   You can buy back in whenever you like Your question is FUD!.

You constructed a strawman argument. Congrats.

I would say that it was an appeal to authority...

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

The point is Branson did not stake his reputation, thus a strawman. He only said it is a neat or interesting innovation. I also think proof-of-work is a cool innovation. That is not staking my reputation on Bitcoin.

This is the official link: http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/bitcoins-in-space

Observe the quote from Branson:

Not proof as such, but c'mon would be really put his head in a noose?

Fortunately Hawker made this an open discussion thread so this catastrophic blow to your ponzi claim can be freely talked about. In contrast, your thread was locked down so you could carefully control what information was shown with an iron fist. This post would of been quickly deleted as soon as possible.

Right, I'm off now to cook up a nice humble pie and your going to eat in right in front of us.  :D

I can speculate on whether Branson as a member of the elite (Bilderberger, CFR member, etc) is playing ball as he has been perhaps told to. Or perhaps he really believes in Bitcoin. But he isn't here in these forums down in the trenches. And he doesn't see what I see technically.

So let him end up as another Bitcoin idiot. Fine with me. I'd love to slay his ass if he puts his net worth in Bitcoin. But of course he isn't that stupid and so isn't endorsing it for himself, rather encouraging the greater fools who I am about to teach a lesson in market dynamics.

The thread was closed because all the key arguments had been made and argued. I am one man against 100+ butt hurt Bitcoin zealots who are unable to read the thread before they post and were posting either redundant arguments or spamming the thread with "you are wrong, because you are wrong" 0-information non-arguments.

I will go post a link from that thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341594.msg3682800#msg3682800) to this one, so all your posts are acknowledged.

Ain't No Future In Yo Frontin, "Shine it up good (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj31LWPjFoc#t=160)".

That now thread is defunct because of censorship. Any OP with an ounce of common sense would of locked it and buried it.

For someone so 100% sure of Bitcoins impending doom you do spend an unnatural amount of time on this forum. I can only come to the conclusion it's some fruitless bizarre attempt to lower the price so you can hoover up some cheaper coins. Or it might be this:


Good luck with that.  :D

those at the top of pyramid schemes usually stay there. in bitcoin you can step down from the top in trade for fiat and someone else takes your place.

There is always a motivation to climb the ladder to reach the top, even totally unnecessary  ;D

I'm pretty sure the Union of Government FUDders has a clause against eating humble pie while at work.

Is this guy for real?

Sounds to me like he is tripping on Ritalin.

He might be, but only because he's really 14 years old, pretending to be some uber coder trying to convince everyone he alone has discovered the Great Bitcoin Flaw (tm).

All civilizations do collapse, because to be civilized (enslaved) is against human nature, and therefore all civilized (collectivized, monogamized, taxed by the state mafia) men are not men anymore.  You even don't know such simple anthropologic facts. You are a story telling collectivist who knows nothing about nature, systems and money.

Spending and FX conversion have different effects, especially on the market valuation of Bitcoin ;) Think it out. I already wrote enough on the subject. I don't want to repeat myself again.

Since when do gold, silver jewels etc have any intrinsic value?

The only thing that has any intrinsic value to me is drinking water, shelter, food and bullets.

That is the case when the world sinks into a Madmax dark age. But that is not the norm. Indeed only rice was money in Japan for 600 years, but God help us if we end up in that Madmax outcome.

Well put.

In the meantime however I don't see any need to put my resources into something that has no value to me personally.

The historic norm is a non-collectivist, self-sufficient life where the only thing that has any intrinsic value was drinking water, shelter, food and hunting tools. That's still the situation in territories, where the state is absent.

All other things later got their value by collectivism (labor division) beyond Dunbars Numbers. Your arguments are the arguments of a collectivist.

The minimization of division-of-labor is economic retardation.

 ??? Maximum division-of-labor is the optimum, because each person can maximize the focus and effectiveness of their learning and skills. That is the antithesis of multi-talented.

Is not, its money over web, hence BITCOIN, bit for bits, coin for money...
if u read how it works, u will know how good is it, and why is not pyramid or ponzi scheme, + there is tons of uses, the best of all is the easyest way to send money over web, and secure too!

The end of division-of-labor is the end of the economy, which is a collectivist event. The end of the economy (collectivism) is the beginning of self-sufficiency, et vice versa.

