It's usually called private arbitration, and one can join an association for such already.

Hmmm;  large artifical structure, built in the middle of a desert, obviously not intended for habitation, built by a culture with mathmatics and measurement skills that we couldn't match without laser measurement tools; using methods for quarying, transporting and elevating multi-ton stone blocks that we still can't replicate, and built before the most advanced culture known to exist before our own (Egyptian) and with similar structures built half a world away (Mayan).

Prove that they weren't spent fuel storage structures that have outlived their containment needs.

I probably should leave this argument alone, but the highlighted part is debatable.  Certainly we live much longer than the tribal cultures that Zarathustra considers to be the high mark of anarchist socites, but it can be reasonablely argued that simply understanding germ theory, which such a tribal society could understand and incorporate into their culture, did the greatest good.  It's also arguable that one of the reasons that European & Asian cultures managed to acheive such high population concentrations was due to the simple fact that both European & Asian cultures had long ago incorporated the use of plates, bowls and utensils that were made of metals or alloys that were self-sterilizing.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligodynamic_effect)  Which, of course, tribal cultures in the Americas and Africa did not use.  One of the best alloys for this effect is the common Admiral Brass used all over British sailing ships for hundreds of years.  Because the stuff is mostly copper, the surfaces of admiral brass were hostile to pathogens that could be spread through touch vectors.  As we enter the post-antibiotic age, some hospitals are remodeling and including copper alloys for common touch surfaces (door knobs, push plates, countertops, chair arms, serving trays, etc.) because it's so effective that Multiple Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus is killed within 2 hours whether or not the metal was cleaned, and some studies have concluded that no Staph could be found on an innoculated surface after only 45 seconds for pure copper.


Of course, such touch surfaces would have done nothing for these tropical maladies, since they are spread by insect bites.

Telling jokes won't gain you trust.  Telling us who you are, and why you need a loan from us might; but I doubt it.  I've made loans to very trustworthy members, who have very valid reasons for asking for a loan on this forum, who couldn't manage to follow through and repay in full.  You have zero history here. 

As far as I'm concerned, these guys are arguing about how many bitcoins can fit on the head of a pushpin.  They both have data on their sides, and both of them seem to get some rather significant details very wrong.  They both think they are the smartest person in the room, while the smartest people don't bother to respond to them anymore.  You'll have to make your own decisions about whom to trust.

Newbie asks for a loan.  How original.

We could do that, you know.  Bitcoin is, fundamentally, binary; and the American Standard is (largely) based upon doubling and/or halving of units.  Half-gallon is a unit, and between a cup and an ounce sits the gill (half a cup) and half-gill.  The teaspoon is the oddball; but the dram (one-quarter tablespoon) fits the pattern.

Anonymint, I have read the PM you posted (which is, itself, rude) and I have to say I agree with every word of it.  Your attitude gets in the way of any constructive intentions that you may have; and as has been pointed out many times by many people previously, you don't understand Bitcoin as well as you think that you do.  Alternative, invitation only, technical bitcoin forums have been founded specificly to avoid you.  Which, BTW, is quite an accompishment if your goal was to troll.  Ironicly, I can't believe that you're a talented troll; but instead passionately believe everything that you claim.  Therefore, I must admit that the highest form of trolling that I have ever seen on this forum (or anywhere else) is accidental.

What you want to be able to do is already possible using transaction scripting and a blockchain enforcable digital contract.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts

Most likely something similar to example #2, but both example #4 and example #7 have elements similar to what you want to do here.  Alternatively, a third party excrow service can be employed without transaction scripting using only multi-sig transactions.

At my age, my memory should always be suspect.


Well, I can accept the argument that Shadowstats can still be flawed.  I'm just of the opinion that their methods are a bit more open, and their biases a bit less suspect.


You do have a good point there, but also a great many things besides have changed during those same 14 years to mitigate the effects.  (I'm not really talking about price inflation, so much as using that as an example since that is what the CPI measures.)  I'm mostly talking about monetary base inflation, which has been counteracted, to a great extent, by the debt destruction during 2007-2009 (mostly felt in the crash of houseing prices) and other smaller effects, such as the average increase in gas mialage and the decrease in average miles driven per year by Americans.  The rise of ridesharing services like zipcar really are having an outsized impact on the economy, permmitting urban millinials to commute by public transit with a ready access to a personal vehicle whenever neccessry.

