Bitcoin Forum

http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley

It seems like it'll hose corporate payment processors and allow the bitcoin network to collect an economic rent, IMHO ;D

I was thinking the same. The fact is people want to do business with each other, it's been normal activity since we started doing this kind of thing.

The  government saying we can't unless we play by their (pain in the ass) rules means nothing if there is an alternative.

Yes bitcoin is probably going to be illegal, but if everyone's doing it, and very few, if any are caught then it doesn't matter. We don't have to deal with the government anymore if we don't want to.

It's pretty scary that even states are passing crap like this.  It seems that no government, large or small, wants you to have control over your money.

The author posted this in the comments section:

It's the sole source of their power.

Oh how I wish exactly this happens.

Thanks for posting, very interesting link. Self-serving money monopoly abuse helps to feed the bitcoin.

In the US, government is entirely enthralled to the major forces of Finance and Industry (Finance more, now that non-military industry at least has been mostly exiled to China). The influence these interests and agendas wield is mistaken by some as an inherent characteristic in the concept of government itself. This is an error, and not at all useful.

You could not pay me to live in California.

If someone is paying people to live in CA, I'm available.

No surprise California was recently evaluated as the worst state for business.

http://smallbusiness.aol.com/2011/05/11/the-five-best-and-worst-states-for-business/

At one time, I was paid to live in California.  Southern California is a continuous slum.  I lived near Oceanside, and it costs a fortune to live anywhere within walking distance of the ocean, and the water is freezing.  The best views are from the "Coaster" commuter train, but if you get off and walk over the berm from the tracks, nothing but slum.

This is not an error. Government, by definition, will attract the worst elements of society who will use its unique powers on their interest. An industry cannot use guns itself to rule out competitors, but it can bribe government to pass laws which end up doing the same thing.

Just think in terms of costs and incentives. Put it in numbers to make it simpler. For example, imagine there is some particular law which, if approved, would cost every 300 million US citizens the equivalent of $1 each. On the other hand, this same law would benefit a small group of 100 individuals making them earn the equivalent of $2 million each.

Net = 100*2.000.000 - 300.000.000*1 = -100.000.000

The entire society loses the equivalent of $100 million. It's clearly a "bad law", even if we just get the net results, ignoring the unethical aspects of income redistribution. And it's clearly a law that inevitably will be approved.

That is simply because, if you're among those who would lose $1, you won't even bother knowing about such law, not to mention organize with others in order to prevent it from being approved. Those in loss will not do anything to stop the law, because the costs for doing so would largely exceed the losses they will suffer with the law.
On the other hand, those earning $2 million each would probably be among the ones writing the law, and would even invest more than one million each in lobbying and organization to get such law passed. They will win.

This "overtake by unscrupulous interests" is inevitable, and it is an inherent characteristic of government.

caveden, that was the best explanation of that problem (does it have a name, I think "public choice" is broader?) I've read. Well said.

it's called 'rent-seeking'.

from wikipedia: "Rent-seeking agents will spend money in socially unproductive ways, such as political lobbying, in order to attain, maintain or increase monopoly power."

Glad you liked it. :) The first time I saw this explanation was in the video of a speech done by Patri Friedman for the first Austrian Economic Seminar done in Brazil. Judging by the slide he shows while talking about such incentive structure, the author is a guy named Mancur Olson and in the slide it names "The logic of collective action".
This speech, about seasteading, is quite good an inspired me. If you want to watch, it is in English, here: http://mises.org.br/FileUp.aspx?id=47

Yes, it's true. Sweden for instance is ruled by a small clique of mink-clad gold-toothed government beaurocrats that rule by balance-book dictat over vast apathetic swarthes of a population that languishes uneducated and diseased in the dark and sprawling slumps of Stokholm.

Have you ever considered that the problem might be with the kind of governments that are produced by the  Market-Liberal tradition? If your political sphere is a mere market-place, you should expect trade. Ironically people who talk like you do tend to want precisely that, unfettered market fundamentalism. That's why things like democracy and socialism is opposed by such people, it would interfere with their profit margins. That's why I'm against libertarianism, I don't want a government that is free to be bought and sold by the highest bidder with the necessary market power.

I want a government that is kept honest by a well-informed enpowered population that demands quality for it's tax-money, a government restricted to spending its taxes on public goods and subsidizing the value of non-commodified human existance. If bitcoin takes off then the shaddowy handlers of payment companies wouldn't think they get to pull levers in the background to stiffle innovation at the expense of everyone else like this.

