You are right, of course. We don't need to produce surpluses, like sturdy waterproof housing, wide selections of cheap foods, fast methods of transport, electricity and all it entails, and things like computers and internet. We can all survive without them, producing only the minimum amounts we need to survive, as we did for hundreds of thousands of years.
But it's nice to have those things, anyway, especially since then you can sit in the safety of your home, warm and well fed, and spend your time on a computer, arguing about how we don't need any of these things, as opposed to busting your ass 4am to 9pm every day to grow food, or chasing down antelope, with not even enough time to say hi to your neighbor

Hey, I've been wondering, Litecoins are not immune to ASIC mining, they just need ASICs with a whole lot of memory to do it, meaning they would be way more complex and expensive. Once Litecoin goes up in value to the point where it would be worth it to invest in Litecoin ASICs, won't Litecoin become even more centralized, just because Litecoin ASICs will be very expensive to own and owned by a select few wealthy types, compared to Bitcoin, for which ASICs are dirt cheap (after initial design expense)? Right now it seems like Litecoins are more decentralized, but I fear eventually Bitcoin miners to Litecoin miners will be like Honda owners to Ferrari owners.

It's hard to double-spend against a transaction with a high mining fee, since when picking between two identical transactions, miners will pick one with the higher fee (I think this exploit was used against SatoshiDice at one point).

That said, from what I've heard, Gavin and co. are working on changing the transaction process from "You sign, You transmit" to "You Sign, You send to receiver, Receiver verifies, Receiver transmits/rejects." Using this setup, receivers can request a specific mining fee before accepting your transaction, and merchants in particularly fraud exposed businesses who can't afford to wait 10 minutes for a block can demand higher transaction fees on their sales.

I thought drone technology was government taking toy remote control model planes that existed for, practically, ever, and strapping missiles on them? Did government create toy RC planes? Or radio to control those planes? Or just the missiles to strap onto those planes? I really don't know, but maybe you do?

So, is the only thing that will decide whether this is used or not is whether miners will be willing to include the larger transactions?

Explain how this is settled in the real world, and then explain why that couldn't be done privately.

How did privatization of things in East Germany and Poland work out?

Well, in US the railroads are privately owned, many (if not most) of our airports are privately owned (they have landing fees and such), as are our phone masts/electric poles, and internet cables. And although air traffic control is administered by federal government, a lot of it is leased out to private companies, and for small private traffic is slowly being replaced by GPS and avoidance collision systems in the planes themselves.
Just because something always existed one way, doesn't mean it's the only way it has to exist. Like the way-overused quote that often comes up in this forums, "If there are no slaves, who will pick the cotton?"

Sounds like the rest of you guys need something you are severely lacking: capitalism 

Huh.. I wonder what the solution to this would be, since just assigning the title of "government bureaucrat" to the ship owner, and giving him a badge, won't change the results. I mean, I guess the retort question is, if the owner doesn't even know these things, how would someone who's not even involved in it directly know them?

Hah, when I read this topic, I at first thought you would be talking about Bitcoiners being jealous of Winklevoses 

This 1% thing is really just cultural. When you point out to the 99% that this 1% wealth isn't money bags, but companies and businesses that those 99% work for and buy stuff from, and then ask them if they would have the knowledge and experience to run those things, and be willing to take on the responsibility for the lives of millions who work for them, they typically clam up, and resent you for such questions.

When you said a ski resort in the desert, were you referring to the ski resort in Dubai?

trains, subways, monorails, airplanes, helicopters, off-road transport, or just tellepresence (Skype and such)

If roads became more expensive to use, all that research we've seen in quadcopters and electric planes would suddenly get a hell of a lot more lucrative, and the final products a hell of a lot cheaper.

We have designed a Peer-to-Peer file sharing mechanism to make copyright thuggery impotent and irrelevant.
We have designed 3D printing to make restrictions against owning certain items impotent and irrelevant.
We have designed Bitcoin to make financial regulations and restrictions impotent and irrelevant.

Now we just have to design an application or a piece of technology to make the monopoly on law and governance impotent and irrelevant. I have ideas as to how. I just don't have the means yet.

I think you may be referring to a road toll, not a road tax. As in, only those who used the road paid, not everyone in the country. Besides, we now have many more methods of transportation than just roads.
"Roads?! Where we're going, we won't need roads." -- Doc Brown

Can you buy and sell bitcoins in the UK?

From August of Harvest Lots


I let him know that his charity didn't qualify, but he would still appreciate some help.

Aside from "What's the difference between USD/EUR 'relative to each other' and BTC/USD 'relative to each other'"...
Yeah, I keep hearing "you people" say that, and keep hearing everyone else who isn't from America who doesn't give a shit about USD disagreeing.

Besides, quit complaining about Bitcoin being a new, nascent currency with still-low adoption rates. We all know that already. 

Found a nice article on that

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sovietcollapse.htm

Except for the Reagan part, where they claim Soviets increased their budget in response to Reagan. Historical data sows otherwise:

http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/2012/09/let-end-this-nonsense-reagan-military.html

So it seems just propaganda against some existential enemy (terrorists!) is enough.

One problem: USSR was actually really socialist and communist, not like America is "socialist" and "communist." Also, they were pegging their rubble to the British pound for whatever reason, meaning once the peg couldn't hold any more, it *SNAPPED* like pegs always do. So maybe it will take a while here. Unless that theory about Bicoin becoming a financial black hole proves true, where as soon as Bitcoin and USD come close to being 50/50 used, Bitcoin will suck in all remaining USD wealth as people abandon USD enmasse, self-perpetuating it by causing BTC to rise and USD to fall drastically in the process.

People, who were forced to join the military against their own will, won't be compelled to fight their own citizens for free. There may be some issues with lies and promises of payment, and they may be enticed wit those promises when they see he economy faling apart around them, and they don't know why...

But the other god news is that, when something like this happens, it happens FAST. It'll likely be faster than the senate can even pass a draft bill. Read up some wiki stuff on Russian rubble collapse.

I wouldn't really call 5% to 10% fluctuations "stable," that's all. And that's despite USD and EUR having trillions of dollars market caps, compared to Bitcoin's 1 billion. That's really the ONLY reason Bitcoin is unstable, anyway - small market cap.


By the way, sorry I joined this conversation late, but was there any news of Dollars rallying about 200% to 300%? If not, I'll stick with bitcoins, thanks.