I think you have the resources backward.  Every year, we are able to harvest resources better, more efficiently, and in greater numbers.  Technology allows this.  The amount of energy put on the earth and the amount of resources here are vast.

But, sometimes certain resources become more scarce or expensive to find.  This is an except to the general pattern, but certainly happens.  In this case, if the amount of money is constant, then prices of that good will rise.  We become less wealth in those area, which leads to price inflation.  This makes people poorer and is generally a bad thing.

Yes, this can hurt many businesses.  It also gives incentives to people to find alternatives.

The only way deflation happens is if the economy is expanding (people are becoming more productive).  There's no reason to think that your salary will be cut just because the cost of coffee goes down.  If everyone else is improving productivity and you aren't, your salary might go down in that case.  But it's probably better to get that signal that you are slacking than just assume a low/no raise means you are doing great.

Landlords will be forced to make rents competitive based on supply and demand.  If they don't lower their rents, people move out.  I've lived in deflationary rent environments, and people have the expectation that their rent lowers.  It's not a big deal.  He can ask all he wants.  But you are not his slave.  If the guy down the street lowers his rent to 125, you are going to move if he doesn't do the same.

Please explain how it causes bankruptcy.

In deflationary times there has been bankruptcy.  But this is do to the boom-bust cycle which is caused by ma-investment.  People invest in unprofitable areas due, that seemed like a good idea, but easy money drives inflation and the cost of business, which makes the business no longer profitable.  This results in bankruptcy, the easy money clamps down, deflation occurs, and then you have bankruptcy and unemployment.  But this is like saying that umbrellas cause rain since it is always raining when people carry umbrellas.

Yes, there is some psychological adjustment.  But people will adjust, just as they have adjusted to inflation.  People expect raises now.  People will expect rents to drop, food prices to drop, etc..., as we get more prosperous.  Salaries would stay constant or possibly drop a little with an increase in population, but they would be used to it.

And what if they don't?  Or what if they decide to just not buy internet (I know plenty of people that did).

This is tragedy of the commons all over again.

My connection will degrade if too many people try to connect to high bandwidth sites at the same time.  I have a download limit per month.  Why would I share that, just in the hopes I can get it from someone else?

You won't make less if you keep your production increases equal to the rest of the economies growth.  If you are inefficient, your salary will get cut.  Otherwise, it will remain constant or even grow.

People will adjust.


But maybe they won't, since people get low raises now and think they are making more money even when inflation eats it away.  But they will have to live with the consequences whether they understand it or not.  But it certainly is superior to any inflationary system.

It's more likely they would have trouble with regulations than they are scared.

Buy 15k of bitcoins.

Betting on something 2 years old with 10,000 users vs. something with 5,000 of history seems like a bad mistake IMO.

Hi, I´m new here. IMHO the difference between Esperanto and Bitcoins is the usefulness. You can´t buy stuff anonymously by Esperanto, or hide money, or speculate, etc. Bitcoins are usefull to some people, while Esperanto is pure idealism.
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They have a lot in common.

Esperanto would be super useful if everyone spoke it.  Bitcoin would be super useful if everyone spoke it.  But you are right that Bitcoin would still be useful for niche applications where Esperanto isn't.

I never got much out of lectures anyway.  But there is some value in tutoring IMO and personal interaction.  Watch a lecture, then have less skilled tutors around to help out.

DeBeers had people break the cartel and is no more.  Plus, synthetic diamonds.

NYSE has several competitors.

Seems like they aren't very good examples.  You can make a monopoly for a short period of time, but as soon as you start charging too much, competitors can creep in.  How can they make the cost of entering any higher without using force?

Why aren't we seeing more monopolies?  Is it because of Sherman?

Strange that roads, police, and health care are all areas that have some of the least competitive prices.  Let's make everything a monopoly so we don't have to pay high monopoly prices!


If you want to have police and roads and education subsidized for the poor, I can at least understand the justification.  But making a monopoly to make things cheaper never works out as planned.  Competition is beautiful.

Exactly, which is why it is so damn volatile to begin with.  There is no way to accurately value it, so that's why it's so much speculation.  And because of this "flaw", you want to *increase* it?  This is like saying a one-legged man runs slow, therefore we should cut off his other leg.

Yes, but making it more volatile won't make it more stable.  It's a small market.  Making it smaller won't help.


You don't earn less.  Deflation only occurs when the economy is growing.  If you are producing the same amount as before, your purchasing power stays the same.  If you are producing less, your purchasing power drops.  If you are producing more, you get more purchasing power.  What's the problem?