Market-liberalism and libertarianism mean oligopolies and monopolies get to get together and game the system to their own benefit with precisely those Austrian calculations you posted. This is precisely what communism, democracy, anarchy and socialism  etc are strategies to oppose. People taking government seriously as a common-good, engaging and demanding it to be used for common-goods is what crashes your Austrian School calculation. Political decision is not a market and if it behaves like one then you should change the architecture. I'm no communist or socialist or anarchist (I'm social democrat) but I am against being ruled by private dynasties and corporations of various kinds lording it over politically unconcious and unempowered populations that vehemently oppose their own interests.

Anyway all that aside, this particular payment-system game has already been outmanouvered by the coin, and that's very satisfying. It's almost Thai-Chi... use the energy of their attack against them. Unjust legislation like this just goes to help the bitcoin value.:)

It's a classic example of bitcoins democratization of money dissempowering price-makers and causing their basis to buy government for their own ends to dissapear. An elegant solution in my opinion.

And on that day, Satan will be skating to work.

Very nicely put nttgc.

1000 internets to nttgc! :-)

Then you want what has never been, and can never be.  No matter how one might look at it now, the establishment of the United States as a federated republic was an experiment to do exactly what you profess you desire; and that experiment was a failure by any metric I can imagine.  Yet, it was also literally the closest any nation in the history of the world has ever come, and that includes modern Sweden.  After a point, a rational person looks at the evidence and concludes that the concept of government itself is fundamentally flawed, and therefore the ideal is impossible.  The irrational person convinces himself that the implimentation (or some other detail) was flawed, and in this way continues to advocate against his own interests and those of his principles.  Have you ever stopped to consider, what if my premises are wrong?

Usually what I tell minarchists who staunchly defend the idea of a republic and public law in the form of a constitution is this:

The constitution either gave you the corrupt overreaching tyrannical and parasitic government that you have, or it was unable to prevent it.

A classic quote, indeed.  But to be clear, I'm not an anarchist, either.  I'm not because I view anarchy as a transitional state, not a sustainable one; and one that tends towards an even worse stable political condition than what you might call minarchy.  As flawed as the idea of government is, I also have come to believe that it is human nature to trend towards identifying authority that we can relate to.  So no matter how rational anarchy might be for 20% of the population, there will always be that 2% of the population that will attempt to take advantage of the system, and the other 78% of the population will look to anyone who asserts to be able to do something about it as an authority.

In the end, the best we can hope for is a vibrant and innovative "market" of authorities to choose from; such as is imagined in "The Diamond Age", but even choosing your government from a number of 'phyles' or chosing to go it alone and unaided, is still a government.

"caught"?? Come on.. I highly doubt the government would start penalizing citizens for using something that was advertised/widespread in the least.

It's not like they started arresting people who tried to use liberty dollars. They only arrested the founder.

Why do you give examples favorable to your preferences?

Why are people well-informed and empowered when demanding quality for it's tax money, yet they are politically unconscious and "unempowered" when being ruled by private dynasties and corporations?

You assume the best case scenario in arguing for government and assume the worst case scenario in arguing against it.

(Of course you also make the assumption that private dynasties and corporations will even be able to "rule" without a government giving them the power to do so.)

As creighto said, "Have you ever stopped to consider, what if my premises are wrong?"

So that's why Satoshi can't be found.

Option 3: the constitution kept things from getting even WORSE than they are now, and it's possible to create a better constitution than the original framers did. I don't know any minarchists who defend the status quo: asking them to is like asking all anarchists to defend Somali anarchy.

Sure, if you want a government that will take your money because you think they can spend it better than you, you can have one. Just don't force other people into it.

The market power is created by the venue not by the money. Anything you can talk about in a bar is sold. In fact, the very act of meeting that person in the bar and making a deal is a sale.

This is a fundamental fact. If I meet Joe Blow and promise him benefits for a decision, the sale is already done. In Cancun, on the moon, Malibu. The sale is between people.

If there is however limited inherent power in the facilities of government, THEN THERE IS NOTHING TO BE SOLD.


It's the govt that tells people that they don't have a right "to be well informed" and you want to empower that?

Bitcoin is libertarian. It's the people who are socialist/capitalists/raelians/speculators.


They can't trade power that isn't there.


Eh, no. Communism is a facade. Denocracy is a day to day responsibility. Bitcoin is anarchy. Socialism is a quick path to phd and tenure.


By bitching at usurpers on this board we are in fact doing that. Your theories assume a vacuum of public participation. Fail.


We demand it by turning off the boob tube and chasing bastards off this board and reporting spontaneously threats to the culture and community.

A system is not a demand. A system is a toy. Always will be.


Political decision is by definition public action. Stop dreaming about committeesd. Start rolling up your sleeves.


If there is architecture beyond the bare dynamics then there is one multitude shirking their responsibility and a parasite minority driving it.


Then set up your laisez-faire rig and help Alabama like I am. Bitcoin makes participation and freedom to choose how you do so the very power the people have and you want a central body regulating what the people can do.

