All I'm saying is a monopoly of violence will always end up forming, anarcho-capitalistss and anarchists both seem to not get that. I don't conflate the two as they are very different, but they both seem to believe in the possibility of a power vacuum. Libertarians are slightly better except they believe in a simplistic faux-human sociopath-Randist type being that can accurately be described both as 'Homo-Economicus' and 'wanker'.
For me the question is who controls the monopoly of violence (aka the state). Private share-holders, or public stake-holders?
I'm a public stakeholder man myself. Everyone gets an equal stake in the state, and that stake's worth something, a decent education, decent healthcare (and not just some shitty American style medicare or something), decent roads and housing and an essential amount of income whether you're rich or poor if you need it and the right not to be victimized by said state or anyone else within its borders.
There's plenty of space left over in a society like that for surpluses and business models and profits and private swimming pools and the like.
Why will a monopoly of violence always end up forming? If so, it's not an anarcho-capitalist society. Is it possible human's can never be convinced of that? Possibly. But I don't argue something based on what people may or may not do, I argue based on what is best, and if people are convinced, then it will happen, otherwise it won't. Well, you can have a perfect competition of violence, a kind of every man for himself situation, which will inevitably become an oligopoly of violence, warlordism basically, which would eventually may become a duopoly of violence before finally settling into a monopoly of violence. Most people prefer at least an oligopoly of violence, because then they don't have to worry about violence as much and can get on with gazing at the stars and wondering what's out there, studying pond-life under microscopes, building and growing stuff and thinking up new ways to buy and sell things in shops or whatever. If you want to live in a perfect competition of violence, good luck to ya.  Sweet, a Mad Max reference, never seen that before. Violence is very counter-productive for society. Most people can interact peacefully and gain more by being peaceful than by being violent. Uninitiated violence is *never* just, and the more people that believe that, the better. Hell, even gangs, who cannot settle conflicts peacefully in the legal system, are able to get along peacefully for a long period of time, handling disputes internally. Of course this doesn't work very well since they have no legal recourse for their disputes, so violence is the only answer in that case. If people believe violence is ok, you will live in a violent society. If people believe violence is wrong except in the case of defense, then you will live in a peaceful society. What's the problem? |
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You must have missed the word conservatively .... I just chose the point where half the coins would be issued, that is 'only' 20 months away and therefore in the near time horizon. I could have used 21 million but I don't think the market is pricing that far out into the future (2030) ... so conservatively using the near time horizon and easy point to do rough back-of-envelope calc. to demonstrate it is probably much more than the current coins times market price ... i.e. $14 mill. Rough proof by demonstration.
But they don't exist now. Why not 12 million or 10 million or 15 million? You just picked a number. |
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All I'm saying is a monopoly of violence will always end up forming, anarcho-capitalistss and anarchists both seem to not get that. I don't conflate the two as they are very different, but they both seem to believe in the possibility of a power vacuum. Libertarians are slightly better except they believe in a simplistic faux-human sociopath-Randist type being that can accurately be described both as 'Homo-Economicus' and 'wanker'.
For me the question is who controls the monopoly of violence (aka the state). Private share-holders, or public stake-holders?
I'm a public stakeholder man myself. Everyone gets an equal stake in the state, and that stake's worth something, a decent education, decent healthcare (and not just some shitty American style medicare or something), decent roads and housing and an essential amount of income whether you're rich or poor if you need it and the right not to be victimized by said state or anyone else within its borders.
There's plenty of space left over in a society like that for surpluses and business models and profits and private swimming pools and the like.
Why will a monopoly of violence always end up forming? If so, it's not an anarcho-capitalist society. Is it possible human's can never be convinced of that? Possibly. But I don't argue something based on what people may or may not do, I argue based on what is best, and if people are convinced, then it will happen, otherwise it won't. |
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the common way of calculating market cap underestimates the true size. Why? Because it is already known that 21 million coins will be issued and the expectation of the market out over the next few years is that there will be at least several more million in circulation than issued thus far. So conservatively, the market has already priced in total coin issuance to at least Jan 2013, i.e. 10.5 million coins.
Using current exchange rates BTC 1 = U$ 2.5 then current market cap is at least around U$25 million already.