Your statement on historical norms is incontrovertibly FALSE, an archaic hunter-gathering society is explicitly collectivist.  The collective is VERY SMALL, literately a band of 20-30 individuals but the reciprocal sharing of all the resources is the norm, usually with a close-kin social obligations over the whole thing which significantly constrain the individuals behavior.  And we can know this by anthropological study of the few remaining indigenous groups still at this level.  They do not conform to a libertarian 'self-sufficient' 'rugged individualist' John Galt fantasy, rather then as wrapped in family and cultural obligations as any modern individual would find himself wrapped by law.  The existence of organized governments and written laws largely replace the amorphous constraints of custom of earlier times, they do not rob man of some kind of 'original innocence', in fact we allow everyone to challenge, change and often flout the laws far more then any ancient society would have allowed it's culture and customs to be challenged or broken.

Your appeal to some kind of 'original innocence' marks you as a right-libertarian to me a person who defines freedom exclusively as freedom from law.  A left-libertarian knows that mans original state is not one of freedom and they share with liberals the belief that a regression of society to more ancient forms would reduce freedom.

And the Dunbar limit meant that such tribes only functioned well in small sizes. Where everyone could watch the reputation of everyone. This is why humans still follow the herd and base their logic on reputation instead of analysis (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=180798.msg3761335#msg3761335).

But as the collective grows large, then it is subject to takeover by vested interests which can hide behind propaganda, because of the former trait that humans rely on reputation not analysis.

The move to greater scale interaction and maximum division-of-labor is more efficient, so the trend can't be denied.

Society has only two choices to avoid the monetary gridlock where all wealth concentrates to the 3% via usury, which I have outlined in great detail in my November posts:

1. Government redistributes from the 3% to the 97%. The vested interests control it. Keynesian.

2. A decentralized, algorithmic debasement, that Bitcoin is not (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349869.msg3760634#msg3760634).

Outlawing debt and usury can't work.

I'd agree with this statement only because you have the word debt in it, as debt is fundamental to any reciprocity and division of labor which results in temporal displacement of an individuals production and consumption (like farming), individual must be able give and receive debt from the rest of society to make that work.

But Usury is separate from Debt, it is a parasitic layer placed on top of debt.  It is to Debt what co-dependency is to marriage.  I argue that Usury can be eliminated from Debt with Demurrage and this is the best strategy to adopt.

There has to be an illusion of usury, else the 3% will buy feudal (middle ages) armies instead of loans (because they are selfish and ignorant/denial of the fact that capital can't grow exponentially forever). So we need to be clever about how we do it, so that only those who are large enough (the 0.01%) to control the nation-state (soon to be NWO) armies are thwarted, so we retain those 3% who want to buy bonds. Demurrage might be one way perhaps (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=351281.msg3761534#msg3761534).

If we can remove the public-backstop from loans and remove insurance (that ends up as public-backstop), then they can loan at higher interest than the debasement/demurrage and still they will not grow exponentially forever, because they will pay for their failures in lending to those who can't repay.

Thus in my opinion, the key is removing the ability for the collective to tax and confiscate. That is the only way to end the public backstop and force the selfish hoarders to be subject to the free market.

This is why anonymity is the most important feature in my opinion. But this will only be realistic for the new virtual economy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336350.msg3736243#msg3736243). Yet I expect that to be the main economy now or for sure by 2033 when a recent Oxford study predicts 45% of all current jobs will have been replaced by automation.

This is why I make a point about prosperity has always been facilitated by small government (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222998.msg3615848#msg3615848), not by lack of debasement.

Sort the following global data on Govt Spending and you can see why the future of the world is transferring from the developed countries to the emerging markets (although emerging markets will crash hard first (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222998.msg3733094#msg3733094) in 2016 - 2020 period):

http://www.heritage.org/index/explore

Mint:  Your rambling about government when my argument is about money.  But it's all moot because Usury dose not require a State

Gesell proved that Usury is the result of the liquidity value of the medium of exchange.  The medium of exchange is by definition the most liquid item in an economy, that liquidity has time-value and if the money is hard then the holder of money accrues an unearned value stream from the rest of society WITHOUT EVEN LENDING THE MONEY.  This is probably the part that confuses people so much, that the usury is really latent in the money before lending actually happens.

