You provide no arguments that eternal youthfulness is not feasible, you only state that it is indesirable for a species.
I would not say "undesirable". I put "want" in quotes because species and natural evolution have no desires (thanks Lamb for seeing that  ) It is just that being mortal is part of being what we are. Yes, and 'being unable to fly' is part of what we are, ... until it isn't. You seem very keen on keeping things like they are, even if they are undesirable. And you seem obsessed with reading things in my words that I did not write, even when I write just the opposite... Where did I say that we should not be immortal or ethernally young? Where did I say that things should not change not evolve? Where did I say that we should not improve our lives? Where did I say that life and youth extension are impossible? Then why did you call the desire for eternal youth naive? Why not state clearly what your opinion on the matter is? I wrote explicitly that we are absolutely not adapted to our present environment...
I guess that you are missing the point. We cannot be eternally young while being the same human beings that we are now. As one gets old, memories and experiences change our view of things. When thinking about things like bitcoin today, I cannot avoid recalling what I read and thought of nuclear power, space exploration, nulear fusion, artificlal inteligence, etc, over the past 50 years, and what happened to them. Those memories and the conclusions that I got out of them are what make me today. But it is also the past memories and experiences that make old people more cynical, careless, less enthusiastic, less focused, etc. -- even if the intelligene and clarity of memory remain the same.
(For example, my 4 years as head of department changed completely my view of universities and humans, for the worse... Sometimes I wish that I had not gone through that experience, and retained a more positive view of some of my colleagues; but at the same time I don't want to forget what I learned then... It is because of such experiences that I cannot share the respect that you have for people like Gavin, Sielbert, Adreeessen, Antonopoulos, etc., even though I am not aware of them doing anything really wrong...)
So, what does it mean to "be eternally young" --- erase one's memories, and be forever enthusiastic and naive and inexperient as a 20 year old? Or keep piling up memories for centuries, and becoming every time more bored and cynical, thinking more and more about the past rather than the future, etc? Or modifying the brain in some way, so that it can continue putting up memories without somehow becoming overburdened by them? Neither option seems to be exactly what we want.
Yes, you did write explicitly that we are not adapted to our present environment, and I agree. But then I don't get why you keep hammering on the 'evolution choose this length of life' argument. Yes people grow to be more or less 70-80 years old these days, so what? I might be misinterpreting your words again, but your arguments sound somewhat teleological to me. As for changing as an individual: we are constantly slowly changing into a somewhat different being. We keep forgetting stuff, and learn new things all the time. Why would continuing to do that be so fundamentally wrong? You don't know yet what form a cure for aging would take. Who says we would be so radically different from today? You say certain outcomes are less than ideal. How ideal is the current situation, to live in a withering body? I'ld prefer some change. I know young people are more naive, and think things can change easily. They don't see the barriers to this change that exists in human nature and society (or just vastly underestimate the amount of work and time that is required). Older people have seen things fail, so they are less naive, but often they are too sceptical of change, and disbelieve even the things that do come to happen. By the way, I never said I had any respect for Silbert, I haven't really looked into him but he gives me somewhat of a 'pumper' impression. I ask again: if a dinosaur could choose, would it choose to become a monkey, or live forever as a dinosaur?
I don't pretend to be able to read the mind of a dinosaur. As for humans: I guess everybody will chose the degree to which they want to change themselves. A finite lifetime is nature's solution to make space for new individuals. Aging is a consequence of that.
I think you have things backwards. There is no planned design to remove old individuals. I don't know what you mean, but clearly the average length of our lifetime is the result of millions of years of evolution. While it can be stretched a bit with current technology, our bodies and minds are not built to last more than that. As in an old car, all the parts start to fail after some time. (It is not just the telomers getting shorter...) That average lifetime is clearly what natural evolution found to be best for our species (and all mammal species I know of) until we started making fire and bows. Since then, it is not clear where evolution is taking us... Old cars can be fixed, and still drive around today (old timers). How 'bout we fix our bodies so they ARE built to last longer than a few decades? Oh, and : CHOO CHOO  |
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As for it not being desirable, or human, I believe it to be both.
