So I run blisterpool.com (simple p2pool node + layer of bonuses), and this asshole decides to try to extort 2btc from me. My node has been under a ddos attack for about 2-3 hours now.

I get an email to all my addresses, and then finally a message on here a few minutes ago. Copy/pasta of message:

===============================================================================================
DD4BC
Newbie
*
Online Online

Activity: 1



View Profile  Personal Message (Online)
Trust: -11: -2 / +0(0)
Warning: Trade with extreme caution!
HELLO?
« Sent to: Hunterbunter on: Today at 04:02:32 PM »
Reply with quoteQuote  ReplyReply  Remove this messageDelete 
Hello

Your mining server is extremely vulnerable to ddos attacks

I want to offer you info how to properly setup your protection, so that you can't be ddosed, at least not with so little power.
My price is 2 Bitcoin only.


Right now I'm running small (very small) attack which will not crash your server, but you should notice it in logs. Just check it.

If I increase the attack size, I could completely crash, it would drop all connections and damage would be big...
Don't worry, I will not do it. Smiley


I want to offer you  info on how I did it and what you have to do to prevent it. If interested pay me 2 BTC to 17aLGgw8AwJdqiBtMMG1QtQJgNQQkiyEsp


Thank you.
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Serious question, I haven't used it but I'm curious about what keeps people there when 51% potential attacks rear their ugly heads.

Hey all, I just want to announce that I've added a p2pool donation tool to blisterpool, to help encourage people to mine on p2pool. You can find it here: http://blisterpool.com/p2pdonate

It doesn't do anything anyone can't do already, all you need is bitcoind and p2pool running to do it manually, and all I've done is compile the process to make it more convenient for those less technically inclined. As such, I don't charge a fee for the service, but you can leave a tip if you wish.

It's intended for two kinds of people:

1) Philanthropists who want to provide an extra incentive for people to use P2Pool, to protect the blockchain, and
2) Businesses who want to protect their assets by encouraging more decentralized mining, to better avert 51% attacks.

Someone on reddit mentioned they wanted a way to regularly pay a portion of their bitcoin profits (1% in their case), to encourage smaller / decentralized pool, which inspired me to make this tool.

I want to be able to just fund a bitcoin address given to me by the registrar, and the registrar withdraw payment as necessary when it is due for renewal. Is this possible anywhere?

All I've seen during my search require you to either manually go through a third party payment processor, or manually set up a renewal order so it can't be automated (without a credit card). A manual setup is fine, but I want to be able to let scripts handle it after that. Very frustrating.

When I say buy domain names with bitcoin, I'm not talking about those that use services like bitpay, etc.

I'm talking about a domain registrar that assigns me a bitcoin address, allows me to fund the account directly through there, and whenever a renewal is due, it takes it from the account at current market rate.

I never have to make a purchase order (or if I do, it can be done via API).

Anyone know if there are any registrars out there that can handle this?

[update: June bonus has been increased to 20%! The server fee has increased to 10% to ensure the default payout remains above the 0.001 btc limit for P2Pool, so the devcoin payout will be approx 33% of the actual bitcoins you receive (20% from the bonus, plus 10% returned from the fee). When the server doesn't get a default payout, it doesn't trigger the devcoin payment, so I need to do this to avoid having to make manual payments.Keep in mind it takes up to 3 days to reach your full mining potential on P2Pool, so if you're going to commit, do it for at least a week to get the maximum payout possible]

update: June bonus has been increased to 20%! The server fee has increased to 10% to ensure the default payout remains above the 0.001 btc limit for P2Pool, so the devcoin payout will be approx 33% of the actual bitcoins you receive (20% from the bonus, plus 10% returned from the fee). When the server doesn't get a default payout, it doesn't trigger the devcoin payment, so I need to do this to avoid having to make manual payments.

Keep in mind it takes up to 3 days to reach your full mining potential on P2Pool, so if you're going to commit, do it for at least a week to get the maximum payout possible

Hey all, I just wanted to announce that http://blisterpool.com is paying out 105% 110% value for the month of May.

