Bitcoin is just a giant ledger stored on peoples computers around the world that keeps track of every transaction ever made so noone can counterfeit them. It is way cheaper than using credit cards. Also, you know how everything keeps costing more every year? Well bitcoin is designed so the opposite occurs, so it encourages saving and discourages going into debt and consumerism.
+1 These are the key points for understanding the 'why'. Yeah, I like that for its brevity. |
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Well, straight lines do not exist in nature either. The corkscrew analogy you give offers no explanation for that behavior. I believe you are almost right, but instead of a spiral, you are looking at fluid-dynamic vortices created by the density of the vacuum as a state of the gravitic temperature.
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That would be awesome but I doubt it unless we get some bad news.
Considering that Gavin is busy testing Multisig transactions, I don't expect any bad news. |
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We already had "In God we Trust" on our money and look how that went.
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cbeast I liked it.
Thanks. It needs a little cleaning up. I just threw this together for older folks like myself. |
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I'm wondering if anyone is going to this? I don't know if it would be good for Bitcoin, but it looks like it would be fun. This year, Dragon*Con will be held Labor Day weekend (August 31 - September 3, 2012) in Atlanta, GA. http://dragoncon.org/ |
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I can pray harder than any of you bitches.
I'm the piousest [sic] guy the little Amletts want to be like On my knees day and night scoring points for the afterlife So don't be vain, and don't be whiney Or else my brother might have to get medieval on your hiney  Weird Al saves the day. Dear Lord Baby Jesus, we'd also like to thank you for Atlas. We hope that you can use your baby Jesus powers to heal him and his horrible acne. It smells terrible and the dogs are always bothering with it... Ricky Bobby 4TW! |
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I can pray harder than any of you bitches.
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If you want to explain it to laypeople, you need to really dumb it down. Trust me, it ain't easy, but absolutely necessary. Here's my attempt:
Bitcoin is a new technology designed to make your money easier to use, more convenient, and also protect your identity. It combines military-grade codes with the latest in computerized accounting. The resulting invention greatly improves on the banking systems that originally combined IBM computers with telegraphs. While banking has improved somewhat with faster computers, it still required them to be owned and maintained by trusted bankers. Now with Bitcoin, you can use your own computer, your own internet connection, and like the cash in your pocketbook, your computer keeps track of your account, yet can be every much as secure as the strongest bank vault. Your purchases can be next door or across the globe.
Here's how it works. Anyone with a little computer know-how can set up a Bitcoin Mining computer program that adds power to make Bitcoin stronger for everyone. It's called Mining because as a reward for helping to make Bitcoin stronger, you actually find Bitcoin. This is no longer for the casual user anymore as Bitcoin Mining has become a profession managed by businesses. It can still be a good hobby and there are many opportunities to start other sorts of businesses using the Bitcoin Network.
Just like the early days before the big international banks, Bitcoin needs people to trust in the new technology. The difference between Bitcoin and the big banks is that you don't need to trust bankers you never met, and you don't need to give up your privacy just to make a purchase, or worry about identity theft. Almost all the independent experts say that the computer network is safe to use and so far after nearly four years they are right. Despite numerous attempts to attack the Bitcoin Network, nobody has succeeded. In fact, the people that tried to destroy it actually found out that it's better to just join in and make Bitcoin stronger while making money. You will too. You will find that as Bitcoin grows in popularity, so will its value. So while you can no longer put your money in the bank and make high interest rates on your savings account like you used to, you will be able to save the Bitcoin you do not spend and expect it to grow in value for a long time. Won't that be better than just letting your bank hold your money and make all the profit for themselves?
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Each shop has its own exchange rate? That just won't happen. They may offer their own individual discount on certain items, but not an exchange rate.
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It either needs to have a backbeat or involve a girl.
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I've always found that people that write with short declarative statements are best read aloud to yourself. One reason is that they economize their thoughts. Their logic is best emphasized with inflection rather than long backgrounds and explanations. Often they choose verbiage that forms almost poetic meter, which also sounds better read aloud.