Sure it will mean all sorts of changes for society and the way we live, no doubt, some positive and some negative, and society will no doubt struggle to keep up, but that will not stop it from happening.
We have already done life extension, as a race, and we will of course without any doubt, continue to do so, and we will get better at it, and it is feasible it will happen in many of our lifetimes.
Basically we would adapt, and evolve, as life does, we would create new education, new mechanisms, new understandings, new philosophy, new stages to life, it would change everything, but that has never ever stopped humans from doing anything, and that is not going to change now.
Life extension, to an extreme level, is pretty much inevitable, it is just a case of when, not if. I think it is all together a very common human desire to be alive and healthy, I think it is going to be possible to extend lifespan from a technological point of view. So when you couple those two facts together, you are just left with the WHEN we will get there, and not IF. So really as a society we need to start working on ways to deal with this technology, and its implications for society/humanity.
Personally I am totally up for it.
Damn straight brother ! |
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Natural evolution does not "want" eternal organisms, not even eternal species; it "wants" life to constantly evolve.
Death is a feature, not a bug. It evolved in the last billion years together with sex and reproduction, as a way to clear up space for new individuals.
You provide no arguments that eternal youthfulness is not feasible, you only state that it is indesirable for a species. I would not say "undesirable". I put "want" in quotes because species and natural evolution have no desires (thanks Lamb for seeing that ) It is just that being mortal is part of being what we are. Yes, and 'being unable to fly' is part of what we are, ... until it isn't. You seem very keen on keeping things like they are, even if they are undesirable. Personally, I think it is very desirable for an individual, and probably for society as well.
It may be hard to believe, but, after a certain point in life, that desire usually goes away. Perhaps if your body was youthful and energetic, you would reconsider that point. Also, if people really didn't want to be alive, it's easy enough to blow your brains out. I can't help but notice that most people don't do this, which seems to suggest they value being alive. But yes, we generally hate succumbing to old age and death, just like we hate getting sick and weak. That wish must be a naturally evolved trait too, like "you must leave soon, but, as long as you are here, you must try to be as useful as you can" --- and that includes remaining as fit and healthy as you can.
It is not different from how companies treat their older employees. Indeed, retirement is the corporate version of natural death. It was invented not for the good of the individual, but for the good of the company: a barely delicate way to remove the old guys whom no one dares to fire, and open space for new blood.
There is that " Everything is as it should be" thinking again. Like we are now evolved into a perfect end state, I don't buy it. If people didn't get old, they would be able to keep functioning in their company, and there would be no need to fire them. A finite lifetime is nature's solution to make space for new individuals. Aging is a consequence of that.
I think you have things backwards. There is no planned design to remove old individuals. Your reasonings sound like rationalisations to calm the mind to me ("I shouldn't worry, everything is as it should be, everything has a reason")
Not at all. I am as unhappy at getting old as anyone else. I am just pointing out that eternal youth (which implies eternal life) is a rather complicated concept, perhaps a meaningless one. Does it make sense to wish for a car that will last forever? Does it make sense to wish for your dear Volkswagen Beetle to last forever? My Volkswagen Beetle has no consciousness. Replace Volkswagen with a pet dog, and then yes, I would want it to live forever. You also seem to be under the impression that biological change is no longer possible if we would acquire eternal youth. I would say that current and future biotech advances will allow us to adapt much more quickly to our environment than was previously possible (although it might be harder to adapt an existing organism than to engineer a new one from scratch). I can only repeat that you don't give any arguments that eternal youth is infeasible, you just argue that it is better for the species if individuals die off. I would argue that people make decisions as individuals, so your musings are irrelevant. |
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7 billion mofos on the planet and "eternal life desirable for society?".
U w0t m8?