It's based off a p2pnode with a 2% fee, and is paying that back plus an extra 510% of the pool throughput in devcoins (based on live dvc/btc market rates), which can either be traded at market or held as you please.

Bonus payments will begin on May 1st, 2014, and will continue until the server has finished testing a new devcoin client (probably at least a month, likely for 3). The bonus is coming from devcoin investors (including myself) to help test the software.

The way it works is the pool charges the 2% p2pool fee to get a baseline for throughput, then calculates the total pool payout from there, and miners get a portion of that based on their hash area since the last block was found. It works out to a 5% bonus value over regular pool mining.

For example, if you expect to earn 1 btc from a regular p2pool payout, and are on blisterpool, you'll receive 0.98 btc to your bitcoin address, and approx 0.07142 btc worth of devcoins at market rate to your devcoin address, which you can do what you like with. Initially I'll do it semi-automatically, but it'll be fully automated soon enough.

If there's a huge surge of hash power that I don't expect to be able to cover (eg more than 20 TH/s for a month), I will reduce the bonus rate as necessary and announce it here or on the main page.

You can connect just like any other p2pool:

blisterpool.com:9332 -u <bitcoin address> -x password

before you connect, if you want the bonus dvc you have to go to the main page and put in the bitcoin address you'll be using as well as the devcoin address you want to receive coins on.

Hi guys,

I'm looking for miners to join my p2pool node, so as a bonus I'm paying out 60dvc per GH/s per day, paid weekly until the end of March - longer depending on my reserve funds. It's a 0% pool (for at least the next couple of months), which also pays a bonus % from any merged coins found (on top of the 60 dvc per GH/s per day), so it's a 100%+ payout pool.

All you need is to register a bitcoin address and devcoin address pair on the main site (http://blisterpool.com), and point your miners to stratum+tcp://blisterpool.com:9332 using your bitcoin address as the username and x (or whatever) as the password.

I'm building the pool to try and get some increased payments to open source developers on the bitcoin and devcoin share lists, plus test a new devcoin client that we've been working on, and I need hashpower!

More Info: http://blisterpool.com

Just to clarify, the pool is essentially paying 120% what you'd get from any other pool right now, just for mining on it for a few weeks!

[Note for large investors:]

Note for large investors: private (non-glbse) arrangements are possible. PM to discuss.

THE IPO:
Battalion: Genesis, a 3D video game set in 2252 AD needs you! Well, investors, that is. This Initial Public Offering is a serious attempt aimed at raising funds to support this real world project, with an estimated 12-18 months of development remaining.

Ticker? BTGN
Date? Some time in September 2012, possibly early October.
Price? 10,000 shares are going up for grabs initially, so for a 1% stake in net profit you would be looking to own 500 shares. The IPO (on GLBSE) will offer shares at the following rates:
3000 @ 0.95 btc per share
4000 @ 1.00 btc per share
3000 @ 1.05 btc per share
Each share entitles the holder to a monthly payment of 0.002% of net profits from unit sales of the project, for no less than 3 years after official release, plus at any time prior to official release.

So what are the details?
This IPO of 10,000 shares will be allocated 20% of total net profits from sale of the game for no less than 3 years after release (0.002% of total net profit per share). It is expected to sell in the vicinity of 100k units, with an expected net income of around $10/sale should it appear on Steam, and $15 from direct sale, both based on $24.95 purchase. There is definitely potential for 1m+ sales, and a break-even requirement of approx 60k units. This genre (space) is picking up speed and interest, and is still looking for a modern killer app. The reason for the 3 years, is that since this is a project investment and not a business investment, and the vast majority of sales typically occur in the first 12 months of a game's release, 3 years is the time expected to generate nearly all of the revenue. Should revenue still be strong after 3 years, there is no reason for this to stop - I just want to be able to lower my maintenance if income diminishes to a trivial amount (eg $100/month). There will possibly be an arrangement made to purchase outstanding stock at this time, and shut down returning all remaining liquid equity to shareholders. Investment in this project does not give the investor any rights to the Intellectual Property of the game, as they are owned by myself and given to the project while it exists.

