Yes I have. Non-legal just means you agree not to get government or the legal system involved. Non-legal agreements is how the vast underground black market has worked for thousands of years, be it drugs or counterfeit goods or whatever. It is also how the globalized business economy is just starting to work, where companies that don't work in any specific country can no longer pick which legal system to work with/within. You can enforce such agreements violently, or you can enforce them by letting everyone know that the person broke the agreement, and have others decide to never do any more deals with that person (no one would loan you anything, sell you anything, or do any business with you). Or you can resolve them in private arbitrage, and publish the results of the decision, letting everyone else make up their own opinion as to the outcome.

By A LOT! Also, all the money that pirateat40 was holding wasn't actually his, unlike all the money that theymos is holding.

Definitive proof you don't understand economics or markets.


Really? Is that written down somewhere? Is it a law? Or some unspoken rule that all capitalists must follow? Why can't those born without capital, simply trade the only thing they have, that being their time and labor, to acquire capital? Or are you complaining about the differing levels of capital that are attainable? In that case, why are some who start with no capital stay that way, while others --

like my parents, who came to this country with two young kids (I was 10 at the time, my brother 6) and a total of $300, went from working as janitors, to lab assistants, to bio-researchers, and then spent evenings taking computer classes (while still raising us), switched careers when they were in their late 40s, and now each make a six figure income as software developers and managers, and own 4 very expensive properties

-- manage to acquire lots of capital? Why did capitalists fail to follow your rule and didn't keep them down? Why did the capitalists instead decide to reward them for their work with more capital? Or is it perhaps that your entire premise is completely wrong?


Yes. When was the last time you saw mass starvation and entire towns dying out due to drought, famine, or disease like in he 1700's-1800's? When was the last time you saw a mother, with children, starving on the streets, like in the 1930's-40's? Today's toilers have cell phones, TVs, video games, and fairly good housing. Tomorrow they'll have even more stuff. A lot of us started out as toilers, too, my parents and myself included. But we improve our skills, and trade up. Hell, today's toilers are so rich, that they are able to throw away enough excess capital to support your freegan self.


Of course. And we're not done yet. India is still continuing to improve dramatically, as is China.
Yes, Africa is next. As I mentioned, Africa is the next big target for outsourcing, and there are no doubts that it will follow the sale stages that India, China, and many others have gone trough. Hopefully, with open trade, eventually all third world countries will be lifted up, balancing income disparity in the process, and all menial, repetitive work can be replaced with robots, freeing up the toilers to become thinkers.


Really? Unless the culture you speak of is one of slackers and hobos (and even they have a culture and conventions http://www.hobo.com/convention.html), more money doesn't really destroy culture. Look at two of the biggest, most influential cultures in the world: Greece and Italy. The whole reason they have such influential cultures in the first place was because of the ridiculously huge amounts of money they had. Grecian palaces and statues, and Italian cathedrals and art (and even whole cities like Venice), couldn't exist without all the money that they made through trade. Plus not everyone works for a boss. Some people work with managers and leaders. Some even work for themselves.

Also, what is the alternative to a fully employed world?

Are you splitting hairs on definitions again? Are rights and crimes things only defined by governments on paper in your world view? Ok, fine. Replace "crime" with "unjust deeds" in every one of my statements.


But you are. You are ascribing situations and examples to capitalism, which themselves have nothing to do with capitalism, other than just existing along-side it. "Did you know tat there are murders that happen within socialist communes? That obviously means that communes lead to murder."


Yes we can. If by "inherit" you mean "given, and assume it's ours, without knowing any better." If no one comes to claim it, then it's technically abandoned property. If someone does come to claim it, we have to give it up. You obviously have never bought a house, but when people buy houses, they have to pay for something called a Title Insurance, which is insurance specifically against a situation where someone shows up and claims that the house you bought from someone else wasn't actually someone else's to sell. What happened in Americas was tragic, though, but, again, theft and collonialism isn't what capitalism is about.


Is it "violence" if I tell my neighbor that the land I own is my property, he tells me that the land he owns is his property, and we agree to respect each other's property to avoid any annoyances or conflicts? Isn't agreeing to respect each other's property "peace?"


Your opinion is that the tomato garden I am growing is "commonly owned." My opinion is that the land, and the tomatoes that I grew on it, are owned by me. If we both agreed to collectively own the land, and both contributed to growing tomatoes on it, we wouldn't have a problem, but you coming in and taking he tomatoes I spent time and labor on, just because in your opinion they are "commonly owned," would lead to problems. So, in regards to those who recognize that all resources re commonly owned, I think they will run into some problems and violence along the way, since they would rightfully be considered thieves and parasites. Better?


