Solution: Get an Android phone and embrace a more open platform!  |
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To reply to the generality of comments since my last. You can wallow in the arrogance of ignorance but without businesses accepting Bitcoin, Bitcoin is dead. So you can talk the tough stuff, but it's people like these that sway public opinion and public opinion is what drives business innovation.
If the general thinking is that Bitcoin is a scam, detriment to society, etc., then it's bad for business and business will not adopt it. Period. So, Bitcoin can bypass government all it wants...that's great. But if you're also bypassing business, Bitcoin is dead. Also remember, legislators control big business. Business has much more to gain from following legislators than it does Bitcoin. (Or so they will continue to think) Tax breaks and fewer regulations is what businesses think about. These savings can equate to far larger profits than low transaction costs and anonymous transactions are mostly irrelevant to legitimate business.
Now don't get me wrong, I fully believe in Bitcoin and Crypto as a whole but mostly I still see, "waaa, waaaa, waaa" instead of anything logical or intelligent that can sway public opinion. Don't think public opinion matters? Then Bitcoin is already dead. It just hasn't laid down yet. These are of course, just my opinions. I want Bitcoin to be a success and thats the only reason I've spoken so aggressively about this topic.
Instead of being dismissive, trying leading them out from the darkside and into the light of Bitcoin through intelligent and rational commentary that clearly debunks the false propaganda being spread. Simply put, the Bitcoin community is going to have to get alot better at PR. Because mostly what I'm seeing is a disaster. Mostly...I stress...because a couple of you do have a clue so...use it.
EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it, that's what the Bitcoin community needs. A good PR firm and if you really want to go to war against false propaganda and potential legislation, a lobbying firm. Basically we've got the "Bitcoin Foundation", which for the most part seems to me, like a bunch of clowns who are letting the Bitcoin brand get assassinated at every turn. Hmmm...food for thought I suppose but the way we're going is not going to work.
The system and economics that the are defending has failed. The evidence for their flawed textbook economics is right in front of us. We have a financial system swamped with debt, riddled with moral hazard and violence used everywhere to force feed people stuff that they don't want. If anything is needed - really wanted and needed - then it can be provided through voluntary association. That is, negotiation without threats if the other person doesn't agree. If taxes can't be raised, then those who seek to take stuff from others, will have to request stuff from others. If the statist business model of steal/spend cannot function, then it will cease to be. Humans will still exist with or without them and I suspect society - genuine, freely associating, society - will flourish. |
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There was low volume because it was a weekend.
His argument, if I understood it correctly, was not the overall lack of volume, but that volume did not correspond with a positive price development, e.g. when price went up, volume was low, and the only times when volume was comparably high, the price went down. That is a correct understanding of my words: if a trend is supposed to be sustainable, it DOES need proper volume. Even BTC cannot defy those market rules. You can see this happening in different time frames - 60 minute, hourly, daily. Therefore, I simply don't trust this market under current conditions. Also price action itself (should BTC crazily enough not adhere to any volume laws) is not giving me confidence enough to "stay in". (See second chart, please) I've been looking at the market wondering what is going on too. The price seems to be cheating gravity at the moment. There seems to be a complete lack of support and then a monster order comes in on MtGox to keep the price up, just as the market is about to turn too. I've been wrong many times, mind!  |
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If I don't like Bitcoin, I can create my own version of it from its open source code. What could be more democratic and social than that?
Their interpretation of democracy is the majority ordering a minority about. It's nothing to do with the freedom of choice. |
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Lots of 'we' used incorrectly there, along with conflating society with the state.
Society can never be imposed by force; that is an oxymoron. Society is what is formed by individuals forming relationships with one another.
These people are complete dinosaurs. Time is moving on without them.
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OK, so of those three men, which is more likely to have the expertise? The man whose house is burning down, the firefighter, or the man pointing the gun at the firefighter to make him put out the fire? None of them, there are more then those three men. Those aren't the ones who decide, because you make laws before.
When there is no choice to decline the services of the state, it is theft. If every bit of work you do - which you need to do to survive - results in stuff being taken from you, it is slavery. Sugar coat it all you like, but this is the reality of the situation.
The whole point of insurance and/or subscription models is that you pay a small fee in the expectation that you are unlikely to need their services. Not subscribing and then expecting to just pay your subs on the day is laughable - you will be given the choice of the market rate for fire fighters at short notice or accepting the alternatives.
Regarding their time - it wasn't spent already. They didn't have to risk their lives putting out a fire - they could just sit in their truck.