I am seeking funding to cover regular bills (via salary), software licenses, equipment and any outsourcing or contractor hire over this time. Should enough funding be made available, further developers will be hired to either speed or increase production value. Any further issued shares will be exactly matched by an increase in the portion of net profits allocated - that is, if 10,000 more shares are issued after the initial 10,000, 40% of net profit will be allocated to all shares instead of 20%. This means there will be no effect on the ROI for existing shares (0.002% of total net profit per share), and there is an ultimate cap of 50,000 shares, but selling all of those would leave nothing for me. I intend to sell a 20% stake of my future earnings on this game to achieve the above, and will sell more if necessary to hit deadline.

I am only issuing 10k shares on GLBSE, and not 50k while keeping 40k myself, to save unnecessary overhead (paying myself dividends). I intend to keep my portion of income in a mixture of fiat and btc, and I don't want to unnecessarily waste money in exchange. This also means I cannot sell my own offline share of future earnings on the open market, and I will not be personally profiting directly from this IPO, except for the ability to regularly draw a salary as lead developer. All funds raised in this IPO will belong to the project and will be accounted for. I will also be paying all dividends in btc via the GLBSE interface.

I have been working on this both full time and part time so far, with approximately 1 year full time equivalent development under my belt, and would like to continue full time but to do so I will now need investor support. I have been producing this under my own steam so far and was ready to continue, but due to a significant one-off  event in my personal life, my finances have been drained too much to be able to achieve this sensibly. I have a very clear vision of the final product, and the innovative gameplay I am going to offer, so instead of wasting time and momentum working elsewhere to save and self-support again, I'm seeking capital on GLBSE or through investors and offering a cut of profits in return.

The Game Itself
The best way to describe the gameplay, is to imagine if Battlezone II, Homeworld and Tie Fighter had an orgy spawning an awesome ninja space faring offspring, you would be playing this game. Also he was mentored by Chuck Norris. It is a  FPS/tactical RTS set in Newtonian space in a conflict between Earth and human colonized Mars, and is currently pre-alpha. This is also your chance to own a piece of it before everyone knows about it.

I am dedicated to completing this task, and all of the ground work already laid has been produced under my own steam. I also expect to be fully verified on GLBSE (I have already submitted all info), and will keep the relevant financial details available on google docs. There is not much to show right now, but this will go online soon. By investing in this project, you are helping to bring to life an exciting piece of the explosive video game market, as well as sharing in it's rewards. This IPO is not a stake in future projects, but in the earnings from this specific project. Should I setup a business producing games, I may sell shares of that in the future.

More details of the game already under production, including screenshots, videos and even a test download can be found at: http://www.blisteringdevelopers.com/blog/
For a more detailed background storyline and gameplay description, see here: http://www.blisteringdevelopers.com/blog/about/

Risks that may affect ROI

1) Space is "in" but may soon be "out" - There are several games set in space that have been released recently, as well as a few on the horizon, and most aren't selling well. How will this effect BTNG?
The lack of space games has indeed driven the production of several games recently. However, all games so far have tried to recapture old ground (4X or Sandbox), and none have been set in our own solar system. BTNG's storyline is based around a local conflict between Earth and Mars, after Mars has been colonized. The gameplay is also unseen on the market, so its innovation will be an advantage. I am not looking to steal market share from these other games, but to offer such a unique experience that people would want both. I've also been studying this topic furiously over the past two years. I believe I am bringing a unique product to market, and as is common with such things, time is of the essence.

2) You don't have a large team working on the game, what if it never finishes?
This is an understandable concern, considering I'm essentially doing this on my own at the moment. I have been working on the game both part time and full time over the last two years, and I have been logging the hours during this time. From this I have a good idea of my pace and can reasonably estimate a return on investment by December 2013 if I can apply my craft full time. I am personally committed to seeing this completed and it has become somewhat of a personal challenge to see this through. Previous to this I set up and ran a simmer sauce manufacturing business (www.ameetshomestyle.com) on a dime, so I do have experience in organizing complex problems into more manageable chunks to create a cohesive, commercial grade whole, all on a deadline. I am also looking for a significant amount of investment, mainly because I believe that under capitalization is a sure fire way to going nowhere quickly, and should I need outsourced expertise (especially artwork/modeling/texturing), capital will allow me to hire the required talent.

