Bitcoin Forum

The Zeitgeist Movement - First truly decentralized, impossible to control, free currency (http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=5&id=281939)

Perhaps it may be worthy to spread knowledge from within our community to other communities taht discuss about Bitcoin?  In some threads on other sites I have noticed that there is a lack of information or understanding as to how Bitcoin works.  Perhaps if any of us discover such a thread we can reference it here so that we can also add useful, insightful, factual knowledge/information to the discussion?

Feel free to reference other threads that are notable and i can include them in this first post.

Considering that the website is ran by and frequented by people who don't believe in free trade, or even *money*, as a positive social order; I wouldn't think that any argument for bitcoins would be well received.  Other sites might prove to be worthy places to make such an effort, but not this one.

Yeah, I went over there and it was ridiculous. Why did you think they'd be interested? They hate money, not just the way money is now.

Check out the Global Settlement Foundation's Public Notice (http://www.global-settlement.org/cms/node/6).

I am all for promoting bitcoin but I wish to offer some friendly critique about the post on the other forum. Through personal experience I have found attempting to promote something on other forums is a tricky business. One has to remember forum owners, moderators and users are generally very possessive creatures - they hate marketing or external sites, especially if it sounds like marketing.

There is nothing wrong with the article on the other forum, if it was published on a site which accepts articles. Within the context of a forum where everyone has a voice, and everyone has something to say, whether it is worth saying or not, one has to use more tact to push others in the direction you wish them to follow. On a forum or discussion group one has to use the one power open to you - the reader's opinion and ego. The readers in these media often want to say something, they don't like to be "preached" or "marketed" to.

The simple way to achieve this is to spark debate with a simple post like:
"I came across this open source project at www.bitcoin.org which seems interesting. I kinda like the fact it cuts out the middle man for micro payments. I wonder if it will work out and become a valid alternative payment system? What do you guys think?"

Now instead of having told them how great it is, they have been given the right to make up their own minds about it and tell you what they think. It really doesn't matter what they say then, because most who comment and even those who don't will visit the site to see for themselves instead of dismissing it out of hand because they disagree with your opinion; such as they have done with the posted article we are discussing. Either way bitcoin will win because many will visit, some will disagree, other will like it, but they all would have visited the official site. I've also found that allowing something like bitcoin to speak for itself in such forums creates less negative postings than stating your opinion as a fan and encourages a healthy debate because the posters don't feel they taking on a salesman.

Just my opinion :)

I found that hilarious!

I like that, Willsway.

There are a few I have noticed or mentioned bitcoin in.

http://fr33agents.ning.com/group/fansofbitcoin (http://fr33agents.ning.com/group/fansofbitcoin)

http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=21116.15 (http://nhunderground.com/forum/index.php?topic=21116.15)

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=33875.0 (http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=33875.0)

He should try to leave his politics out of business; or tone them down at the very least. The average layman will perceive him as insane. Would you trust a man that you perceived to be insane with your money? I certainly wouldn't.

That being said, a lot of the things about law that he has on his site are correct 'in theory'. He will find that the legal system will steam roll him with statues 'in practice'. Theory and practice are totally different things.

He claims to have a corporation in Panama setup to handle things. (Probably for bank wires.) Which means that he's under the jurisdiction of Panama. (Or at least the part of GSF that handles fiat currency is.) He has a clause that states that he has a backup trust to take over should a statute/act of Panama violate "The Law of the Land".

I see an obvious problem: Panama never had (or has) the "Law of the Land" (which is synonymous with Common Law, btw). Sure, you could just say that Panama must follow English Common Law. That is like telling the USA to adhere to the law system of Zimbabwe -- OR ELSE! (Or else *what*? Exactly!)

I don't know how he expects that to work. Perhaps he will just abandon the bank account/corporation and give Panama the finger when something goes wrong? Lol!

In the end he's holding your money and you have to trust him. After this current monetary system completely breaks down, trust will be the biggest issue. As long as we have electricity and some kind of a network Bitcoin is a better system for running our ledgers.

