Recently some large deposits of shale gas have been discovered in my country.
Of course , it has sparked controversy if we should start exploit because of the risks they may pose.
I would like to ask you , since we have members from other countries here:
1) Do you agree with shale gas exploration in general?
2) Would still agree withit if those drilling will be done close to the community where you leave?
...
I live in an area with extensive fracking (south texas) and really am not seeing any environmental abuses or questionable practices. There's been a lot of fear mongering and misinformation. Hell, we have solar power and windmill fields and fracking all jumbled up together in the field.... |
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..... It's relevant because that case is the benchmark for the level of insanity that the legal system can operate when it comes to 'computer crimes'. Throw in drugs, and all the leeway given to prosecute drug crimes, possible organized crime and money laundering involvement...like I said it's not about right/wrong or legal/illegal. It is that none of the charges really fit the crime, and the punishment certainly did not fit the alleged crimes. But instead of a prosecutor acknowledging that, or a judge dismissing it, or a state or federal senator standing up for his rights, or a media fury, he was ordered to stand trial. For a terms of service violation. For a closer case as far as the sirlk road specifics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold#Criminal_prosecutionAgain rewriting the laws to suit a prosecution, is the only relevant consideration for a potential defendant, if you view it as a sort of Pascal's Wager on a legal scale. No, it's not relevant. You are discussing law as applied by a district attorney. Here we are discussing law as applied by citizens (subjects) seeking redress from government injustice. Actually, after thinking about it again, you may have a claim. I was just thinking about how I purchased some sunglasses, a fake rolex (as a gag gift) and a chainsaw off of the Silk Road, nothing illegal there. The argument that it is an illegal marketplace kind of reminds me of a flea market. You can find drugs and stolen goods at a flea market, however you don't have your money confiscated for shopping there, I guess unless you are partaking in knowingly buying stolen goods or drugs.
The question is, if you can prove you didn't use the SilkRoad for nefarious purposes, would you be able to get your coins back?
....
I don't even think that's correct. That's presumption of guilt and no due process. yeah i don't know how one would be able to prove that they were not using SR for illegal activity. even if you bought something legal, that does not prove your innocence. They would probably have an arguable case if say a known drug dealer with a history of convictions had a large amount of money on silk road, but had not done anything with it. But we are not talking about that. |
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Actually, after thinking about it again, you may have a claim. I was just thinking about how I purchased some sunglasses, a fake rolex (as a gag gift) and a chainsaw off of the Silk Road, nothing illegal there. The argument that it is an illegal marketplace kind of reminds me of a flea market. You can find drugs and stolen goods at a flea market, however you don't have your money confiscated for shopping there, I guess unless you are partaking in knowingly buying stolen goods or drugs.
The question is, if you can prove you didn't use the SilkRoad for nefarious purposes, would you be able to get your coins back?
....
I don't even think that's correct. That's presumption of guilt and no due process. |
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Are you still considering it? And if we hit 500?
I'm curios about the price you're willing to risk finding out that you're a Mexican drug lord that has shipped thousands of kilos of narcotics via SR:).
LOL people in Mexico can't even use Ebay that country is so screwed up. And with NAFTA, they just move their stuff across the border to designated distribution points. They never needed anything like Silk Road and have no use for it. |
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Half of me is saying "Do it". I'm most interested in proving in a court you own some bitcoins.
