ah, no....

it's in the context of transactions that bitcoin has merit...

i'm reminded of the problem the 19th century coal miner had, not his wages, but that he had to buy at the company store, put his money in the company bank, and rent the company house. 

We him.

We him no more.

I thought we were all dogs, but I will admit to being dyslexic.

Zhou Tang could do this nicely.

Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

Bitcoin is not Caesar's.

No, although that certainly is a popular myth used to recruit people to give their work and earnings away.

It's not a complicated idea, really.  It's just that if someone does something for them self, they may do their very best job of it, but if they do it for some vague common group, it tends to be a half ass job.

LOL good comment but maybe not.  Suppose bitcoin was just a really strong meme, of which yeah, religion is another thing that forms that.  But other things do, too.  The Beatles did it.  The Rolling Stones.  Hate to say it, but Obama had a strong meme.   No, let's forget that last one - it wasn't so strong, or it would have lasted.

What causes a set of ideas to form a strong meme involves the (believer, follower, convert, whatever) to have to discover or root out some fair part of the theory on their own, since they will believe fervently if they figured it out themself instead of someone just telling them about it.

I want to know and be able to prove I possess the whole coin not the one hundred millionth.

Although bitcoin is not a religion it certainly has it bitcoin athiests who fervently pursue their religion of bitcoin atheism.

"There is no coin" they say.  "The money is the money backed by governments" they say.  "We must have faith in the almighty dollar not the lowly bitcoin" they say.  These heretics and these infidels may be disregarded, yet we know that the Day of Revelations draws nigh, when they learn their dollars have no hamburger and fries buying power, and when those with the bitcoin wallet have full stomachs and cases of the finest beer.

TOIL, my minions!  Strive together for the common good!  For the collective!  Be sure to make the Party meeting at 7!  The individual is nothing, the group is everything!

LOL...But would society work better if everyone was selfish?

Ayn Rand, in Atlas Shrugged

For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors--between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

Hello, SOCK PUPPET.  Let me correct your comments.

A) Nothing important happens here.

WHAT BETTER PLACE FOR THE AGENTS TO LURK? 

They must be diligent and focused and work hard to find things where there is nothing.  You see, the appearance of nothing where all those crypto hackers lurk is proof they hiding something.  Something big.

IT WOULD BE A WASTE OF TIME TO HAVE ONE HERE? 

Za!  Ve must have dozens!  Waste of time is important for budget cycle!  Hundreds!  The collective effort will prevail.

If they here and they got smarts, they got in and bought some coin.  

if they not smart, they will be around pulling that civil service paycheck. 

Reporting to Fuhrer Obama on za bitcoin! 

Heil!

LOL...

This is a thread that should die.  And not rise again on the third day.

Well, what ya expect from the guys that gave Fuhrer Obama da Nobel Peace Prize?

So forget the idea of growing plants, and bask in the glory of gutting fish as you practice techniques for gutting zombie hordes of angry welfare rioters.

Must be some way of exchanging fish for fresh oranges......making it easier for everyone as the zombie hordes don't need to surge out into the ocean to try to eat you, and the surplus of fish that you easily catch could go to them, and you could get oranges and other goodies from the land.

Naw...that'd never work....

LOL....

I can't imagine any event(s) that would force me to go to the ocean.  Unless it was to get to the other side.

I think we are saying the same thing two different ways, but there are implications.

Here's where I'm coming from.  Usenet, and FTP, as well as MIRC, are separate protocals from Http.  Email is a different protocol, too.

When I think of Internet, it is http and https.  These protocols may be useful, but are clearly not required to maintain the blockchain or verify it.

But perhaps when they use a phrase like "Internet Kill Switch" it means shutting all this stuff down.

Yeah.

Let's think unused capacity on Sirius radio.  There are ways the blockchain could easily be kept up.

It doesn't need THE INTERNET.

Good points.  An oil well has output which requires some processing while a gas well does not, it is fuel ready to go.

It'd be hard to beat a productive farm or ranch with some energy deposits of any sort...including coal, for that matter.  I like solar, I'm just being practical here.  Even if the demand for energy went down, we'd need to heat some homes in the winter.  Depending on the location, more or less.

For surviving an economic collapse, it'd just be hard to beat owning a Texas natural gas well.  I mean actually owning one, not a share in some Wall street company.

Yes, exactly.  I am opposed to dialectic/rhetoric/polemics and problem framing in manners which are prejudicial.  We can phrase a leading question so that there is 'only one right answer'.   However, these are fairly simplistic tactics in debate or polemics.  They lead to a false certainty or false agreement, usually this is taken in some direction which those 'who agreed' would not agree with.  But that is of course the intent of he framing the question.