I 'know of' the man who runs GSF. He's not a bad guy. He's jaded and pissed off at the current monetary policies. But, who isn't? :P

I responded to the post that thought that all coins were lost if the network split.

Thanks.Some people may not understand that this particular situation is so unlikely to happen that it verges on impossible.That is the benefit of this project which lets everyone bring up possible weaknesses and allay fears.If people just read the first page of a thread without doing any further investigation it is hard to convince them differently than their first impression.

I haven't been to all of the other sites mentioned on this thread, but I will say that it astounds me the decided lack of economics education and how some people have some downright silly notions of what money really is.  Yes, we've had some discussions along that line on this forum too, but it is especially interesting to see this discussion among a group that thinks the "Star Trek" future of money might happen where nobody really needs the stuff.

BTW, I think that is the one thing Gene Roddenberry got flat out wrong about the future of humanity, and something even the later Star Trek writers figured out when they introduced "gold-pressed latinum" and monetary economics into the script... or a "secondary currency" of Romulan ale.  Since he was writing fiction (or filming it as it may be), minor things like economics don't really need to be examined too closely.

I would love to see how a "money-less" society could ever function realistically in term of the allocation of scarce resources, shy of a dictatorial and centralized authority that controls those resources through sheer force of arms and arbitrary whim.  That is how I allocate chocolate in my household between my kids (if they aren't revolting and stealing it from me), but that is not a workable system that preserves liberties in the long run.  I even introduced a family currency precisely because of this situation... an experiment I'll have to describe elsewhere.

Getting back to the main point of this thread:  I agree that we need to "spread the word" and try to engage other communities (including "on-line" communities) to the concept of Bitcoins.  I have a notion to do just that elsewhere myself, including a couple places that I think may be much more receptive to the concept.  Caution needs to happen though to not try and change what may be core beliefs of the community, as is apparently the problem with this particular thread on thezeitgeistmovement.com.  It is also very useful not to get into fights with the moderators, as happened on this site.  The battle over the links (other than to Bitcoins itself) is a fight that doesn't necessarily have to be won to simply get the message out, even if I think the controversy is sort of silly in the first place.

It is also refreshing to me in terms of seeing the reactions of people with a very different mindset about Bitcoins in terms of what things ought to be considered when presenting the concept to new groups.  If anything, I consider this thread on the Zeitgeist forum to be something very productive to read even if there is some hostility there.  Know that even if the concept is being attacked, at least the concept is being brought up and people are at least looking at the idea.  That is a good thing and by far and away a better kind of thread than one which expresses the concept and then nobody else responds.

YES! You are the first one I've found outside outside my little circle that understands law (and that includes lawyers), and the importance of the words we've been throwing around. "Cash, money, currency, dollars, worh," etc.

These words will come back to bite us, guaranteed.

The Zeitgeist movement seems kind of screwball to me, but I like some of their comments, especially those questioning our terminology.

He declared himself an equal sovereign to King John and wrote his own 300 plus page magna carta!

I don't think it took the English nearly 300 pages and they FORCED the king to sign it. I think he is a very silly silly man!

I, too, am concerned about the legal implications of declaring "bitcoins" to be currency and how that will be interpreted in terms of anti-counterfeiting and "legal tender" laws.  Bitcoins is not asserting itself as a legal tender, but that is also one of its weaknesses as it can be seen as "competition" for a legal tender.

At the moment, Bitcoins is mostly an experimental computer project that has some people playing with virtual currencies on a minor basis.  In this regard it is no different that MMORPGs, and to regulators is being treated like that.  Still, some of the comments made on the Zeitgeist forum are some valid issues that need to be evaluated and have some legal defenses set up to protect against what will be an eventual legal challenge to Bitcoins and their usage as a form of payment for goods or services.

Well, under Common Law you have societies. Societies can have their own language. (Ask the Law Society about their creation: legalese.)