Because the drive for usury is in the basic nature of hard money, states and governments do not even need to exist for usury to occur as I've described.  Usury is simple the Nash-Equilibrium end state that will result from a Hard (non decaying) form of money.  Neither dose usury require any manipulation in the supply of money, that a different swindle I admit is a problem but one swindle at a time please.

Your still 6 layers too shallow in your thinking, I'm not denying a Incestuous cabal between elites, banks, manipulation of the masses and subversion of the state.  No rational person would deny these things, the only question is one of degree, but all the minutia of how that corruption is being manifested and the exact layering of all the various swindles don't interest me, I'm looking for the ROOT.

But if we ignore that (which is hard money) then we are doomed to repeat the whole sorry history.

The really, really ironic thing is AnonyMint accusing others of being irrational. Fruit Loop city.

-R8

Impaler is one of the smarter guys on the board, so I read his posts carefully and with great interest.


Will rebut below.


Agreed.


Disagree.

Society will not tolerate that form of usury for very long, as is evident by history. When that form of usury exists for a long time it is a Dark Age (we are still digging up hard money hoards from the middle ages).

So how does society confiscate and redistribute hard money? Government!

And of course this only works marginally (just enough to appease the masses), because the power vacuum of (democracy or any form) government is captured by the vested interests. See Mancur Olsen's The Logic of Collective Action (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984) (the linked writer is Eric S Raymond 150+IQ creator of "open source").

And if the usury is done through lending then refer to the points in my prior post. The hard money folks capture the collective (i.e. insurance and government) to backstop their loans.

Now we have the possibility to decentralize that redistribution so it isn't captured by vested interests. Unfortunately Bitcoin doesn't do that, because coin rewards diminish. And that design choice opens the door to attacks on Bitcoin that destroy it as I have detailed in the November archive of my posts.


Disagree. We must eliminate the power over money printing and taxation (of the new virtual economy, the brick&mortar economy can always be taxed) else the redistribution from usury (in either form) back to the masses, will always be socialism and gamed by vested interests.


As far as I can see on this issue I am ahead of you, even I do respect your intellect. I hope you are not the type of person who is unable to question your own views. Please rebut what I have written sincerely or open your mind to it. I have confidence you will not play the silly games that others do on this board.

---

You will eat humble pie. Soon.

Have another Ritalin AnonyMint

These 2 characters apply perfectly to fiat money, and the second one is more funny, since everyone is induced by their parents when they were still children :D

I thought this thread would of finished now. Didn't the majority (excluding AnonyMint obviously) draw the conclusion Bitcoin isn't a ponzi/pyramid?

Fiat ponzi fails horrifically often with megadeath, e.g. Wiemar (communist) Germany then Hitler, Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc. It is not a comparison you want to be associated with.

Gary North has cast his vote...

http://www.garynorth.com/public/11828.cfm

M

Interesting.  He starts by saying social security is a ponzi scheme and that dollars are not really money.

Sadly, I lost the urge to carry on past that part.  If you read it all, I salute your indefatigability.

Mint:  If your arguing that hard money will be rejected by the people and can only be forcefully imposed by government that is indeed a more nuanced position then I had originally though you had.  But I would still disagree.

I believe that individuals DO crave hard money, everyone knows that if they possess a harder form of money then everyone else they will be advantaged.  It's like the classic prisoners-dilemma where you win by betraying your partner, hard money is when everyone is betraying everyone.  This is why people (particularly 'libertarian' types who view other people only as means to their own ends) are attracted to things like BTC, their is a natural greedy response to acquire hard money like a 'sweet tooth' that makes us eat too much sugar, the systemic effects are terrible but most people do not think systemically so we end up stuck in a sub-optimal situation.  Basically I see a logical bottom-up explanation for how we got here so I don't attribute it to a top-down cabal, I always turn to the conspiratorial theories LAST.


Their are certainly instances in history were central authority forces hard money onto the populous (usually by taking away soft-money) but we can see from the rabid BTC zealots that exist that the imposition of hard money will be meet with Cheers and Applause by large swaths of the masses.  Thus is it not JUST a problem of government, and particularly now that so much inertia is built up behind it.  Most people only know our current money system which is harder then it should be (BTC is hyper-hard by comparison).  Given the existence of gold as an easily mined, easily traded commodity it is very easy to see how it became money all over the world, no central authority is necessary to do that.  Most negative government action has been in the form of suppression of alternatives to hard money (or the softening of the money standard ) rather then to create the norm of hard money in the first place.