I think it might even be possible eventually, but definitely not desirable IMHO. Fuck no.
You just indicated yourself that even without eternal life, overpopulation is/ is going to be an issue.Maybe if we know we are going to stay around forever, we'll actually have a strong incentive to figure out a solution for overpopulation. |
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I am very curious as to your objections why eternal youthfulness would not one day (probably far into the future) be feasible.
Natural evolution does not "want" eternal organisms, not even eternal species; it "wants" life to constantly evolve. Death is a feature, not a bug. It evolved in the last billion years together with sex and reproduction, as a way to clear up space for new individuals. Maybe one day that "solution" will no longer be necessary, because we will have infinitely expandable space and resources for everyone to live forever. But the fact is that humans inherited death from their ancestors, and have evolved their body and society around it. Everything in our body and mind was designed and adapted by evolution assuming a finite life of ~80 years plus or minus 20 (rough guesses). Total planned obsolescence. Human lifespan has evolved to be among the longest among mammals, actually, because that was needed by our nature and life cycle: a bigger brain takes much longer to program, so we need 14-20 years of learning before we are ready to leave our family and start a new one. And we live for many years after we are no longer needed as parents, because we still have some use as teachers, babysitters, sentinels, etc.. Aging is the decomissioning of body and mind parts that are not intended to be used beyond a certain stage in life. Our very desires and values change, because we are meant to have different roles in society at each stage in life. If we were to live forever, we could not be the same humans as we are today, we would have to change our body and mind and become something quite different. If a dinosaur could wish for eternal life, would it want to evolve to a monkey, or to be an eternal dinosaur? Does a child of five really wish to become an adult? Or just do the things that only adults can do, while remaining a child? Sorry for the off-topic everybody, but it's not like the bitcoin price is doing anything interesting . 1) You provide no arguments that eternal youthfulness is not feasible, you only state that it is indesirable for a species. Personally, I think it is very desirable for an individual, and probably for society as well. 2) Aging is not a 'planned removal of individuals'. Please describe how the gradual loss of strength, memory functions, etc.. is evolutionary positive. How does the presence of elderly people that need help for everything benefit society? Wouldn't evolution program death in a way that individuals suddenly drop dead after a certain time? Your reasonings sound like rationalisations to calm the mind to me ("I shouldn't worry, everything is as it should be, everything has a reason") Sure, there are some genes that can be deleted for a longer life in certain species, but these are generally trade-offs versus other properties (for example lower activity and metabolism). I do believe that the evolutionary need for a long-living individual wasn't very high (partially because most individuals died much sooner), so our metabolic programming isn't perfected to keep cells functioning forever, resulting in wear and tear. |
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In fact, I think that the desire for "permanent wealth", that cannot be lost or lose its value, is as naive as the desire for eternal youth or eternal life...
How is the desire for eternal youth naive? Before airplanes were built, it would be easy to call the desire for human flight naive, especially given the stupid first attempts (people attaching wings to their arms and jumping off buildings). A real discussion should entail the feasibility or impossibility of something based on its properties, not just "it's something people have been wanting since forever, and they haven't accomplished it yet, therefore it is impossible and a stupid idea". I am very curious as to your objections why eternal youthfulness would not one day (probably far into the future) be feasible. |
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Stolfi likes making senseless arguments to FUD. Come on, Jorge, I'm still waiting for a demostration for your claim!
(Before you scream "21 million": that bitcoin limit is "guaranteed" only by fuzzy arguments about a complicated economic game, not "by math", and could be changed if the right players agreed to it. Moreover, any kid can duplicate the amount of bitcoins in existence by creating a hard fork of the blockchain and starting to mine it on his laptotp. Anyone who has bitcoins will gain an equal amount of those "series B" bitcoins, accessible through the same private keys, and could trade them independently of his old bitcoins by duplicating his wallet and downloading the kids's client software. Whether those "series B" bitcoins will get a significant market value is a market(ing) question, not a technical one. And, of course, there are the altcoins.)
