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Free market is a theory, a few principles as a prescription of how trade in a free market should be done but it doesn't say anything about the exact rules we human beings would naturally embrace following those principles.
In practice a free market is not really free. In practice a free market is a market regulated and constrained by market participants as oppose to a central authority with a monopoly on violence. And that is what Bitcoin is actually enjoying. We still have rules, we all are strongly against theft, we all are strongly against fraud, we all are strongly for honoring contracts and we deal with people who don't follow these few rules peacefully with ostracism.
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This thread is slightly disturbing but I'm not too worried about it.
It just gives you a small glimpse into just how tough a market regulated and constrained by it's participants is. Hint: Much much tougher than any government regulations could ever be. That's why it's also so laughable and at the same time so frustrating for me to see all this fear based on a logic that simply doesn't apply to this experiment. |
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Given the massive inflation faze Bitcoin is in right now I'd say it's possible.
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fine, then you essentially want a true 1:1 gold backed currency. how do you know if a bank issuing notes actually has all the gold as a reserve? how will you ensure that people will actually care? we've had all that before. history repeating. another problem is that today's gold supply is largely controlled by the elites already.
Good points. I agree totally. But that doesn't equal socialism.  It does because the government enforces the gold standard and gives itself a monopoly over what is money which allows them to grow more easily and faster which eventually leads to socialism. You have a misunderstanding of what exactly a gold standard is. A gold standard is the opposite of the government saying what money is, because people already view gold as money. If a gold standard is enforced then the government is restrained from growing by inflating the money supply. A gold standard is precisely a government telling the people what money is. What we want is a market standard where the market decides what money is. Then and only then the government is powerless to abuse it's assumed privilege of controlling money and it's worth. |
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Monopolies and oligopolies lead to collusion. If you sell shares in a public corporation you owe your shareholders a return on investment, and these returns are judged by the marketplace on a quarterly basis under the theory of unlimited growth. Of course in the real world, no matter how large it may appear, there are limits to growth. So over time those monopolies or oligopolies particularly those addicted to oil (which after all powers the mining rigs) will pathologically seek out new ways to increase (make those) quarterly profits. Sure that might lead to green energy, but of course it is just as likely to create new ways to extract monopoly rents from bitcoin users and the bitcoin supply chain. At present, unfettered capitalism with out broad based representation (open source/distributed) has spawned monster corporations acting as sociopaths. This is not seen as theory, rather the question is what to do about it. Harnessing the wealth of many for the benefit of a few without any input or oversight by those who are being harnessed. What is Facebook.
Unless bitcoin users have some sort of participatory powers in decisioning how bitcoins are administered, we will be replicating the current monetary system albeit without inflation.
It really pisses me off when people explain something not mentioning the whole picture. What we have in the entire world today is not a free market and it is not capitalism. What we have is GOVERNMENT (FORCE, COMPULSION, VIOLENCE, AUTHORITY) that enables companies to behave in ways the free market would have never allowed them to also called CORPORATISM. I don't know how many more times do I have to repeat myself: BITCOIN IS VOLUNTARY, no one is forced, there is no violence, there is no authority and there is no compulsion. NO ONE, not one entity in the world of Bitcoin can do something the rest of the participants wont like and get away without feeling the consequences. The behavior you describe would immediately be known to every participant and everyone could act in their self interest accordingly which would mean huge consequences for any business with such an intent. Goddamn ignorance wants to make my head explode. |
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fine, then you essentially want a true 1:1 gold backed currency. how do you know if a bank issuing notes actually has all the gold as a reserve? how will you ensure that people will actually care? we've had all that before. history repeating. another problem is that today's gold supply is largely controlled by the elites already.
Good points. I agree totally. But that doesn't equal socialism. It does because the government enforces the gold standard and gives itself a monopoly over what is money which allows them to grow more easily and faster which eventually leads to socialism. |
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well, who decides on the gold standard? how much should the backing be? that's central planning.
Exactly. That's why I want a market standard, let the market pick what is the best money. |
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You guys are forgetting that this isn't the only game in town. Even if he was to set up and run --lets say-- 2 Thash/s of ASICs, that isn't a monopoly or even 50%. 51% is a monopoly. You simply exclude blocks by all other miners. Making a better miner is great. Trying to monopolize the network isn't so great. Bullshit. There's nothing wrong with free market monopolies. I suspect in the end we will have only a few big mining companies. And the fact that using Bitcoin is voluntary is what will keep them honest. If people have free choice to go to some other currency then these few companies will be forced in their own self interest to continuously stay honest and true to the rules of Bitcoin. Only people who have never run a voluntary business would claim otherwise. You seem to forget that in a market regulated and constrained by market participants "elections" are held every single day by way of keep customers happy. If you can't do that, you go out of business. |
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So far in my life I learned enough to know that people will always do what they want to do and that I can't control anyone beside myself.
But even so I have to try and plead with the community:
Please, do us a favor and if you're going to invent new symbols for Bitcoin, don't look for inspiration in the old failed and oppressive ideologies but instead look forward to freedom and cooperation, to spontaneous order as opposed to order by government's monopoly on violence and to a society with freely agreed to rules, consistent and mandatory for everyone as opposed to a central authority with dual standards and last but not least to a market regulated and constrained by it's participants as opposed to a market regulated by a central planing authority.
