The polls are definitely fixed...who the hell would vote for Romney can't you tell he just looks and sounds like a corrupt person. Ron Paul is the only person who represents the people running for President.
Which polls? Ron wins all the independent ones... Attendance at his speeches is about a factor 10 larger than the next most popular candidate, right? Internet presence more like a factor 20 lead in support? He's always had the majority of active military support even mainstream media can't hide that right? just ask google: "mitt romney wins poll" - 7 results "ron paul wins poll" - 27,700 results Will be interesting to see what all these RP delegates will do in Tampa  http://www.political.com/Reports/93_Percent_Favorable_Opinion_Ron_Paul |
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...snip...
We are a violent species - any system of government must begin from the reality that individuals will be as violent as you allow them to be and that its laws that restrain us.
So we are a violent species.. therefore we should give unaccountable people weapons and authority to do violence? The police become necessary in a society in that juncture in the society where there is a division because those who have and those who have not - Malcolm X Stop pretending that you don't live in a democracy where the police are accountable. Where I live is irrelevant to the conversation, sorry I asked you but thanks for not answering  Armed and uniformed gang members can get away with quite a bit of corruption and destruction in most places.. asset confiscation, indefinite detention, all the way to torture, murder.. the examples are so endless and daily there is no need to post links. You might want to consider your own health and that of your family before you go supporting that kind of madness. It will seem like somebody else getting the stick and you will find some way to rationalize that they deserve it until it is you or the people you love. Then what will you do or say? |
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...snip...
There are a number of modern, wealthy society where most of the people aren't prone to this sort of thing in the first place, which can be seen somewhat by how often such things actually happen... police may act as a deterrent but they rarely actively prevent crimes, and if the populace is set on doing something, they will do it unless forcibly prevented. In such a society, I see no reason to believe that the replacement of a government with other, voluntary means of protection is going to be anything but positive.
I totally reject that idea. Take away the security bubble of the state and you are only a few hours away from looting, riots and murders. In Ireland, it was the Brits deciding not to police certain areas caused hell to break loose. Only last year, London police took a decision to "prioritise preserving life over preserving property" and the city was racked by violence and riots within 30 minutes. We are a violent species - any system of government must begin from the reality that individuals will be as violent as you allow them to be and that its laws that restrain us. So we are a violent species.. therefore we should give unaccountable people weapons and authority to do violence? The police become necessary in a society in that juncture in the society where there is a division because those who have and those who have not - Malcolm X |
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[quote author=Hawker link=topic=83760.msg930614#msg930614 date=1338393887
"We all know that the excessive incarceration, the daft drug laws and the aggressive military reflect what Americans vote for. " - you think that is a false statement? Really? Perhaps you need to go to a local bar and see what people think of European style jail sentences, drug legalisation and shrinking the military.
Totally agree with you about checks and balances and that you just have to keep watching them to keep abuse in check.
[/quote]
I really do think its false, and most of my evidence comes from local bars and a lot of travel as opposed to popular media which often suggests otherwise. Drug legalisation is championed by religious leaders, policemen, economists, lawyers, doctors, basically anybody who bothers to think about it and does not feel they are personally profiting from the corruption prohibition enables. Even the military thinks we should be shrinking the military. And I don't know many people proud of having the worst incarceration rate on the planet.
Constant vigilance.. how to start that again?
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...snip...
Question is very simple; what happens when you have the misfortune to live in a society without a state to protect you from bad guys? Whether the answer you get is genocide, expropriation, slavery or what, its unpleasant compared to being in a society where you are free behind a decent military and judicial system.