No idea why you chose 10.5 million coins. Those coins don't exist, they aren't "priced in". If you think I'm wrong, at least try to explain why you chose that number instead of 21 million or whatever. |
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On the flipside, see the baby-sitting coop story: http://www.slate.com/id/1937/If the money supply gets too limited, there's a tendency towards hoarding that reduces overall trade and economic growth. So long as monetary expansion is predictable, the "lubricant" trait of money is optimized, whereas the loss of storage value can be minimized through contracting. If the babysitting co-op would have used a LETS or Ripple system, they would had always as many coupons as necessary: never more nor less. That babysitting co-op article is just so awful. Hey, let's try to make a commodity out of a good/service that isn't, and then fix the exchange rate! This is like having a land coupon good for 1 acre, and wondering why some people aren't willing to sell their land in Malibu to a guy with 1 acre in South Dakota. |
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How would Anarcho-capitalists handle the emergence of monopolies?
Either a monopoly is serving customers really well and efficiently (which is really good), or they used force to get to that position (which is bad, and you deal with them the same as anyone who uses force). Monopolies cannot last if they are not serving customers well or artificial barriers of entry are enacted. Otherwise, competitors will come in. Or are you concerned that without the government to break up IBM/Microsoft/Google/(insert next tech boogeyman), no one will ever be able to compete? |
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I doubt it will even touch that.
Just for the record: Six days later, the all-time high BTC/USD is 2.4$. Bitbears lost!  Anyone want to revise their vote on the $20 poll? $20 still gonna be real tough without a big player getting in there. That's a lot of Bitcoins to buy. I think a lot of people might start cashing in if it gets above $10, which should slow things down. |
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But there is little point in arguing ... it just makes you look stupid too.
Exactly. Instead of arguing, I posted this to the mises.org thread: Nielsio, I'd like to send a donation in recognition of the videos that you make and share. Let me know your Bitcoin address. I'm sure others would like to donate too. In the same thread, SunAvatar offered to buy call options, a sure way for anyone at mises.org to make money if they think bitcoins have no value. In other words, don't argue with people who don't think Bitcoin is money. Just use Bitcoin as money. That post was brilliant. |
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(BTW this ignores the fact that banks have huge political influence and will support any political attempts to block the advance of bitcoin.)
I think there's a good chance (mmm... 65.3%) that within 4 years one or more of the largest 1,000 US banks will support currency exchange to/from bitcoin for their customers. Why would bitcoin be a threat to banks? They're really good at securely handling currency; that's a valuable service, whether the currency is dollars or euros or bitcoins. Because every electronic transaction that occurs in Bitcoins means less revenue for them, as they are not in the middle. They might indeed gain from more FX conversions, and I guess they could charge fees for that, but I bet they stand to loose more from lets say "intermediatary fees" than they would gain from additional forex transactions. Isn't that the whole point of bitcoin? That it frees users from the high fees embedded in the banking system? Btw don't Bitcoins securely handle themselves? So there is no need for 3rd party security? Or are you saying that banks might offer to protect users' wallets for them? Gavin picked an interesting number in one of the top 1000 banks. Now this is interesting from a couple of interpretations. Does he mean *currently* 1,000 biggest banks? Or does he mean a bitcoin bank will grow so big it will be in the top 1,000? I'd assume he's talking about a company that currently is a top 1,000 bank. But even then, the banking industry is interesting. The big players have so much influence and power and a lot of the little guys- not so much. So the little guys might be tempted to adopt Bitcoin because it gives them protection against the big guys. A brick and mortar (or even online) bank that supports Bitcoins would be great for casual users, and a point of sale instant network would also be quite good. Hell, if this really caught on, maybe banks would be the only ones that actually were running the software and we all just had interfaces to it and they still had some transaction fees, although much smaller. |
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The most obvious solution to lack of internet would be sms:es, sending an sms to a server that relays the transfer to the network. If android has/gets a wide adoption, you could use android-apps to generate the sms:es... I have no idea what kind of phones they use. In Cambodia, most common people use moncolor dumbphones with flashlights built in, so there might be some time before we get there  fleshlights you say? |
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Would you recommend it to your non tech savie relatives/friends, if they wanted to invest in BTC?
Probably not. I would recommend they learn safe computing, learn to use the bitcoin client, and learn to use truecrypt. If they are serious about bitcoin, this shouldn't take more than an hour. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life. You are seriously overestimating the ability of casual users. They sell remote controls that talk to you because people are too dumb to control their televisions. They will find a way to screw up safe computing. |
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Omani rial: 2.5973 USD Bahraini dinar: 2.6527 USD Kuwaiti dinar: 3.6450 USD After that, there are no higher-valued national currency units. So... XAU, I guess. Since the decimal in Bitcoin is arbitrary where it is, I'm looking forward to 1 Satoshi = $1. |
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I should have mentioned - I'm in the US.