You obviously misunderstood my meaning of "responsible." By "responsible" I mean "I own this beautiful garden, with its big red tomatoes" and thus is it in my interest to make sure it stays beautiful and the tomatoes continue to grow. I am "responsible" for that garden. If the garden was "commonly owned," then I have no responsibility for maintaining the garden. I can just come in, take the tomatoes, and leave garbage behind. You are not responsible, either. No one is. And sure, we could all feel responsible for maintaining it, but it will only take one asshole in the group to take a bunch of tomatoes ad carelessly leave garbage, before everyone else starts to feel that it's not their problem either. This is how Soviet farming worked.



And so what if the were? What does theft have to do with trade?



Explain the process of how that actually happens.

They're no capitalist? Don't the best hunters get the most praise, the best mothers get the most help, and the best medicine men get the more reverence? Or do they all share everything equally, including fruits of labor and status in the community, regardless of how much effort they put into supporting the community? I don't know, so you'll have to tell me. As for 'horrible conditions,' what is the life span, disease rate, level of hardship and quality of life in those communities?

Perhaps we should stop arguing about Capitalism, or supposedly specifically defined terms that we apparently have differing definitions of, and start arguing about the concepts by actually describing what they do.

So, I am for people being able to claim that they own something when they make things from items they have traded for or created, for being able to trade anything with anyone without having some third party sticking their nose into the trade, and for being able to compete against other people who own or do things without anyone else setting the rules but the people who are trading. Who's with me?

How would it do that?

One more. This one looks side-loaded through indiegogo (BTC address at the bottom)

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/indigenous-leader-scholarships-latin-american-conservation-congress

Maybe we should just rename ourselves economic progressives 

That's easy enough to settle. Prove to me that someone is worse off from voluntarily trading. Give me an example. Just to head you off from any bad ones, "under duress" is not voluntary. "Being swindled" is close, but that's not exactly voluntary, as the other person didn't have all the information, and anyway, they would stop trading as soon as they find that information. I.e. they'll be better off knowing something they didn't before, and would be able to improve their life going forward.


Which observers ignore that? I certainly don't. There is crime, which may include coersion, theft, destruction of property, and lying about products/services. This crime exists regardless of the economic system. The question isn't whether or not this crime is capitalism/"mutual beneficial trade" (it's not, it's crime). The question is how well the different economic and political systems can deal with and minimize it.


How do you propose we stop all trade to make sure that bad trades are no longer possible?


Evolution You mean tribalism and pack mentality? You don't think tribes established territories and ownership? Or believed in scarce resources? Or traded between tribes? Or had to make choices as to whether to expand their resources to support someone, or write them off as a lost cause? Or had members that specialized in various skills, and earned differing levels of respect and resources based on what they did for the tribe?


That's funny, because evolution doesn't have "government" beyond our own species, which itself is a new invention.

Of course not. As long as you point out the flaws in the system itself, not point to unrelated things and claim that they are the system. I.e. saying "Capitalism is bad because it fails to address this crime" is ok. Saying "Capitalism is bad because this crime is capitalism" is not ok.


I am saying economists try to establish an agreed-upon definition of terms before they start deriving economic theories and debating each other. It's hard to set up a Supply/Demand graph when some people decide that "Supply" means the supply of need instead of supply of products, for example.


Me, you, everyone. We all recognize that we own the things we have, almost from birth. Moreso, we recognize that we own then in spite of laws that may say otherwise. It's why people get upset when government comes in and "legally" seizes their property, such as in imminent domain cases to use for building malls, or in nationalization cases.


Violent state can help enforce it, just as violent individuals and violent private security firms can help enforce it, but that's all they do - enforce. They don't actually create the concept of property; the concept of "I own this because I made it myself using my own stuff."


Difference of opinion? It's ok if the resource in question is just commonly owned and shared by everyone who owns and shares it. It would be a big problem if someone rightfully feels like the own something, and then a bunch of other people start coming in and claiming ownership to it too. That's when violence may come in, from state or otherwise.


Not at all. Corporations are commonly owned. Capitalism just makes sure that there is a set number of owners who are responsible for their ownership, instead of having things be unowned and in a free-for-all.