Feel free to build up a night-watch-state like you want somewhere. But don't force your idea of freedom upon me, please.I doubt it's gonna work, but it seems like there are a lot of Bitcoiners who do (because well the decantrilzed money is one of your things) So there shoudl be quite a lot of people who are rich now or gonna be rich and could buy a small state together /at least if Bitcoin is successful. I would be excited to watch this experiment, maybe I'm wrong and it does work. I don't want to force my idea on anyone - I want to be inert in regards to you and your situation. Please just do me the dignity of granting me the same. |
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I happen to share that opinion. Where we disagree is that you think it is also good if people are forced to rescue someone.
This law basically says "don't be an ass" and I'm fine with a law forcing this. So yes, that's where the difference between our opinions is based on. You want to lock people in cages for being 'an ass'? There are some real shits on this planet, many of whom I would like nothing to do with. This doesn't mean I get to lock them in cages, just because I don't like them. Oh yes, I want to. At least the real big ones like mass murderers as a protection from let them continuing being that. Can you define 'good things' objectively? Will everyone share the same opinion? If this was the case, you wouldn't need taxation at all - people would be willing to make the sacrifices without force.
As soon as you use force, to implement some subjective 'good', you are on a slippery slope to tyranny. It's difficult but I try it by defining "suffering" and "loss of work" as bad things. We aren't talking about mass murderers here, Mr Strawman... we're talking about someone not going out of their way to help another. You want to lock people up, just for inaction (ie. the default state of an individual). How about the suffering of injured/dead fire fighters and their families? How about the loss of time that they could have been spending with them, instead of doing unpaid labour? |
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You ignore the loss incurred by the fire fighters. Their time, risk and labour is not free and they could have been doing something else.
I don't ignore it, I know they have to be paid for this, but we are discussing about the way to do so. Btw: Their time was already spent in that example. Perhaps the home owner could have agreed to give a portion of the house as payment to the fire fighters? Then there would still be a house and the fire fighters would have been compensated for their labour. A free market trade, a negotiation, a voluntary act. Oh great. "I'm a medic. I see you are dieing, well that will be 1 million $ (/10 BTC :3) to help you. Decide fast!" What we are discussing is paying $75 per year for fire protection, which those who lost their home refused to do. Therefore, the fire fighters have not been paid in this case. Yes, because this payment model is awful there was a big loss. The alternative of the fire fighters being paid via taxation is just treating everyone else as slaves; forcing people to labour, in order to extract wealth from them, is slavery.
I disagree. While there are many bad things in states that can end up in a kind of slavery-state it's not the taxation itself. If done right, it doesn't enslave anyone (my personal opinion). When there is no choice to decline the services of the state, it is theft. If every bit of work you do - which you need to do to survive - results in stuff being taken from you, it is slavery. Sugar coat it all you like, but this is the reality of the situation. The whole point of insurance and/or subscription models is that you pay a small fee in the expectation that you are unlikely to need their services. Not subscribing and then expecting to just pay your subs on the day is laughable - you will be given the choice of the market rate for fire fighters at short notice or accepting the alternatives. Regarding their time - it wasn't spent already. They didn't have to risk their lives putting out a fire - they could just sit in their truck. |
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And this is one of the basic beliefs that lead me to the opposite conclusion:
*picture*
Thank you, Penn Jillette.
Guess we can stop here, because I don't think one of us is going to convince the other. I think he is kinda wrong, as long as the force used is not doing worse things than the good things it accomplishs, it's ok. I see nothing wrong with forcing people to care at least a bit about others. But you also should do some help yourself. There is no competition for said departments, which gives little pressure for them to improve their service. This is not entirely true, you could go to another state, if you don't like yours. It's difficult though due to different languages and some regulations. Can you define 'good things' objectively? Will everyone share the same opinion? If this was the case, you wouldn't need taxation at all - people would be willing to make the sacrifices without force. As soon as you use force, to implement some subjective 'good', you are on a slippery slope to tyranny. |
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I happen to share that opinion. Where we disagree is that you think it is also good if people are forced to rescue someone.
