Yes.

But then you lose the anonymity of the currency which is one of its biggest appeals.  If the government can force the credit bureaus to give up people's addresses or if a hacker could steal the information then you are not really anonymous, correct?

Apologies to the mods for double-posting if that sort of thing is frowned upon, but I wanted to answer this question in a separate post for clarity.

You seem to feel like I have straw-manned your position.  I'm not sure why.  I was replying to Hawker's post, which was a reply to a post by Bind.  All I was saying is that, yes, it's true that democracies tend to treat their people better than dictatorships and feudal monarchies, but it's important to keep in mind that they sometimes commit horrible atrocities upon the citizens of other nations.  Democracies aren't completely benevolent and peaceful like many people seem to think.  I just feel it's important to remember this.  That's the only point I was trying to make.

That's reasonable.  I'm not convinced that any of those are done more efficiently by the government and that courts cannot exist without the state, but at the moment I don't have a compelling argument to support my position.  It's something I'd like to research more as I have time.  Reading your posts in this thread have given me some new angles to approach the questions from.

To me this is still not an adequate definition.  Saving more than you can "use" is a sufficiently abstract and nebulous concept that I don't consider it useful to discuss without further clarification.



Ah, very well then.  The tendency from central banks seems to be the opposite of your example, whereupon governments attempt to stimulate spending by increasing the money supply which actually puts a downward force on the value of the currency.  There's certainly a tremendous amount of economic literature regarding credit and interest from a wide variety of sources.

So if it could be proved that such a system could exist without a state would you reevaluate your ideology?

I agree.  I also read that his first post announcing bitcoins had American spelling and subsequent ones used the British spelling.  A gimmick?  Maybe Joshua Davis should have been looking for an American at that cryptology conference.

Is that a "no, courts cannot exist without state"?

Can courts only exist with a state? Why or why not?

I think the irony is that even if Iran quit their nuclear program some time ago as certain intelligence agencies have suggested, they are likely to start it up again if the US and Europe remain belligerent. The Iranians are smart enough to learn the lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan versus North Korea.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Thanks for the reply BadBear. I'll attempt to make sure posts are on topic.

Hawker, I believe you are conflating law with the State. Law can and has existed without the State. You do need law in order to have property rights. You are correct in saying that, but I don't think you are correct to assume that without a State there can be no law. Whether law under a State is more just, or efficient or desirable is a different argument.

Define hoarding. Is it different than normal saving? How?

I'm not sure how you got that from what I said and the text I bolded.  Democracies have historically treated their people fairly well when compared to dictatorships and feudal monarchies.  However, there are many examples of democratic countries visiting great harm upon the peoples of other nations.  The United States and Vietnam, for one example.

Well, they probably would have been considered off-topic.  Are posts actually removed in this forum because they discuss Satoshi Nakamoto?

Anyway, I thought the article was interesting because people are apparently actively trying to track down the true identity of Satoshi.  The reporter in that article was assuming he was British because of the spelling in his posts.  I bet he's laughing his ass off right now because he faked the British spelling.

When dealing with their own people. 

You're saying people choose to vote in politicians instead of undergoing weapons training themselves.  He's saying that that may be an ineffective method to accomplish the goal of self-protection.  How is that off topic?

That's fair.  I don't share your belief that it works the way in reality that its supposed to in theory, but I can respect your position. 

All governments rest upon the consent of the people when you get down to the most fundamental level.  Often people will put up with a very large amount of oppression before they finally have had enough (see Egypt), but ultimately the State requires the intellectual sanction of the populace.  Libertarians, anarchists, socialists and everyone else should approach the matter by attempting to peacefully persuade others to their position.  By and large, this is what happens. 

From my perspective the arguments usually boil down to arguments over economics and arguments over value scales.  The economic arguments are a shame, as economics is something that should be able to be objectively decided, but arguments over value scales are usually completely pointless due to the subjectivity of the subject matter. 

The topic is "Free markets and social problems".  The discussion has already deviated a little from that as discussions tend to do, so why do you unilaterally get to decide what is "on topic" and what isn't?  You don't.  It's a valid point given the parameters of the previous posts.

You pay rent to the apartment owner because he owns the apartment; it's a transaction.  Quid pro quo.  You pay him a monthly sum of money in exchange for the privilege of living on his property.

To extrapolate where I think you are going: we pay rent to the State because the State owns the entire geographic area under its jurisdiction.  Is that correct?