Bitcoin Forum

thx to bbit

"now confronting its own wrenching financial conflict: how to divvy up the nearly $500,000 the group has raised via donations"

"The fights over financing are as varied as the protesters' reasons for protesting. Should the library buy the cheapest tables available or more sturdy, durable ones? Should the funds be spent on infrastructure in Manhattan or to help Occupy movements across the U.S.? Should all the money be converted to an alternative currency like Bitcoin?"


Source:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/occupy-wall-street-money-donated-tension_n_1029377.html


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50276.0

From the article, seems as if the money decisions are decided by a vote of everyone - but very few people actually 'understand money', and many of the protesters just let the 'money guys' of the protest handle it.

Obviously they're discussing that by spending the fiat directly, they're just enabling 'the system'.  Even putting it somewhere runs the risk of having the account frozen for arbitrary reasons.  While they still need to by supplies and such, I guess they're looking at Bitcoin quite seriously.

This is rather ironic.

If they buy bitcoins, they'll lose 1/4th of their money, sadly.  If they bought a little in bitcoins, it might be 1/2 or 1/3, but they'll probably buy large amounts of coins at once.

Why not just buy-as-they-go and use bitcoin via bit-pay or mtgox? They can organically show businesses one-by-one how to accept bitcoin for payment and either keep them and/or convert instantly to local currency.

The main pragmatic point to their using Bitcoin would be to secure themselves against seizure of funds. Buy-as-they-go isn't an option if that's the goal. Of course, they could just dump their USD into one or more Mt. Gox accounts, but then they'd have to trust Gox. Try selling the idea of giving all your money to some guy on the Internet to a very diverse crowd of people...

Indeed. This is the decision we must all make.

I hope they do, it would be fantastic publicity for bitcoin and is pretty much what occupy is for, a decentralized currency. run the idea by those that understand it and I gaurantee that they will be for the idea, although the uneducated definitely outnumber the smarter individuals in the protest,

Hopefully some of the crowd will be drawn to btc I'd like nothing more than to see bitcoin succeed all bitcoin needs is more ways to use them other than day trading

What do they have? USD. What do they need? Sleeping bags, blankets, gloves, food, etc. How much of this can they purchase with Bitcoin (aside from services that sell gift cards for Bitcoin and immediately sell the Bitcoin for USD) ? Not a whole lot.

+1

Local businesses would adapt if they boycotted the USD.  Food is already available for BTC, and compared to debit/credit card fees, bitcoins are cheap to transact in.

Nah, they're not stupid.  Most likely someone that's familiar with bitcoins would help them buy and use additional coins efficiently.

The coins that have been donated to them appear to be circulating, not just accumulating at the main donation address, so someone knows what they're doing:
https://blockexplorer.com/address/1Q7DQVTubbUqr5by2YoZJRKCEzj9D3LQ9w

I would propose that they start converting a fixed percentage of all newly donated funds into bitcoin going forward. Start building a local non-bank controlled economy with those local businesses around them, and start giving the world an example of what can be done without the "1%" getting involved.

It is unfortunate though that the easiest way to convert dollars into bitcoin is through Chase. I doubt that they would like that.

Edit: Unless the manipulator is there, and can sell his massive stockpile for cash directly...

There's some bitcoin <--> cash services not using banks.

By definition there will always be a richest 1% and except for the single unlikely case of an isotropic wealth distribution, they will always control more than 1% of the wealth.

The same kind of rule applies to almost every distribution of anything. Take the Occupy movement and rank all of those involved by their media impact. How much press coverage do they have. I bet the top %1 control much more than %50 of the press coverage. There is tyranny everywhere if you look hard enough.

I think for people who are protesting money, and don't even understand what money is to begin with, the question of whether or not to convert it to Bitcoin may be the least of their problems

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2011/10/24/occupy-wall-street-money-donated-tension_n_1029377.html

1) They're not protesting 'money', they're protesting the influence corporations have over government, due to the density of the wealth distribution

2) Your link is the same as the link in the OP

3) This coming from a guy who wanted to raise 500k to buy a restaurant operated by robots.

That article is fantastically ironic. Hopefully the inability to get their act together will teach them a little something about how things like the gov't work.

Look who didn't get the joke.  Did you hear the actual whooshing sound?

Sorry, I've yet to be able to successfully determine between posts which are a waste of time and whole accounts which are a waste of time.

Wow, they have fund.

I don't think they understand wealth distribution. That article basically demonstrates that exact point.


Oops!