3) BTC volatility, what if the BTC price plummets / sky rockets in the 18 months it takes to develop?
Unfortunately there's not much I can do about that. I have considered only selling the game for btc, but I'm quite sure I would be crippling total sales if I do that (steam payments will be in $USD, which is an estimated 50 million customer strong game buying market I want to get in with). The game will be for sale in BTC should a customer prefer that option, but the price will be based on fiat conversion. Since I expect most income to be in the form of fiat, I will mostly be looking to profit (and pay local taxes) in terms of fiat, and I suggest investors do the same. Accounting will thus be done in fiat, but will be paid in btc *maybe* based on a 30 day average price for btc during the month of income (calculated on the last day of the month). If anyone has any better ideas on this last bit, I'd love to hear them. Should the game become profitable, it will at least provide a demand for btc beyond what was removed.

4) What's to stop you just taking my money and running?
I'm just not interested in that. I'm married with a family, and I want to do some good business. I wouldn't be putting up this IPO unless I absolutely had to, because I believe so strongly in what I'm doing that I would sacrifice (and have been sacrificing) my own money to do it, but I will stick to the terms I'm promising here because I do need help to finish it sensibly. I have also submitted all requirements for verification on GLBSE, and I'm just waiting on that to be finalized. This is not a black box magic business, but a genuine attempt to produce something of lasting interest, as a catapult to more interesting things. I won't take a bank loan for this, because of risk number 6. I would have tried Kickstarter if I lived in the US, but perhaps this ability to easily provide patronage is one of the truly great things about bitcoins.

5) What's to stop you just taking my money and dying?
Ek...ok well I suppose as much as this is uncomfortable to think about, it's a valid concern. I have been looking for a local programmer I can trust to partner with on this, but haven't had much luck yet. Until I find one, I will ask my wife to ensure the continuation of the project and payments in the case of my demise. I realize this isn't the most ideal solution because of the emotional attachment, but for now I don't have a better solution for this. I do at least trust her to maintain the integrity with which I will host this IPO. Perhaps she can put a member vote to either close all production and return remaining project funds, or continue with her in charge or something should something happen to me.

6) What if you make a really shitty game that doesn't sell any copies?
This is a true risk that you face as an investor, and something that all game investors face. I've had a hardcore, mostly mainstream taste in games for 20 years, and believe I'm self aware enough to know when I'm enjoying something because it's fun, or I'm playing something because I've been skinner boxed. I believe this has helped me tremendously during the game design process. I'm also a member of Mensa, so I have the brains to technically back up my commitment, and I'm relying on this to produce outstanding results. I may simply be wrong about what I can achieve, or how much fun people will have, and that will suck for anyone who has invested in this project, including myself. In this unlikely case, I cannot pay anything back so both my reputation and your money will have been squandered. However one can try to spin it, games are unfortunately a form of artwork, and as such, I cannot make any guarantee of return except to promise to do my best. This is also why I believe video games are still such a lucrative business when you have a winner.

7) Break-even point - at what point will I ever see my money again?
Using the above average price of 1.0btc per share, and 10,000 shares, I hope to raise 10,000btc with this IPO. This will be kept in a mix of cash and btc. Should the price of BTC rise strongly I will take advantage by exchanging some for $ (since most bills will be paid in $). Any profits from such arbitrage, however, will remain project assets to be used to produce a better game and these profits will not be actively sought (this is not a trading fund). Going by current market value, if investors were to purchase all shares on opening (not what I expect, but who really knows), break-even for the game will be 60k steam sales, or 40k direct sales. While the number of BTC returned will vary depending on the varying exchange rate, this break-even amount should not change much.


The Rewards - What could make the risk worthwhile!

1) Net Profit - this is more of a definition than a reward, but since it's still reward related here it is:
I intend on paying local taxes, so: net profit = sale income - operating expenses - taxes withheld.

