In the light of this, and because the need for bitcoins primarily comes from the need for a decentralized, no-point-of-control system, I think it's not sufficient to call worries about centralization "vague": you have to clearly defend why this particular form of centralization can not be dangerous. The default is "centralization is bad".
It is a technical decision, not political. The block size can not be determined on the basis of political beliefs. I'm pretty sure about this. If we talking about centralization we should focus on Mt. Gox but that's a different story. It is a technical decision, but technical decision about how to provide both scalability and security. And like it or not, decentralization is part of the security equation and must be taken in account when changing anything that would diminish it. |
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How does it matter what you choose to think when the bank lent out your money and now can't pay you back?
The point is that you regard loaned money to be just an illusion. No I don't? I said the loaned money is the actual money. The money held in demand deposits is an illusion. I don't know how much more clearly I can say this. However, my example shows that: - While the system is working, neither loaned nor originally deposited money are illusions.
- When the system stops working, both loaned and originally deposited money are illusions.
What? No it doesn't. Your example shows that while the system is working the loaned money is real and the deposited money is an illusion and when it doesn't the deposited money reveals itself as an illusion but the loaned money still exists and continues to exist. Are you telling me that the U$ 1.000,00 I deposited into my bank and never borrowed from anyone are an illusion? YES. Because 90% of it was loaned out so you cannot have $1000 anymore. You only "have" $1000 because the bank is willing to take from some other depositor and give it to you. |
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How does it matter what you choose to think when the bank lent out your money and now can't pay you back?
The point is that you regard loaned money to be just an illusion. No I don't? I said the loaned money is the actual money. The money held in demand deposits is an illusion. I don't know how much more clearly I can say this. However, my example shows that: - While the system is working, neither loaned nor originally deposited money are illusions.
- When the system stops working, both loaned and originally deposited money are illusions.
What? No it doesn't. Your example shows that while the system is working the loaned money is real and the deposited money is an illusion and when it doesn't the deposited money reveals itself as an illusion but the loaned money still exists and continues to exist. |
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I make a deposit of U$ 1.000,00. Then, my (so to speak) bank loans one of your debtors (if any) the U$ 900,00 in excess reserves created by my deposit. Finally, that guy pays you his debt with a bank transfer of the borrowed U$ 900,00. Now imagine a voice telling you that the U$ 900,00 you just received in payment are just an illusion. Is that voice really yours?
Um? the illusion is that you have $1000 available to you in your demand deposit bank account, not that I didn't receive $900.  Unsurprisingly, I would choose to think precisely the opposite. Then, we would sort it out with a little fight. We are about to see something similar in a global scale. How does it matter what you choose to think when the bank lent out your money and now can't pay you back? |
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[...] it is the same money and the same money only, thinking about it any other way is an illusion. How can you tell? Well if all demand depositors at a bank came to withdraw their balance all at once the bank couldn't pay them back.
It's no different if you gave me some money to keep safe and I told you I'm going to loan out some of it and give you a share of the interest but because I have many clients like you I can give you back everything should you really need it - unless I can't.
And that's exactly what demand deposit contracts say. Hence why FRB isn't a fraud (something I used to believe it was until I really thought about it). The problem is that because how FRB works today, with FDIC and the FED there to repay the depositors should a bank run happen and a bank can't get enough short term loans from other banks, it leaves people under the illusion that the money they store in a demand deposit account is always in it's entirety available to be spent at any moment and this affects their behavior. They now instead of knowing that they may not have that money available to them and spend accordingly, they spend as if their balance is guaranteed whenever. This is the only reason why all the balances combined that have been created out of the same money can be counted towards an increase in the money supply - purely because people behave like it - and not because an actual increase in money supply happened.
In a market regulated strictly by consumption i.e. in a free market where there is no FDIC and FED, these risk would be much more apparent and people would spend accordingly and this illusion that they have their entire money available to them would get destroyed. Well I don't there would be no increase in the perception of how much money depositors have available but I'm certain it would orders of magnitude less than today and thus booms and buts fueled by an increase in people's illusion of how much money they have available for spending would be significantly smaller and shorter eventually leading to decent stability assuming this system would keep it's form for a long period of time.