It was only $350k


That post was a waste of time, and my account is primarily a waste of MY time.

Some of you peeps might enjoy this article from the Washintonpost blog:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/the-real-wall-street-occupation-is-online/2010/12/20/gIQAFKANfM_blog.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/the-real-wall-street-occupation-is-online/2010/12/20/gIQAFKANfM_blog.html)

Would be good if they transfered a few % into bitcoins. Would be an overall success I reckon if they did xD



Thats funny.

This is the stupidest article ever.

It's basically an ad for wepay.com which is nothing but another ordinary online payment system with fees rather high compared to its competition.

They then act like PayPal is ever a good choice for any donations.  PayPal *always* will freeze an account that gets a lot of donations.  It has done this since it started.

Then it advertises banksimple.com, which is nothing but another website with online bank accounts with no fees, except it's not even set up and worse you can only have one bank account with it when the others let you have as many as you want.  The only unique thing is it claims no overdraft fees, but it's not ready, and probably will only waive overdraft fees like the other cheap ones do where you need an overdraft line of credit.

Then it criticizes bitcoin and suggests we use a bitcoin alternative.

Oh boy, you still have some things you better not see... ;D

Does anyone expect an intelligent move from the anti-dudes? They'll either convert none of the funds or way too much, possibly burning a lot in a stupid move. I think generally being against monetary systems is related to being unable to handle money, and not understanding what is going on in general, so don't expect these guys to be of much help to us. They just cause a ruckus and damages in their wild flailing and then hopefully dissipate.

I think you have a serious case of confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias). They are not against monetary systems, though the are against monetary policy that heavily favor the rich, like keeping inflation rates at record lows, which favors debt holders, rather than addressing unemployment via monetary policy.

Matt Taibbi speaks exactly to your comments in this piece on  misguided criticism of OWS (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025)

This isn't a politics forum, so I don't really want to get into things here, but I'll leave 2 more links here:
* The official Declaration of OWS (http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/) with a list of grievances (not demands/solutions - these are the problems they want addressed) passed by the NY General Assembly way back in September, and has amazingly received almost no attention even though it addresses the "why are they there?" question directly.
* Mike Konzcal, a fellow at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, on possible ways to address student loan debt problem (https://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/two-steps-towards-tackling-our-current-student-loan-problems/), which has sparked a bunch of healthy debate on remedies for the problem.  This isn't "flailing", it's working through issues. Congress moves slow, and it's a tad unfair to expect OWS to come up with a workable list of solutions to all the world's problems in 45 days. don't you think?   I think it will be a couple of years before things settle down - the Occupy movement is getting bigger, not smaller, and isn't going anywhere.  He and many other economists have been leading teach-ins at Occupy sites, which is the first step towards more people learning and getting more involved.

Finally, if bitcoins are involved in OWS there's a good chance I'll be consulted after my fundraising push for OWS, and I am in touch with the bitcoin holder at the Occupy Wall Street group in NYC. Right now, they have more important things to do than spend virtual money, but I think they'll get to bitcoins at some point in the next few months.  I'm a 1%'er, but I identify with the 99%. :)

I don't think I can have a confirmation bias, since my opinion on these people is extremely young. I don't live in the US or England, and only noticed this when it came here. The whole movement has virtually no effect on me, so I don't have any personal reasons to prefer one opinion. I'm not a member of the financial system or government. In fact, I despise almost all the governments for what they are doing.

I judge people not by what the most intelligent percentile of them says, but their actions. What I see happening is a horde walking into stock exchanges, shouting anger about a wide variety of topics. This was the first thing I heard, and it took me a few seconds to ask "why attack a stock exchange?" -- yet I did not get a reasonable answer up until now.

That list that was just posted, it could come from some opposition party anywhere on the planet, it is just the political technique of drawing in anger. Every sentence starts with "they", yet the text does not clearly define whom it refers to. This is intentional, as some people want the word "corporations" there, while others want the word "governments", some might mean "the rich" and even some only "the banks".

This is maybe the most blatant example. The first part clearly blames the government, as no private institution has the power to take money from taxpayers at their liking. However, the second is screaming left-wing politics, telling investors whom to give or not give their money, which should concern the private sector only.

The entire text is flooded with information that shows two things: one, these people are not understanding what is going on, let alone knowing how to fix the system. And two, the statements are optimized to draw in more people rather than help understand the problem. That is why I believe it is only another political mob, and have my doubts they will achieve anything great.

