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6061  Economy / Economics / Re: A few theories for value deflation on: March 30, 2011, 08:12:02 PM
I literally mean that gold is capital.  It is a means of production.  It is also money but that's not what I said.

Gold is not a "means of production" unless you are a goldsmith, or maybe a banker.
6062  Economy / Economics / Re: A few theories for value deflation on: March 30, 2011, 08:10:46 PM
Did you miss the joke?

Perhaps.  I didn't find it funny, so I assumed that there was some element of seriousness.
6063  Other / Off-topic / Re: Anarcho-Capitalism and Anarcho-Socialism on: March 30, 2011, 08:06:31 PM
Hey, Father; would you mind attempting to define "capitalism" in your own words?  It's really hard to debate with someone speaking another language.
There isn't really an official definition of capitalism, but it is essentially a system of hierarchy. It allows for the existence of employers, landlords, and usurers who rule over employees, tenants, and borrowers.

Both fascism and communism as political ideologies would qualify as capitalist under such a definition. 

This is in line with the political defintion of "capitalism", but not the economic one, which is notablely different.

6064  Other / Off-topic / Re: Anarcho-Capitalism and Anarcho-Socialism on: March 30, 2011, 08:00:29 PM
Anarchy has already been tried. Obviously it didn't last long. I don't know why we need any further examples unless there has really been a change.

The examples of anarcho-capitalism that have existed ended for reasons not related to anarchy, but external forces.


And that is exactly why I consider anarchy of any form to be an unstable political condition, and therefore not something to be strived for, as it results in the weakening of the social cohesion that comes with national identity.  I can think of no case that an archarcy (or anything close to that) survived a serious external challenge to that status quo, for no other reason than those inhabitants with the greatest resources to contribute to the collective defense often found it in their own best interests to simply pick up and vacate before the new power made good on his claims.  An anarchist state, by it's very definition, does not foster a national identity or sense of national loyality with it's citizens.  This is why they are often defacto anarchies by transitional happenstance, and not outright design.

Anarchy isn't to be strived for, not because it can't be a great society for the present inhabitants, but because the form of governance that follows is rarely better than a stable republic could have been.  This is exactly the reason that the framers of the Constitution sought to move away from the Articles of Confederation under the threat that the British Monarcy would attempt to reassert authority, which they eventually tried in the War of 1812.  That was a close call, and could have turned out completely differently if the one or more of the less affected states had declared neutrality and refused to contribute to the war effort; which is something that could have happened under the Articles.
6065  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How long until governments outlaw bitcoin usage? on: March 30, 2011, 07:45:50 PM
Take a look around you - majority of people are irrational, they can not be reasoned with.

Quite an arrogant statement. Have you actually talked to another human in person? Have you tried explaining yourself or your ideas in layman's terms so they can relate to you? Most people are very intelligent if you figure out how to talk to them in their own language. Declaring that they can not be reasoned with is your ignorance and shows you to be lazy intellectually. It will cause you stress in your life. You will not understand why other people do what they do. You will shroud yourself in your paranoia about their intentions, further running away from your perceived problem. People will just look at you like you are hiding something and therefore infer that you must have bad intentions. People fear secrets.

Case in point, the mass hysteria about the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Not a good example, since the mass hysteria around Fukushima was fueled by piss-poor journalism and a government that has a history of not being quite forward with it's own failures.
6066  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Generating bitcoins via Amazon cluster GPU? on: March 30, 2011, 02:39:10 PM
Is anyone generating bitcoins via Amazon cluster GPU?

It's a flavor of EC2 that is powered by GPUs. Seems like the ideal way to generate a massive amount of bitcoin.
At present, it looks like the cheapest way to get bitcoins, no? It should be cheaper than buying them at the current rates.

I think that if we make it easy enough to use, prepare a short "how to", then enough people will get in on this wagon and warp bitcoin computation power out of reach of any malicious folk.

Thoughts?

