Again, maybe I'm biased because my school was good, or because my parents were good, or because I just have a different level of curiosity, but thinking is exactly what we were taught to do. Yes, we had to read and memorize a lot, but it was all in order for us to answer questions that both the teachers and the students thought to be important. In my experience, I was taught why things happen, what kinds of choices are available for those things, what kinds of choices others have made, and what were the consequences of those choices. This applied to sciences, history, literature, and even computer programming. Learning this gave me a base upon which to make my own more educated choices, even if part of that education involved learning how to regurgitate information about those choices and their various outcomes.
In the end, after going to a good (well funded) public school, then a public community college, and then two public universities, I have come out of it with a very good understanding of social structures, politics, business, and economics, all of which have put me strongly into the libertarian/ anarcho-capitalist group. So, I myself am proof that public education =/= socialist indoctrination. If you want to argue that, you'll have to at least try to explain to me why your theory doesn't apply to me.
(P.S. my first four years of public education was in USSR, which had way more propaganda than schools in Americas)

Sounds as easy as stopping BTC. Any suggestions as to how?

Regardless of the quality of your public school education, the one thing they do teach is how to study and learn; skills you later use if you decide to go to a university.
My personal opinion on public schools is biased, because the one I went to used to be one of the top 10 in the country (don't know what it is now). But regardless, the one thing that still keeps me conflicted between free-market anarcho-capitalism and centralized public schooling is fairness from lack of choice. Specifically, while adults can make their own choices (go to university or not) and live with the consequences thereof (be wealthy or poor), children are at the mercy of their parents, and have no say in what education they are able to get. In a system without public schooling, some kids (especially those from poorer, or more lunatic families) will not get any education. And sure, eventually those areas will become too dumb and unproductive, and the free market will punish them severely, but looking at history (and places like Alabama and Mississippi), the lessons learned from that punishment will not be "hey, we need education," but rather "I hate those elitists who think they know everything, and we should go kill them." More importantly, regarding children and lack of choice in education, I think that everyone should at least start on equal footing (or a reasonably similar footing) when they reach a point at which they are capable of making decisions as to whether to f*ck up their lives or not.

When I think "black market," I think about what the majority of the black market consists of: businesses that don't report taxable income that manufacture various trinkets, wallets, purses, clothing, etc, businesses that hire illegal aliens or are owned by illegal aliens, businesses started by individuals or families that sell goods or services without first going through the sometimes ridiculous licensing requirements, etc. I've heard that about one third of Italy's economy is black market. That doesn't mean murder, slavery, or child trafficking. It's almost entirely things like counterfeit fashion bags, clothing, wine, and olive oil, and just businesses that operate without reporting taxable income.

Actually, claiming that the black market is just the stuff you guys mentioned is pretty much like saying that Bitcoin is just about buying drugs on Silk Road or getting your money stolen by hackers. The most sensationalist stories will obviously be the loudest ones, but they are rarely even half of the whole picture.

I think that, simply, like all companies, Bitcoin based ones should only comply with the minimum law requirements. And if businesses can find a way to ignore the law successfully (either like Silk Road, or by being distributed enough as to be impossible to regulate), they should do that too. Black markets still provide tons of benefits, from jobs to goods for those who need them, so I wouldn't consider them inherently bad (the only bad thing about them is that governments don't get their licensing fees and tax revenues, but on the other hand, black markets also don't receive business and security protections from government that legit markets get). Being able to skirt government laws and regulations also points out errors in those laws, such as the way Bitcoin does for "money transmitter license" requirements (the system itself is the money transmitter, so there's no one to buy the license). Likewise, skirting government laws points out errors of laws themselves, such as laws that may have had good intentions, but which shouldn't have existed in the first place, and being able to easily skirt them causes society to change its mind on them (such as copyright laws, which are now often ignored, especially in cases where videos are limited to specific regions, or TV episodes are available on Netflix/Hulu months after their original air date).

TL;DR Bitcoin should push the limits of what we consider moral or justifiable, as opposed to what we consider lawful, and thus help redefine the laws. It likely won't die any easier than Bittorrent.

So, borrow from a bunch of people for a week at 0%, pay everyone back as soon as you get your loan, money laundering complete.