+1 I would be curious to see this demonstrated as well. There is nothing to demonstrate. If I understand correctly, he is just saying anybody can create an altcoin in which the initial ledger of ownership is taken over from bitcoin. Of course, hardly anybody would see this as "being able to duplicate bitcoins". Of course this is not a technical issue. To it sounds a bit like saying "passwords you can use on 1 website can be used on another website, therefore internet security is flawed". |
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Fuck off Stolfi, you're a turd in the swimming pool.
Fuck off yourself. At least Stolfi has some interesting arguments from time to time, even if I usually disagree with them. You are just a disgrace for the community. |
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I am not a TA expert, but my take on TA is that in order to be successful it has to describe/utilize human valuation psychology (and the bugs and quirks therein).
If that's the case, given that the human brain has a memory function, and thus has been 'trained' by prior price action, it makes sense that your price prediction signals could vary over time as well, no?
I generally think of market price movements in terms of the madness and delusion of crowds, rather than the actions of lots of individuals. Does the mob have a memory? While it might be easier to model a mobs behavior as something different entirely, the truth is of course that a mob is comprised of individuals (keeping in mind that individuals act differently in various situations). So yes, the mob has a memory. |
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I thought it would obviously have to be time invariant. Doesn't TA only depend on the data in the chart? I don't know much about TA, but Wikipedia and Investopedia say that TA is based on the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. This seems to implicate that if the same pattern emerges in the charts in April or June, the conclusions should be the same. Same for a market moving slow or fast. If all trades are done at half the speed, shouldn't the conclusions on the same pattern (but stretched twice as long in time) be the same? And isn't the model describing a bear trap and a bull trap essentially the same, just applied inverted?
I know there's a kind of "law" in (amateur, perhaps also professional) algorithmic trading that your strategy should be time invariant. Some even go as far as saying it should be market invariant. In reality, I think it's more a heuristic to find out if the "pattern" you think you detected is just noise, or if you're onto something. This is completely 'finger in the air', but I sometimes think that certain patterns that seem to be a good predictor emerge across different time scales (hence, motivation for the above "law"), but they're not equally important/active across all scales. EDIT: The previous paragraph would still be compatible with "TA is based on the study of past market data, primarily price and volume. This seems to implicate that if the same pattern emerges in the charts in April or June, the conclusions should be the same" I would argue: you could simply be missing one variable, say, something like "total volume necessary until pattern x becomes active/has a strong enough influence on the market". To come to your counter question, I cannot exclude that a signal is useless (usable?) because it lags. Even more, since this signal is interpreted by humans with neural networks in their heads, they can very well learn how to interpret them without understanding them (as we do with so many things). Simply by training. One doesn't need to have an explicit model that makes sense. And when many people start acting on a certain signal (even if it's not based on a proper model and it doesn't make sense), the very fact that a significant part of the actors take that signal into account creates a self fulfilling prophecy. So yes, that may very well constitute an exploitable pattern. That was the point I was trying to make. I believe "chartism"/TA is more than just a self-fulfilling prophecy, but there is some self-fulfilling aspect to it, mainly in the form of the exact points of resistance/support. What I mean is: Some combination of signals tells traders "market is bearish, even though we're currently going up" (the non circular part of TA). Next question, where exactly to go short? "Hm, let's say DSMA50. Seems like a good place as any." After the first few sell at exactly that point, it becomes a "point of heavy resistance" (the circular part of TA). /my 2 crackpot cents  I am not a TA expert (I just stare at charts without a clearcut method), but my theoretical take on TA is that in order to be successful it has to describe/utilize human valuation psychology (and the bugs and quirks therein). If that's the case, given that the human brain has a memory function, and thus has been 'trained' by prior price action, it makes sense that your price prediction signals could vary over time as well, no? |
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Based on my time here roughly 99% of people posting charts have literally no idea what they are doing & it's more often than not just what they want to happen.