Those who use Bitcoins could join/create a separate society. They could, in theory, define money/wealth/currency/person/corporation/dog/cat/apple to mean whatever they want. They could even have their own dictionary that their society uses to interpret from.

The problem lies in tacit consent and assumption. Those who are part of the "other" (de facto) society will assume that the words that are being used are already defined (and can be redefined) by them. They can also trick you into tacitly agreeing with their definitions as well. Or trick you into granting them jurisdiction in situations where they normally wouldn't have it.

The best way to operate is to not cause conflict. Those who flagrantly mail out nutty looking paperwork to government officials will find themselves under abnormal scrutiny.

I hide in plain sight. I keep my politics within my group of friends. I refuse to obey laws that enslave me. I live modestly and don't make extravagant purchases or flash money around. I try to stay off of the radars of the so-called authorities. I am completely free this way. :)

I hope the owner of GSF would do the same. I'm not saying that he should give up. He shouldn't. He should keep a lower profile, and tone his politics down. They have no place in business.

Cheers! :)

GSF plans on being one of the few global entities that survives the coming collapse, and the catalyst for rebuilding.  That's my impression, anyway.

I think I'll copy all his stuff and declare myself sovereign of North America. That way in the post collapse aftermath, if people are stupid enough to accept him as a global leader, I'll have equal claim!

This is open mockery and is intended with humor rather than a direct attack on anyone!  :-)
-------
I read a bit on the Venus Project web site: "The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture." It also mentions: "The Zeitgeist Movement is the activist arm of The Venus Project"

It is clear that Jacque Fresco the founder of the project thinks the world can't make due without him. However, the whole concept of redesigning the world based upon the musings of a Frenchman seems absurd. So even he seems to think its plausibility depends on it sounding a bit more German.

But really, nobody much cared for the last two times the German's decided to take humanity in a new direction! Not even the French!

--End Mockery!--------
(Yes, I know they are based in Florida and are stealing from Walt Disney, but thinking of this as an American concept just makes me sad.)

Feel free to mock me if you wish!

I don't have any reason to mock you, but I do wonder why you find nationality such an important factor.

Sub-groups are a huge overall benefit to mankind. They allow the world as a whole to try many different solutions to any given problem. It is an "evolutionary" solution that is incredibly undervalued by some other sub-groups. Namely Venus/Zeitgeist type groups that think the world would be much better if everyone would just get along by doing things the way our group wants them to. You never here these types say, the world would be much better if I just did what that group wants me to.

I highly value the existence of sub-groups they make the world a much better place. I like to go and visit other sub-groups learn about them and borrow/steal their good ideas. I also like to leave their bad ideas behind.

But just because the existence of different sub-groups in an absolute good, does not imply that every sub-group is equally good, or espouses equally valid opinions. It is very important to be able to compare and contrast groups, so we can borrow/share good ideas and leave behind the poor ones.

Nationalities are important sub-groups to use in examples because many people can understand your point in few words. It is completely accurate in many cases to say, "Americans are so..." because we are. You know that, and sometimes we even know it. :-) 

It should go without saying that, there exist Americans that are not... but sometimes humor does not translate well between different languages. On a forum it is always good to point out when you are deliberately being silly.

In my case, I was referring to a really old joke that many Europeans seem to know. It goes in one variation:

"Heaven is where the police are English, the cooks are French, the engineers are German, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss.

In Hell, the police are German, the cooks are English, the engineers are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians."

Hence my reference to their replacing perceived bad French engineering with perceived good German engineering. At the expense of people worrying about German policing.

Cheers!

Hetalia fan?

No, not "leader."  "Market maker", perhaps (and that's me talking).

Also, these folks have been working on this for decades.  They're preparing to survive the collapse of the internet, as we know it.  For fictionalized accounts, read Cryptonomicon and Halting State, for example.

The real trick is what to do when a mob mentality strikes and those in a sub-group are intolerant of others what espouse a very different viewpoint.  I was recently kicked out of discussion forum because I dared to challenge the "leadership" of the site (not really the site owner... as it was a political activism site) because they were in the midst of a massive purge of the "membership".  It should have said something that over half of the active members were booted from the site, so I clearly wasn't the only one.

