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If you have enough in expenses that can be covered by using gift cards, you can convert your BTC into cards from either Gyft or eGifter and keep the cash. Safe AND easy.
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My assertion is that fiat currencies are inherently bad. A scam. Theft.
[...]
And your response is that no one is literally forced to accept fiat for goods and services because no one ever has to sell the government anything.
Is that the entirety of it? I'm not arguing your general point, but your specific one. You said: If Bob approaches Alice and *forces* her to accept his IOUs in exchange for her goods and services You are not forced to accept fiat for your goods and services. Yes, I understand that you're arguing the specific point. And again, for clarification, I point out that you're trying to say that government does NOT force acceptance of their fiat for goods and services, and the reason you give for this isn't because the government doesn't use their fiat for all their interactions, but essentially that no given individual must of necessity interact with them. That when they acquire their goods and services, they don't overtly hold guns to people's heads as they hand over the check. Alice wasn't just representative of an individual. She was also representative of any given society as a whole. And every society MUST interact with its government. Please think about this very carefully: What do you think would happen if the government requested bids for an interstate highway and every contractor refused to accept their money, demanding gold instead? What do you really think would happen if every gun manufacturer in the country suddenly refused to sell arms to the military, or to policemen? Do you *honestly* believe they'd just throw up their hands, shrug and say "oh well," and voluntarily expire as a "sovereign" entity? The very thought is ludicrous, and I'm sure you could dig up a historical example or two of exactly what happens when a government is denied in such a manner. So your phrase "you are not forced to accept fiat for your goods and services" doesn't apply to society--it applies to me personally. Currently. Thanks. That changes everything.* Is that all you were wanting to point out there? *Yeah, that was snippier than it needed to be. Sorry. |
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If Bob approaches Alice and *forces* her to accept his IOUs in exchange for her goods and services, and to use them in her dealings with others You are not forced to accept fiat currency for goods and services you provide, only for settlement of debts. And you are not forced to use fiat currency to buy goods and services from others. What do governments pay their soldiers, contractors and employees in? What do they pay tax returns, SS and other non-employee obligations in? When purchase orders for tanks and ammunition (or staples and printer ink) are issued, what will be spent? None of which has anything to do with whether you are forced to accept fiat for your goods and services. You aren't. You just don't get to sell tanks to the government, because you can't force them to pay in a currency you want. If you are selling something I want, and only accept Bitcoin as payment, my options are either to pay in Bitcoin or not buy, I cannot force you to accept payment in fiat. Let me see if I'm getting this. My assertion is that fiat currencies are inherently bad. A scam. Theft. The supporting argument I'm making is that due to government laws and actions, including legal tender laws, taxes and government spending, individuals are forced to use and accept their fiat, and hence society is coerced into using it, which is how the scam is enabled. I provided the examples of paychecks, obligations and the purchasing of tanks and staples. And your response is that no one is literally forced to accept fiat for goods and services because no one ever has to sell the government anything. Is that the entirety of it? Considering that inflation is a shell game, transferring wealth rather than inherently creating or destroying it, do you think that the majority benefits from inflation? Do you even feel that a large minority benefits?
I think there are a small proportion of people whose savings vastly exceed their debts, and massively more people whose debts exceed their savings, or who are roughly neutral. So... that's a "yes"? |
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If Bob approaches Alice and *forces* her to accept his IOUs in exchange for her goods and services, and to use them in her dealings with others You are not forced to accept fiat currency for goods and services you provide, only for settlement of debts. And you are not forced to use fiat currency to buy goods and services from others. What do governments pay their soldiers, contractors and employees in? What do they pay tax returns, SS and other non-employee obligations in? When purchase orders for tanks and ammunition (or staples and printer ink) are issued, what will be spent? (The reference to her 'dealings with others' is a reference to the 'settlement of debts' portion.) But it also resulted in the loss of quite a significant portion of your wealth through inflation over just the last few decades. Actually, like very many people, inflation has increased my overall worth, as I had more mortgage debt that savings, and that debt was also inflated away. Hmm. "like very many people" Considering that inflation is a shell game, transferring wealth rather than inherently creating or destroying it, do you think that the majority benefits from inflation? Do you even feel that a large minority benefits? If not, again presuming your inflationary gains via mortgage debt were enough to more than offset your inflation losses elsewhere, aren't you kind of admitting that you're simply one of the lucky ones who benefited? After all, it's not as if its possible for everyone to benefit from inflation if they all just take the same actions you did. |
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First of all, we're not talking about whether it's moral or immoral to be forced to use a currency. We're talking about whether it's theft or not.
