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2541  Other / Politics & Society / If society was an organism... on: December 12, 2012, 11:01:21 PM
...and resources harvesting and processing would be nutrition and metabolism, currency the blood circulating, communication the nervous system, then... wouldn't government be the brain?  Shocked
2542  Other / Off-topic / Re: The Jewish holidays thread on: December 12, 2012, 06:16:13 PM
2nd: Make all Jewish restaurants accept Bitcoins.

You mean... like a conspiracy?  Shocked
2543  Other / Off-topic / Re: Funny Animated gifs on: December 12, 2012, 06:12:12 PM
Who's your squad leader, scumbag

2544  Local / Deutsch (German) / Re: Bitcoin-Central hat eine Banklizenz on: December 12, 2012, 09:01:24 AM
die Gutmenschen hier

wa? wer? wo?  Huh
2545  Local / Deutsch (German) / Re: Bitcoin ist nicht nur einzigartig, es ist Punk-Rock on: December 11, 2012, 12:54:46 PM
joa, war schon witzig der artikel, und agoristisch ja, aber so weit links ist der Bitcoin wie schon öfter gesagt dann doch nicht, denn er hat keinen marxistischen Umverteilungsmechanismus eingebaut. Wink
2546  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Georgism/Geoism and the Land Value Tax on: December 11, 2012, 11:05:50 AM
If someone owns all Bitcoins, I can still barter my potatoes for your carrots and we can live a free and happy life.

If someone owns all land, they can make us pay rent or taxes, and we'd have nowhere to go to live an independent life. It's practically feudalism.
2547  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Georgism/Geoism and the Land Value Tax on: December 11, 2012, 09:09:49 AM
It is worth noting that land is not some sort of privileged asset. The argument applies to many other types of resources as well.

Suppose I horde gold or bitcoin and the value goes up due to technological progress that I did not actively help create.

Bitcoin and not even gold is required to satisfy basic needs in an economic circle. Land is.
2548  Economy / Economics / Re: What would happen if everyone got 1000 USD every month? on: December 10, 2012, 03:13:28 PM


http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america

2549  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Georgism/Geoism and the Land Value Tax on: December 10, 2012, 02:45:51 PM
yeah, my words, libertarianism with land ownership is merely feudalism.

The problem with taxes is of course the question of power. Who is the executive that is allowed to collect those taxes? We want to decentralize everything after all. I'd also say a normal, modest home should not cost any taxes, I believe there is enough space for those. We should be able and free to live in a self-sufficient way after all like the Garbage Warrior. Only if someone claims excessive land ownership, there must be resistance, otherwise it would be like a cancer spreading in an organism.

I'm afraid this problem won't be solved in a satisfying way until we start colonizing the solar system anyway though. In fact issue this might be the very cause that will drive outer space colonization. It's evolution baby.
2550  Local / Deutsch (German) / Re: 14. Münchner Bitcoin Treffen am Donnerstag den 25.10.2012 on: December 10, 2012, 11:24:39 AM
joa

interessantes thema grad passend zur weihnachtszeit wären bitcoin-engelchen oder was vergleichbares für muc
2551  Local / Deutsch (German) / Re: Vorschlag: Bitcoin-Engel on: December 10, 2012, 10:59:25 AM
angel investor is aber auch ein geläufiger begriff.
2552  Economy / Economics / Re: What would happen if everyone got 1000 USD every month? on: December 10, 2012, 10:57:56 AM
"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's"  Smiley
2553  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Former Central Banker Speaks Out!!!!!!!! on: December 10, 2012, 08:25:25 AM
yeah, often quoted Lietaer here. He advocates a diversity of local community currencies. This is a good paper:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/26248658/Is-Our-Monetary-Structure-a-Systemic-Cause-for-Financial-Instability-Bernard-Lietaer

In short, a central bank is a systemic single point of failure.

He's not too fond of Bitcoin though, he doesn't like its hoarding aspect. He believes currency has to flow, and prefers demurrage money, as it would encourage long-term thinking and long-term investments.
2554  Economy / Economics / Re: What would happen if everyone got 1000 USD every month? on: December 09, 2012, 02:34:20 PM
The idea is called Basic Income Guarantee and is apparently more popular in Europe and especially Germany than in the rest of the world.

Even hardcore liberal Milton Friedman proposed a proportional/progressive income tax that could be negative for those with too low or no income, essentially resulting in the same.

An argument often made for this idea is especially the increased rise of automation and computers, making more and more jobs superfluous, while the standards of living remain at least the same.

In my view, if (and only if) we want to continue with a similar system to today's with a central state, it is an idea which implementation is long overdue. After all, what we have today with big banks and corporations is that profits are privatized, and losses are socialized ("too big to fail", bailouts etc). Thus, to be fair, also profits must be socialized, resulting in some kind of social dividend of the economic growth.

Now on the other hand, from the perspective of the market libertarians which most are here, in a properly functioning free and fair market, more automation would simply mean falling prices. And without all the bureaucracy we have to today, people could simply choose to work less, say two days a week, while still covering all their basic needs and more. Maybe this approach is really better than to trust a potentially corruptible central authority redistributing wealth.
2555  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Apparently Stalin was good guy who killed no one... on: December 08, 2012, 12:15:14 PM
I can't believe that this level of discussion (in the video) is still going on. All those false dichotomies and in-the-box thinking.

It's not about communism vs capitalism, it's about authority vs freedom.

Stalin killed people, Pinochet killed people.

Socialism is not bad, as long as it's voluntary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_spain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH43YHaUGyQ

Speaking of Orwell, this is what he had to say about it:

Quote
I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life—snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.—had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master.

[...]

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags and with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Ústed'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos días'. Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in this that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for...so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine."

One man's utopia is another man's dystopia. Just let people self-organize in any way they want, I say.

2556  Other / Politics & Society / Re: http://www.berkshares.org on: December 06, 2012, 12:10:41 AM
Quote

ftfy to have a properly clickable link next time. Only for me though if I happen to stumble again over this thread. No one else is allowed to click it.  Angry
2557  Other / Off-topic / Re: Fun Conspiracy theory! on: December 05, 2012, 11:02:48 AM
they are now in the process of acquiring a large % of bitcoin which they will use to crash the market, there by destroying confidence in bitcoin.

well apparently, "operation pirate" failed, didn't it.  Huh
2558  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: Will Bankcoin be appearing any time soon? on: December 04, 2012, 10:23:34 AM
I don't think all that mining overhead would be necessary if it's only for certified IPs anyway.

The banks would just administer a central database together.
2559  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin on Stackoverflow Careers podcast (19:46) on: December 03, 2012, 05:31:45 PM
interesting, founder Jeff Atwood (@codinghorror) was always kinda mocking BTC.

Quote
Next currencies: bitcoins, and Google Wallet. Joel bought a sweater with Google Wallet, and it’s magical.

how can it be more magical than a BTC one.  Angry
2560  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin on Adam vs the Man on: November 28, 2012, 04:46:28 PM
took him a while, he was skeptical at first, wasn't he?
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