Yeah and that's silly to say that.

As I said in an other thread, it's like saying a hammer has no use apart from nailing nails.  It's what it is made for, damn it!

I'm perfectly ok to believe that this guy is smart.  The way he calmly and patiently rested his case showed it.

However, one can not be always right about everything.  And this one is very wrong about bitcoin in particular and money in general.

I'd like to hear more from him about why gold is money, as I am a former goldbug myself.

You make me realize why I instinctively refuse to show my face on the web 

A telephone, for instance, is a completely useless thing.  You can't eat a telephone.  If you are alone on a desert island, then your telephone is just useless because you have noone to talk to.

Communication tools have some value for you because you believe you will find someone that will be willing to listen to you and talk with you using the same device.

A pen is something juste as useless and worthless.  Sure, you can make nice drawings that you might enjoy watching later.  But truely, unless you find someone who is willing and capable of understanding what you wrote or drew on a piece of paper, then this pen is absolutely useless.


Communication tools are nothing but pyramid schemes.  They are usefull only if other people think they are usefull.




Now I'll stop writing nonsense and I'll start explaining my point.





What I was trying to show here, is how clueless people who think money should have "inherent value" are.   Money has value because it is money.  Period.  Saying that money has no value is just as silly as saying that a hammer has no use apart from nailing nails.

In a nutshell, money is to quantities what language is to ideas.   It is a way to communicate and transfer amounts in a reliable way.   Since it can't be created easily, then if you have some, at some point you must have got it from someone else.  In other words, it doesn't really have value:  it is value.   We tend to forget that "value" is a word that has an arithmetic meaning.   You can say "hello, here is an number: 10" to someone, but by doing so you communicate a number, you don't transfer a value.  Value is a concept which is related to a unit.  '10' has no value, but '10 smurfs' has:  it is a value relative to the total amount of whatever a smurf is.

Money is a tool that is designed to allow the ownership and transfer of such a concept of value.   As such value can then be mapped to quantites of goods and services, money is therefore used to account for ownership and transfer of goods and services.   It is, as I have already said it, a decentralised accounting tool.   It is to numbers what signs are to ideas.

Money has existed since the begining of times.  It is pretty much as old as writing.  And there is a reason for that:  both concepts are analogous.



IMHO

WTF!?

The guy is volontarist and yet he thinks money should be decided and enforced by law?

I don't get it.

A more serious argument I could make about his "legal tender" point.

Law is not something that people are supposed to withstand.  It's not some superior force that people must blindlessly obey.  Law is something that is supposed to be decided by society.

The dollar existed before it was recognised by law.  I think it derives from a silver coin called Thaler.  Its usage became so popular that eventually law makers decided to make it the official money.

There is no reason why bitcoin could not have the same destiny.  As more and more people use it as they realise it is a more efficient intermediate for exchange, at some point they will have law makers turn it into an "official" money.  I don't say it is something I hope for (I don't).  I say it is possible, and if it was to happen, then bitcoin would essentially replace the dollar.

improving miserydaeria's picture:



I know this is not cool, but it's so fun 

 

I told you this thread could be fun!

My guess is that he is just an economics student.

I also suspect he doesn't know anything about austrian economists.

Haven't watched the whole video yet but I predict discussing it is going to be fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoK8HXMSsNg

Edit.  Ok, watched it all.  My quick answer:

Bitcoin is a decentralised accounting tool.  It is pretty much as useless as a pen and a piece of paper are.  Which means it is not.  A pen and a paper is useless only for someone who can't write.  Or for someone who can write, but in a world where nobody else can.

A little poll about your pricing propectives for bitcoin.

Honnestly I could say no.  I don't give a crap about getting 10$ for free, and I would enjoy better punishing the other guy for being really too much greedy.

Interesting question.  You should turn this thread into a poll.

Indeed it sounds much like Ripple.

And a bond doesn't have to be decentralised, as it is issued by a specific person anyway.  So it does make sense to have it handled by a specific server.

However, a standard protocol for issuing bonds could be usefull.

Would be cool.   Probably possible, but since it is simpler to implement a smartphone application, I doubt anyone will spend much energy/time/money in implementing a bitcoin client on a chip card.

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if those guys copy one another.   How ridiculous it would be, though!

Faites moi une offre.

En gros vous m'envoyez (ou postez sur ce fil) votre clef GnuPG publique avec une photo intégrée, et on fixe un RDV quelque part dans Paris.   Je pourrai alors regarder votre visage et constater qu'elle correspond à la clef que vous m'avez envoyée.

Vous me réglez une fois que vous recevez votre clef signée.



Renforcer la vérifiabilité des informations vous identifiant dans votre clef peut être utile si vous comptez par exemple engager votre responsabilité dans quelque chose.   Si ceux à qui vous faites une promesse sont convaincus de pouvoir vous retrouver si jamais vous les trompez, ils seront plus disposés à vous faire confiance.

This thread makes me realize how hard it is to understand that something is impossible.

To understand that something is possible, basically all you need is to imagine how it can be done.

But to understand that something is impossible, you need some deep understanding of the whole thing you are considering, and basically what you need is some kind of a mathematical proof.


That why I predict we'll always have people trying to design some physical instance of a bitcoin.

A marchand is free to denominate his prices in whatever currency he wants.  Even a crappy national fiat currency.  That's litteraly his business.  If one believe in economic freedom, that's the only acceptable conclusion.

Now, I'm glad you don't want to talk anymore, as this topic is annoying me as well anyway.

Yeah, I see the difference.  I guess.  But I don't think it's relevant.  In both ways, at the end the result is the same:  I had the stuffs I wanted to have.