It seems like most I've encountered who are opposed to Austrian economics are also ignorant of it.
"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."–Murray N. Rothbard.
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I just thought the idea was that the more people running the bitcoin client, the stronger the network. If only 30 people with specialized high-power mining setups are doing all the mining (and several mining pools) then you'll have a less secure network as there will be far fewer points of failure, right? I'm not trying to be the newbie who thinks he found the crack in bitcoin's armour. This is probably a non-issue as enough people will keep mining even for diminished returns on bitcoins, and additionally some will runt the client to support the network even without expecting to gain any bitcoins from it. Thoughts?
People will also run the client for the sake of collecting transaction fees. Perhaps I don't understand the system completely (highly likely). Do you have to be generating coins to be part of the network, or do you simply have to have the client running on your computer? I thought generating the coins was how individuals supported the network by verifying previous bitcoin transactions. |
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Just because someone supports bitcoins that doesn't mean the person is an Austrian as far as their economic beliefs.
I feel that government stimulus does have a place in revitalizing the economy and that the reason for the recent stimulus failing was not because Keynes was fundamentally wrong but because it was aimed at the wrong people, the rich, who chose to save it, not the poor, who would have spent immediately and started money circulating.
That's fine. There's no assumption that all bitcoiners follow the Austrian school of economic thought. If it was assumed that all bitcoiners were Austrians then the post would probably be titled "Economic Study Group", with the implicit understanding that all the books to be read were Austrian. However, the post title clearly states it is for those who are interested in Austrian economics. If you disagree with Austrian economics you don't have to post on this thread. If you would like to learn about Austrian economics and are open-minded enough to seriously consider its ideas then by all means stick around.  |
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I will warn you he does get a bit verbose and tends to repeat himself to hammer points home
Yes, I'm discovering that. I'm up to page 100, and have been noticing some wishy-washy "filler" creeping in here and there. Yep. Persevere through it though, the conclusions he makes throughout the Chapters are worth the extra repetition of ideas. |
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...I'm fairly new to anarcho-capitalism and don't have the exposure some you probably do, and this book really solved a lot of the theoretical issues I had with the theory.
One of the things that the state does, is to turn subsets of society against each other. Each group clamors to be awarded a bigger share of candy (i.e. confiscated property) by the government, to the detriment of the rest of society. As soon as you take away the state, it's more productive for people to co-operate. I had become aware of this empirically over the years, but I hadn't seen it explained in this way before, by focusing on the nature of property. I also found the tie-in with entropy interesting. Total entropy (disorder) in the universe is always increasing. But living organisms take in energy and can achieve a local decrease in entropy - not just in their bodies, but also in the things they create: their property. I've never thought about property and entropy like that before. It's brilliant, isn't it? He founds his definition of property in life itself, and ties biology and social reasoning together. I've always heard of property rights justified by "Natural rights" or "God-given rights", but these are subjective in themselves. He defines property as a necessary component of human life itself. I will warn you he does get a bit verbose and tends to repeat himself to hammer points home, but it's well worth reading through the whole thing. |
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The incentive for independent miners seems to be quickly decreasing, because the average person can't just download bitcoin, fire up his computer and expect to generate any coins in a reasonable period of time. So it seems like the tendency will be towards group mining or people just won't bother to run the application.
Specialisation of labour. Should I say more? I just thought the idea was that the more people running the bitcoin client, the stronger the network. If only 30 people with specialized high-power mining setups are doing all the mining (and several mining pools) then you'll have a less secure network as there will be far fewer points of failure, right? I'm not trying to be the newbie who thinks he found the crack in bitcoin's armour. This is probably a non-issue as enough people will keep mining even for diminished returns on bitcoins, and additionally some will runt the client to support the network even without expecting to gain any bitcoins from it. Thoughts? |
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Thank you for this recommendation. I'm up to page 50 now, and finding it interesting and worthwhile.
No problem. I'm fairly new to anarcho-capitalism and don't have the exposure some you probably do, and this book really solved a lot of the theoretical issues I had with the theory. |
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I will be fucking lots of people in our future anarcho capitalist society; they will all enjoy it.
 This book sounds good.
Oh sweet, mises has the pdf. I already want to send this guy my bitcoins.