Why am I paying taxes? Because I want to run this legitimately, to avoid jeopardizing future opportunities. Should the game be accepted on Steam, much of the income will have a large paper trail that would be remiss to ignore. I will be drawing a salary only until my income from dividends is higher than my regular salary from the project for three consecutive months, after which I will cease drawing a salary from the project fund permanently. This is mostly because I am the primary provider for my family and have responsibilities that must be met.

As for actual expected net income per unit, I will be releasing the game at a $24.95 price point, with the option of going to $19.95 should it prove more suitable to market. The expected gross income via steam will be $14-17, with the first 500 sales per month roughly covering expenses (developer salaries, etc), after which net income after taxes will be around $8-$11 per unit sold. Direct sales will provide between $13-$16 net profit.

2) Expected Sales
Since I started this project, I have been expecting somewhere in the region of 100-150k sales, based on my research over the years. I will consider this a project a resounding success if it breaks 100k sales, and outstanding if it breaks 200k sales. These solid numbers should see investors suitably rewarded by returning double or quadruple their investment within 2-4 years. Should the game become a runaway success and hit the magic 1M+ sales marks, well, you can do that math for that yourself.

If you've made it this far, I commend you! If you're interested in investing (or just have questions) feel free to post them and I'll do my best to answer them.

I don't understand the mining securities on GLBSE.

What are people actually expecting to get out of them?

Here is an example, where I buy 1000 shares of a mining group:

Gigamining:
1000 shares = 1500btc (april btc/share price) @ approx $5 per share (april $/btc price) = $7500 investment to start off.
Today, dividends would have amounted to approx 400btc since it opened,
and also today 1000 shares can be sold for around 900-950btc (if you're willing to wait a while, if not this is closer to maybe 500 btc).

Total: 1300-1350btc

But it's worth more! 1350 @ market price = $13,500! win!
If I'd just left my 1500 btc alone, it would be worth $15,000 in the same time frame. There is no scenario where the price matters, when the btc returned are less than the btc invested.

The equations give the same story for at least 2 other mining ventures (I worked them out, but cbf doing it again to paste here; you can calc it yourself to confirm).

At best, there is a break even, and usually there is a loss...but this is obvious even from a pre-investing perspective. All mining funds need difficulty to drop over the term of the investment to actually be profitable in btc, so are in fact bets that this is what's going to happen. The only scenario in which more btc can be returned is if the hash rate drops over time, and the only way $US profit can be made is if that happens simultaneously with price increases (yes, hash rate down while price goes up...).

The difficulty does drop when the price does, but in a dampened way - not as much as the drop in price, and it zooms when the price rises. If a person believed the price was going to drop, they would again be far far better off simply selling the BTC and rebuying when it's lower. The constant increasing pressure in hash rate absolutely guarantees the cost of 1 btc is going up (takes longer to earn 1btc for the same electricity), and since mining ventures are capped to initial funding, they cannot actually increase their hash rate without more money.

Mining securities make absolutely no sense what so ever for the investor, and yet here they are existing in plain sight. What am I missing that would explain all this?

I wonder if anyone with ~45k coins is game. What are the chances of someone actually saying "fine I'll take it" and selling the coins?

If this was really a reversal, I believe it should have taken out $6 within a week or two of hitting $4.50, and I think that's what's driving the "must buy now!!" desperation typical of people realizing they're caught in a bull trap. Judging from this graph, $3.5 still looks like a good whip target (log scale...wherever that little orange flat arrow is hitting...maybe $4).

I believe we're in a stalemate because there are still too many bears, and an equal number of people believe it's the upwards reversal too soon. This is my attempt at persuading some bulls to become temporary bears and profit from the new imbalance in the short term, both because I also want to profit, and because I want to sleep sometime this month. Going from the charts, every day that the price doesn't rise to $6 increases the likelihood of a short term snap downwards, based on low volume, bearish RSI, weak MACD, and the magnet that is the SMA200. Volume is insanely low today, and I'm offering an alternative viewpoint which may resonate with you.

There was an attempted rally yesterday which was stopped flat before it even got to $5, and continued trending ever so slowly downwards. As always, draw your own conclusions from this and my post.

To save us from this litany.

Welcome big wall of death!!

Now take all my money.

This forum is eerily quiet.