It's theft precisely because society is coerced into using it as money. That's the linchpin making the scam work. I can tell you about a few fiat currencies that are not forced on people and that are commonly used. The USD is one of them, the EUR another. In many countries across the world, it may even be illegal to use them, but they are used nonetheless. Or how about a privately issued fiat currency that's accepted and traded worldwide? Think Bonus Miles. Ok, I think a clarification is in order. You seem to be using the term 'fiat' to mean 'unbacked.' The rest of us are using the term 'fiat' to mean the official definition: "a formal authorization or proposition; a decree". Money forced on you by people with the power to compel you. Considering that the first usage also covers bitcoin itself, perhaps we'd be better served by keeping to the second usage? Noone forces you to hold any currency, as far as I'm aware of U.S. legislation. That you are required to settle your taxes in USD is no more a hassle than the need for buying stamps if you want to use the U.S. postal service.
- No one HAS to mail a letter via the USPS. You can use UPS or Fedex (at prices above a governmentally-mandated minimum, anyway.) If you work to live, as most of us do, you MUST send your FRNs to the federal government. - No one is forced to accept postage stamps as "legal tender for all debts, public and private." - No company pays their employees in postage stamps; or does business in stamps, thus incurring the burden of converting them to FRNs to pay their employees. [...] I repeat: no one forces you to hold any currency, as far as I know. That you're required to use it for a short period of time when it comes to settle your bills, is an inconvenience, no more, no less. I'm sorry, but that's absurd. When the coercion to use the money is that pervasive (and invasive,) people will also hold onto stashes of it. That's just human nature. And the people who make use of this scam know it. The nitpicking would be fine if we actually didn't see the distinction, or if it made a difference. What's being pointed out to you is that for all practical purposes, the distinction is irrelevant.
Okay, the nitpicking part is actually that "fiat is not theft". It could be considered coercion, when you're forced to use it. It could be considered fraud, if someone actually made a promise about its value and devalues it later on (but in reality, no one makes such a promise). The coercion makes it theft. If Bob approaches Alice and *forces* her to accept his IOUs in exchange for her goods and services, and to use them in her dealings with others, then produces and distributes so many more IOUs that the ones Alice has are only worth a tiny fraction of their original value, you can argue all you want about how it's not theft but when he's locked up like a common thug for it, most of society will have little sympathy for him. To argue that it's not theft because she didn't trade the IOUs off to Chuck quickly enough completely ignores the real issue, doesn't change the nature of Bob's actions, and is a pretty disturbing sentiment for someone to express. Would just using a new word work for you? How about we call the scam "inflatascrew"? When referring to fiat shenanigans, we'll just tell everyone, "losing wealth occurs because you're being 'inflatascrewed' by your government. It's pretty much the same as being stolen from, but with these distinctions..." Surely that would satisfy your desire for semantic accuracy--because it's not as if the real issue is that you feel being stolen from this way is totally acceptable, and the whole nitpick is a distraction from that, right?