If there was a mob like that saying the right things, showing they know which way to walk, I'd be on the street any time.

They're not attacking the stock exchange by the way. However, the stock exchange is central to many things that are wrong with todays world so it served as a focal point for the people to gather.

Also, your criticism of the "they" language is quite on sided. It happens to be the best way express the thing when you see something being done but can't see exactly who is doing it. The things they list might even be unintended byproducts of actions where a distinct group of "they" cannot even be named or is too big to be named and lumped under a single group. Also, yes, I expect the purpose behind these sentences to be exactly to get more people involved. This is not a group of people who are demanding change. This is a group of people who've decided to make change happen. That includes figuring it out.

They're not simply just shouting their grievances in anger. That would be just a demonstration. They're actually talking out there. Learning things, discussing things. What they will achieve remains to be seen, of course. However, it's a lot of people who have decided to actually do something. They don't yet know what it is. They're still figuring out what's causing the things they want to fix. It shows that people are waking up to the fact that they can fix things, they don't need to just sit and wait for "someone else" to do it. People are regaining their own initiative.

Unless you go out and talk to them directly (and a whole lot of them at that), then all the things the mob "says" will be whatever your source of media tells you they said (that's hearsay in a court of law).

Easier said than done. None of the movements is close by for me. The best I can do is read what they write on the net -- and that falls largely into either politically... optimized, to put it mildly, statements by the "official" sites, or quite random comments by random people.

I really spent a lot of time trying to get a broader picture of what is wrong with politics. Not just now, but for many years; anybody surprised at what happened the last years was living with his head in the sand. The conclusions I came to just don't address the problem even remotely the way politicians and activists intend to address it now. I feel like being in a lost, tiny party that just isn't compatible with the rest.

Right now, Bitcoin is the only movement where I feel at home. The difference lies in not just randomly having a good point (normal case), but instead making some mistakes while wanting the right thing (Bitcoin case).



So, admittedly, part of my reaction to the protests' statements come from my personal frustration on the topic. I want to scream at these people, "What the hell are you doing?" The answers are visible openly, why don't they see any of them?




All you said is true. This is how they see it, it's what they do and intend, and their intentions are likely good.

Unfortunately, it doesn't contradict my statements. They are failing at figuring it out. There's more noise, but the amount of truth and good concepts behind it has not increased.

Macroeconomics is a hard combination of logic, statistics, empirical knowledge and game theory. You can't faze that with some mass movement any more than you can destroy a river by throwing stones into it. Unless you know exactly where to throw them, it will just form a new, similar path.

I'd really love to explain to people what to do, but I can't find any way to prove my opinion better than that of others, at least not without using arguments that are so excessive, someone understanding them would know what to do anyways. This is the great dilemma I just can't solve, and the reason I sit here trading Bitcoins instead of changing the world.

It takes each person time to figure things out. Think about how long it took you to get there. It'll likely take most people even longer.


It does contradict your statements. The key is that you think they're failing at figuring it out. I disagree. The only way to fail at figuring something out is to give up. I don't see them doing that. Then again, I can't say they won't do that, however, I'm quite encouraged by the fact that they care and believe enough to have kept going this long.

Myself, I don't see any chance of "fixing the world" unless the enough people figure out what's up. This is why I see this occupy movement in quite a positive light. Even if I'm not taking part in it.

True, it doesn't look like they're causing much harm. And the politicians will have a rough time getting some questions asked face-to-face. :) But is this really the large-scale progress we need?

I've spend countless hours discussing politics, I wouldn't want to make a guess just how many. If I would have to make a map of ideas and arguments I approve of, they all come from discussions with a select few people. The massive majority never manages to figure out what the others are thinking, and produce extremely lengthy discussions that never go anywhere.

A good measure of not failing at figuring something out is admitting mistakes. This marks true progress, very especially if a fundamental idea is dropped as wrong and replaced by something new. In science, this is a core point, and discussions there revolve around which models to assume and which to drop. Do the people of "Occupy XYZ" do that when they discuss their plans?

Let me give an example sentence that will not be said. It is about the first lesson in economics everybody should learn in school.

"We are no enemies of globalization. We are not trying to enforce policies that lock other countries out of our markets. In both theory and history, anti-global thinking has not only been shown to be devastating to the own market, but also as inhumane towards poorer parts of the world. Such thinking will no longer be used by us."

Let them say it, let me hear it. They won't. There are hundreds such sentences that are true and important, but never spoken aloud, since that might shrink the crowd. It's the curse of politics.