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So far, nobody is blocking Bitcoin apps on Android. There is some great development going on there. |
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On 'the inability to cope.' If one believes that the most serious mental illnesses are a fabrication of the highest levels of the executive center or consciousness then you need to spend some time in the psych ward of the local hospital. Those are mostly people with real problems. Serious problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain.
Now, for non acute mental illness the inability to cope due to perception and expectations may be a factor. But to give a blanket explanation for mental illness is truly asinine.
Reading up on the workings of the brain begins to give one an idea of how easily the highest levels of consciousness can be persuaded and corrupted by various phenomenon that are not at all or not entirely under the control of consciousness.
What makes you think that 'problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain' are not caused by environmental factors? Sure there may be infections, tumors, and various other organic pathological vectors, but a lot of damage comes from the stresses of living in the modern age. Our brains have lots of functions. It seems to be the social functions that frighten 'normal' people the most. Man is a social animal and civilization needs to allow our socialization to evolve along with our economic and technological expectations. Wouldn't it be great if we addressed the actual cause rather just treat the symptoms? This one thing that I really commend FaceBook for attempting. That wasn't my argument. I have no idea how you got that out of my post. Save the flames for someone else. I'm pretty sure I understood what you are saying. It was not a personal flame. You may believe that what psych wards do is good. I'll be praying for you if that helps. Send me a pdf and I'll get it made into a pro looking book, then mail copy to an address of your choosing. It'll probably cost about 15-50 bucks depending on what type of quality (binding, etc).
Or you can buy it on Amazon. If you pm me I'll give you the link for the hardcopy or Kindle version. I also have a copy to loan on Kindle. |
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It is clearly not environmental or "organic" factors... it is the interaction between the two that causes behaviour (beneficial or not). Which you go on to assume for the rest of your post so I dunno maybe I am just nitpicking. Are you proposing that it is easier to change the environment than genetics/hormone levels/etc, therefore we should focus on that?
It's more than changing meds. It's about how we map our neuro-pathways. We can adapt them somewhat. Our brain has evolved to model others to at least survive, but beyond that our brains develop in ways we are only beginning to understand. Our culture is missing out by not valuing people over merit. If we all, I mean everyone, learned to see themselves in what they perceive as others, we would develop a social order based on commonality rather than otherness. We do that by allowing ourselves and our children to cultivate curiosity rather than force-feed knowledge. Everyone has tremendous capacity for skill if they are allowed to develop it, but the greatest potential we have evolved is to care about our family, tribe, and community. This is so simple, any sane person knows this. So why do we bog ourselves down with the trappings of social systems? It's because we bury our self-image that doesn't match what someone erroneously says we should conform to. They say that keen awareness of surroundings is not as valuable as memorizing the names of abstractions. We value left over right brain dominance, when they are equally powerful and we handicap the person forced to learn against his predisposition. We should teach both ways and value them equally. We need to rebuild society from the ground up and we will, someday. It won't happen in my lifetime, so I write about ways that someday we will. Maybe our progeny will someday see a world that faces problems together rather than create problems for each other. Well I'd like to read one of your books where you examine this further. Designing a robust system is hard to say the least. If you want, I'll pm you about a book I wrote a few years ago. It serves as a template for my philosophy and writing themes. I have several books in the works, but have had little time lately for writing. I plan to someday soon take a long sabbatical to finish them and write some more books. Meanwhile, the list of topics grows. Now that my kids are grown and I am getting caught up financially, I can enjoy life a little and let my demons out on paper. |
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It is clearly not environmental or "organic" factors... it is the interaction between the two that causes behaviour (beneficial or not). Which you go on to assume for the rest of your post so I dunno maybe I am just nitpicking. Are you proposing that it is easier to change the environment than genetics/hormone levels/etc, therefore we should focus on that?