Let's just assume for a moment that I'm not nitpicking, but I actually disagree. Fiat is a really good concept. I've used fiat all my life and it served me quite well. So did all the people I know. Just because we like Bitcoin that much more today should not make us spread FUD about competition. Fiat, as defined by the second usage above, is NOT a good concept. You say it has served you and everyone you know quite well. I'd argue it has served you all abysmally. Sure, you could make use of it. It was *functional*. It had to at least be that for the scam to work. But it also resulted in the loss of quite a significant portion of your wealth through inflation over just the last few decades. Worse, it didn't just cause that wealth to evaporate, it enabled the theft of that wealth by insiders who quite literally profited at your expense. I can only imagine you feel fiat has served you well because you've never had the real option of living in a (well-off) society that didn't revolve around it. And of course, those profiting from it would like to keep it that way. Acknowledging the ills of fiat is hardly FUD. There's a reason 2008 happened and that the global economy is still on shaky ground. There's a reason depositors in Cyprus had a portion of their money directly stolen from their bank accounts, an action being seriously discussed now in other parts of Europe. What else would one expect to happen when a minority is granted the ability to steal from entire societies using a scheme that not only reduces the incentive to save and produce, but that's mathematically unsustainable in the first place? Avoiding all that nonsense is kinda the entire point of Bitcoin. |
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Fiat currency, unbacked by some commodity with utility/value, is the most silly thing ever.
Actually, it was a great idea that is still considered by the majority of economists to be one of the more important factors in the economic progress of modern civilization. By Keynesians, you mean.  The underlying issue (which molecular and wachtwoord probably should've noted explicitly, since you apparently missed it) is that citizens are forced, through threat of prison (ie, violence), to use currency that gets debased. If that were not the case, there wouldn't be anything immoral about it, and it would be analogous to a company, whose stock you own, issuing more shares.
First of all, we're not talking about whether it's moral or immoral to be forced to use a currency. We're talking about whether it's theft or not. ..... It's theft precisely because society is coerced into using it as money. That's the linchpin making the scam work. But we're forced to use these currencies through the requirement that we pay taxes in them (and other legal tender laws), so when we get diluted, we lose value/property.
Noone forces you to hold any currency, as far as I'm aware of U.S. legislation. That you are required to settle your taxes in USD is no more a hassle than the need for buying stamps if you want to use the U.S. postal service. Except that: - No one HAS to mail a letter via the USPS. You can use UPS or Fedex (at prices above a governmentally-mandated minimum, anyway.) If you work to live, as most of us do, you MUST send your FRNs to the federal government. - No one is forced to accept postage stamps as "legal tender for all debts, public and private." - No company pays their employees in postage stamps; or does business in stamps, thus incurring the burden of converting them to FRNs to pay their employees. - No one is forced through threat of war to purchase oil with postage stamps. - No one working for the federal, state or local governments of the U.S. is going to be paid in postage stamps. - Government contracts aren't settled in postage stamps. - Etc. The nitpicking would be fine if we actually didn't see the distinction, or if it made a difference. What's being pointed out to you is that for all practical purposes, the distinction is irrelevant. Would just using a new word work for you? How about we call the scam "inflatascrew"? When referring to fiat shenanigans, we'll just tell everyone, "losing wealth occurs because you're being 'inflatascrewed' by your government. It's pretty much the same as being stolen from, but with these distinctions..." Surely that would satisfy your desire for semantic accuracy--because it's not as if the real issue is that you feel being stolen from this way is totally acceptable, and the whole nitpick is a distraction from that, right? |
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A huge purpose for a price, whether that is for a product or for a job, is to signal the demand for it. Lower wages in certain jobs indicates their demand, or need, in a society. Obviously a teacher is way more important to society and economy than a garbage collector or a janitor. If this gets implemented, the result may be huge distortions in labor wage signals. Basically the reason some jobs pay more than others is because some jobs are more needed that others, and things that people may just want to do as a hobby, which may normally not pay enough, are just not needed in society. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people decide to work as videogame testers, for pennies an hour (huge influx of such workers = reduced wages), which would basically really stagnate their economy.
This is already happening anyway. Competence being equal, you are usually paid less to do a job which more people want to do, because more people apply to position, lowering the salary. But a minimum income would accelerate the shift of people toward lower-paying jobs, simply because many people would no longer be fighting the trend, they would be actively seeking those lower-paying jobs (specifically, the ones that are easy.) This comes to mind when I think of this proposal... http://www.youtube.com/v/ZclddLcOYYAObviously it wouldn't immediately apply to all Swiss, but it would immediately apply to some, and would slowly apply to more and more over time. Get enough people choosing to not work, or just be substantially less productive, and the whole scheme collapses. |
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Gold and silver are more longterm.