You don't need to start a company. If it's a legitimate business expense (I'm no tax attorney, so I won't get into whether it is or not), you can deduct some expenses. But if you are using the machine for anything other than business, it's going to be harder. For example, my wife is a massage therapist. She uses 2 rooms in our house exclusively for massage. She is allowed to deduct the % of square footage of the house used for the business, and that same percentage of the utility bills for the business. But it's really easy to screw this up and try to take credit for things you aren't supposed to. Consult a tax attorney before taking the advice of anyone here. |
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I'm assuming everyone is in favor of banning links to kiddie porn you can buy with BTC.
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A failed state is more or less a country where the state no longer has a monpoly on physical force. According to failed state index( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state) we seem to ge a lot more of these lately and there are more to come (varnings for most of of asia, central america and the non failed parts of Afrika) Since these states don't have a state-backed currency, bitcoins would make a lot of sense there. Also there is less competition from fiat-currencies. So how could this be done? What would be needed in terms of technology and "marketing" to intiaite this change. Don't understimate the technical infrastructure of theese countries, in most of central Afrika, money is regularly transferred via sms. What would for example a standalone bitcoin-client require in terms of tech-spechs? How could you design one for someone who is illeterate? Could it be sent over the phoneline? SMS? MMS? How could you propse bitcoins? Using the purchasing power of our stronger echonomy? Tourism(maybe not in theese countries)? Lot of them have millitary in them... Here is a list of the most failed states: Somalia (0) Chad (+2) Sudan (0) Zimbabwe (-2) Democratic Republic of the Congo (0) Afghanistan (+1) Iraq (-1) Central African Republic (0) Guinea (0) Pakistan (0) Haiti (+1) Côte d'Ivoire (-1) Kenya (+1) Nigeria (+1) Yemen (+4) Burma (-3) Ethiopia (-1) Timor-Leste (+2) North Korea (-2) Niger (+4) How many of those countries have good internet access? Seems that's a pretty big requirement. |
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I think the goals of this project are to create a better currency, create a more competitive and efficient international payment system, and give people more direct control over their finances. And I don't think any of those goals are incompatible with the goals of government. They are, in fact, incompatible. Government has a choice between a allowing a monetary system that's efficient and keeping the one that saps the wealth of all citizens. It's no mystery which one they will prefer. This is only true for certain sectors of government. Domestic monetary policy is not a concern for the CIA. That's doesn't mean that the monied interests of other sectors won't interfere with whatever the CIA might have in mind, but the CIA doesn't care what cyberpunks are doing in the dark corners of the Internet in general. CIA could care if they could take advantage of the tech to fund various people in other countries, or monitor them. |
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Please don't start a 9-11 debate.
Sorry. Too late.  I hope it doesn't get too ugly. I'm not gonna get into it, but 9/11 threads are good fly traps IMO. Shouldn't have been so naive to think we don't have nutters who don't understand physics here too. Or just naive or ignorant. But we can take it to another thread if you want. No need. I'm satisfied I'm not a nutter and that jet fuel could not have collapsed those buildings, certainly not the way they did. The way I see it the only ones insane are the ones believing otherwise. A bomber crashed into the empire state building before and that building is still standing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r-KXXsN8vc&feature=related And no, I don't believe the official pancaking crap. Feel free to feel all l superior for siding with the bought and paid for government experts. I suppose you also believe in the global warming cult. A B-25 bomber weighs 21,120 lbs. A 767 weighs 395,000 lb. This is like getting hit by a marble and saying that a bowling bowl would do the same damage. I don't need to side with government experts, I'll side with my anarchist expert. One floor of the WTC weighed a LOT. That much weight dropping 10-12 feet results in a HUGE force. If a plane can cut a hole in the side of it, one floor falling can certainly do as much damage. |
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Please don't start a 9-11 debate.
Sorry. Too late. I hope it doesn't get too ugly. I'm not gonna get into it, but 9/11 threads are good fly traps IMO. Shouldn't have been so naive to think we don't have nutters who don't understand physics here too. Or just naive or ignorant. But we can take it to another thread if you want. |
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Actually I agree the guy looked very likeable.
When writing "get him" I was interested to find out who he is, now knowing that you know him, even better: Now we may be able to explain a bit better what the benefits of bitcoins are.
I am facebook friends with him. I know exactly who he is, he's stayed over at a friend of mines house. As I said before, there's no point in trying to convince him anything once his mind is made up. He's still convinced Dick Chaney personally installed thermite in the WTC. He's most likely wrong about him doing it personally, but beyond that... Do you think it is impossible that planes full of jet fuel could have burned the building enough to deform the steel frame of the building causing a collapse? |
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