They then go ahead & make a bull shit chart to try & convince themselves it'll happen.
Who are the successful/professional traders here? I'd like to interview a few for a series. Obviously 'I once made $100 in a bubble' doesn't count. TERA, but he's not around anymore. How do you know he or she was successfull trader?? I remember she or he was wrong many times, which i believe is the reason why she or he is not posting anymore Not sure, but I think so because, while being a bit too bearish in general, TERA seemed to get the big calls right on beforehand. Moreover, he claimed to have an impressive percentage of return. Easy to lie about that of course, but he didn't strike me as the type. BTW: the 'she' thing was invented by BJ Allen if I recall correctly. Wall Observer soap drama . |
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Based on my time here roughly 99% of people posting charts have literally no idea what they are doing & it's more often than not just what they want to happen.
They then go ahead & make a bull shit chart to try & convince themselves it'll happen.
Who are the successful/professional traders here? I'd like to interview a few for a series. Obviously 'I once made $100 in a bubble' doesn't count. TERA, but he's not around anymore. |
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I don't sell (much) at the tops. I don't want to be known as the guy who bilked lots of suckers out of $ if Bitcoin fails. I want to be known as a guy who identified BTC's potential as a force for positive social change through economics early and invested accordingly.
I don't see how selling at the tops is immoral. If anything it is praiseworthy, since selling at the top and buying at the bottom will smoothen out BTC's price, resulting in lower volatility and greater usability for commerce, store-of-value etc. . Selling at the top gives you the ammo needed to buy at the bottom. By buying at the bottom you are showing your faith in the continued existence of bitcoin, and stop a feedback loop of declining prices leading to less interest and a smaller network. |
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Yeah, 20 grand worth of bitcoins... Barely walking-around money. Exactly! Especially if you add that they didn't have to pay anything to use this payment method or keep it on their site. I bet you there was an accountant somewhere with his knickers in a knot. 100 btc payments is not the same thing as 100 btc in payments ... right? Twice a week adds up to more than 100 payments, so I guess they mean 100 btc in payments. |
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I would not spend 50% of my money on something, but once I can buy this with less than 20% of my holdings I will pay the owner bitcoins for it:  Would you actually buy it? Or would you say: I'll wait until I can get it for 5%. My guess is these are more fun before the age of 90. |
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how can you guys expect a $20000 investment to me worth a million in a matter of 5 years?
dreamers dream big.. in total denial of how the world works.
Right, totally unpossible to go 50x in 5 years.... Dude, we went up more than that in 1 year ! yes but that happened in the growth and recognition stage. before it was even useful for anything. 10k for a pizza. we are way past that now. growth will be gradual not exponential. That also happened 2 years ago, when a pizza was 1 or 0.01 BTC (depending on the start or end). I realize exponential growth can t continue forever, but bitcoin is still tiny. |
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how can you guys expect a $20000 investment to me worth a million in a matter of 5 years?
dreamers dream big.. in total denial of how the world works.
Right, totally unpossible to go 50x in 5 years.... Dude, we went up more than that in 1 year ! |
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To be honest you are assuming that they are not keeping a % of the payment in BTC with their payment processor.
Some merchants may do that (just as some merchants actuall accept bitcoin directly, without BitPay's intermediation). But I am pretty sure that Dell, Microsoft, Wikipedia, etc. do not. Handling bitcoins requires extra work from accoutants, which is not worth the amount of payment received. Losses from bitcoin price variations (as Overstock and Fortress suffered) would have to be reported in the quarterly reports, and would be hard to justify to stockholders. Also what is important to note is that BTC like USD,CAD,YEN,CHY,GBP and any other currency is being accepted for payment SIgh. No, it is not the same thing. Dell USA does accept USD, because you can wire USD to their bank account directly. They do not accept CAD,YEN,CHY,GBP nor BTC, and you cannot send them any of those currencies directly; you must send them to some other company, that converts them to USD and sends the USD to Dell. Jorge, can't you see that we are arguing about what 'accepting' means? Everybody agrees about the model, the underlying chain of events that takes place during and after a payment (if a company chooses to get paid fully in fiat). It's just that when a company allows you to pay for products in BTC, I call that "accepting BTC", whereas for you "accepting" apparently means whatever you are getting paid by the payment processor at the end of the process. |
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so everyone accepting paypal is actually not accepting $, € or any other fiat currency?