I agree that sub-groups with very different opinions ought to be tolerated and encouraged so far as the fact that no one single person has all of the answers to fix the problems of this world.  Really crazy and far out ideas perhaps on occasion can turn out to be the best solutions... I've seen it happen too.  In the "marketplace" of ideas, it is healthy to strive for consensus, but allow the possibility that perhaps something better could still pop up.

I, too, sometimes read stuff from groups I absolutely don't agree with.  In some ways this can be considered "opposition research", but generally for me it is also simply trying to understand an opposing viewpoint as well.  And on a rare occasion I am persuaded to change my opinion on a topic and admit that I"m wrong.  I'm at least willing to keep an open mind so far as to at least allow for the possibility.

The quest for Utopia is an ancient one, and there have even been organized groups of various kinds (both religious and secular) with rather large numbers of members that have been around for at least the past 1000 years.  Massachusetts is a good example where it was established explicitly by a dreamy-eyed vision of the future where people were willing to put their money where their mouth was and move several thousand miles to create another experiment in Utopia.  That the people living in that place now have almost no common beliefs with the original founders is besides the point.  I certainly don't think you will find too many Puritans attending Harvard or MIT or sitting on the city council in Boston.  Still, you can't dispute that the experiment in New England was at least a partial success and it did make a difference in terms of world history.

I would love to see at least some of these group try to accomplish their goals,  even if I think they are raving lunatics and out of touch with reality.  An experiment tried and failed is better than an experiment that is never tried at all.  Social experiments tend to be even more interesting as there is rarely a "best" answer in the first place.

Not always.  Sometimes the cost to the greater society is harsh from an experiment gone wrong.  Two such examples would be Easter Island, which destroyed itself and erased any possibilites of the rest of humanity from learning from their mistakes along the way; and the Wiemar Republic, which destroyed itself and begot a society with a very destructive meme that nearly infected all of Europe and Asia.

And it doesn't appear to me that humanity learned all that much from the Wiemar Republic, either; since we appear to be starting down their same path again in the modern world.

I've never read Halting State, but I have read Cryptonomicon.  But I don't get the reference.  Cryptonomicon was not about surviving a future.  Are you sure that, The Diamond Age wouldn't be a better reference?  That entire book was about a future nearly devoid of involutary governments, but instead a set of cultures in balance and intertrading with a cryptocurrency that could not be back traced across the Internet.

They are both great books, BTW.  Neil Stevenson is one hell of an author.

http://vimeo.com/9968399

This video is interesting.It explains how a community can take steps toward claiming back some self government.

True.  It's about creating a gold-based cryptocurrency in a friendly country.  That's relevant to GSF in Africa (albeit not a country) and Laissez-Faire City in Costa Rica (back in the 1990s).

Thanks, I haven't read that.  I will.

Indeed.  Snow Crash is one of my favorites.  Software and pizza delivery  ;D

And BTW, I also highly recommend True Names.

never heard of that


The way I heard that joke was, in heaven the british great you, the french cook, the italians provide the entertainment, and the germans keep things running smoothly.  And in hell, the french greet you, the british cook, the germans provide the entertainment, and the italians keep things running smoothly.  I had never heard it with the addition of the swiss.

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes the laws.” Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild international Banking Dynasty, 1790

I think this sums it up and why bitcoins should steer away from calling itself "money".

I lived in Brazil during the mid-1980's.... and it was as bad as the Wiemar Republic or even worse with a relative national debt (to national GDP) owed to foreign countries as bad or worse than what America is currently facing.  I keep hoping that America and/or Europe isn't going to discover runaway inflation like I experienced in Brazil or all of the screwy government programs to try and keep prices under control with the "Plano Cruzado".  The amazing thing would be to see how Brazil pulled it self out of that quagmire.... which was decidedly a different approach than what the Wiemar Republic used in a similar situation.  Of course some would say Brazil pulled it off by sacrificing the rain forests of the Amazon River basin, but that is something for another thread.