So what made you lol today? I lolled at the massive vanishing wall just now on the last down wave...and all the small transactions on gox that did its bidding. Anyone wanna speculate on what this riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma is all about?

Bull trap.

Just letting you know.

EDIT: I was wrong. The Market has shown me the way.

There's momentum to carry on the upswing...will it last?

We are at an impasse! It seems both bears and bulls have made their decisions and are now  waiting for...the other to see the error in their ways.

In situations like these...who has the upper hand?

As the title asks,

are there any good, trustworthy fiat->bitcoin currency websites that complete newbies can use yet?

What are the obstacles? merchant facilities won't let people use credit cards for bitcoins? not talking paypal, just normal cc.

So it looks like Mt Gox is about to hit 6 again.

Anyone else predicting a second attempt for a bear trap here?

[Double Simultaneous Economy]

TL;DR: Two, separate and simultaneous economies for public good and private enterprise. People pay for freedom of private enterprise in a nation through public service labour, which is allocated equally to all residents. Government leaves the finance markets to their own devices, and changes its success metric to public happiness.

I've been thinking a lot about economies, governments, capitalism, socialism, history, and psychology the last few years, for various reasons, and naturally the bitcoin had it's role to play in my understanding of them, and their connections to each other - even if just by bringing me to a forum I would not have normally found myself, where such ideas were openly discussed.

Last night I had a thought which I couldn't put down, but like breaking through a rock and discovering a cavern, I did not really know just how far this cave went, and whether it was even safe to enter. I'd like to share the idea I had with you all, in order to discuss it's feasibility and failings.

Double Simultaneous Economy
The idea of a Double Simultaneous Economy is one in which there are two working economies in a nation. One is for the group, and the other is for the individual.

It occurred to me that there is this classic battle between capitalism and socialism, with both sides (and many ideas in-between) adamant that they are the only useful one, when the truth is that both have amazing strengths, and terrible weaknesses. I put this down to the fact that a single human being is both a powerful individual and simultaneously a member by necessity of groups. It seems that socialism taps into the individual's desire to care for the group, and capitalism taps into the individual's desire to care for himself.

Government, by nature, aims to protect the well being of the group, but has to compete for resources on the private market. It has to translate a metric of currency into a metric of happiness, which is apparently an impossible task. In the current model, it has been moving from a direct effort tax to an indirect inflation tax, and has hit another wall. Meanwhile, large groups of people are at odds with themselves, because of the cognitive dissonance (the discomfort when you imagine rain falling upwards) they feel when told, that capitalism is good and socialism evil, but feeling satisfaction when they look after others, even strangers. I would say the opposite is true in socialist/communist countries. People need simultaneously both the liberty to receive the reward for their efforts, and the security of a healthy, happy society with a good even baseline for quality of life, and this is not being acknowledged by either side.

It seems that most peoples ultimately want the same things - all citizens to have their basic needs met, something akin to the bottom 3 levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg), and an active and properous private economy, but independently believe it must be one way or another (socialism or capitalism). Capitalists don't want to support the lazy, and socialists do not want to support the greedy. Not all capitalists are greedy, and not all socialists are lazy, but the stigma is attached and it's going nowhere. Can we separate the two?

A different way
The idea that formed was that if a society were to quantify the exact levels of minimum lifestyle it desires for its population, with the easily measured success metric of "public contentment", it could aim to provide these things using the currency of national labour. I believe the hours required for public service to achieve any set of goals over a suitable time period, from every individual, could be calculated. The key to this economy is that everybody contributes an equal amount of their time, for an equal amount of benefit, doing as the "group" needs. There would be some problems to overcome with this, of course, but for the important bit is separation of the social and the individual. The time payment would be given purely to serve the group, and the benefit would be what the society deems appropriate for all - food, water, utilities, housing, clothing, etc - that it could easily provide with central distribution, since the factories and machinery already basically exist to make this happen easily. If the private economy creates something the public deems it should provide everyone, then labour can be applied to make it so, in the form of public works.