Exactly. That's the best thing about libertarian literature. |
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Has anyone else read this book? I just finished it a few days ago and it blew my mind. Butler Shaffer describes how private property is essential for social systems to function correctly, where people treat each with respect and respect themselves as well. A lot of people seem to have the misconception that anarcho-capitalists are strident individualists who just want to watch out for themselves and fuck everyone else and that an anarcho-capitalist society would lack the social aspect necessary for most people to thrive. Shaffer destroys this misconception. And he does it so beautifully. I highly recommend this book.
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As previously mentioned, Economics in One Lesson. Also The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard and How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes, Peter Schiff. As djoot said go to Mises.org. There's more material there, in the form of pdfs, podcasts, articles, videos, etc, then you could read in a life time.
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The incentive for independent miners seems to be quickly decreasing, because the average person can't just download bitcoin, fire up his computer and expect to generate any coins in a reasonable period of time. So it seems like the tendency will be towards group mining or people just won't bother to run the application.
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Satoshi is actually the first self-aware Japanese robot. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Battlestar Galactica wasn't just science fiction, but rather prophecy. Satoshi is the missing cylon. Just kidding. ........  See, he definitely is a human, male. I think. |
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The best way to obtain bitcoins, in my opinion, is to buy them.
I think that too but we should not discourage people for mining. The more miners there are, the stronger is the network. You guys are doubtless correct, and I plan on purchasing bitcoins at some point soon, but there is an addictive adventure side to the mining process. It's like the gold fever of the California gold rush.  |
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Hmm, since my wife would kill me if I set up a CPU farm of several dozen computers in our house, perhaps I should go the route of a single miner with a reasonably powerful GPU. (Also the landlord would probably start wondering I was growing marijuana when he noticed the electric bill.) |
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A 100 years later, its time to celebrate. http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/11/fed-at-jekyll-island-theyre-baaack.htmlWell isn't this cute?
Just days after the Federal Reserve will announce it has launched QE2, the Fed will hold a major conference at Jekyll Island, celebrating the secret meeting held 100 years ago that resulted in the creation of the Fed.
The island is off the coast of the U.S. state of Georgia.
In November 1910, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews, and other top financiers,arrived at the Jekyll Island Club to discuss monetary policy and the banking system. The secret meetings led to the creation of the Federal Reserve.
Forbes magazine founder Bertie Charles Forbes wrote several years later:
...................... Bastards. That's all I have to say. |
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Hey, I just discovered this thread. Is this still happening or did it die? I think it's a great idea and would love to join, especially if it focuses on monetary issues.
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Hells yeah. The Austrians are my heroes.
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This is awesome. I love this forum. I think my former econ teacher met the President of Iceland at an economics conference. It's only a 2-degree separation but rather tenuous. I'll have to check up on it.
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Interesting article, I brought the subject up back when the first pool switched from current power to the contributed method, but I don't think anyone responded.
Switching back to connected mode would completely solve this problem. I liked connected mode (and puddinpop's pool in general) better, anyway -- you get larger payments less often. Maybe once a contributed-mode pool has stalled, everyone will move to a connected-mode pool. It is a neat psychology + game theory situation. People seem to prefer the contributed method to connected, but as soon as shares are owed (so instantly) the right move is it switch to a connected pool if it is available. But if the herd all prefers contributed then you will be on the connected server alone and now you don't have the benefit of reduced variance. As some 'serious' miners decide to accept the variance and move to the slightly higher EV pool others may follow and variance will drop at that pool and now there are only psychological reasons to stay at the contributed pool. As we know from poker though people can persist in low value emotionally pleasing situations for a long long time. Eh? What is the difference between the "contributed" and "connected" methods? I haven't read Ryo's paper, so maybe I'm missing context. |
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According to Ryo's paper, your old towers will not be profitable if you pay for electricity.
I don't pay for electricity. I'm just wondering if I should invest in getting a graphics card or whether that will pay off in the long run. I've been offered several free towers by some friends already, but the problem is connecting them to the internet. At the place I rent all we have is Wii-Fii so I would need wii-fii cards for each tower. The other option would be to set them up at school (where I also don't have to pay for electricity) but I'm not sure of the legal implications of that yet. It might be regarded as a "money-making" venture and therefore not allowed on school property. From what I've read on this forum one decent graphics card is worth many, many CPUs as far as processing power goes. |
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