It shouldn't have.  I'd wager that if you actually sat down and assessed your real costs, you'll find that your expenses have likely doubled as well, since about 2000.  While gas prices have been fairly flat the past couple of years, the price of a gallon of petrol near where I live was right around $2.20 in 2008 and is $3.57 today; and has been as high as $4.09 in between.  Likewise, as recently as two years ago, a gallon of propane cost me about $1.60, delivered; today it's $3.40.  Granted, there are a lot of market forces going on there, including the quite un-global-warming-like winter we just had.  Yet, the cost of beef or chicken at the grocery store is much more than it was a decade ago as well.  The offical CPI suppresses the official inflation metric in a number of ways, one of which is to use 'substitution'.  I.E., they assume, as prices rise, someone who could no longer afford beef would buy chicken instead; so they swap the price of beef for the price of chicken in the formula.  There are other examples I can produce.   And the cost of consumer energy needs isn't even included in the modern calculations at all, only the commercial and/or wholesale prices of those energy sources; or more specificly, the effect of the rising energy that commercial businesses pass onto their consumer prices.

I don't, and never have.  I've been using bitcoins as a medium of exchange for 4+ years now, and have bought all range of items; from hats for my avatar on TF2 to handmade jewlry on Etsy to game & ebook licenses to about 16 months straight of cell service.

How does that fit into your investment vehicle model?

Bitcoins are actually a pretty crappy investment vehicle, despite the historic returns.  Like gold, there is no dividend.  You're not actually investing in anything, and the scarcity that speculators have been chasing is artificial.  There are simply too many substitutes for that to be a good idea long term.  Bitcoins are not a commodity, so they can't be made into anything, and nothing requires them to operate.  Wild swings due to speculation aside, bitcoins derive all of their fundamental value from their (current and future) usefulness as a value transfer over distance mechanism.  If you're holding onto them solely in the hopes that they will rise in exchange value, I would have to recommend that you reassess your portfolio.

Mine have more than doubled.

Shadowstats is probably the most trustworthy source of information available in the United States today.  Basicly, their metrics are the most similar to those used prior to WW2, so they would be the best to compare to the official statistics for the Great Depresssion, as an example.  The data that comes out of official US government channels are only slightly more trustworthy than those that come out of official Chinese channels, or official Cuban channels.  It is unwise to trust the word of the institution that is most likely to benefit from an unrealisticly positive image.

While that is likely a fairly accurate statistic, it's still very misleading.  There is a fable that is told (sometimes) to economics students to illistrate the nature of debt like this.  Here is one version of it I quickly found with google...

It is the month of August; a resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town. He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.

The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the butcher. The Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the pig raiser. The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel. The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that, in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit. The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.

The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that the rich tourist will not suspect anything. At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 dollar bill, after saying he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.

No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism.


Most of these derivitives are just like the debt that this small town had, interlinking trade debt that largely self cancels.  (Insert plug for Ripple here, if you like)  What the real fear is that, should one of the major players here, say the hooker, was also indebted to the tune of $100 to her drug dealer.  This whole story coudl come crashing down if the rich tourist didn't get his $100 bill back.  However, not all of it would come crashing down; some portion of the debt is real enough and back by real assets.  No matter how much of the derivitives can actually be paid, the assets are real.

EDIT::  Notice that in the story, the total indebtedness of the town was about $400

While I agree that most of the brightest wouldn't work for the government as long as they can find income elsewhere, that's already the case.  Those that are ideologically opposed to government leave those services fairly quickly under any economic conditions.  However, there are always the remainder.  I've read that roughly 3% of the adult population are sociopathic to some degree or another.  Having worked in government 'enforcement' in the past, my own experiences tell me that government is significantly overrepresented by this demographic.  If you have ever really known a true sociopath, they are not motivated by economic gain so much as by personal power gain.  A society in decline would give many of them an increased opprotunity for power gains in the near term.  I just can't picture these people walking away from government 'service', and (unfortunately) almost all of them are quite intelligent.  Do not underestimate your enemy, and trust me when I say that they are, indeed, your enemy.

Yeah, just ask him.  I'm sure he's following this thread with much amusement.

You're wrong.  It doesn't matter who controls a majority of coins.

Yeah, well.  Read the last comment.

http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/m/discussion?id=2003008%3ATopic%3A9402

You are a self-deluded meglomaniac.

Refute that.