This law basically says "don't be an ass" and I'm fine with a law forcing this. So yes, that's where the difference between our opinions is based on. You want to lock people in cages for being 'an ass'? There are some real shits on this planet, many of whom I would like nothing to do with. This doesn't mean I get to lock them in cages, just because I don't like them. |
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If the person had paid for people to put the fire out, the house wouldn't have been lost. The cost of the loss falls on the home owner too, who now no longer has a home, because they didn't pay a small fee. community wealth - 1 house. And it will not be the only one. "If's" aren't gonna change that. You can't just demand people to do stuff for you - that's slavery. How about the loss of time to the fire fighters? How about their loss of life if they are killed while fighting the fire? It's the job they accepted to do and are paid for (at least in our society), so it's not slavery. You ignore the loss incurred by the fire fighters. Their time, risk and labour is not free and they could have been doing something else. Perhaps the home owner could have agreed to give a portion of the house as payment to the fire fighters? Then there would still be a house and the fire fighters would have been compensated for their labour. A free market trade, a negotiation, a voluntary act. What we are discussing is paying $75 per year for fire protection, which those who lost their home refused to do. Therefore, the fire fighters have not been paid in this case. The alternative of the fire fighters being paid via taxation is just treating everyone else as slaves; forcing people to labour, in order to extract wealth from them, is slavery. |
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...snip...
Inefficient? Paying $75 a year in subs is hardly complicated.
The car on my drive is paid for too, but that doesn't mean get to threaten me if I don't chauffeur you around in it.
Its inefficient on 2 levels: 1. The value of the house has been lost - for all you know the owner had senile dementia or was illiterate or had some other perfectly valid reason for sucking at paperwork. So wealth has been destroyed for no good reason. 2. its cheaper to collect things like the costs of police, roads, fire service, schools and health through the tax system than to have separate bureacracies for each. So even if everyone pays the $75, its still inefficient. 1. If they had paid their $75, they wouldn't have lost their house. If they needed advice, they should have requested it - even the state could help them to pay their voluntary $75, rather than just demanding it. 2. Stealing stuff may be easier for the thief, but it removes the choice of the victim. It may be more efficient for me to come and take your car, rather than earning + buying one from a dealer too. I assume you are against such actions? BTW, there are many inefficient state departments which would never survive in a voluntary model. I don't know where you get the idea from that the state is efficient, tbh. Again, there may have been a valid reason for the person not paying $75. You want to make this a morality play - it's not. Taxation is the most efficient way to pay for services like police, fire, defence and the like. Unless you are a bureaucrat yourself, you would have no interest in creating parallel billing systems for such services. Someone may have a valid reason for not paying a tax, but that doesn't stop the state throwing them in jail. If someone can't figure out how to pay £75 a year for insurance, they have bigger problems... such as buying food. Let's stop with this silly excuse. Taxation is not an efficient way to pay for monopolistic services. There is no competition for said departments, which gives little pressure for them to improve their service. Even if they were more efficient, it doesn't justify using force to make everyone pay for them, whether they use/want them or not. |
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The firemen didn't destroy anything - the fire did. The firemen didn't start the fire either.
The firemen are not slaves of foolish home owners. If home owners want them to labour on their behalf, using their equipment, then they should pay the firemen to do it.
Moreover, they should take steps to avoid their house burning down. Fire alarms, sprinkler systems, fire buckets/blankets, not smoking in doors etc - all would reduce their premium. Not asking for people to pay for insurance creates a free rider problem - why should they invest in ways to prevent fires, when they can just call someone to put it out for 'free'?
Requesting insurance and/or subscriptions to service providers is hardly disorganised. It is voluntary and allows people to pay for what they need.
This is exactly one of the points I have a problem with. Yes the fireman didn't destroy anything. Do you know the term "non-assistance of a person in danger"? There is a reason for it to exist. If you watch the house burn over a $75, you have lost the worth of the house for your society. You can claim they were stupid all that you want, the work this house with built with is destroyed and lost. You have to view voluntarism for its core - the rejection of using aggression to gain advantage. How things are arranged after force is removed is a matter of negotiation. While you (or I) can ponder endlessly about how things could work, it doesn't change the principle behind the philosophy and better ways will probably thought of by others anyway. Despite my problems with it, I would like to see one state working like this to see if it can work out/what problems it has. If the person had paid for people to put the fire out, the house wouldn't have been lost. The cost of the loss falls on the home owner too, who now no longer has a home, because they didn't pay a small fee. You can't just demand people to do stuff for you - that's slavery. How about the loss of time to the fire fighters? How about their loss of life if they are killed while fighting the fire? |
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...snip...
Inefficient? Paying $75 a year in subs is hardly complicated.
The car on my drive is paid for too, but that doesn't mean get to threaten me if I don't chauffeur you around in it.