Do you disagree?


If you're new to Austrian economics, it takes a bit to adjust to it.  I've been reading his stuff for a while, and I think it's good stuff.

I think what he's basically saying is Bitcoin has the capacity to become money, ie, something used by the common person as a medium to exchange goods.  However, because it's currently viewed by many as an investment (buy now, sell later), sooner or later you run out of buyers.  When that happens, it's going to crash, and a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money.  That will cause a stigma to be associated with it, which will kill its ability to be used as money.

My $.02: every fiat currency out there is doomed.  It's just a matter of time.  Bitcoin might survive solely because the banksters that think they run the world use fiat because it works well for them.  When the world wakes up from its lethargy and decides to use real money, bitcoin might survive vs real money (gold/silver), but then again, it might not.

M

Have you read the article?  He is very clear that Bitcoin cannot be a currency as currencies can't be planned.

I'm familiar with the Austrian guff.  Basically all growth since the invention of paper money is regarded as unnatural and all forms of economic management are regarded as intrinsically bad.  It does nothing for me.

I did.  Where did I state he said otherwise?  I gave my $.02 worth, which differs from his.


And today's systems are working great, aren't they?

M

"Here is the central fact of money. Money is the product of the market process. It arises out of an unplanned, decentralized process. This takes time. It takes a lot of time."

Thats both the dollar and Bitcoin ruled out.

Today's systems are working fine.  You could argue that things might be a bit better but overall things are fine.

Impaler: My take is that you and mint are essentially arguing the same point.
You are arguing that hard money accumulates into a few hands over time based on the natural tendency of individual actors acting in what they see as their own best interests and that no government is required for this process to occur.

Mint is arguing that once this occurs to a sufficient degree (gross income inequality) people will demand redistribution via government or if government is not responsive via a new government a la French Revolution. He is arguing that redistribution via government naturally arises as a result of your hording individuals above.

My question for you Mint is what makes you confident that starving governments via an anonymous coin would necessarily improve things. I agree with your underlying premise that we appear to be in a cycle of boom and bust based on finance/fractional banking/debt -> collectivism -> collapse -> gold standard -> restart cycle again. However at the end of each cycle so far knowledge has advanced and passive capital has declined compared to the same point in the cycle before it aka progress.

Removing the governments ability to tax will create other problems such as the inability to regulate and prevent tragedy of the commons type situations that require collective action.

How is Bitcoin planned?  It's virtually the antithesis of centralized planning, unless I'm missing something (always possible).


You and I clearly have a different definition of "fine".

M

It would probably be clearer if you glanced over the Satoshi papers.  Bitcoin is very much a centrally planned project - its the execution that is decentralised.  So the exact amount of Bitcoin is regulated, the difficulty is planned and the end date for mining is set in stone.

In Western countries, the biggest killers of the very poor are diseases caused by too much food and diseases caused by too much leisure.  You can argue that things might be better but in terms of economies doing the stuff I want, things are fine.  

Noted.  Not sure I'd say that makes it centralized though.


Reminds me of the US RDA (recommended daily allowance).  It's what's necessary to keep you alive, not healthy.  That's not my definition of "fine". :)

M

Its planned - and therefore in Austrian terms, its not money.  Please don't debate semantics on an article that you recommended. 

If the planning part is not convincing enough for you, surely the "BITCOINS ARE NOT MONEY" in bold and in caps should do it.  Your guy does not think Bitcoin is money.  Given that he feels the same way about the dollar, its hardly a surprise!

In response to the fact that in Western countries, the biggest killers of the very poor are diseases caused by too much food and diseases caused by too much leisure, you are wittering about some weird US thing that is fuck all to do with poor people being well fed and not needing to work.  What do you propose? That we police people's diets and chase them with dogs for an hour a day?  Would that be better? 

Bitcoin is either a new currency going through a difficult birth or it is the scam of the millenia. Personally I don't think Satoshi intentioned it to be a scam. He had solved the double spend problem and was interested to see how it would evolve. Now whilst Satoshi is a brilliant problem solver and programmer he just didn't take into account human nature. This flaw has turned a fledgling currency into a Frankenstein.