I make a deposit of U$ 1.000,00. Then, my (so to speak) bank loans one of your debtors (if any) the U$ 900,00 in excess reserves created by my deposit. Finally, that guy pays you his debt with a bank transfer of the borrowed U$ 900,00. Now imagine a voice telling you that the U$ 900,00 you just received in payment are just an illusion. Is that voice really yours? Um? the illusion is that you have $1000 available to you in your demand deposit bank account, not that I didn't receive $900. |
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First, we have a deposit. Then, we have a loan of up to a fraction (of 90%) of this deposit. Finally, the borrower can deposit the borrowed money into another bank account, in the same bank or not. Suddenly, the trillion dollar question emerges: is the borrowed money in these two bank accounts the same? - On the one hand, the answer is yes: all borrowed money came from the original deposit---so it is that same original money.
- On the other hand, the answer is no: all money deposited into the borrower's account possibly stays in the original depositor's account---so it is not that same original money.
How can that be? It can't be and it isn't. I mean of course it is the same money and the same money only, thinking about it any other way is an illusion. How can you tell? Well if all demand depositors at a bank came to withdraw their balance all at once the bank couldn't pay them back. It's no different if you gave me some money to keep safe and I told you I'm going to loan out some of it and give you a share of the interest but because I have many clients like you I can give you back everything should you really need it - unless I can't. And that's exactly what demand deposit contracts say. Hence why FRB isn't a fraud (something I used to believe it was until I really thought about it). The problem is that because how FRB works today, with FDIC and the FED there to repay the depositors should a bank run happen and a bank can't get enough short term loans from other banks, it leaves people under the illusion that the money they store in a demand deposit account is always in it's entirety available to be spent at any moment and this affects their behavior. They now instead of knowing that they may not have that money available to them and spend accordingly, they spend as if their balance is guaranteed whenever. This is the only reason why all the balances combined that have been created out of the same money can be counted towards an increase in the money supply - purely because people behave like it - and not because an actual increase in money supply happened. In a market regulated strictly by consumption i.e. in a free market where there is no FDIC and FED, these risk would be much more apparent and people would spend accordingly and this illusion that they have their entire money available to them would get destroyed. Well I don't there would be no increase in the perception of how much money depositors have available but I'm certain it would orders of magnitude less than today and thus booms and buts fueled by an increase in people's illusion of how much money they have available for spending would be significantly smaller and shorter eventually leading to decent stability assuming this system would keep it's form for a long period of time. |
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Buying puts on WU might be one of the few trades that will compare to holding BTC in terms of rate of return over the coming years. Shorting the big boys is the last, best use of fiat. You're still left with profits in fiat though so I don't know what good will do ya..  |
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Is there any way to see the 30d, 7d, 24h volume ICBIT is experiencing?
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It's called: "smoking out the $30 campers"
Bwahahaha  |
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Your meme makes zero sense since if someone hasn't bought any bitcoins yet they aren't a Bitcoin user and if they have, banks being closed during the weekend doesn't affect them. |
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side-note: Trace Meyers excellent piece on this bitcoin tangibility isn't well-received by the silver bugs. Why Bitcoin Is Tangible – Digging Into The Guts Of BitcoinSeriously? Why would somebody waste their time writing this article, except to try and label themselves a "philosopher" and "monetary scientist?" Bitcoins are not tangible. The guy in that article is literally redefining tangible by pretending to be some linguistic philosopher.