Of course. The currency that they accept is one thing, the means through which they receive the currency is another thing. Last time I checked, Dell USA accepted only dollars, but you could send the dollars in one of several ways: PayPal, credit card, bank wire, old-fashioned checks, -- or BitPay. Likewise, Dell would pay refunds only in dollars, even if you paid with BitPay. what happens when paypal will integrate btc this year? still nobody accepting bitcoin?
they do accept bitcoin as payment, the just dont hold it.
Either PayPal will do the conversion to dollars and send dollars to the merchant, like BitPay does; or most merchants that accept payment via BitPay will not accept bitcoins through Paypal. exactly. for example i want to buy something outside my country: 1. i load up paypal with local currency 2. buy something online in a different currency 3. paypal processes the payment there is actually no difference at all between what paypal does and bitpay does. what follows is that merchants are accepting bitcoin and not only $  I think he would argue that the merchant doesn't accept your local currency. It's a matter of terminology really. |
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When you said "purchase everyday things," I didn't realize you meant meth and child porn. I stand corrected  As far as less shady stuff? Those merchants accept dollars, not BTC. That's why the BTC price is calculated for you at the moment of purchase from the real price. I did mean everyday things. You said illegal items. I asked for proof. Non provided. Whatever, I'm off to do other things. Have a good day! When was the last time you bought milk, butter or gas with bitcoin? And I don't mean through a payment processor. I know those coins get converted to fiat, but how is using a payment processor not 'using bitcoin to purchase things' ? Pretty weak comeback NLC, I expect higher quality trolling from you. Because you're using dollar or pound or euro to buy things. That's why those things are priced in dollar or euro or pound, and BTC price is calculated at the exact moment you initiate the transaction. If you enjoy the game of buying BTC with your money (paying a fee for the privilege), handing that BTC to a payment processor (which also profits from the deal because not charity), which, in turn, converts BTC to real money & pays the merchant you transact with, so that you can risk your money yet again on some shady exchange while BTC price pogoes around like it does ...breathe... you be my guest, but don't expect me to take your game seriously No, I am using bitcoin to buy stuff that has a fixed price in fiat. Of course the exchange fees don't make this a consumer friendly option yet for most use cases. At the moment bitcoin enthusiasts are sponsoring exchanges and payment processors in order to make orders with bitcoin. But we are still in the bootstrapping phase, not at an end equilibrium. If I would be able to use my bitcoins almost anywhere, it removes an argument for not holding bitcoins ("can't spend them anywhere") and use cases where it might be desirable will start popping up. eg. going abroad and not having to exchange your fiat currencies. The current volatility would still stop most people from doing that, but if the fees for acquiring bitcoins are lower than fees for converting fiat money, the expected value is positive. If I said "can't spend BTC anywhere," you would be justified in asking me to defend such a silly statement. But since I didn't, and you tried to stuff those words into my mouth, I won't. The problem isn't that you can't spend BTC. You can spend anything, including rusty VW Beatles and recyclable plastic bottles. Though recyclable plastic bottles are a far better store of value than BTC, neither one of us would suggest that they're money. Not even if a bum agrees to take them to a redemption center and exchange them for money in exchange for a small fee or totally ripping you off. I have paid for food with bitcoin multiple times, haven't used a rusty VW Beatle yet. At least now you are acknowledging that BTC can be used to pay for normal stuff, despite your derision by comparing it to plastic bottles as a would-be-money. I think I'll be leaving the discussion at that though, don't want to spam the entire thread. |
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