Its inefficient on 2 levels: 1. The value of the house has been lost - for all you know the owner had senile dementia or was illiterate or had some other perfectly valid reason for sucking at paperwork. So wealth has been destroyed for no good reason. 2. its cheaper to collect things like the costs of police, roads, fire service, schools and health through the tax system than to have separate bureacracies for each. So even if everyone pays the $75, its still inefficient. 1. If they had paid their $75, they wouldn't have lost their house. If they needed advice, they should have requested it - even the state could help them to pay their voluntary $75, rather than just demanding it. 2. Stealing stuff may be easier for the thief, but it removes the choice of the victim. It may be more efficient for me to come and take your car, rather than earning + buying one from a dealer too. I assume you are against such actions? BTW, there are many inefficient state departments which would never survive in a voluntary model. I don't know where you get the idea from that the state is efficient, tbh. |
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...snip...
If they were mortgage free and didn't pay, well, that's pretty dumb isn't it? If someone ends ends up losing their house due to such stupidity, they only have themselves to blame.
Really, this sort of stuff isn't complicated.
Blaming people for a mistake is fine. Destroying their home over a $75 fee is not. It may feel clever to say "Sucks to be you" but that is not a valid basis for organising a society. The firemen didn't destroy anything - the fire did. The firemen didn't start the fire either. The firemen are not slaves of foolish home owners. If home owners want them to labour on their behalf, using their equipment, then they should pay the firemen to do it. Moreover, they should take steps to avoid their house burning down. Fire alarms, sprinkler systems, fire buckets/blankets, not smoking in doors etc - all would reduce their premium. Not asking for people to pay for insurance creates a free rider problem - why should they invest in ways to prevent fires, when they can just call someone to put it out for 'free'? Requesting insurance and/or subscriptions to service providers is hardly disorganised. It is voluntary and allows people to pay for what they need. Its also the most inefficient possible way of doing things. The fire truck was paid for - it was at the fire - it watched the home burn down because someone wanted to make a point. Inefficient? Paying $75 a year in subs is hardly complicated. The car on my drive is paid for too, but that doesn't mean get to threaten me if I don't chauffeur you around in it. |
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...snip...
If they were mortgage free and didn't pay, well, that's pretty dumb isn't it? If someone ends ends up losing their house due to such stupidity, they only have themselves to blame.
Really, this sort of stuff isn't complicated.
Blaming people for a mistake is fine. Destroying their home over a $75 fee is not. It may feel clever to say "Sucks to be you" but that is not a valid basis for organising a society. The firemen didn't destroy anything - the fire did. The firemen didn't start the fire either. The firemen are not slaves of foolish home owners. If home owners want them to labour on their behalf, using their equipment, then they should pay the firemen to do it. Moreover, they should take steps to avoid their house burning down. Fire alarms, sprinkler systems, fire buckets/blankets, not smoking in doors etc - all would reduce their premium. Not asking for people to pay for insurance creates a free rider problem - why should they invest in ways to prevent fires, when they can just call someone to put it out for 'free'? Requesting insurance and/or subscriptions to service providers is hardly disorganised. It is voluntary and allows people to pay for what they need. |
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Taxes are needed.
1. I don't go to school, and my kids are not old enough, and will go to private when they are.
Why should I have to pay for schools? If I had the choice I wouldn't.
2. I hardly use the roads, and when I go long distance, I pay a toll to use the road.
Why should I be paying for roads all over the state of Florida? If I had the choice I wouldn't.
3. I don't go to hospitals, why should I pay for others to go? Don't get yourself injured.
I hardly leave my house, why should I pay because some idiot ran into a tree on his motorcycle?
As you can see, I'm selfish, just like most of the population. If I don't use it, why pay for it?
Though, knowing society will fall without everyone else to using my money, I will pay up.
Those are valid questions, though i don't see why society would fall because you're sitting home alone, unmolested. If no one was paying money into things they don't use, society will fall. You are right but brace yourself for frantic whines of people who insist that the time to charge for a fire service is when the fire has already started. Where I live, my taxes pay for this. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefighters-let-home-burn-over-75-fee-again?liteImagine all over the country, the people who lost their house, or almost lost their house due to fire. How much of the population would actually pay 'donations' to the fire department? What sort of mortgage company would secure a loan against a house with no fire insurance? It is the asset they seek to reclaim if you default - they want it kept in good condition. Even if a mortgage company was flexible, the mortgage rate would increase to cover their risk. If they were mortgage free and didn't pay, well, that's pretty dumb isn't it? If someone ends ends up losing their house due to such stupidity, they only have themselves to blame. Really, this sort of stuff isn't complicated. |
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Just allow subscription to state services to be voluntary. The rest will sort itself out as/when people are ready.
You don't need to list endless "what about the X, what about the Y" etc. Solutions will be found to such problems. You just need to ask yourself whether it is acceptable to use force to make people do stuff or not.