The other half is saying , "Nope" for obvious reason. I'm sure they have some felonies for which they haven't found the criminal you yet. And that is why I'm wavering.... I guess I'm genuinely interested in the legal aspects of this. Given the Eric Holder/complete lawlessness issue, it really should be in a court room rather than the administrative divisions. But here's the general scenario as I see it: Marketplace ABC has trade accounts with X number persons. Not disputable X/2 of those were engaged in activities illegal in their jurisdiction. Others were curious about the site and may have placed minor amounts of coin there in 2010/2011. Market changes caused those small amounts to become fortunes. FBI takes said trade accounts....do they have to pay some or all of the trade account funds back? Say they confiscated funds from an individual in Colorado who had bought marihuana on Silk Road from another individual in Colorado, said purchase being legal in Colorado (he might have bought from an unauthorized/unlicensed source, but that would be a state not a federal problem). I'm smelling a class action suit here....but what do I know, maybe the current social/political environment is so oppressive and totalitarian that everyone just sits in the corner shaking in fear.Obviously a lot of people have standing to sue. That. And it is entirely warranted fear. You are taking two areas where the gov has demonstrated it will act above anyreasonable interpretation of the law and combining them. Illegal use of a computer (see Aaron Swarz, rip) and the war on drugs (#winning for 42 consecutive years). You are confusing some sense of justice with the US legal system. The DEA has arrested and convicted airplanes, on suspicion of having been used for trafficking at some point in their lives. They have confiscated cash upon suspicion that it was drug money because only drug dealers carry cash. http://abcnews.go.com/US/struggling-minnesota-waitress-sues-police-seize-12000-tip/story?id=16074433That's just the first one that came up on google. There's thousand just like it. So you can sue, and hope they don't example you by charging you with frequenting, attempted money laundering, tax evasion, computer fraud/abuse, aiding and abetting terrorists (piracy, ya know), or any other stupid thing they can conjure up. Which is endless. Asset forfeiture is the least of your potential problems, your criminal defense would cost a lot more than you are walking away from. But if you want to be a martyr I will give you my utmost respect and even send you letters in prison. It isn't about the right thing, at this point. It's about choosing who to pick a fight with and when, and knowing when you will be crushed regardless of justice. I would not pick this fight. ------ Edit- imagine if they lined you up with a judge whose only internet experience consisted of an email account, drudgereport, and maybe a facebook page that he/she has never really figured out how to use. They get... "defendant converted dollars to an encrypted currency used predominantly for illicit purposes and smuggling via the internet. Defendant then transferred a substantial amount of encrypted currency (over $30,000 worth) to an encrypted website, accessible only through a sophisticated surreptitious browser designed to conceal online activities, most commonly used by pedophiles and terrorists. Defendant delivered these encrypted funds anonymously, with full knowledge it would be received by persons engaged in wanton criminal activity, and defendant has no stated legitimate purpose for doing business in this manner..." Good luck explaining to your computer illiterate judge that you just wanted to understand how the platform worked, you didn't know this, you didn't know that, you didn't think it was that much money...judges love that shit. 30 years, maybe a last minute plea bargain to 5-7 if you are squeeky clean. ------ Final edit, I promise. You need to read this to understand what you are dealing with. The final sentencing guideline was 35 years in a federal prison after he refuse a plea bargain. So you understand the reality before you read this. JSTOR is academic journals. They are freely available to download for anybody on the MIT campus. Their terms of service had set some arbitrary limit on the total number of downloads, but it was a large number. Aaron left his laptop on campus set to auto download all the academic journals on JSTOR, allegedly to take them and make them freely available to people off campus as well. The public could buy any of these papers for a couple bucks via the JSTOR website, or go to the MIT campus and download them for free also. With that understanding of the "crime", here is the indictment http://web.mit.edu/bitbucket/Swartz,%20Aaron%20Indictment.pdfnow imagine Silk Road... Actually, none of that is relevant to the problem. It's all true, but it misses the legal issues. Suppose you were some big time gangster running a bank, and the FBI shut you down. Some of your customers were shady, some were not. But their money is theirs. Now assume that again you are a big time gangster, but you have a business where you have a large accounts payable. You owe a thousand people fair amounts but the money you have is yours. They shut you down and take your money, those thousand people are out of luck. The former situation is closer to this one than the latter. But you've raised an interesting point; namely, that in a US bank failure you may not get your money back if the FDIC doesn't do their job of protecting the innocent, in a bitcoin exchange or business failure you may not get your coin back because the FBI persecutes the innocent. |
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Half of me is saying "Do it". I'm most interested in proving in a court you own some bitcoins.
The other half is saying , "Nope" for obvious reason. I'm sure they have some felonies for which they haven't found the criminal you yet. And that is why I'm wavering.... I guess I'm genuinely interested in the legal aspects of this. Given the Eric Holder/complete lawlessness issue, it really should be in a court room rather than the administrative divisions. But here's the general scenario as I see it: Marketplace ABC has trade accounts with X number persons. Not disputable X/2 of those were engaged in activities illegal in their jurisdiction. Others were curious about the site and may have placed minor amounts of coin there in 2010/2011. Market changes caused those small amounts to become fortunes. FBI takes said trade accounts....do they have to pay some or all of the trade account funds back? Say they confiscated funds from an individual in Colorado who had bought marihuana on Silk Road from another individual in Colorado, said purchase being legal in Colorado (he might have bought from an unauthorized/unlicensed source, but that would be a state not a federal problem). I'm smelling a class action suit here....but what do I know, maybe the current social/political environment is so oppressive and totalitarian that everyone just sits in the corner shaking in fear. Obviously a lot of people have standing to sue. |
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It works like this:
Without a vehicle to siphon wealth away from the individual and to the collective (i.e. hyperinflating fiat currencies), accomplished by using such monies like precious metals or bitcoin (not their redeemable paper counterparts but the actual items), and without a system that guarantees the top of the pyramid will always take more wealth from the working bottom, the individual retains the value of all his work done, and when coupled with machines that make the individual's job easier, he generates more energy than he expends, thus making his life more and more comfortable.