Reality doesn't run on philosophy. It runs on static and dynamic principles.


You don't get democratization by disempowerment, you get it by dispersion of power. Listen to yourself. You think you get power from disempowerment, like if you take math classes away from the smart kids the ones who haven't learned yet will be able to do calculus.

You can't give someone's power to someone else. You can only add power to those who do not have it.

Bitcoin makes us the government and the government WHICH MADE THE UNJUST LAW is opposing.

You don't comprehend power. Power is opportunity (not authority) multiplied by talent (not skill). Bitcoin empowers not because it uses the system against them but because it allows us to use a system for ourselves and each other. Government isn't authority. It is a place. A venue. The bigger it is the more power it gives to the occupier. LIKE THE FCC Commissioner who okayed the merger and then works at one of the firms four months later.

Government is simply a PLACE. Its machinery is pure fantasy. Those are toys at the disposal of whoever wants to pay for them. No toys, no opportunity, no power.

How can you be so stupid? It's freaking fascinating.

According to your logic words on a piece of paper are going to prevent people from doing stuff?! WTF is wrong with you?

You use "we" a lot in your posts as if there is one overwhelming political philosophy shared by all those on this message board and the bitcoin community.

I use we in the mechanical sense not the umbrella sense. We means:

more than one such individual who has a similar philosophy, similar intent, similar ability, not limited to but including therefore the possibility of which there isn't a prohibition against a principle but together with similar ends including peripheral ideas which may not be shared by all so one may delineate precisely what one means without imposing an idea upon someone else unless there is more than one more than one such individual who has a similar philosophy, similar intent, similar ability, not limited to but including therefore the possibility of which there isn't a prohibition against a principle but together with similar ends including peripheral ideas which may not be shared by all so one may delineate precisely what one means without imposing an idea upon someone else unless there is more than one such individual who has a similar philosophy, similar intent, similar ability, not limited to but including therefore the possibility of which there isn't a prohibition against a principle but together with similar ends including peripheral ideas which may not be shared by all so one may delineate precisely what one means without imposing an idea upon someone else unless there is more than one such individual who has a similar philosophy, similar intent, similar ability, not limited to but including therefore the possibility of which there isn't a prohibition against a principle but together with similar ends including peripheral ideas which may not be shared by all so one may delineate precisely what one means without imposing an idea upon someone else unless there is...

I think we works better than the above. I'm not speaking for anyone, but multiple people can have the effect necessary to be able to claim that in fact it can be done.

They only arrested the founder, because this one arrest was enough to shut down liberty dollars.

Wow! perhaps Satoshi was really Bin Laden.

My stupidity is a combination of genetics, upbringing, and exposure to many ideas, some of which are certainly stupid and wrong. Specifically, I've bought into the notion that not only is "rule of law" possible, but people currently living under such a constitutional democracy are better off than people living in present-day anarchy.

When a modern anarcho-capitalist society comes to be, I promise I will consider moving there. It really sounds awesome, no sarcasm, seriously. I'm even willing to participate in projects like Bitcoin that might help bring about such a society. But I don't think your one-liner about minarchism proves anything whatsoever. X either brings about Y or fails to prevent it - for any X and Y that actually exist. Airbags either bring about traffic deaths or fail to prevent them. It doesn't really sound so deep when you consider that some solutions are inherently flawed and can only be compared to their alternatives.

It's nice to see you have an open mind and I'll admit that even I am often struggling with the way the world works right now and how we can ever hope to move towards an an-cap society which I believe would be the ideal form to live under while being prosperous and free.

My one liner wasn't intended to prove that in one swing but it is merely a piece of the puzzle for those who do not believe what I believe.

btw you chose the wrong y for your x. Y in my one liner was obviously the situation derived from the purpose of x where if you wanted to use airbags the correct form would be: Airbags either killed you or were unable to save you. In either case you're dead and airbags would have failed their purpose which is what the gist of my one liner was.

Your parents are fail for sitting with you in the front seat.

Any updates on the actual law's applicability to Bitcoin? I have not read the bill but the articles I see only talk about this applying to money, which I don't think the law would view Bitcoin as at this time. For example would Linden dollars be money in the eyes of the law now? Unlikely.

It seems the only option for the government(s) will be to treat this like copyright infringement. Make BTC use illegal and working with ISPs to catch individuals and make an example out of them, just like they are doing with copyright see:

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-million-dollar-verdict-music-piracy-case.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20043421-281.html
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/us-government-seizes-82-websites-draconian-future

I feel we need to grow the BTC economy faster so it will be harder to crack down on once laws are passed! Many sheeplike people will blindy stigmatize bitcoin if it is made illegal before it gains wider traction.....