Did you expect it to replace the USD this fast?  If so, that's flawed thinking.  This is not going to happen quickly (if at all!).

And rather than entertain that notion, we should just continue on, if they are scared to use it, let them stick with their inflationary money.

Well, for someone who's supposedly very experienced, it's amazing you were able to profit without understanding the game.

Why do you need someone to collude in your example?  In Big Bet, first guy can just bet big if he wants, he doesn't need his buddy to see-saw.  Sure, a raise might be scarier.  But if you suspect collusion, you can absolutely destroy the team.  If you do in limit, you can't do crap.  You pay double or more when a villain has a hand, you get paid only the smallest amount when they don't.


You are the one who brought up tournaments, NOT ME.


And this is a good thing.  Although sitting out at a lot of tables trying to get games going is probably a good thing since there aren't many players.

Sure, a 20-tabler isn't able to think as much.  Which is why they don't, they just play super nitty, at worst lose money to rake, and just follow whatever their HUD tells them to do.  A 1-tabler gets bored folding, plays hands they shouldn't, and keeps games interesting.  Rake will always win in a table of nits.


20-tablers have more risk?  Another hilariously wrong argument.  There is no more money on the line, it just means they get 20-times as many hands in. This reduces variance.  Poker moved from a game where you think to a game where you look at your HUD, then make a decision and move on to the next table.  It favors the Starcraft internet nerds more than poker players.  But I can see why you favor that style.

The games changed tremendously in the last 8 years, and multi-tabling HUD players are the reason why.  There are armies of solid low limit players.  I was shocked at how low stakes some of the serious players play (because they just grind out 20 tables).  Sure, they make decent money because they are playing 20 tables and grind a ton.  It wasn't always like that.  It's fantastic for the sites.  They make 20x as much rake.  Games are nitfests, and unless you are willing to just play a super nit style, wait until you have the nuts, then hope you are with the 1 fish, or constantly change tables until you find the fish and bumhunt.

But right now, the .5/1 games are harder than 5/10 NL was 5 years ago.  It's not even close. 

But you being a winning player without having a clue about anything shows you are probably right that it still isn't that hard to win.


I'm actually a bit shocked you are fine with showing down hands at the end, but at least it's a position that isn't retarded.  It actually would help catch collusion other than your half-brained ideas that would catch only the most moronic of colluders (who probably would be losing money and exploited for their stupid collusion).  For a site that cannot actively monitor colluders, it actually is probably the best idea.  But there's no recourse now anyway, other than just not playing when those players are in.

Betco.in in it's current form is a great casual diversion but not anything I'd want to play for serious stakes.  And that actually is a good thing, I've actually enjoyed the social experience of it much more than Stars or FTP, where you might as well have been playing against robots.

People are using it for something though.  Right now there is a speculative bubble since there aren't *that* many things you want to use it for unless you are a true believer, but that doesn't mean there won't be useful things to use it for.

By mining you are recording transactions made by other people.

Of course they devalue each other.  If you NEED dollars to buy something, and it is not for sale in any other currency, that will make dollars more valuable.  And I'm talking exclusively about having prices be unstable.  As demand for each currency changes in relation to each other, the value relationship between each also changes.  Some will eventually become unused and worthless.  Some will have flaws and become worthless.  Some might take off.



Choosing one works, until you find somewhere you'd like to spend it that doesn't accept it and only accepts a different one.

Deflationary spiral is also a myth.  Oh noes, the prices be falling when the economy grows!  How horrible is it that you can now buy more free stuff!  Better give money to the politically connected so that we don't have that happen!

In before bankruptcy.

You could make alternatives to BTC.  It would have to actually be improved in some way, rather than being a clone.  But the more cryptocurrencies that exist, the more instability you will see in each of their prices as people have to gamble about which ones take off.

Why would they build up more demand?  Having more world currencies makes more volatility, not more stability.  It's good we have lots of currencies, since that volatility is not a bad thing since people can get out of bad currency and get into good ones.

But you can't eat Bitcoins.

Stabilizing is not the problem.  We live in the internet age.  We can price things every second.  For the large scale user, fees are negligible, especially compared to PayPal and credit cards.  Trading can be automated to make sure you aren't vulnerable to swings.

The only way we stabilize is if the exchange market grows tremendously.  Right now there is <20k BTC for sale on the exchange.  Anyone with medium pockets can buy them all up at any time, doubling the price.  Anyone with a decent amount of bitcoins could sell them and would lower the price tremendously.  We just need a bigger market.  It will happen with time (or it won't).