I beg you, please draw your inspiration in images of freedom, voluntarism, cooperation, openness, consistency, capitalism and entrepreneurship as opposed to oppression, violence, and pretense of knowledge. Thank you.
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Please. Those anologies make no sense what so ever, unless your goal was to troll me..  I was trying to demonstrate that it's very easy to focus on a subset of Bitcoin's results, whether intended or accidental, and then liken them to one's preferred ideology. And you failed. |
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I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary while it was commenting on the first and the second matrix movie. I could not for the love of me get my head around the third part's interpretations so that was a bit of a let down. But over all a very intriguing documentary and I'm thankful to the person who posted the link in that other thread last night.
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I bet a communist would say: "it's the perfect implementation of Marxism! A collectivist system under which everyone is treated equally. No exceptions!"
So how much hashing power you have, or access to what processing power, electricity cost, internet cost you have is equal for everyone? Btw a vital part of marxism is that people have NO CHOICE whether or not they want to be even part of the system.. And a fascist would say: "it's the perfect Fascist monetary system! Only those who are truly worthy and capable of mining are allowed to do it. Primitives in faraway lands with no technological merit, cannot subvert the course of natural selection!"
So those who merely running the client do not help keeping their copy of the public ledger honest? Btw a vital part of fascism is that people have NO CHOICE whether or not they want to be even part of the system.. Please. Those anologies make no sense what so ever, unless your goal was to troll me.. |
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20% seems like an awful lot. What sites are you comparing to when you say it is a competitive rate?
I believe iTunes charges 30%, but that's iTunes. Well, I can't argue with that... I suspect the high fees are because of the usually low prices in the range of a few dollars. |
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I'm wondering why someone doesn't start a service where they offer a download service with two rules:
- the site wont check what the file is
- the site doesn't allow file names, every file gets an unique ID and that's it
Then you'd need to have another site owned by someone else, maybe hidden via TOR with a forum where each ID is matched with a description.
I wonder if such a site could keep plausible deniability of knowing what is hosted on their servers to allow anything to be sold without being attacked by the government?
Maybe all files are encrypted and someone else sells the keys? Like you (person who has some reputation) says "file 00456 on bitcoindownloads.com" is the next comic in this series. Send X to address Y for the key". The site with the file has no way to check without buying all the keys which seems too much to ask and the seller is not selling any content. Seems too easy. Sorry for the slight diversion OP. Good luck with the site. ! Yes! Man how didn't I make that mental leap... Only allow encrypted files!  |
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(and there seems to be a _lot_ of that in the Bitcoin world)
Yes, the Achilles heel of many excellent programmers is the inability to put themselves in the shoes of the first time user of the tools they create and they tend to create a bit of a steep learning curve when they design software. |
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I'm wondering why someone doesn't start a service where they offer a download service with two rules:
- the site wont check what the file is
- the site doesn't allow file names, every file gets an unique ID and that's it
Then you'd need to have another site owned by someone else, maybe hidden via TOR with a forum where each ID is matched with a description.
I wonder if such a site could keep plausible deniability of knowing what is hosted on their servers to allow anything to be sold without being attacked by the government?
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As far as I, a non programmer, understand it: No.
Multi sig isn't in yet, although the protocol already supported it, I mean it was possible to send one through but it wasn't standard. BIP16 was a change of the protocol to allow shortened multi sig addresses and it standardized a multi sig transaction. What's missing now is the part where they implement the functionality into the client.
I could be a bit off tho.
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Again, all comments are appreciated and so far I've observed a lot emotional response.
Are you a programmer? Do you understand how this limit of 21 million is actually enforced inside the code? |
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Do I have to fight Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No.
Do I have to run from Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No. -> freedom, not slavery.
This doesn't affect the analogy. Bitcoin shares the weaknesses of a democracy. But it's not an enormous concern because it is not a government, it's a totally different thing. It would be better if it didn't have these weaknesses, but there is no other proven way that could make such a system work. Does this also reflect the claim about democracy; that it's the best one that works despite its weaknesses? Yes. Does it mean anything at all? No, analogies don't work that way. So don't worry.  That's right! Bitcoin is not a government therefor not a democracy. Bitcoin is actually an anarcho capitalist system in it's purest form. It's anarchy. Anarchy in practice does not mean anything goes. Anarchy in practice means spontaneous order and a society with some mandatory and consistent but voluntarily agreed to rules. This idea that because people are working together and enforce certain voluntarily agreed to mandatory and consistent rules somehow this constitutes to the concept of a democracy is just plain wrong. FFS check your dictionaries. de·moc·ra·cy [dih-mok-ruh-see] Show IPA
noun, plural -cies.
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4. political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5. the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power. Bitcoin is a system. It has mandatory and consistent rules (they apply to everyone without exception). But participation is voluntary. HUGE DIFFERENCE from a democracy. Democracy is a form of government participation in which is not voluntary. You have no choice but to follow their rules. Being forced to run from your home or fight against violence is not what constitutes to a voluntary choice. |
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Let me repeat myself before I stop replying to you:
The idea that a democracy owns the people on a piece of land abhors me. It's slavery and you're oblivious to it if you think I have a choice when my only options are to run or to fight.
Do I have to fight Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No.
Do I have to run from Bitcoin if I don't want to use it? No. -> freedom, not slavery.
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