i actually understand what the redittor is complaining about. personally, i avoid trying to get into their sandbox and redefine core gold/silver bug concepts like "tangibility" while attempting to apply them to Bitcoin. it's too much of a stretch for them, and me, quite frankly. i think its better to stand back and build our own philosophical arguments based on what Bitcoin actually is and what it does. I might come around to your viewpoint. Maybe one could ask what's behind tangibility. Why do goldbugs love tangibility? If the answer is: because there is obviously no 3rd-party risk and you can protect the asset from being taken by others, well than it can be argued that this is also possible with bitcoin. While you can't really touch a private key, you can still protect it from being taken by others (even more easily than tangible stuff) and there is no 3rd-party risk invovled either. Exactly. Tangible is not important to them because they can touch it, they can touch dirt too and yet they don't really care about it. Tangible is important to them because they know the properties that gold has cannot change. That's the only reason that tangibility is important to them because they think that anything that isn't tangible (to them this means thought up by men) can't possibly be governed by rules that can't be changed and yield the same type of properties conducive to something being a store of value and be great for exchange of value. So tangibility is really how they express the "locked in" properties that gold has. Well the properties of bitcoins are also "locked in" due to the fact that it's practically impossible to change the rules. But this for them is hard to comprehend how it could possible be since they lack the technical expertise to be able to understand the underlying technologies that make that possible. And so they cling religiously to what they know. |
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I'd buy a T-shirt or two for a decent price, like no more than $5.
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Decent mainstream article, except for two mistakes.. They lumped the security of Bitcoin together with hacked exchanges and questioned how secure Bitcoin really is long term.. and they compared Bitcoin to Amazon coins as if they're somehow similar things.
Other than that it was ok. Good for the mainstream audience. Not too positive but quite neutral and serious.
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why is it so difficult to see why this, too, has a negative impact on the adoption of bitcoin? this is all i've been trying to say this entire thread.
Because it makes zero sense: Hey people, we have a problem!! Many people will want to use Bitcoin so bitcoins are going to become very valuable therefor no one will want to use it!!!11 I mean, I don't know what more to say to this. |
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Gavin & co. Can't you guys speed things up a bit? Right now we're getting a lot of good quality publicity and I think it would be a real shame to see all these new potential users get to bitcoin.org and download 7.2 which is very likely going severely disappoint them..
If there aren't any bugs, and there appear to not be any reports of bugs, can you move things a long a bit faster? Or is there something that still needs to be done?
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I was unaware that getting a unique digital ID number ever was a problem.. Isn't the real problem that anyone can get as many of those as they want?
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Note that this bet does not have 1:2 odds. If Adam wins, a coin will be valued less than if he loses. Given the volatility this is quite significant for the value of the bet.
Nice observation! |
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i would expect a moderator to take discussion more seriously than this.
That's because your mind naturally appeals to authority and you haven't yet learned to restrain that appeal and listen to logic, reason and empirical evidence above else instead. My role as a moderator should lend zero credibility to my posts. All my role is is an authority on which posts follow the rules of this forum and other things related to rules and operations of this forum (two sections only anyway), that's it. When my posts aren't about that, me being a moderator has absolutely no relevance. None what so ever. I'm just an ordinary poster like yourself and my post should be evaluated by everyone through the use of reason, logic and empirical evidence whether or not they make sense. if you actually took the time to read past the OP
Believe it or not the issues you raised have been raised so many times already that I seriously doubt you bring anything new to the table and even if you do, you are wrong. Not from an economical perspective but from a technological and philosophical perspective. In case you didn't notice even if you have a valid concern and a valid proposal, Bitcoin's rules can't be changed. So if you think it has a flaw I suggest you take the open source code, modify it and start your own alt cryptocurrency: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0 Because other than that no matter what you say or how much sense you make, for better or for worse, Bitcoin is what Bitcoin is. Take it or leave it. It's up to you. |
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It is very clear to me what is happening and why it is bad for BTC. Everyone around here is wearing green colored glasses. We cant all get rich, markets dont work like that. This time is not different!! It is never different.
Oh how I yearn for the day far in the future when all of you with sophistry infatuated people will get your meeting with the cold hard reality and when this "Deflation is bad, mkay?!" idiocy will have been destroyed once and for all much like "Earth is the center of the universe, mkay?!" once upon a time was. I really can't wait. |
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Good, it would be nice to see even more press out of this because if I'm honest I'm kind of disappointed by the amount we got so far.
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