Hmm what is a "decent military and judicial system" ? Does this mean keeping a few percent of the population locked up with no rights? Perhaps "decent military" refers to carte blanche for selected idiots to wreck their own lives and others, while robbing the citizenry? Can you think of some people who would tell you their misfortune to live in a society with a state to oppress them and maintain injustice? I assume you are talking about the US and its enthusiasm for incarceration and for invading countries in the Middle East? Can I answer your question with a question? We all know that the excessive incarceration, the daft drug laws and the aggressive military reflect what Americans vote for. Otherwise, Ron Paul would be President. If you remove the checks and balances of a democratic state, won't you have the exact same thing but worse as it will be done on a freelance haphazard basis? You answered my question with a false statement, then a question First, the phrase "democratic state" is sadly ambiguous now and may or may not refer to the politics championed by Democritus depending on how it is used. Again I am reminded of recent tax regime in North America whose representatives use that language. So there's your example. Many checks and balances are long since removed (habeus corpus, military active against citizenry, encarceration, torture, control of trade by monopolies, mandatory income taxes, forbidden secession, etc.) so, is it the exact same thing but worse? Your point is an important one. In the absence of government, one will arise. It is only through intelligent application and architecture of checks and balances, i.e. not giving anybody an opportunity at all to abuse the system, that such abuse will end. |
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I believe I have stated the position of my adversaries fairly. There is invariably the same oversight. If we have a government, it will be human beings who will be hired to restrain the evil in others. Who are these persons who will be hired, either by popularity contests or by direct application? They will be just as human and as much disposed toward evil as those to be restrained.
That is simply untrue. It fails at 3 levels: - Whether its Genghiz Khan or Captain John Hawkins, human history shows that if a weak society exists, a large organised society will come along and enslave it. Having your own democratic state is preferable to that. Ask any Afghan or Iraqi...heck ask any Palestinian or Jew what happens when you are don't have an army that can protect you. Ask who what? What are you referring to as a large organized society and why? Question is very simple; what happens when you have the misfortune to live in a society without a state to protect you from bad guys? Whether the answer you get is genocide, expropriation, slavery or what, its unpleasant compared to being in a society where you are free behind a decent military and judicial system. Hmm what is a "decent military and judicial system" ? Does this mean keeping a few percent of the population locked up with no rights? Perhaps "decent military" refers to carte blanche for selected idiots to wreck their own lives and others, while robbing the citizenry? Can you think of some people who would tell you their misfortune to live in a society with a state to oppress them and maintain injustice? |
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I believe I have stated the position of my adversaries fairly. There is invariably the same oversight. If we have a government, it will be human beings who will be hired to restrain the evil in others. Who are these persons who will be hired, either by popularity contests or by direct application? They will be just as human and as much disposed toward evil as those to be restrained.
That is simply untrue. It fails at 3 levels: - Whether its Genghiz Khan or Captain John Hawkins, human history shows that if a weak society exists, a large organised society will come along and enslave it. Having your own democratic state is preferable to that. Ask any Afghan or Iraqi...heck ask any Palestinian or Jew what happens when you are don't have an army that can protect you. Ask who what? What are you referring to as a large organized society and why? - Within any society, there is a small minority whose anti-social behaviour requires the rest of us to spend money on police, courts and jails. They are more disposed towards evil than the rest of us. To make an argument that ignores this reality is sophistry.
True, and to make an argument that this small minority of anti-social behavior will be absent in your police/army/armed gang member/prison guard/executive branch of "organized society" would be still more dangerous sophistry.
- The very concept of liberty only exists in societies where there is a state that guarantees life and property. If you had to worry about being killed or robbed the way a Chinese or Russian subject does, you wouldn't care about liberty. you'd only care about security and corruption. The very fact that you care about liberty shows you live in a free society with proper laws. I know this is a stretch but its close to what we all know from experience.
Just because the tax regimes known as PRC and the Russian Federation have many fewer political prisoners (in absolute number and per capita) and in many ways less central authoritarian control than representatives of the United States Corp. does not mean they are not subject to the same security flaw: some humans are given weapons and unchecked "authority" (the opportunity to make mistakes) and suffering the consequences. And lets be clear about these consequences: human suffering from all parties involved, loss of efficiency in endeavors of all participants, reduction of chances of survival of humanity as hoped for by participants.
Having made his bogus assertions, LeFevre then proceeds to base his entire argument on the idea that democratic government is not perfect. So what? Its preferable to being ruled by foreign invaders and local criminals. My car isn't perfect but I don't want to go barefoot. Likewise, my government isn't perfect but I don't want live without things like a free market and property rights.