There is way too much intellectual power wasted trying to circumvent this core issue. It's as simple as seeing it as it is...... Arguably (even for a fanatical Randian like myself) there exists an exception, which would be an extremely wealthy state that does not have to take from some and give to others... Kuwait comes to mind. |
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....
So, real believers actually DO spend coin, and promote other people to use them and spend them. Spending breeds acceptance, and thus higher price, higher confidence and over time, more convenience of use.
I think the OP is wrong, at least in my view.
How could I possibly disagree with your view? I....Spendulus! |
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.... that is also the main problem with the idea. There are a lot of state employees who would be immediately redundant.
that's not the problem but the solution....they can find their own way, just like those of us in the private sector have had to when some harsh uncaring government mandate caused a loss of jobs....for example right now in the coal industries... But come to think of it, maybe all those bitter desk clinging government workers should go to work in the coal mines. http://timharford.com/2013/11/a-universal-income-is-not-such-a-silly-idea/Regardless of whether Bitcoin is used, the universal income is a great concept. We have endless subsidies, tax credits, welfare programs and the like. Abolish them all - have one universal payment that covers basic food and shelter and close the bureacracy. Of course, that is also the main problem with the idea. There are a lot of state employees who would be immediately redundant. I agree it's a great concept. I do think it needs fine tuning before it's viable though - for example, people with disabilities should still be taken care of, so a certain amount of bureacracy will always be necessary. Of course, being in IT, I do tend to think that eventually software will eat most of bureacracy *eventually*... it will take time though. I'm curious, WHY is the basic universal income a good idea? The rationale presented in the several posts has to do with eliminating waste in government. But these arguments should be valid only if the cost of the waste in government is roughly comparable with the total program outlay. In other words, if a extremely wasteful, arrogant bureacracy dishes out $90 in benefits for every $10 it keeps itself, then we might grumble and call it a 'necessary evil' - but we would not grumble and argue to do away with it in favor of something 10x more expensive. So are there facts and figures to support the argument? |
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http://timharford.com/2013/11/a-universal-income-is-not-such-a-silly-idea/Regardless of whether Bitcoin is used, the universal income is a great concept. We have endless subsidies, tax credits, welfare programs and the like. Abolish them all - have one universal payment that covers basic food and shelter and close the bureacracy. Of course, that is also the main problem with the idea. There are a lot of state employees who would be immediately redundant. I agree it's a great concept. I do think it needs fine tuning before it's viable though - for example, people with disabilities should still be taken care of, so a certain amount of bureacracy will always be necessary. Of course, being in IT, I do tend to think that eventually software will eat most of bureacracy *eventually*... it will take time though. I'm curious, WHY is the basic universal income a good idea? The rationale presented in the several posts has to do with eliminating waste in government. But these arguments should be valid only if the cost of the waste in government is roughly comparable with the total program outlay. In other words, if a extremely wasteful, arrogant bureacracy dishes out $90 in benefits for every $10 it keeps itself, then we might grumble and call it a 'necessary evil' - but we would not grumble and argue to do away with it in favor of something 10x more expensive. So are there facts and figures to support the argument? |
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/cancer-patient-who-spoke-out-against-obamacare-now-being-audited/Bill Elliot was a cancer patient who lost his insurance due to ObamaCare and couldn’t pay the expensive new premiums. He was talking about paying the ObamaCare fine, going without health insurance and “letting nature take its course.” He went on FOX News where his story was picked up by C. Steven Tucker, a health insurance broker who helped him keep his insurance. Now suddenly Bill Elliot is being audited for 2009 with an interview only scheduled in April 2014. Assuming he lives that long. That might be a coincidence, but Tucker is being audited back to 2003. That’s a rather strange coincidence. Well, duh.... WHO, exactly, can afford to pay these new premiums that are double what they were before? I don't personally know of many people with that kind of disposable income. And yes, they are trying to use the IRS as the new jack booted enforcement threat and intimidation thugs. The only question is exactly how people will react to this - if they realize soon enough that it is actually happening. ....I'm not blaming it on Bush, just saying it's no different from that supposedly completely other guy.... ignoring things that Bush did, but then suddenly started to complain about them when Obama got into office, then you'd just be a hypocrite, or at the least disingenuous.