I believe all notes were set to only be in blockchain.info, as the developers didn't want the blockchain to get spammed so as to keep it from growing to ridiculous sizes.

If you are getting 3% from your hedge fund, you ARE throwing away money. Also, Patrick was wrong: although managed funds might outperform index funds 1/3 of the time (closer the 1/4th), hedge funds do WAY worse. Even if they do as well as index funds, the ridiculous fees they charge you will likely eat up all your profits (the ones you'll earn 1/4th of the time). Hedge funds are overly glamorized BS investments that rich people who don't know a thing about money use to make the hedge fund managers rich.
So, yeah, you would definitely be way better off putting your money in Bitcoin.
BTW, FYI, I invested in bitcoins, even buying at $20. The thing is, the amount of time it spent at $20 was very short to the time it spent at $3, and I've been investing continuously through the drop and the subsequent rise. Now my investment is worth thousands more than what I originally invested, even including the few grand I bought at $20. Long story short, you're an idiot.

If Patrick had only classified his investment thing as a managed hedge/mutual fund, with returns based on his investment skills as opposed to fixed interest "savings account" style returns, none of this would have been a problem. Losses would have had to be taken by the customers instead of Patrick, and his returns would have been consistent with the average hedge fund (lesson: don't invest in hedge funds, people. You'll save time by just flushing your money down the toilet).

It's not so much legally vs illegally, as within regulations vs outside regulations. Doing it within regulations gives you legal protections, such as limited liabilities. Doing it yourself is no different from distributing a bunch of papers with IOU written on this, which is legal, but won't protect you from issues the way going through regulated means will.
As for why? Cheaper, and much easier.

Hey, um, if the complete truth and all the important questions are answered after death, after we transcend our bodies and become just consciousness, then what are you guys waiting for?

Doubt it, but we do have a bunch of file storage websites switching from PayPal/VISA to Bitcoin, meaning people using them will be forced to learn about BTC.

Yep, that's true. We even know the sames of some of those aliens. They were called Apollo, Baltar, Helo, Saul, Starbuck, Roslin and Adama.

Those are the people who will be finally forced to get off their lazy butts and learn about things like Tor and Bitcoin.

Kim Dotcom would not have been caught if MegaUpload was behind Tor and used Bitcoin for payments. Things like the Kim Dotcom  incident, as well as RIAA crackdowns, are what will push people into using those unregulatable technologies more and more, with the phrase "the more they squeeze, the more will run through their fingers" applying very well to the situation.

After discovering Bitcoin, and being introduced to things like Tor, 3D printing, mesh networking, and other distributed projects, I've come to the conclusion that the best, and likely only way to fix this whole problem is to just make all of the politicians irrelevant. Let them pass laws about what we can browse and download, what we can buy or give money to, what we can use our web connections for, or what we can build and own. Silk Road and Pirate Bay have shown me that eventually people will just shrug their shoulders at the law and ignore it, and the politicians will be powerless to do anything about it.

I will be in Iceland on the weekend of November 9, and wish to trade BTC for Icelandic Krònur. I know Iceland has restrictions on currency exchange, so buying may be difficult for Icelanders. I need 60,000 ISK for USD equivalent. Please contact for details.

Google Translate:
Ég mun vera hér á landi um helgina 9. nóvember og óska ​​eftir að eiga viðskipti BTC í íslenskum krónum. Ég veit Íslandi hefur takmarkanir á gengi, svo að kaupa getur verið erfitt fyrir Íslendinga. Ég þarf 60.000 krónur fyrir USD samsvarandi. Vinsamlegast hafið samband fyrir nánari upplýsingar.

Looking to buy 60,000 ISK (or about $500 USD worth) for Bitcoin. Will be in Iceland on the weekend of November 10th in Reykjavik and Keflavik. Would prefer to do it in person for cash.
If tourists have an easy way to exchange ISK to USD while there, I am willing to sell more if you need it (I heard it's difficult for Icelanders to exchange currency right now). PM if interested.

I nominate each and every one of us, acting in our own rational self interest, providing ideas whose merits are based only on the quality of those ideas, and on how much the people who came up with those ideas are willing to put in to make them a reality.
I still don't know why we need a specific single group, or even competing groups.