It's more than changing meds. It's about how we map our neuro-pathways. We can adapt them somewhat. Our brain has evolved to model others to at least survive, but beyond that our brains develop in ways we are only beginning to understand. Our culture is missing out by not valuing people over merit. If we all, I mean everyone, learned to see themselves in what they perceive as others, we would develop a social order based on commonality rather than otherness. We do that by allowing ourselves and our children to cultivate curiosity rather than force-feed knowledge. Everyone has tremendous capacity for skill if they are allowed to develop it, but the greatest potential we have evolved is to care about our family, tribe, and community. This is so simple, any sane person knows this. So why do we bog ourselves down with the trappings of social systems? It's because we bury our self-image that doesn't match what someone erroneously says we should conform to. They say that keen awareness of surroundings is not as valuable as memorizing the names of abstractions. We value left over right brain dominance, when they are equally powerful and we handicap the person forced to learn against his predisposition. We should teach both ways and value them equally. We need to rebuild society from the ground up and we will, someday. It won't happen in my lifetime, so I write about ways that someday we will. Maybe our progeny will someday see a world that faces problems together rather than create problems for each other. |
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There have been many studies that say that the most satisfying jobs are those that involve helping people. So why are the psych professions the cause of so much drug addiction by doctors and suicides by therapists? Simple, we have put the weight of the world on their shoulders. Their 'patients' are created by our monstrous social machines that chew us up and spit us out. Anyone left behind is relegated to a community outside their own..... Ya know what... I can't talk about this anymore. This system is totally fucked for the next 5-7 generations and that's only if we start to do something about it today. That's why I quit the system. The only person I can change is me.
It is because the methods pyschs and sociologists use are largely ineffective and the people who do it know that the literature is not reliable. The anxiety/etc experienced by these people results from realizing they don't know wtf they are doing. There are people with problems who can be helped somehow, but no good, practical algorithm for figuring out how is available. The field needs to focus resources on assessing effectiveness properly and stop throwing a million sociologists with notebooks at the problem. The brain is just a really, really complex machine we don't have the schematics or source code for. If something is worth doing it is worth doing right and I have come to realize over the last year (I am a neuropharm grad student) much of biomed, psychology, and sociology is not being done right. These people need to start figuring out the power of math and real stats. I 85% agree with you except that there is a solution and it is really simple. I'll give you a hint, a big part of it is why I am in this forum. |
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Cbeast:
I love the term mental illness. It sells a lot of books. Personally, I don't believe it exists. What we perceive as depression, delusion, ADD (bullshit), schizophrenia (most diagnoses are inconclusive), etc. is nothing but our inability to cope with our own weaknesses in helping each other.
Smoke you, you blind bigot.
The suffering I've seen from delusions and hallucinations can not be simply faked. To deny its existence is to admit you have no regard for these people, which I will not question.
he did not say faking. only that your delusions happen because you can't cope. he just rejects the term "mental illness", and replaces it with "inability to cope". now please fuck off this forum, you are useless, and nobody likes you here. if what you have postulated in a lot of other threads(that you are a grate guy IRL), you don't need this forum to like you either. On 'the inability to cope.' If one believes that the most serious mental illnesses are a fabrication of the highest levels of the executive center or consciousness then you need to spend some time in the psych ward of the local hospital. Those are mostly people with real problems. Serious problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain. Now, for non acute mental illness the inability to cope due to perception and expectations may be a factor. But to give a blanket explanation for mental illness is truly asinine. Reading up on the workings of the brain begins to give one an idea of how easily the highest levels of consciousness can be persuaded and corrupted by various phenomenon that are not at all or not entirely under the control of consciousness. What makes you think that 'problems of structure and/or signaling of the brain' are not caused by environmental factors? Sure there may be infections, tumors, and various other organic pathological vectors, but a lot of damage comes from the stresses of living in the modern age. Our brains have lots of functions. It seems to be the social functions that frighten 'normal' people the most. Man is a social animal and civilization needs to allow our socialization to evolve along with our economic and technological expectations. Wouldn't it be great if we addressed the actual cause rather just treat the symptoms? This one thing that I really commend FaceBook for attempting. |
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