...and we are seeing right here exactly how very, very different the actions of obama et. al. are from bush, aren't we. Ah, how nice were the good old days, when libertarians could claim that one mainstream politician was exactly the same as the other whichever party they hid in.... |
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I have seen people in google's adsense forum calling google a god, and they weren't joking... anything that gives you profit is a god, in god we trust, right?
the Evil One that you invoke (google) might, yes, have servants who would believe such things. |
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The more often you say that bitcoin is a religion, that harder it will be accepted on religious countries.
Look....if there is no bearded guy in a long robe (or guy in a suit, or guy in an orange sarong) with his palm out wanting your money .... ... it's not a religion. |
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Here is gold today. - Today it's been estimated that only a few percent of transactions in gold are actually of the physical product, the remainder being 'paper gold'. Yes, the 'paper gold' is apparently being printed! More and more every year!
- When prices rise, more mining comes into play. There are huge reserves at slightly higher price points.
But imagine it was like this? - Mining got exponentially more difficult, and there could not ever be more than 21M ounces (kilograms, whatever, pick the units)
- There was no 'paper gold'
What would the price of gold be today? according to many famous Gold bugs and Gold experts, with the massive fiat inflation we witnessed in the past decade, G old should be around the $5000 - $10,000 / ounce range today if there was no market manipulation due to paper gold. And that price range is with virtually unlimited gold mining continuing... So what then if there was an absolute cap on the gold supply at 21m "units"? |
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Here is gold today. - Today it's been estimated that only a few percent of transactions in gold are actually of the physical product, the remainder being 'paper gold'. Yes, the 'paper gold' is apparently being printed! More and more every year!
- When prices rise, more mining comes into play. There are huge reserves at slightly higher price points.
But imagine it was like this? - Mining got exponentially more difficult, and there could not ever be more than 21M ounces (kilograms, whatever, pick the units)
- There was no 'paper gold'
What would the price of gold be today? |
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Hmm, I saw a large number of factual errors, unqualified assumptions and questionable premises in that article. Almost as if he wrote it to support the desired conclusion. But he's certainly right that a lot of people like free stuff. |
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Why would that matter? The yuan is over-valued and will fall against the dollar once it floats. That's one reason Bitcoin is doing so well in China - its perhaps the only freely convertible currency.
What makes you say that? Seems to me the dollar is over-valued vs the yen. How else do you explain our ability to maintain such a massive trade deficit with China for so long? not yen that japanese, yuan or better said, renman-bi |
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the wealthy will not win with BTC. even if they wanted to buy say a billion dollars worth of BTC, they couldn't. they only way they could do so is by us selling to them say 10 BTC for a billion dollars. but in doing so, they will drive up the price for everyone else in the process.
essentially BTC will be at first doing a redistribution of wealth. think that sounds crazy? well businesses are jumping on board the BTC one by one. and we are not too far away from another financial crash like in '08. BTC is going to replace our fucked up and slave currency that has benefited only the 1% like the rothschilds, buileburgs, the morgans, and other unnamed psychopaths. BTC is universes answer to begin fixing our world.
"First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win." M. Gandhi
Bitcoin is not the answer, the answer is love. Bitcoin is a step in the right direction though. Ahhh if you were here I'd give you a hug! Yes, you are absolutely correct! Bitcoin is part of the equation that will lead us back into times of peace, love and creativity that has been so long oppressed and manipulated! People don't understand how exciting these times are going to be!  What? The Age of Aquarius? |
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Maybe US$ will survive, but inflation... now it depends on those that have US invesment bonds (Japan, China) with +2000.000.000.000 $ in bonds.
When they activate the bonds....
the $ will definitely survive, it might become worthless but it will survive  As long as you can use it to pay taxes it has value. Actually that's a pretty important point. Consider a future scenario a few years off.... ...you and most everyone has USD/Pounds/Euros/etc and have bitcoins.... ...what you going to pay taxes with? The most worthless thing in the bucket. What you gonna hang onto? The bitcoin. This actually argues for the continued existence of the Most Worthless. |
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the wealthy will not win with BTC. even if they wanted to buy say a billion dollars worth of BTC, they couldn't. they only way they could do so is by us selling to them say 10 BTC for a billion dollars. but in doing so, they will drive up the price for everyone else in the process.
essentially BTC will be at first doing a redistribution of wealth. think that sounds crazy? well businesses are jumping on board the BTC one by one. and we are not too far away from another financial crash like in '08. BTC is going to replace our fucked up and slave currency that has benefited only the 1% like the rothschilds, buileburgs, the morgans, and other unnamed psychopaths. BTC is universes answer to begin fixing our world.
"First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win." M. Gandhi
Bitcoin is not the answer, the answer is love. Bitcoin is a step in the right direction though. then again.... maybe bitcoin is the question not the answer... |
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