listen to this bullshit Karen Gifford of Ripple Labs spews forth to the Calif Assembly @14:00. Chris Larson also says he doesn't believe we need a new currency: https://clyp.it/zdpzphmdRipple is the enemy. Does David Schwartz still hangs out on this forum? The last time I talked to him was at the 2013 San Jose conference. I wonder if he knew back then he was going to sell out. |
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The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
A generation ago, multi-user time-sharing computer systems had a similar problem. Before strong encryption, users had to rely on password protection to secure their files, placing trust in the system administrator to keep their information private. Privacy could always be overridden by the admin based on his judgment call weighing the principle of privacy against other concerns, or at the behest of his superiors. Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what.
It's time we had the same thing for money. With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless. |
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pointless lecture and threats
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Technology allows us to separate a "blockchain" from "bitcoin" and all they do is shout their (very personal) ideologies. Technology makes banks irrelevant. Banks will try to use politics to force people to use their services, but technology allows us to bypass politics too. To the extent that the banks are able to compel companies and individuals to use their permission-based systems, those companies and individuals will lose in competition to companies and individuals who use permissionless technology. Those companies and individuals will scream for more politics to protect themselves from that competition, but then we right back to developing technology to protect people from politics. |
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And the 'blockchain not bitcoin' narrative continues unabated, fuelled by the banking sector and advisors to non-decentralized players. "Banks will remain wary of Bitcoin because its "permissionless ledger" relies on anonymous participants to validate transactions, cryptocurrency researcher Tim Swanson writes in "Consensus as a Service: A brief report on the emergence of permission, distributed ledger systems." This setup means that there is no one to hold accountable in legal disputes over the ownership of assets, should someone tamper with a transaction."http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/banks-can-cherry-pick-the-best-bits-from-bitcoin-report-1073642-1.htmlI'd rather respond to that article with Tim Swanson's face photoshopped on to this image: http://www.quickmeme.com/img/73/73f07f805a0ac0165ab2bd0f09bc1375cd0812da578a97bae454cde2c1ddff30.jpg , but instead I'll point out that he's making an implicit assumptions that it matters what banks do and that their assets will remain valuable in the future. Mostly what banks own is debt and the long term value of that debt depends on the willingness and ability of borrowers to repay, and the willingness and ability of governments to assist the banks in recovering collateral after defaults. None of those things should be taken inevitable. |
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Except that there is a very serious attempt to get rid of traditional bearer money (cash) and replace it with traceable electronic money that supposedly solves these problems. The technology was getting to the point where that would be entirely feasible (and is close to fact in a few countries) except for this little cryptocurrency wrinkle.
The US will never dump cash. How would congressmen collect their bribes?  |
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Bitcoin's fatal flaw is a peculiarity of the US legal system.
Unfortunately, the USA is the entire planet, so there's absolutely no solution to the problem.
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The US legal system isn't about 'right' vs 'wrong' they are about 'the rule of law', and the rule of law doesn't start or end with truth, justice, or the American way, only the rule of law. The rule of law is a myth. http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htmThis raises an interesting question. If it has been known for 100 years that the law does not consist of a body of determinate rules, why is the belief that it does still so widespread? If four generations of jurisprudential scholars have shown that the rule of law is a myth, why does the concept still command such fervent commitment? The answer is implicit in the question itself, for the question recognizes that the rule of law is a myth and like all myths, it is designed to serve an emotive, rather than cognitive, function. The purpose of a myth is not to persuade one's reason, but to enlist one's emotions in support of an idea. And this is precisely the case for the myth of the rule of law; its purpose is to enlist the emotions of the public in support of society's political power structure.
People are more willing to support the exercise of authority over themselves when they believe it to be an objective, neutral feature of the natural world. This was the idea behind the concept of the divine right of kings. By making the king appear to be an integral part of God's plan for the world rather than an ordinary human being dominating his fellows by brute force, the public could be more easily persuaded to bow to his authority. However, when the doctrine of divine right became discredited, a replacement was needed to ensure that the public did not view political authority as merely the exercise of naked power. That replacement is the concept of the rule of law.
People who believe they live under "a government of laws and not people" tend to view their nation's legal system as objective and impartial. They tend to see the rules under which they must live not as expressions of human will, but as embodiments of neutral principles of justice, i.e., as natural features of the social world. Once they believe that they are being commanded by an impersonal law rather than other human beings, they view their obedience to political authority as a public-spirited acceptance of the requirements of social life rather than mere acquiescence to superior power. In this way, the concept of the rule of law functions much like the use of the passive voice by the politician who describes a delict on his or her part with the assertion "mistakes were made." It allows people to hide the agency of power behind a facade of words; to believe that it is the law which compels their compliance, not self-aggrandizing politicians, or highly capitalized special interests, or wealthy white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males, or _______________ (fill in your favorite culprit).