It's interesting that these debates are becoming more frequent. A few years ago, voluntarists/anarchists were very few in numbers. Now they are all over the place. That's what I call progress.
A voluntary subscription could work maybe. But I'm not quite sure how you could sort it out. Should you control everyone using the road built by the money of voluntary subscribers? At least that's a way better claim than those pure anarchistic ones. Going cold turkey would not be good. People need to educate themselves, to understand the nature of the state and their relationship with it. Too many think of the state as 'us' and suggest that 'we' need to do X, Y and Z. This isn't true. The state isn't society - it is the antithesis of society. Those who believe in a strong society, see that the state is not needed at all. BTW, 'what about the roads?!' is a bit of an in joke in voluntarist/anarchist circles! There are many ways to solve the problem, as with everything. Perhaps you could replace state tax disks (UK) with a private subscription model. Said subscription could give access to a region free of charge, with other areas requiring one off fees. For local estates, perhaps a cooperative would be a good model, with people buying in to a portion of the road when they buy their house. This would be pretty similar to maintenance fees in apartment blocks, for example. Still, the roads question has had entire books written about it, so don't take my suggestions as the only ones - people are ingenious and they find solutions to problems all of the time. I don't worry about that at all, tbh. Roads are good to use as example I guess, because you can imagine problems there. What if somebody owns a pass that is the only good way to get to somewhere (maybe because there are mountains in the way or whatever) He could charge ridicilously high fees to let people use his way. I could imagine a lot of scenarious abusing similar things, because if people can do it, they will do it (at least some of them). Two points: 1) Roads could be based on subscription models, where every subscriber has a share (and say) in the organisation. You could have annual auctions, where the costs are split over the subscriber base, for example. Getting from where we are now, the state could gift the roads to such cooperative style organisations to begin with. Later on, people may decide to only support roads which adopt this sort of model (and boycott others etc). 2) Monopolising a location is arguably an act of aggression. There is no evidence that you can 'own' a location, as you can't create that spot in time and space - you can only occupy it. If you refuse to share the location, then you are monopolising it. Therefore, you can argue that people can demand damages, if someone is seeking rent (from a location monopoly) including road owners. That isn't to say they don't own the asphalt, lights etc, but that doesn't imply ownership of a location. Now, 1 is pretty straightforward - it is essentially pushing power down down/out from the centre. It also means that costs are localised to those who need to use those roads, based on their requirements. 2 is a more nuanced argument, but in a voluntarist society, courts will constantly be trying to define where the non-aggression principle is being ignored. I suspect monopolisation of locations would become an important issue and community land licenses may become popular (I wrote about this here, if you're interested: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=185849&st=0). You have to view voluntarism for its core - the rejection of using aggression to gain advantage. How things are arranged after force is removed is a matter of negotiation. While you (or I) can ponder endlessly about how things could work, it doesn't change the principle behind the philosophy and better ways will probably thought of by others anyway. |
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Just allow subscription to state services to be voluntary. The rest will sort itself out as/when people are ready.
You don't need to list endless "what about the X, what about the Y" etc. Solutions will be found to such problems. You just need to ask yourself whether it is acceptable to use force to make people do stuff or not.
It's interesting that these debates are becoming more frequent. A few years ago, voluntarists/anarchists were very few in numbers. Now they are all over the place. That's what I call progress.
A voluntary subscription could work maybe. But I'm not quite sure how you could sort it out. Should you control everyone using the road built by the money of voluntary subscribers? At least that's a way better claim than those pure anarchistic ones. Going cold turkey would not be good. People need to educate themselves, to understand the nature of the state and their relationship with it. Too many think of the state as 'us' and suggest that 'we' need to do X, Y and Z. This isn't true. The state isn't society - it is the antithesis of society. Those who believe in a strong society, see that the state is not needed at all. BTW, 'what about the roads?!' is a bit of an in joke in voluntarist/anarchist circles! There are many ways to solve the problem, as with everything. Perhaps you could replace state tax disks (UK) with a private subscription model. Said subscription could give access to a region free of charge, with other areas requiring one off fees. For local estates, perhaps a cooperative would be a good model, with people buying in to a portion of the road when they buy their house. This would be pretty similar to maintenance fees in apartment blocks, for example. Still, the roads question has had entire books written about it, so don't take my suggestions as the only ones - people are ingenious and they find solutions to problems all of the time. I don't worry about that at all, tbh. |
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Interesting to hear about some big investors piling in. It sounds like people are starting to take Bitcoin a lot more seriously!
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