As for Easter Island, since we are talking about it I would say humanity has at least been able to learn at least something from that experiment.  Using other historical analogies, England faced a very similar kind of crisis in term of running out of wood to sustain its industries, but there was one thing that ended up saving England from a similar fate (or super-charging the engine of destruction.... you can argue the difference if you like):  Coal from Wales and south-western England.  That in turn sparked the Industrial Revolution which is still working its way throughout the world.  Nuclear energy has looked like it might be the "solution" to resolve the problems of burning coal, but there are decidedly some problems with that alternative to save the next step.

Here are counter examples to the two that you mention, but at the same time the social experiments were performed and a bit of a warning to mankind is also in those examples too.  With the current world economic crisis, is the result going to be something more like the end of the Wiemar Republic of the 1930's or the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1990's?  The consistent thing to learn from both lessons is that the governments which caused the crisis (speaking of governments like the American government rather than parliamentary governments... although that may also happen) usually fall apart in extremely stressful economic environments.  This is a sobering thing to think about.

The problem with the solution to the Wiemar Republic problems is that the resulting government was intolerant of other viewpoints to the point of genocide and they were willing to extend that intolerance world-wide.  I hope I haven't invoked Godwin's Law just now either.  Those guys usually have a funny way of creeping into any conversation on the net eventually, don't they?

Well, things sure have changed there.  Brazil is one of my final 'bug out' possibilities if things really get ugly here in the States.  I think that I would prefer Argentina, but sooner or later I'm going to have to pick a second language to *really* learn.


Sobering?  Perhaps to some.  It's what I'm expecting.  Every few generations the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, and that day is coming.  The real question is not if it will happen in my lifetime, but do I want to participate?  I'm beginning to think that I might be to old to be a captian of men by the time the thin veil of civility collapses.



They do, indeed.  I know of an actual German who seems to believe that Godwin's Law doesn't apply to himself, because he is German and would know better, and has actually stated it as such.  The problem is that the Third Reich is such a perfect, and widely studied in the Western nations, example of an entire culture going insane due to a shared dillusion that it's difficult to find as good an example that all readers can relate to.  Certainly there are other examples, but none both so widely shared and so close in human history.

Some would say the pre-war German government was financed by industrialists in the US such as Henry Ford and Prescott Bush.The same people control things now so I think history will repeat itself.China likes to take over countries economically rather than militarily.

RHorning: "...some of the comments made on the Zeitgeist forum are some valid issues that need to be evaluated and have some legal defenses set up to protect against what will be an eventual legal challenge to Bitcoins and their usage as a form of payment for goods or services."

If Bitcoin is at all effective, these challenges will be inevitable. Might as well plan for it, we don't want to say something now that we will regret later.

The MadHatter: Those who use Bitcoins could join/create a separate society. They could, in theory, define money/wealth/currency/person/corporation/dog/cat/apple to mean whatever they want. They could even have their own dictionary that their society uses to interpret from. Those who use Bitcoins could join/create a separate society. They could, in theory, define money/wealth/currency/person/corporation/dog/cat/apple to mean whatever they want. They could even have their own dictionary that their society uses to interpret from.

Bitcoin is as close to sui generis as it gets. Let's make our own vocabulary while we're at it!

noagendamarket: “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes the laws.” Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild international Banking Dynasty, 1790

I think this sums it up and why bitcoins should steer away from calling itself "money".

And foolishly assuming a lot of other "establishment" jargon. It doesn't fit us, so let's not use it!

Some people are following this model

PNNAC.ORG / The Canadian Free Man On The Land Society - they accept bitcoins as their preferred donation model.
http://www.pnnac.org/index.php?page=about (http://www.pnnac.org/index.php?page=about)


The Shire Society - A voluntary society based in New Hampshire that will accept online signatures soon.
http://forum.freekeene.com/index.php?board=30.0 (http://forum.freekeene.com/index.php?board=30.0)