The rest of the week/month/year, when not doing public service, a person acts in freedom and in self interest. Any reward for the effort they make during this time is at their discretion, and there is absolutely no need to tax the fruit of this labour at all. The time one spends in public service is enforced and equal across the board (imperative for psychological reasons), and private time allows a man to trade luxuries and self-actualization. This idea balances every human's internal need to be individual, with his obligation to the group. The group effort must be equally enforced to provide solidarity, with no financial way to avoid obligation, and the incentive to perform during public service  is that by making your task more efficient, you shorten the time required per citizen (including yourself), for the next year. If more public time is required than previously (eg aging population), then the pursuit of freedom is the supreme incentive to provide more for less in the public sector. This is where the benefits of a technocracy come into it - experts will naturally be in positions of decision making on how best to manage and direct the labour force. If public service needs you to act as an architect (already trained) to design the best nursing home possible for you to get your freedom back, there's a good chance you'll take it and certainly benefit both yourself and the aged. This actually uses the individual's need for freedom to increase public wealth. On the flip side, if things are going efficiently well, then public service will be reduced for everyone, leaving more time for private enterprise. Some things will always need to be done - eg mail, food, utilities, and if people want to really stop having to public service just to do these jobs, the incentive is there to invent robots on public time.

I understand how dramatically different this idea is to what we're all used to, and I'm having trouble fully understanding it's scope, but I do believe that it can, once and for all, solve the problem of socialism vs capitalism, and governments vs business.

Some of the particular things I like about this system:

- Equal access to brainpower.
Normally private enterprise attracts the bulk brainpower of a workforce. If, for some reason, the nation state requires 5/5 days a week from everyone for a year (say during a catastrophe), then it also accesses the full knowledge and experience base of the workforce, not only a part of it. The group is no longer forced to run on financial restraints, as it's currency is time, and all state members have an equal obligation to this.

- It's self balancing
Since time is allocated equally and enforced, those who wish to spend more time in the private economy can wisely use their time during public service designing efficiency, so the next month/year they are not needed as much - this might happen if there is a resource crisis, or something, which needs to be resolved.

- It leads to a healthier government
Government is no longer directly competing with business to provide a minimum standard of living for its people. It accesses the labour pool first, then business is free to go.

- It leads to healthier business
There is no more need for the group (government) to interfere with or manipulate the free market. Public protection might revolve around liberty of life (criminal law), while private protection might revolve around liberty of market (a modified civil law), and the same people will probably work in both as their duty to public service requires.

- Private Participation is voluntary
A person can risk all or nothing in the pursuit of social recognition, and should they fail, not suffer a horrible homeless and stressed fate. They have the freedom to try to earn a better life for themselves, or they can choose to sit on the beach all day when they're not performing public service.

- Encourages wide social interaction
Public service will put people from wildly different backgrounds in trivial jobs together, if that's all that's required. They might become friends.

- There is no more welfare state
The only people who do not earn their way for a shared public quality of life are the truly invalid, and I think that's reasonable. Disabilities are not as much a hindrance to public service when money is not the motivator (personal anecdotal evidence of this).

- The same people who manage private efficiency manage public efficiency
People would be assigned public tasks to take advantage of their skills - doctors play doctors in both, managers manage everywhere. If people have an applicable skill, they do it. If the public economy doesn't need them in that role, then they drive a bus (or whatever is needed).

- It promotes the social experience without the pressure of money
Just like military service, it provides a common experience that everyone in a society shares. This is psychologically and emotionally bonding.

- It provides the platform for achievement
Those who wish to impress others with their talents and hard work can easily do so, and if others want to partake, they have opportunity to directly offer something in return, that they have created during their private time.

- A more generally skilled population
There are sets of general skills that can be shared by all for the benefit of all. Any industry that works for the public good would need to be designed with low skill labour in mind. There will always be specialists (eg doctors) who would be too busy to work in a factory, however, although this system does afford the opportunity to give up a high pressure private job for a while and just drive a bus.

- Most Importantly (to me personally) - The happiness of the population is no longer tied to their ability to earn money.
Being impoverished makes it very difficult to be happy, but having money only helps up to a point. A government with the success metric of happiness (or more likely contentment) and a resource of labour (and potentially other resources of the nation) can focus on the job at hand as necessary.