If, at the outset, Satoshi intentioned for all this to happen then he has pulled off a crime of Biblical scale. A new word will enter the English dictionary, and quite possibly many other dictionaries. In years to come we won't just be talking of Pyramid selling, multi-level marketing, boiler rooms and Ponzi's. A Satoshi scam will sit head and shoulders above all other scams. People will ask 'Were you one of the people who got 'Satoshid'?

But out of the bonfire of digital currencies will emerge a new digital currency, one that does take into account the flaws and weaknesses of human nature. It just won't be Bitcoin.

I know I'm being nitpicky here, but while I agree that (in an Austrian Economic sense) Bitcoins are not money, the reason for that is not because it is a planned/designed currency.  That would be because the currency unit itself has no alternative use outside of the context of being a currency. (the counter-argument about the use value of the settlement network notwithstanding)  For example, the British Pound was once a planned currency unit, but the actual coins were minted from real gold or silver, so they were also a money.  The definition of what "money" is might need adjustment to include a deliberately designed 'free market' currency system, but probably not.  Most people don't really know what "money" really is, and don't care about the details.


I not sure who actually said this, but the part I highlighted is actually a myth.  While it's true enough that a great many final causes of death can be traced back to poor personal habits, it's also true that everyone dies of something.  The reality is that, in Western nations, the vast majority of people die from complications related to living much longer than a natural lifespan permits.  People get fat because they eat too much, but many get fat because they are too old to practially exercise and have the means to enjoy too much food.  Some people get heart problems because they smoke, most get heart problems because they have lived long enough.  Simply put, if you live long enough, something is going to break; the fact that so many official causes for death are related to officially avoidable things does not change the fact that Americans live so much longer than we used to.

This is a really sad article by Gary North.  He claims that Bitcoins can never become a real unit of exchange, but never really offers a reason why not.  The old austrians are proving to be very disappointing in the capacity to imagine change.

So you make 1 post and you kill both my arguments  >:( No fair!

I was pointing to the logic in the linked article.  Personally I don't think Gary North made a fair representation of Austrian thinking but that's the article we were asked to read and discuss.

Medically you are 100% correct.  Fit people who eat well don't have any lifespan advantage over fat couch potatoes once you take tobacco out of the picture.  While alive, they seem to have better quality of life in terms of less diabetes and the like but we all die at much the same age. 

I still think the fact that everyone in society has access to endless food and endless leisure means that things are "fine."  Improvements possible but lets not go nuts and ignore just how good modern life really is.

Fair enough.  I don't think Gary North is a fair representation of Austrian thinking under any context.  While he makes for some great reading; I'd say he is very much a conservative, and is rather constrained in his thought processes to be called an Austrian economist, even if he claims the term.


Well said.

November 30th 2013
The date 'Satoshid' and 'Satoshi Scam' first entered the English language

Quoted for historical relevance.

I didn't say I agreed with him!  In fact, I gave my $.02 worth with contradicted his conclusion.  I'm not one to accept things at face value, and in the large scheme of things, I'm pretty new to libertarianism and certainly very new to Austrian economic theory.  I stumbled across libertarianism via Ron Paul.  Most things I agree with.  Some I don't understand.  That led me to Austrian economics, and I'm clearly hazy on more than some of it. :)

I believe I read somewhere that money has to be tangible, so in strict terms, BTC is not money.


Wow, a bit grumpy are we? 

Since you ask what I propose, I propose our leaders set a good example.  It seems a lot of people like being sheeple, which means if our leaders really want to lead and not control (I know, that rules out most of today's "leaders"), they'd do what's right instead of where they wallet leads them. 

One thing I do agree with in libertarianism is letting people live life how they want as long as it doesn't adversely affect others.  I realize the definition of "adverse" is not black and white.  I think that should be clarified then (if I'm not horribly misstating it already) as letting people live life how they want as long as it doesn't adversely affect me and mine.

M

And you said you didn't read it! :)


Hmmm.  Define society please?  Half of the US is living off of the other half.  Is that endless food and endless leisure?  

Not sure about you, but I personally am required to go to work 5 days a week to earn a living.  It is work, I wouldn't call it leisure.  I don't have servants at my beckon to take care of daily chores and tasks.  Nor am I am one one of those privileged to have a summer and winter home.  Nor do I have a luxurious pension and retirement plan waiting for me when I get older as the "fat cat" banksters and politicians do.