Voluntary suggests it was traded voluntarily. Trade means two or more parties. Ill-gotten stolen things are by definition not voluntarily traded away by their previous owners. So, no, I am not talking about that.


It's chaotic, that's for sure. As for whether it's inefficient, intuitively it may seen that a central planning body that can oversee everything and determine where resources are used best would be more efficient. In practice, and in history, this was shown not to be the case. The main reason is that when you have an enormous amount of constantly changing information, it's actually more efficient to only allow small groups/actors to work within the small sections of that information to make decisions. A large single planning body just can't process the information fast enough. It's decentralization, and is also why 3D printing and Bitcoin are way more efficient when it comes to giving people exactly and specifically what different people want, instead of having a single unweildy body, like a bank or a factory, produce the average of what people want, while lagging behind changing trends.


Agreed. The poor will undoubtedly rebel when they get fed up with being treated unfairly.  It has happened over and over, with disastrous consequences. But which force are we talking about exactly? Capitalism, that prices goods and labor, and gives people information about whether their skills aren't valued, and perhaps should be changed or improved to get them out of poverty? Corruption and crime, often sustained by governments that pass regulations to help keep their corporate buddies in power and use the police force, paid for by taxing the poor, to keep those very same poor from revolting? Or just plain apathy and laziness of some people, who do nothing except complain about how their lives suck, while doing nothing to change their situation, and just watch their peers take evening classes, working on developing new skills, and quickly leaving them behind, while using excuses such as that their peers were just lucky?


We, as a society, make toilers rich all the time through capitalism. Just look at India ten years ago compared to now. People with degrees were earning almost nothing, living in really horrid conditions. Then those same people started getting menial unskilled jobs, working in factories or phone support. Now those people are able to demand pay 10 to 30 times or more than what they used to get, working in research, software development, and engineering. India is no longer an ideal place to hire toilers, because millions of people were raised from the slums into middle class, not because of government programs, but because of market competition. Same deal with China. 10 years ago, people were working in horrible conditions in factories, toiling day and night for little pay, while barely earning enough to survive. Now, even though a lot of the work itself is similar, the working conditions are vastly improved. They are clean, well lit, with much better housing, resembling that of university campuses, instead of shantytowns. Sure, China has a bit to go still, but there's no argument that their toiler's situation has improved as well. And again, decades of communism and social planning couldn't do a thing to help those people out, but as soon as they allowed capitalism, however restricted, and outside companies to come in and compete for workers, things improved dramatically.

Final reply

I'm fairly confident that Bitcoin returns will beat asicminer returns. But it's his money to invest as he wants I guess.

Got this in private PM:


Feedback please?

Got a reply saying they love the idea, but that they don't have the resources or manpower. I replied asking for clarification on whether they mean they lack resources to get it coded and set up, or to deal with the resulting po-po fallout afterwards.

"Original" as in the definition that has been used for the last century or two, and is still being used by economists, as opposed to the weird revision you are using. Specifically this "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."

I've bolded the keywords. In laymen's terms, recognition of property, voluntary trade, and uninhibited competition with other traders.

Nonprofit doesn't necessarily mean a charity. For example, http://www.riaa.com is a nonprofit, but they are not a charity, and are a very hated organization. Could you tell us what kind of charitable works intelligence.org does, and how they would spend the donation?

Honestly, I'm still very much divided between

"We need as many people as possible nao!"

and

"Bitcoin is still in such early development, with it being so easy to lose bitcoins to hacks and forgotten passwords, and so many untested issues related to scalability, that maybe it's best to keep growth low. People will come eventually."

But back on topic, Forum! Theymos! Rabble rabble rabble!

Who has got activities?
I has got activities!

Do we know what this activity thing is yet?

And what happened to ratings?

Ok, here is a list of charities that we have been contacted about. Please let us know if you have any objections to donating to them.

1) https://watsi.org/about

2) http://iccf-holland.org/

3) http://www.handinhand-patenschaft.de/  (Please ask them to post a Bitcoin donation option to their website, even if it's just a text Bitcoin address wit a note about acepting Bitcoin for donations)

4) http://spices.org.my/  (Note, this one is run through a church, but is not a religion-focused charity)

5) http://www.sternenhof.eu/ (helping flood victims and their animals)

6) http://harvestlots.org/

7) http://www.hiphopchessfederation.org/  (growing a future generation of nerds!)


Some of them are still working on adding a bitcoin donation option to their page. Let me know what you think. I'll let you guys discuss them for a few days before I commit, just to make sure everyone got a chance to see them.