There are surely some downsides to this, and these are what I can think of:

- Untangling will be difficult
The government is deeply entwined in the finance markets, and has to be removed...it will be a very complicated surgery. One option is to just drop the whole thing and switch to a cryptocurrency, like bitcoins, to run business, but that will leave a lot of people angry. The government might just run in both systems until all the debts are paid off, then switch to pure labour.

- Difficult predictions
The group has to predict how much time it will need from everyone to produce the intended quality of life its membership requires with a high degree of accuracy. I don't know if this is possible, but I imagine within a few years it will become easier to achieve as bugs are ironed out of the system, and people become experienced to this level of task management. On the bright side, we will have the best brains possible on the job...or at least available....a technocracy in disguise. To prevent too much switching out, perhaps jobs are earned in similar ways to the private system or something - changing skill based.

- Who owns production
The public might have all the labour it needs, but it also needs access to existing capital without paying for it (it has no money). It can either build the publicly owned factories as needed with its allocated workforce, or demand sovereignty over privately created plants as necessary. Since the government shouldn't be allowed to access and interfere in the financial markets, it's only option is to demand time, but this can probably be achieved by allowing a plant's labour to serve their public time at the same time, so a factory's output is taxed as a whole.

It might make more sense to create public factories, and have labour come in and change over time.

- Complications in stewardship
I'm not sure how to best handle stewardship in this...like...would there be jobs that require 100% public service? I think it would be rather interesting if a person could spend say 3 years in public service, full time (reducing everyone else's required public service a fraction), and have it act as a bank against which they don't have to work for a period of time. This is one way around that, and it would ensure a rotation of brainpower to keep the good parts of the 2 party process working. It is absolutely imperative that no one person spends any more time than anyone else, in public service (in a given year or 5 years or w/e) - even if they want to, to avoid agenda setting and "too expensive" a minimum standard of living.

- What do you do if a person doesn't individually want what's on public offer?
There must be some mechanism where someone who wants a better house than what public offers can get it. Public doesn't have to mean 'crappy', but if "happiness" is not reached, then the metric has failed and a better quality should be pursued. Since there cannot be an interaction with money from the public section, and each person cannot do less public service than anyone else (psychology of the system), then maybe government can provide the land, and the option of several house designs, and the person can either choose one, or elect to build their own.

- property
I don't know how this would be reconciled. It's currently deeply embedded in the private economy, and people need to move all the time, so it can't be government allocated places. Shelter is important, and I believe everyone would rather have the security of their home than not (would be decided by happiness metric anyway), but can anyone think of a good resolution to this in this model?

- farming
A healthy and varied diet should be available under public service, and the govt would pretty much be forced to take what it needs from the land to provide first, and excesses left to the private market somehow. I'm not sure if government needs to take ownership of land again or not...but since there is no government money, they can't exactly rent it.

=I could go on heaps more I'm sure, but I think it'll be more fun hearing what you guys have to say now, I've rambled plenty. So what do you think? Will this make both sides happy? who loses out in this concept?

PS If this is the wrong forum, can a mod move it please?

Man up and grow a pair. Move to Afghanistan and set up your business there. I promise that you won't be bothered by the big bad government.

Bad choice of country. I'm sure the US empire will happily bomb my business along with a couple hundred innocent civilians and just write it off as collateral damage.

Afghanistan was far better off without the US government, that's for sure.

Hey, let the market handle it. I'm sure you can find someone to employ to run security for you. I hear the Mujahedin are fairly well trained and equipped.
Or do you perhaps prefer the security that a somewhat functional state has to offer? That comes at a cost you know.

I rather choose from various forces than can actually dissolve from failure to provide competitive services rather than choose from only one poor monopoly.

Yes, the market would serve my needs greatly.

I'm getting the impression that you'd rather stand on a soapbox in a socialist state than be in a truly free market with no leadership, and no coherent state...is this true?

Variety comes at it's own cost - the time and resources lost by people wasting time being the force that failed, because it is never decided in a day. I believe private business is just as macro-economically inefficient as monopolies (state or otherwise), but for different reasons.