It occurs to me that the going rate for many writing services is about 5cents a word. So, for 1000 words, about $50. Umm...

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I bid 100BTC, which means that if I win, I'll just let you keep the darn bond.

OK, to be honest, I'm really unsure how this works. You want someone to pay you now, in exchange for a payout in the future?

A, B and D. If they touched each other, it would have been C (therefore E) as well.

I.e. it's not really merit based, 'cause if it was, posts like the above wouldn't count. If I was running a forum, I'd have certain requirements on posts. Such as a minimum word count, and must not match certain patterns (e.g. case-insensitive "me too"). That would hopefully increase the number of valuable contributions, while getting rid of the rest.

(Conveniently, PHP has a function str_word_count() that does exactly this. Heh. Off to write a WordPress plugin...)

ME TOO!

FTFY.

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I've a better idea. How about you point all your domains at my host, and I'll host your one page for 1BTC a month . (PM for details. Offer open to all.) (Until I work out the mechanics of this, I ain't going to offer it.)

I seriously would suggest don't host a website on MS Windows machine, esp. not a machine at home. If you aren't a pro., it is really easy for things to go wrong. And then your home machine is screwed. Also, XAMPP is not meant to be used for live sites.

Reply to everyone who said that nothing immoral occurred in my thought experiment.

What do you think about the idea that a free market requires knowledge/information? I, as a consumer, can buy what I want. But I really only want to buy products that aren't made by slave labor. Difficult, because there is no label on goods that explains whether or not it was made with slave labor or not.* I also only want to buy food that isn't going to poison me, that don't have too much fat or sugar, etc. Now, if it were up to the corporations, I wouldn't be able to know any thing about the food they produce. Why? Because they benefit from consumers only being able to compare products based on price, advertising, and later, after the product is consumed/used the experience. So, that's why governments step in and force corporations to label their goods.

* For the purposes of this post, slave labor has two meanings. One: where someone is forced to work for a certain person/organization. Two: where people are paid a pittance for their labor, compared to the price the product of their labor is sold for.

Now, in this case, the person with the imperfect knowledge is the original producer. They didn't realize that their paintings were "valued" at such a high price compared to what they were selling them for. After finding out, of course, they could now refuse to deal with the original gallery owner without much higher compensation. If they could afford to that is. But before hand, the market failed the painter.

(I would also argue that capitalist free markets will generally, if not always, fail, because it is in the interest of the capitalists to without information so that they can increase their profit, and thus capital. In a non-capitalist market, where resources are not accumulated beyond what can be used, there is less incentive to do this. Where there is no profit motive at all, such as in an anarchist free market, there is more incentive to actually educate consumers about the product.)

Now, as this thread is about profit, I would like to state two things. First, that in the original example, the gallery owner exploited, immorally, the painter. But, that actually, if the paintings only costs the painter $100 to produce (labor, paint, etc.), it would also be immoral for the painter to sell those paintings at $5000. That's because, as I posted earlier, "cost [should be] the limit of price". I.e. it's immoral to sell something for more than what it cost to produce it.

Now, that doesn't work in this capitalist world we live in. But, damn it, I'm allowed to dream about a better world!

(Also, I'm bowing out of the thread now, unless someone offers a detailed response that actually addresses a point I've made.)

But sending you to Tokyo to waste money is inefficient! Yes, it might waste a lot of money, but the ten hours you are on the plane, not to mention the two or more hours at your end, and at least an hour at this end in airports, you just won't be able to waste money. Whereas, I can waste money that entire time, at a lower rate perhaps, but added up, it would still be more than sending you here.

So, Capitalist A has laid claim to a large amount of land (previously recognized by the state, before the revolution, now there's no state). Individualist B comes along and notices that there's this great land just sitting there not being used for anything. Like prime farmland! Oh, 'cept there is a sign that says all the land belongs to Capitalist A.

Individualist B takes down the sign and gets to work creating "wealth", growing vegetables etc.

If Capitalist A comes along and uses violence to get Individualist B off the land, is that aggressive or defensive?

I will attempt to get Cory Doctorow http://craphound.com/ to accept Bitcoins.

Currently only accepting Paypal, which sucks. Does that count as an organization or as a shop? :p

Thought experiment:
I'm a painter. I paint a piece, and sell it to a gallery owner. The gallery owner says, great, here's your 100 bucks. I go and buy some paint, brushes, etc. Rinse, repeat.

Some time later, a friend points me to a website. Huh? I think, that's my name, and those are my paintings. And, wholly-shit! they are being sold for $5000 a piece!

I confront the gallery owner, who says, that they are in fact selling my works for a massive, massive markup. And that there's nothing wrong with that. I voluntarily sold the paintings to the gallery owner. I accepted the price paid for my work. I should be happy that I got what I thought was a fair price for my work, and the gallery owner was happy to have paid that fair price. The fact that the gallery owner can turn around and sell each piece for a huge profit is nothing to do with me.

Is this immoral?


(Scenario taken from a very good fiction book I read once. I can neither remember the name of the author, nor the title of the book.)

I didn't say you did. I was just pointing out that socialism doesn't actually equal statism. Indeed, I would say that the only true socialism, stateless. It's a definitions thing, I was just trying to get the definitions clear.

OK, thought experiment.

Before you were conceived, your mother stole the life savings (a significant amount of money) off an otherwise blameless and innocent person (Person A). You were born, and then raised with the benefit of your mother having lots of extra cash that she wouldn't otherwise have had. She dies, and you inherit that money. Person A then discovers who stole the initial cash, and tracks down the money to you.

Are you responsible for handing back the money your mother stole to the person she originally stole it from? Even though you are not responsible for your ancestor-(one generation)'s wrong doing (something I completely agree with incidentally).

OK, now, it wasn't your mother who did the thieving, but her mother (before your mother was even conceived). Person A managed to live to a ripe age, and is still alive when, years later, they track down the cash to you. (It's the same cash, though perhaps reduced, due to there being only one child in each generation, and all the cash being inherited by that child).

Now, it was not your mother, or grandmother, but your great-great-great-grandmother/grandfather who did the thieving. The original person who lost the money is no longer alive, neither, is the original thief. But, there is still a clear line of inheritance, with the bulk of the money going to you. There is also a clear line from the original Person A (who's descendant's have lived in poverty since) and their descendant having discovered the theft, discovered who was the original thief, has tracked down the money, to you.

If you the right to inherit clean money, (and, in some cases, estates inherit debts), then surely someone has the right to inherit the right to stolen property? (I'll also note here, in most jurisdictions, a person who unwittingly buys stolen property still has no claim on that, if the original owner can be found.)

The difference between the clean-cut thought experiment and the real world is that things aren't as clean-cut. But the point remains that the vast majority of land was stolen at some point, and the vast majority of "wealth" as well I would bet. How do you justify that theft, unless you say "it's OK if it was more than X years ago"?

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The term Anarchism has been in use for over 100 years to mean more than just anti-government or lack of government. It is only relativity recently that "capitalists who don't like states" have started to claim the term for themselves.

Also, you haven't really addressed the question in the second part of your post. I originally from a country where the land was effectively stolen from the original inhabitants by Europeans. That's a single example of a past wrong, which can't be addressed by magical hand waving. There are many more recent examples of governments, and/or powerful individuals or other groups, just stealing resources (including land). Yet this is now recognized by all the other states.

People! Don't waste money by sending this person to Tokyo, when I'm already here. Just send me your bitcoins. I can take care of them much more efficiently anyway. With my crack team, we will utilize synergy to produce ultimate deflation fighting efforts.

You heard it here first.