What bogus assertion exactly? Yeah, LeFevre fails to point out that government can mean something as simple as a father telling his child not to shit on the carpet. He needs to be a little more clear about the problem he is trying to address: power corrupts. Milgram's experiment. The founding fathers of the USA v0 had some of this in mind with a construction of a government of limited power. Fortunately the time is ripe for a little more of this intelligence to be used for governments of all levels |
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Thanks, great speech |
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...they know bitcoins are becoming scarce (wich equals to more value) while time passes?
They don't know that, because it's false. Bitcoins are being created to the tune of 1 fresh one every 12 seconds or so. --> They are becoming less scarce. May, 2012 |
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As far as I'm concerned, the the only necessary element is production of AI machines at or greater than the level of humans. Once we can cheaply produce machines that are smarter than ourselves, or at least augment humans to be much smarter, technology will explode and I don't see any limit.
The singularity states that infinite progress will be reached within a finite amount of time. While I agree that the potential for progress is infinite, I see the above statement as impossible. If you lookup the term I mentioned above (The Omega Point) there is but one possibility this can happen. But this is metaphysics, not science. The technological singularity does NOT state "infinite progress". You made a nice mess of that straw man though while dodging the actual question. Do you think we will not soon produce machines that are smarter than humans? Can you not appreciate the implications of this? I cannot appreciate the implications. The reason why is that "smarter" is not clear. Does this mean better at doing fast mulitplication? Machines are already smarter. Holding memory? Computing hashes? Already smarter. And what is this so-called progress? Desertification? Toxification? Squandering of resources? Or just the spread of mental illness? |
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Since 2000 the average national debt inflation has been 7.8%. Since 1971, this number has been about 8%. This number is the change in national debt year over year. Now if you take out a loan for 3%, and put it in an asset that does not lose money, you are making a return on the poor sap and fool that keeps their money in U.S. fiat bank account. Why are you using the national debt instead of CPI? Sure the CPI might be biased, but it can't be that biased otherwise people would stop buying treasuries, e.g. if the real inflation rate was 8%. They would be giving money to the government in the same way you suggest some poor sap with a fiat bank account would be doing for you. Yes, historically we are in the 7+% range for the last 100 years. Prices double every 10 years. And yes, you are giving money to the government when you buy bonds at 3%. However, you are giving them less than if you had just held the cash. And yes again, taking out a loan is the only way (unless you are well connected) to get your hands on newly issued dollars. |
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For money to be "sound", there has to be a yardstick to ensure that there's some cost to obtain it.
[snip]
I think this is basically right, but not quite. For example, consider coins in 50 years. With no more coins issued, the yardstick isn't working. Or consider the cost to obtain the first few thousand coins, which is practically nil compared to the mining cost today. It is theoretically possible for a sound money system to exist under which there was no cost to produce the initial units. The part that makes it "sound" to me is that the money supply is publicly verifiable. |
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But the joy of bitcoin is anonymity... even if your profits were declared taxable, couldn't you just convert the cash into bitcoin and hide it?
If by "cash" you mean fiat notes, then they are already much more anonymous and untaxable than bitcoins. Converting said cash into bitcoins will only be creating a paper/electronic trail and setting off alarm bells among caesar's compromised tax collectors. |
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Now that we have the easy part out of the way, lets tackle a harder question. What is this thing you folks are referring to as "economic growth"?
Yeah, good question. Ask an economist and she will give an answer that translates to increase in complexity, risk, and nearness to breakdown and collapse. I for one define economic growth as growth in the percentage of natural energy flows captured and put to use. And good answer However it raises other questions.. when is a natural energy flow "used" ? Surely the phytoplankton are capturing solar energy, and doing "useful" things such as creating oxygen and feeding the food chain, does that count? Further, the burning or "flaring" of stored energy from natural gas quickly destroyed on the order of half or more of all hydrocarbon energy stored on the planet. While this could be considered a "use" (in this case making way for oil extraction) it demonstrates that some kind of efficiency of use should go into the calculation? Not easy questions, sorry. Cheers - |
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Thanks for your replies. I am starting work on an offline gui w/tools for blockchain analysis, but I'm not exactly sure what kind of use it will have as of yet. If I come up with something useful, I post here.