If it were ever cheaper to generate coins on rental hardware than buying them on the exchange, then people would either be doing it until the rise in difficulty negated the advantages, the price of bitcoins would fall until doing so was no longer profitable, or a combination of both.  Such a condition would be Bitcoin's version of 'backwardization' and can happen for short periods.  It has been shown that the difficulty and the market price are closely linked, and I believe that difficulty follows the total market value of solving a block.  (price * block reward)  And that difficulty will drop roughly in half when the reward cuts in half.  This would be Bitcoin's weak point.
6067  Economy / Economics / Re: A few theories for value deflation on: March 30, 2011, 02:24:50 PM
Capital = means of production

He's a Communist! Get him!!!

Wait, what?

The only person on this forum who lives in a communist society is you, Nefario.  And from a technical perspective, even China isn't really communist anymore; but closer to fascist.  I.E. single party political control over an otherwise capitalist economy.

Capital is the means of production.
6068  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: How long until governments outlaw bitcoin usage? on: March 30, 2011, 02:21:10 PM

But do you think that bitcoin would be able to keep its value if outlawed and persecuted?


The threat of prosecution will certainly dampen the value, as well as the rate of spread, of Bitcoin; but will ultimately fail to destroy it.  Politicos aren't stupid, they look at these kind of things deeply before acting.  If they attempt it, they would have to know that it's a stall tactic.
6069  Economy / Economics / Re: A few theories for value deflation on: March 30, 2011, 02:13:30 PM
Gold is capital.

Gold is not capital.  Neither is money.  Capital can be bought with either, and therefore valued in either, but money is not capital.  Capital is literally the tools and resources necessary for production of goods and services to be sold or consumed.  For example, a shovel is capital to the ditchdigger, but not to the accountant; whereas a calculator is capital to the accountant, but not the ditchdigger.

Bitcoins are currency, and don't even meet the bar for a commodity money, such as silver and gold do.  Bitcoins can never be capital, even though capital can be valued in bitcoins.

As Neil Stephenson so precisely wrote in Cryptocromicon, "Gold is not wealth, gold is the corpse of wealth."
6070  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Mass Awakening Documentary, featuring Bitcoin. Intro, Rough Cut. on: March 30, 2011, 01:13:41 PM

That's the biggest example of corporatism that I have ever seen. 
6071  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Inexplicable on: March 30, 2011, 05:35:05 AM
How can you have outgoing transactions if your client is still bootstrapping?
6072  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Would you support moving to a system with controled inflation? on: March 30, 2011, 05:32:58 AM

...Plutonium, Uranium...

Wink

Some people might find these commodities unacceptable as stores of value as they have built-in inflation imposed by nature due to their half-life.  Grin

You mean deflation, right?

Some people are easily confused.

No, I mean that your value is slowly being eroded and dwindles to zero, which is more like inflation than deflation.



Now I'm confused.

If/When a true thorium fuel cycle is established in India, thorium coins become a viable alternative because thorium isn't very dangerous and the energy content provides for the most basic of use values.  Honestly, I'd be kind of surprised if someone like the Hunt or Koch brothers don't already have thorium bullion waiting for the shift.  Thorium is radioactive, but it's half-life is so long it was only theoretical for 100+ years until it could be observed.  99% would still be here when the Sun overtook the Earth as a red giant.
6073  Other / Off-topic / Re: Politics aside, this first photo is just awesome. on: March 30, 2011, 05:24:52 AM


Careful! We don't want to get Nefario and his students banned from the forums for any sort of attack on the Magnificent Government.

Why would someone be banned for a picture of four beautiful flowers?

The Great Substitution Wall of China?
6074  Other / Off-topic / Re: Anarcho-Capitalism and Anarcho-Socialism on: March 30, 2011, 05:19:08 AM
Anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-socialism are crumby terms. There's really just capitalism and anarchism, with various subcategories for anarchism. Anarchists desire either the peaceful obsolescence or violent destruction of capitalism and government. They also believe that the two are inseparable. Anarchist positions range from mutualism, who's subscribers believe in markets, money, and some property rights, to communism who's subscribers do not believe in money, markets, or property rights.