But the myth of the rule of law does more than render the people submissive to state authority; it also turns them into the state's accomplices in the exercise of its power. For people who would ordinarily consider it a great evil to deprive individuals of their rights or oppress politically powerless minority groups will respond with patriotic fervor when these same actions are described as upholding the rule of law. |
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The feds can, theoretically, ...steal whatever they want, from virtually anyone, at little risk to themselves. |
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Any suggested places to withdraw to?
Withdrawing is more a state of mind than an aspect of geography. |
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Just to add another point to the above list: Court accepts DOJ's 'state secrets' claim to protect shadowy neocons: A new low.But then something quite extraordinary happened: In September of last year, the U.S. government, which was not a party, formally intervened in the lawsuit, and demanded that the court refuse to hear Restis’s claims and instead dismiss the lawsuit against UANI before it could even start, on the ground that allowing the case to proceed would damage national security.
i didn't think it was possible but this makes the situation even worse. And the MSM and every lefty I know is just silent because "their" guy is in office. What this means is the US has fully descended into tribalism, where no one focuses on objective facts and logic as they exist or on first principles, but instead only focus on if their "clan" is wianning. The R team is just as bad, but at least when they are in office everyone is suddenly against government overreach, whereas otherwise they'd be for it. It seems that there's really no limit to the bad http://www.jmwagner.com/Nothing new under the laws prospective, but this story just seems to summarize all the abnormal aspects mentioned above. This is a really sad story. Wow, and this is all for just trading Bitcoins outside of the Coinbase or other "clean" KYC abiding services. It seems a lot of people here disagree with me that the government has any tools to control bitcoin and that forcing everyone to use green address provided by the IRS is an impossibility. Just imagine if this type of government raid/arrest/life destroying case is done against anyone and everyone who is even suspected of having a non-green addresses or of using Bitcoin before the IRS implemented their system (all of us). I'm pretty sure they would be able to convince most people to go along. Whenever I call Burt and he doesn’t answer right away, she is afraid her daddy has been arrested again. She is scared of law enforcement and gets nervous when she sees police cars. She won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance at school. We had to put her into counseling. She had to see a counselor every other week until recently (Feb 2015). Sometimes she will suddenly cry uncontrollably for no reason. She is afraid the feds will come back and raid our house again.
She should be afraid of the government. That is why our founders gave us the bill of rights and other protections. The baby boomers may have thrown that all away, but maybe after being kicked enough times the following generations will re-learn their lessons and take back what was lost. I don't expect any "taking back" to happen in the US. The cost/benefit doesn't add up. Those with any sense will simply withdraw and let the Boomers stew in the consequence of their own choices. |
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I wasn't aware there was going to be a Texas Conference, when did you see the announcement?
It was basically a Factom pump conference. You didn't miss much. |
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True, but Shrem isn't doing Bitcoin any favors, the foundation needs to distance themselves from him. Did you really just put a man who ran an honest business that harmed no one in the same moral category as two gangsters who ran an extortion racket under the colour of law? Yes Thank you for contributing to the general decay of ethics, law, and civilization, asshole. |
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True, but Shrem isn't doing Bitcoin any favors, the foundation needs to distance themselves from him. Did you really just put a man who ran an honest business that harmed no one in the same moral category as two gangsters who ran an extortion racket under the colour of law? |
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you're confounding the dishonest users of Bitcoin The worse of which, apparently, are federal law enforcement agents. |
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most ppl still have not caught onto the idea that Bitcoin is fundamentally about honesty and hope. the last couple of days worth of SR reading surely should highlight how deep the corruption runs into our gvt agencies that were supposed to help and protect the public good. they have morphed into just the opposite; a threat feeding off the free money and the masses. this is why the inflation/deflation debate is a non-starter. the current inflationary system is corrupt and serves a small financial elite who control the money supply or who are in important authoritarian positions as were the 2 agents. those of us early Bitcoin adopters are not demanding a new system that allows us to replace those corrupt individuals; all we want is a fair system. what we've done is also put our money where our mouths are; into a risky new currency that introduces a level playing field for all involved. it could just as easily fail. but at this pt i think it is highly unlikely given how far we've come. the cat is out of the bag and Bitcoin is stimulating concerned discussions in all gvts worldwide. there is enough decentralization at this pt where no one gvt can shut it down. the corruption has got to stop.
There is quite a bit of propaganda devoted toward distracting people from the value of honest money. A lot of people have a vested interest in making sure the masses never recognize that is Bitcoin's killer app. |
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This isn't the right thread for advertising scamcoins, but I suppose it is on topic in a kind of meta sense.
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Having money in a seizable bank account makes little sense at this point given the wanton disregard of rule of law all about the place. On that same subject, it's worth taking some extra precautions with your bitcoins too. Have some btc savings locked up in multisig outputs which you can not spend without the cooperation of friends (who are scattered across multiple independent legal jurisdictions) so that at least some of your money is safe even if you are physically incapacitated. |
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