Granted, I do have some time, as I'm clearly spending some of it here typing on a electromechanical device we call a keyboard and watching electrons move across the liquid crystal display that we formally call an LCD, or just "screen" for short, forming these things called words to post on an electronic medium called the internet and my words will likely be stored here and likely be retrievable for a very very long time.  That fact alone puts me above what a huge number of the world's population will ever be able to do.  After this I'll likely sit down on my couch with my wife and read some before retiring for the evening.  Despite the fact that it's literally freezing outside, I don't have to worry about the wind blowing in the house, or my kid being cold, or wild animals dragging me off in the night.  In the morning I won't have to worry about finding enough food to feed my family.

Compare that to those who are in poverty, those who wonder where the next bite of food will come from for their kids, those who are living in a box in a corner somewhere on the street, yeah, I'm "fine".  I would argue that a good number are not fine.  Based on the predictions of those outside of government and mainstream media (neither of which can be believed), things are getting worse and the number of those not "fine" are going to increase, likely significantly.

So I stand by my argument, today's systems are not "fine".

M

I'm pretty sure that he meant that in the context of the level of work to rest ratio that prior generations have had to endure.  On net, he's correct in this sense, although it's not 'endless'.

The dollar was derived from a long process derived from a commodity money system that was originally fractionally debased by private banks ultimately leading to the public to support the notion of a central bank to back stop some of the frequent bank runs and depressions.

Arguing against the Austrian theory of the origin of money is inane.

This last part is historicly false.  It's a widely held belief, mostly because of the degree of propaganda that the supporters of central banking have put out there over the past century.  There is, quite literally, no evidence that suggests that chartering of a central bank was ever an issue with any popular support, and particularly not in 1913 when it actually happened.  To be blunt, even the bill's planning and existance was a secret right up until it was introduced into congress, and passed with a flurry.  It makes Pelosi's "we have to pass it so you can see what's in it" bullshit look like high minded parlimentarly process.


Maybe, but not only do many actual economists argue that the Regression Theory is flawed, but Gary North doesn't even use it (if one assumes he is a true Austrian, I don't) in the proper sense.

Thx for the reply CoinCube, I would generally agree with the scenario your proposing.  That their is a big stealthy wealth-pumping effect caused by hard-money, and that Socialism and in particular wealth-redistribution urgings from the Poor are an attempt to pump the wealth back down to them.  Sadly the socialists have been misled by Marxist ideology for the last century.  Marx is completely ignorant of wealth transfer by interest and was completely silent on this subject.  It instead focused on Free-market which were never the problem, such markets are such an engine of wealth creation that people living under interest AND Free-markets ended up materially wealthier even with the vast 'sucking up' of their productivity to elites.  Meanwhile the political elite in a Centrally planned economies skim wealth in a much more obvious fashion and were soon seen to be parasitic with less wealth creating potential.  In the 'Capitalist' nations the Free-markets benefits are never distinguished from the parasitic interest system, so most people think of the Capitalist economy as one monolithic system and defend parasitic interest payments as a necessary part of free-markets, indeed if Hard-money is a hidden axiom (which it is for most people) then interest IS indeed necessary for any investment and growth.

And while I consider myself a Socialist in the broader sense, I have always preferred Taxation for the creation of public-good available without means testing to all members of society over crude wealth-redistribution.  Redistribution tends to be favored by the financial elites for acts to reinforce class distinction between 'net tax payers' and 'net recipients', where as public goods erase class distinctions.

I believe that if we eliminated the hidden wealth pumping of interest then we would no longer even entertain wealth-redistribution as a solution to the remaining wealth disparities.  But we would sill desire Public-goods and hopefully create them in optimum amounts.

Note you did not refute my statement that the dollar derived from a long bottom-up process of people preferring gold and silver as money. The Constitution stipulates the money is to be gold and silver, because that is what was seen by most people as the truest money of the time.

So your argument that we can sustainably top-down create currency in a very short people of time, without getting people to use it bottom-up spontaneously and in large scale doesn't have any basis in history nor theory. Hitler created money top-down (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=352080.msg3788162#msg3788162), Lincoln created the continental currency. Those both failed horrifically.

The central bank of the usa was originally given powers only to buy corporate paper (http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/24/confidence-in-the-economy-is-changing-from-public-to-private/) on a regional basis, i.e. to be a very short-term moderating influence on regional volatility in credit markets. Yet you see how it morphed over time.