Capitalists need a state of some kind in order to separate workers from the products of their labor so as to become landlords, employers, and usurers. Capitalists assume a range of positions with one extreme including anarcho-capitalism. These capitalists wish to abolish government, but fail to realize the inseparability of government and capitalism. In the absence of governments as we commonly understand them, people would have to create very small ones so as to engage in capitalism. For example, if someone wanted to take the product of the labor of some farmers, he would need the ability to kick them out if they don't obey. As such, he would have to establish a monopoly of force over the territory containing the farm. He can provide the force himself or get it from a larger government.

Apparently the priesthood doesn't teach economics in seminary. 

Hey, Father; would you mind attempting to define "capitalism" in your own words?  It's really hard to debate with someone speaking another language.
6075  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Would you support moving to a system with controled inflation? on: March 30, 2011, 04:41:50 AM

...Plutonium, Uranium...

Wink

Some people might find these commodities unacceptable as stores of value as they have built-in inflation imposed by nature due to their half-life.  Grin

You mean deflation, right?

Some people are easily confused.
6076  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Would you support moving to a system with controled inflation? on: March 30, 2011, 04:40:32 AM
For physical money there is nothing but gold.


Silver, copper? 

Try to put a significative amount of wealth with copper or even silver in your pocket.


Okay....

Done.

Now what?
6077  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Would you support moving to a system with controled inflation? on: March 29, 2011, 08:17:02 PM
People deal in the physical, we want to touch, feel, and see objects of worth. However, we also like the private. We like to conduct transactions in private.

So, I see the BitCoin as becoming a transitory monetary system into and out of the physical. We will buy bitcoins to make a transaction, use them, and then get out of the market.

For physical money there is nothing but gold.


Silver, copper? 
6078  Economy / Economics / Re: Governments will want their TAX ??? The solution is obvious but scary. on: March 29, 2011, 07:33:52 PM
Rats and cockroaches tend to be the wild game available in prison.
6079  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Coin distribution vs community size on: March 29, 2011, 06:10:32 PM
So basically, casascius's point is that a small minority of future potential bitcoin population has grabbed significant share of total bitcoin wealth and this is portrayed as bitcoins disadvantage and unfairness.

Proposed solution is to somehow change rules of the game now so that "jonny's come late" get bigger piece of the pie without taking much risks.

What disregarded is amount of risk early adopters took allocating significant part of their resources, be it time or money, to a high risk venture while protecting initially vulnerable bitcoin network.

Now it is proposed to change the rules of the game to redistribute wealth away from early adopters to jonny come laters or else jonny come laters will revolt and start their own currency.

Right, this is perfectly understandable, it sounds like you feel we deserve to be enriched at others' expense because of all the risk we took.  (Which was what, exactly, by the way?)

Bernanke probably feels the same way...  After all, printing money is tiring and risky and at the end of the day, he and all his buddies deserve to be compensated for that lavishly with the fruits of others' labor.

The thing about Bitcoin is that "jonny come late" has free access to the kitchen.  If "jonny come late" doesn't like that only 1% of the pie is on the table but that he must pay for the whole pie, he might just start some cookin.

You seem to be saying that Bitcoin early adopters have taken little risk, yet you present the case that any one of those participants could manipulate the market in a way which would put the newfound 'wealth' of their cohorts at risk by dumping BTC on the market. You can't have it both ways.

Perhaps I misunderstood, and you really mean to say that the early adopters assumed less risk than later adopters do, because the early adopters can manipulate the market. If that is the case, let's say an early adopter crashes Mt. Gox by 50%, let's say this happens repeatedly... The only thing that would happen is that BTC would be available at a lower price, allowing these late comers an opportunity to by in at prices that were once only available several months before they ever heard of Bitcoin... It would also most likely cause Difficulty to fall as well, creating an opportunity for new miners, etc. From a game-theory perspective this does not seem like such a bad thing. I think it would be the healthiest thing for Bitcoin if this happened earlier, because it would likely result in such actions becoming progressively more difficult as the economy matures.

Yes, Bitcoin is a self-balancing system.  Well thought out.
6080  Economy / Economics / Re: Governments will want their TAX ??? The solution is obvious but scary. on: March 29, 2011, 06:04:10 PM
Have you guys read the Hirsch report?  Read it first, before drawing conclusions.  In short:

There has always been some group making such warnings for as long as I've been alive.
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