Keep up the good work coiners - hashman
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Inflation, properly defined, is the degree by which the money supply increases. It is a useful metric unto itself irregardless of economic activity or other metrics. To claim that "GDP" and "prices" must be considered when strictly measuring inflation is to pervert the term beyond its useful definition. If you take umbrage with this statement, then please explain. I understand many contemporary economists use "inflation" to describe what is more accurately referred to as CPI figures, but many contemporary economists also think spending and consumption is productive behavior, so I'm skeptical of their prescience and take issue with their distortion of terminology.
I know you're not a monkey, so stand up for yourself and address the issue like a man or bow politely and find your way to the door.
Qualifiers are quite useful in language. I agree with your definition here (nicely put in bold earlier by someone in the thread) but in general "inflation" is ambiguous, dangerously so if this forum is any judge. Are we talking space-time inflation? No, you mean monetary inflation. Price inflation is another thing. Very easy, just use a qualifier and the arguments are over. Now that we have the easy part out of the way, lets tackle a harder question. What is this thing you folks are referring to as "economic growth"? |
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I'm referring to data mining of the block chain.
There's a wealth of information here that is interesting and valuable for various reasons. For monitoring the health of the network, testing economic theory, tracking controlling parties, doing psychological studies, optimizing trading strategies, etc. There are other threads that ask this but I'm going to ask again if people can recommend some good open source tools for getting into this field of research. I am considering starting with the ABE codebase, are there any other good places to look? Thanks - -
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crystal meth sure is bad often abused.
FTFY |
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Basically you are asking: can't a good king be a good system of government? The answer of course, is yes.. it could. Yes, it could be wise to give some really smart and totally selfless good people total control of the money system. Yes, it could be good. However in practice there are some security considerations we must consider due to known factors in human psychology. A benevolent monarchy may be the best system of government for a variety of reasons (efficiency, quickness of action, printing money at the right moment) but it exists as an unstable equilibrium and all it takes is a couple sociopathic small-minded people to really fuck things up.
Oh, and the money supply for bitcoins is increasing now which makes it today an inflationary currency, though according to plan this will change in 20 years or so.
It is very unlikely a single entity can control the whole system. The people around the wise king is the root of corruption. FED is not the problem, but those banks are But anyway, in a society of high productivity, efficiency is not a concern Good point. It will be important in some instances to point the finger and find out who did what potentially corrupt thing with the money supply and when. However for the coin community the important thing is to provide a security solution, a currency system in which such corruption is much more unlikely. |
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As a coffee lover and caffeine addict, my emphatic answer is NO.
When we get sick, we don't wait like a sitting duck, "letting nature take its course", we see doctors, we take medicine, we take antibiotics, at least the majority of people do this.
Then why do Australian economists and gold bugs hate policy intervention? and why do so many people hate government stimulus?
Maybe printing money at the right moment does (or did) save us from much worse miseries. Maybe Keynesianism does have a point?
If this is true, isn't Bitcoin, a deflationary currency, a bad invention and a wrong tool to be had?
I am putting myself out there because I am confused and need some heavy enlightening...
Basically you are asking: can't a good king be a good system of government? The answer of course, is yes.. it could. Yes, it could be wise to give some really smart and totally selfless good people total control of the money system. Yes, it could be good. However in practice there are some security considerations we must consider due to known factors in human psychology. A benevolent monarchy may be the best system of government for a variety of reasons (efficiency, quickness of action, printing money at the right moment) but it exists as an unstable equilibrium and all it takes is a couple sociopathic small-minded people to really fuck things up. Oh, and the money supply for bitcoins is increasing now which makes it today an inflationary currency, though according to plan this will change in 20 years or so. |
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