I chose the first option. I'm a semi-Reformed, semi-Evangelical Christian.

Governments tend to concentrate wealth in the hands of people most willing to do violence on a mass scale. In a free world, such a problem is theoretically possible, but it is far less likely to arise than in a state-controlled world, where it happens constantly (albeit not on the scale you describe). We don't have to prove that our system is perfect; only that it is just a tiny bit better. And I think that it is actually a lot better. It takes power out of the hands of power-seekers and replaces it with... nothing.

I never even got to that point.

Easy, my nuclear-white butt. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to transfer money to a Dwolla account, and just gave up.

Now that PayPal is refusing to cooperate, I don't see it gaining mass popularity until people can open trading accounts with credit or debit cards. That's what I was expecting to be able to do when I first found out about it, but then it turns out that I have to wire money from my bank account to e-currency A, which is the only way I can pick up e-currency B which is the only thing Mt. Gox will accept. That's a great way to scare off newbies. If I hadn't encountered Bitcoin2Cash BY ACCIDENT on this forum, I would have given up. Silver dealers would be getting the money that bitcoin sellers will now end up getting.

I also want to know.

If someone at a mathematicians' conference suddenly yelled "two and two always equal pi!" and then everyone else in that public place shouted him down, the initiator is still wrong. The people shouting him down may constitute a mob, but they would be right.

I think it's very important that we ensure that the false idea that bitcoin is a bubble market does not gain traction. Because the fact is, it's not a bubble market. It is a highly speculative, fast-growing market. There will be peaks followed by dips, and people who enter at the peaks will lose money. But it will eventually level out at a price much higher than the dip. That doesn't make it a bubble, and people who say it is need to be corrected.

Profit is a reward for successful risk-taking. The risk that the early adopters took was all the hundreds or thousands of hours of getting the thing off the ground. For all they knew, it might have been a complete waste of time.

Wealth is ALWAYS in those things. The little lumps of shiny metal are a medium of exchange. As is bitcoin. And bitcoin does it better, assuming the current level of technology remains functional. But I make no such assumption.

Gold has been used as a money for most of humanity's civilized history because it possesses all the necessary qualities for money: it is homogeneous, divisible, durable, and scarce. Bitcoin possesses all of those qualities, but it isn't as durable as gold. The fact is that bitcoin's usefulness as money is dependent on all the same things that gold is, and then it is also dependent on other factors as well. Gold carries no risks for technical failure. Gold will still be useful as money if the internet stops working. Bitcoin has advantages over gold, but they all depend on technology never failing to function as it is now. I don't trust that to be the case, and I suspect most other people won't, either. I value gold for its independence from technology.

I figured this would be what eventually came up, or something like it. I didn't believe the OP right off the bat, and I wouldn't believe that he was the villain just on the word of one person - however, a reputation is more than the word of one person and Madhatter seems to have quite a good one.

Is there any way that evidence can be presented here as to whether the OP got his money back, and especially if the postage dates match Madhatter's side of the story. (Maybe the OP said he got his money back and I just missed it.)

Just adding my bit of weight to the discussion: I am in the market, and am waiting to see how this all comes out before I decide to whom I will send my money.

I CONCUR, STOP POSTING IN THIS...

oh wait

Right on. Why, if they didn't make laws against using heroin, I'd be a junkie within hours.

Wait a minute... do they have a law against suicide where I live? Shoot! I'd better find out. And if they don't I'll be moving to a state where they do, otherwise I'm liable to chug some bleach because nobody told me not to.

Haha, nice.

Rule 34 has just been invoked.

"When they outlaw freedom, only outlaws will be free."

^This.

Also, I think bitcoin is quite useful as a tool to advance the counter-economy (which requires that it remain in the grey market).

I think it will continue to rise quite a bit - one can't ignore the ratio of dollars to bitcoins in considering the possibility of bitcoin becoming a widely-used currency, even if it doesn't replace fiat moneys entirely. But probably not to $10,000 per coin, and here's why - because in a free market for money, there will be lots and lots of different moneys. Bitcoin will have to compete with others of its kind, with hard currencies, with labor notes, and other things. I suspect that it will condense around the techier sorts of markets, with some significant overlap into other areas, but not enough to make 21,000,000 bitcoins represent all 40 quadrillion US dollars or however many there are when the dollar finally bites it. I think that gold and silver will be the most widely used money, as they have been for the last 5,000 years of human history, and bitcoin will merely be measured in grams of gold instead of dollars. Its usefulness as a medium of exchange over long distances, however, cannot be duplicated with physical transfers of metal, or even with "warehouse receipts" for the same, which is why I do not expect it to lose in a truly competitive market for currency. (Presuming it becomes easier to buy and sell with time - the whole buying e-currency A which is the only thing that is accepted for e-currency B which is the only damn thing Mt. Gox will accept frankly sucks).

Theft is certainly within the scope of human nature, otherwise there would be no thieves. However, it is certainly not a dominant quality, as it does not occur within what may be called "normal conditions". Some external condition out of the ordinary may drive a man to abandon his moral code and steal food rather than starve, or some internal malady may give him a perverse thrill from the act of theft. But the vast majority of people do not steal, and would never even seriously consider it.

What may be said in terms of human nature is that it drives us away from theft by showing us through our reason that we will have more to consume if we live peacefully with our neighbors and trade to our mutual benefit. However, the abnormal mindset that impedes such reason does exist within human nature. The state, in particular, expends an incredible amount of time and energy in trying to obfuscate the long-term ill effects of parasitism, and has done so with great success. The political mindset induces some men, out of ignorance or malice, to act against what is ultimately in humanity's interests, but it does not induce them to act against human nature, because when man chooses the political means over the economic means, he is still acting as a rational human being, albeit a sick or foolish one.

Heh.

Well, I'd prefer never to have to use my guns on anything except inanimate objects, of course. I just worry that when the state is essentially reduced to a very large criminal gang without any attempt at being "legitimate", some people may have little choice.