The people were very much tired of the frequent bank runs and depressions. Even JP Morgan had to bail out the USA.

The people were not fighting any more for what Andrew Jackson did. They were tired already of the rollercoaster hamster wheel of unregulated fractional reserve banking (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=351712.0).

I am in agreement with the progress of the dissection of the issues by Impaler and CoinCube. I will add my thoughts to hopefully attain a higher-level agreement.


Please consider that the truth is neither either or. There is a symbiosis of bottom-up and top-down which is operating in waves cascading effects from one to the other throughout history.

Indeed the people individually want the hard money advantage for themself, yet they hate the collective outcome and since they don't see that the source of the problem is their individual desires, they have only one possible way to cash in on their grievances-- government redistribution. So the bottom-up is driving the top-down, yet the top-down is also driving the bottom-up as I will explain below. There is no conspiracy theory, it is just the way it works systemically.

It is really a sad state-of-humanity at this point.


Very insightful how you've noticed that the top-down controllers would at times prefer the money to be harder not softer. And they do this not only by limiting the expansion of the money supply at times, but also by overexpanding it when they are concentrating into their own pockets as with the current QE.

There is no mathematical correlation of expansion of the money supply and inflation in the Quantity Theory of Money (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222998.msg3615848#msg3615848). That recently popular notion appears to be propaganda fed to the hard-on money bugs in order to encourage them to destroy themselves and foster the hamster wheel for society.


Indeed the masses conflate everything. IQ is a bell curve, and even high IQ doesn't distribute uniformly on each issue. So as one of the elite said, "only one in a million can" see the truth.

And the top-control profiteers have every incentive to continue feeding them propaganda and educating them in state-schools where they can form their minds.


But taxation can never be fair because as you see above, the bottom-up demands a top-down. And Mancur Olsen's The Logic Of Collective Action (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984) explains that the top-down will always privatize the profits and socialize the losses.


But surely you must realize that human nature will never allow this to be true, because as you've identified upthread, the masses will always love hard money and they don't correlate this with the negative collective (systemic) effects. And you never teach them otherwise because IQ is not uniform and not even uniform on each issue for the high IQ.

Thus government will always fill that power vacuum of the incapability of the masses to comprehend.

The only possible solution would be a technological one that eliminates the ability of the masses to harm themselves with their own ignorance.


It is impossible for an anonymous coin to make brick and mortal transactions anonymous. The government will always be able to tax the industrial age economy.

My effort is targeted at the new virtual economy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=336350.msg3736243#msg3736243) I see coming, wherein a recent Oxford study predicts 47% of all existing jobs will be replaced with computerization automation by 2033 (the year Martin Armstrong's Pi model and thus I expect the sovereign debt crisis to have ended).

I see we the hitech knowledge workers taking over the world over the next 20 years. That is sufficient time to ramp up the new currency.

So let the government and the masses have their old world economy. They will have plenty of time to fade away slowly and/or adjust and migrate to the new economy.

Government can become privatized. We don't need government for anything, not for roads, not for schools, nothing. I am a minanarchist.

Give me an example of something we need government for and I will explain why I think it can be done better by private enterprise and competition.

Impaler pointed out that the masses conflate the free market with the failure that the masses causes on themselves with hard money and government. The free market is not the problem, rather it is the solution.

Edit: see the new flying car that already has a working prototype (http://unheresy.com/Flying%20Cars.html#Safety).

Link to further discussion that continued on from the above post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342848.msg3789022#msg3789022

The origin of money is debt. The origin of debt is collectivism. The origin of collectivism is organized violence. The origin of organized violence is disease.
Otherwise, stateless and self-sufficient communities in the rain forest would have money and markets as well. But they don't. They don't need it, because they are not taxed (indebted) by the state mafia. It's that simple.

We were talking about base money, one step above barter.

Debt is a derivative of base money.

No, base money is a derivative of debt. No debt - no base money. No organized violence - no debt.

Money breeds debt
Equities breed derivatives
Confidence breeds speculation

Money, Equities and Confidence live in the present

debt, derivatives and speculation live in the future

Just my 2 cents

The part I emphasized is the root of it.  Doesn't matter what configuration, government, lack of government, organization, money, non money, virtual, or not, et al, as long as humans are driven by their not self and focus on greed and material wants (not needs), you'll always get the same thing: disaster.

M