Good point. If the price of bitcoins skyrockets in the short term (say 5 years or less) relative to precious metals, it's likely a wise idea to diversify some of the profits back out toward other assets. I'm confident bitcoins will appreciate, but I acknowledge that there's a caveat--there does exist the chance of it being rendered obsolete by a better cryptocurrency in the next several years (although the longer it lasts, the less likely the risk of that particular situation occurring.) |
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I guess we're at the "then they fight you" stage. Putting a few "Bitcoin accepted here" stickers on the front doors of central banks could be amusing  I would sooo throw a few bitcents towards seeing this happen.  |
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I hope people don't judge me that way because I drive a Prius (though I do get a bit of road rage aimed at me now and then). My buying it had nothing to do with environmentalism, and was entirely for financial reasons (saving a ton of money), and because I'm a tech junkie, and that thing is practically a smartphone on wheels.
Sadly, I know a couple of folks who make such snap judgments about Prius owners, but I see the attitude diminishing. Around here the venom is mainly directed at those who organize and protest (not that that really ever happens around here, go figure.) With all the hunters and farmers in this area, and folks who are knowledgeable about specific aspects of the local environment, it's easy to think that environmentalist attitudes would be seen in a more tolerant light, but... well, the article pretty much pegs it right. |
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Safest bet is to invest in all three, in the proportions one feels reflect the relative risks. Higher risk of loss = smaller investment percent-wise.
I've already got a small amount of each, but were I to suddenly have a lot to invest, my view of the relative risks (over the long term; 10 years minimum) would be like so:
Bitcoin - 30%
Silver - 50%
Gold - 20%
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In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk— So a self-selected sample of basement-dwelling neckbeards who have no jobs so are willing to work for pennies an hour on that ridiculous Turk thing. I stopped reading right there. The analysis is from multiple different studies from various sources... the article makes direct reference to at least five independent ones. |
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That's neat. In the interim, remember this: - You can remain ignorant and deferential - You can get knowledgeable and stay deferential because it makes sense - You can get knowledgeable and be rebellious with a point - You cannot remain ignorant and be rebellious and have much of a point So far, I see a lot of defense of remaining ignorant and being rebellious. "Being rebellious?" Wow. You aren't even aware of how far gone you are, are you? Anyhow, ignoring the phrase in the middle of it, your fourth point is still wrong, and in a very revealing way. You can remain ignorant of what Mardi Gras is and how it impacts the New Orleans economy and crime rate and still have perfectly valid concerns for why having a city-wide, all-ages Midnight Curfew Bill in New Orleans is a bad idea. Your statements above simply miss the boat if directed toward people resisting such a bill, and in the context of most environmental proposals, they likewise fall flat. People don't have to share your fundamental values or educational background to speak to issues that directly affect them. That you think it does shows a pretty flagrant disregard for the opinions and legitimate concerns (and, really, the lives) of others you consider lesser than you. Still, that's for free. You're actually to the point of using the term "rebellious," as if it's the people being affected by the actions of environmental activists that are "rebels." Even if your first language isn't English, I think that says quite enough. Time to use your Ignore button. |
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Bitminter also gives me Namecoins is there anyway to convert them into BTC's or if they are worthless how do I stop farming them as well?
Thanks
You can cash out and exchange them for BTC at exchanges such as BTC-e. NMC seems to be EOL. Will it be removed from the pool? I'd hold off on that. Apparently the fix isn't complicated, and the Namecoin devs are jumping onto this now. Plus, mining them is free, so until Namecoin is totally replaced (assuming it doesn't get fixed,) why not keep producing them? |
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This article seems highly relevant to this. Seems I'm learning a bit through the course of the thread myself; after all, I'll be one of the first to sigh and admit that I just wish people were perfectly rational creatures.... The Backfire Effect shows why you can't use facts to win an argumentIt's short enough that it's worth the read. Also, some of the comments are worth the read too: Between this, Cognitive Dissonance, and Dunbar's Number/Monkeyspheres, we have sufficient science and evidence to make it clear that there is no salvaging our governmental system.
Bucky was right, we need to make this whole mess obsolete. The pic that followed:  |
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Hitler was an environmentalist too. You know why? It was another mechanism for control and subjugation of the people.
Actually, the goal is to protect the environment. It's not about controlling people to have a power trip. It's the immediate and short-term harm done to others during this "protecting the environment" that pisses people off. It's one thing to try to treat the situation gently, and take that harm into consideration and minimize it (maybe even providing compensation.) It's when you dismiss all that and callously tell them "either take Environment 101 & 102 minimum, or shut up and let me dictate your life" that you're going to get backlash. And regardless of your goal, at that point, yeah, it IS about controlling people, even if not for a power trip. It's about controlling them "to save humanity/the planet." And if the fallback goal (after "education" fails) is to try to control people for the good of the planet, that's a message that environmental activists really, really need to take seriously and try to sell better. Frankly, according to this study most of them should stop their continuing research into environmental issues and start taking lessons in public relations; the cost/benefit analysis for the latter is much more favorable for them at this point. They don't care how it benefits society as a whole.
If it doesn't provide them or their descendants at least some benefit, long-term or otherwise, then why should they care? Any proposal that won't ever provide them or their loved ones and descendants some benefit (even if it's just an objectively "better world") is a scam, an attempt to coerce them into doing something to their detriment just so some stranger you think is suitable can benefit. (EDIT: And again, because I suspect it needs to be said, we're not talking about polluting others' property, we're talking about what they do on *their own land*.) If the proposal does provide some benefit, then you don't need to talk about "the benefit to society as a whole." Talk about the benefit to them. Suddenly, you're actually focusing on the individual people involved, and you might actually get some positive feedback and wind up motivating them. |
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Here's a thought... would it be possible to do this with ultrasound? Or if not technically ultrasound, maybe a "mosquito" tone that most adults couldn't hear? Not that it would really bother me that much, but a "silent chirp" might be considered more user friendly by most.
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Dude the NSA has the keys to everything and not just Microsoft. Well, it's true that there are other vulnerabilities that they can exploit, but since Linux is open source, it's not as easy as just having the OS developer build a back door right into the code. I'am going to research linux For my mining rig thank you for the suggestion .
Is there an easy way to get started with linux or is it just google the info?
The easiest way may be to buy a system with Linux tested and pre-installed. From what I understand, Linux sometimes has trouble with hardware, specifically with having drivers for everything. As far as using it, Google can get you off to a decent start if you're computer savvy, but some companies that sell the Linux OS (I believe Red Hat is one) also offer customer support. You can excahnge for btc, for example on vircurex or btc-e.
Sorry since I am not familiar with exchanges yet, how do I go about selling them and what should I expect to get for them? Thanks Current exchange rate on BTC-e ( http://btc-e.com) is about 225 NMC to 1 BTC. Very roughly, that makes them worth about $0.50 each. |
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I see, its just that vista is pretty known to have lots of problems. I am a Mac user so I am not sure of the details but I've heard that XP is a much more stable environment and that vista was the worst ever released. Not sure about Win 7 & 8 in general but I know some people are working on those without issue and i've never met anyone running vista before.
Just a tid bit.. but maybe you're right that the client should run on ANY computer since its java based, vista not being an exception. Maybe the Doc has some better advice.
On release vista was a mess granted ,since the patches the comparisons to win7 for performance is more or less on par so since I'am familiar with the interface I just did not see a need to buy or use win7 or 8 . If someone points out that vista is causing any issues or win7 or 8 is superior then I am able to upgrade . It iss just a pain in the ass getting used to a new os. One other reason for not wanting to have windows 8 is that there was an official recommendation to some users not to upgrade since there is a built in monitoring or back door type deal with it . If I can find the information I will post it here ,but Bitcoin is about keeping private and windows 8 about making you 100% public . Perhaps you were referring to this article? NSA Backdoor Exploit in Windows 8 UncoveredIn any event, I'm wanting to run my devices on a Linux device now, not just due to Microsoft's infamy in this arena, but because that's what it seems like most bitcoin developers are familiar with. (Namecoin-Qt doesn't even have a Mac binary yet....) |
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