Bitcoin Forum
July 09, 2025, 11:06:50 PM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 29.0 [Torrent]
 
  Home Help Search Login Register More  
  Show Posts
Pages: [1]
1  Other / Politics & Society / Consent of the Governed on: May 18, 2012, 06:04:34 PM
In re UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

"Obviously there can be no law of treason more stringent than has now been stated, consistently with political liberty. In the very nature of things there can never be any liberty for the weaker party, on any other principle; and political liberty always means liberty for the weaker party. It is only the weaker party that is ever oppressed. The strong are always free by virtue of their superior strength. So long as government is a mere contest as to which of two parties shall rule the other, the weaker must always succumb. And whether the contest be carried on with ballots or bullets, the principle is the same; for under the theory of government now prevailing, the ballot either signifies a bullet, or it signifies nothing. And no one can consistently use a ballot, unless he intends to use a bullet, if the latter should be needed to insure submission to the former.

No attempt or pretence, that was ever carried into practical operation amongst civilized men—unless possibly the pretence of a "Divine Right," on the part of some, to govern and enslave others—embodied so much of shameless absurdity, falsehood, impudence, robbery, usurpation, tyranny, and villany of every kind, as the attempt or pretence of establishing a government by consent, and getting the actual consent of only so many as may be necessary to keep the rest in subjection by force. Such a government is a mere conspiracy of the strong against the weak. It no more rests on consent than does the worst government on earth.

What substitute for their consent is offered to the weaker party, whose rights are thus annihilated, struck out of existence, by the stronger? Only this: Their consent is presumed! That is, these usurpers condescendingly and graciously presume that those whom they enslave, consent to surrender their all of life, liberty, and property into the hands of those who thus usurp dominion over them! And it is pretended that this presumption of their consent—when no actual consent has been given—is sufficient to save the rights of the victims, and to justify the usurpers! As well might the highwayman pretend to justify himself by presuming that the traveller consents to part with his money. As well might the assassin justify himself by simply presuming that his victim consents to part with his life. As well might the holder of chattel slaves attempt to justify himself by presuming that they consent to his authority, and to the whips and the robbery which he practises upon them. The presumption is simply a presumption that the weaker party consent to be slaves.

Such is the presumption on which alone our government relies to justify the power it maintains over its unwilling subjects. And it was to establish that presumption as the inexorable and perpetual law of this country, that so much money and blood have been expended." -- Lysander Spooner

Nothing like stirring the pot eh? Smiley

2  Economy / Goods / Bitcoin Reminder Band on: May 15, 2012, 05:44:56 AM
I heard mention that there might be a few people interested in some bitcoin related jewelry type items.

My sister and I designed a reminder band for bitcoin. Take a look and let me know.

 

The inside of the band says "MINED YOUR OWN BUSINESS." I liked the play on words. The external artwork is a bit more cryptic, but I'm sure most of you will figure out any subtle meanings.

I'm selling them for .3 BTC + .3 BTC for shipping (stateside).

Total .6 BTC. Drop me a PM.

3  Economy / Economics / BitCoinTokens - an alternative currency approach. on: January 24, 2012, 06:25:55 AM
Why not just pre-mine a fixed 21 billion coins (or some arbitrarly large fiat dollar amount that's eventually harder to manipulate) and then use those coins to do a fiat-to-bitcointoken bailment service until you run out of the bailed token digital coins. We could call them BitCoinTokens (BCT).

It would be exactly like E-gold or GoldMoney (or similar to Paypal, Dwolla or Amazon Payments) but decentralized and initially tied to fiat currencies. It's audited dayly if not hourly (using a blockchain like bitcoin) so that everyone sees that the total number of digital coins in circulation represents only the total in fiat reserve on the exchange.

The exchanges are open source and immediately auditable. You want and need as many exchange participants as possible to effectuate a distributed fiat exchange trust network. All of them vying to put the pre-mined BCT's into circulation but restrained by the market participants (account holders of circulating BCT) to only introduce 1 BCT for every 1 USD fiat vaulted until they exceed the 21 billion coin total.

Everybody purchases or exchanges to BCTs until they're all in circulation and the equivalent fiat value sits in a digital vault doing nothing (except the occasional bailment event). Fees are paid to miners to handle the transaction authentication instead of engaging in mining into existence more coins, as this tends to not track world currencies very nicely (too much volatility for some reason). The BCT in circulation will initially represent exact equivalent USD (or other fiat currency) until the fiat market reserve in the vault total exceeds the total pre-mined amount of BCTs (i.e. USD in reserve/vault >= total pre-mined BCTs).

Once you exceed the reserve amount (it's no longer a 1:1 ratio between BCT and fiat dollar reserves), you let your BCT float against the major currency pairs in the real world. At this point your BCTs will probably rise since most fiat currencies are inflationary (typically not desired) but not as quickly now since it represents a 21 billion dollar fiat market as opposed to a bootstrapped currency. At this point it should be more stable, at least you hope. More BCT critical mass as it were.

The author of the BCT alt-currency can't spend the coins without the permission of the majority of the constituent traders in the network (done mathematically via smart contracts with the "miners" or "transaction handlers"). That way the author can't arbitrarily introduce into general circulation the supply of token coins independent of the users (i.e. not allowed to introduce into circulation more BCT than the equivalent amount of fiat in reserve in the vault). Remember this is primarily and initially a bailment service. Once you exceed the total BCT token quantity you immediately go to a floating scenario. Everybody sees this and can verify this event as the audit of the fiat vault reserve is always made public.

A BCT currency economy is still deflationary by nature (only 21 billion coins total), but less volatile now since the market capitalization in fiat dollars is much larger. The fiat volume built up (vaulted fiat currency) creates a stability and reduction in volatility. It's preferable to cause small ripples in an "ocean" of a 50 billion dollar BCT market, than big waves in a "pond" comprised of 50 million dollars of digital money (where bitcoin's economy is now), where speculators manipulate the price to the chagrin of merchants and other users who want some stability and don't care much for speculators. I'm not biased against speculators BTW, just want to grow the bitcoin economy quicker with less instability issues.

What you need is both a bitcoin network and and open source exchange system that can connect to major banking systems. The exchangers should also be able to easily transact interchangably between bitcoin and BitCoinTokens for ease of use (plug and play). You could use the Open Transaction software developed by FellowTraveler as a good example.
4  Economy / Services / [OPEN] Personal Advertising Space Available on: January 15, 2012, 10:49:16 PM
I'm renting personal advertising space (my face). The contract is measured in BTC/week (Minimum contract length one week. *See contingencies below).

Description:

I have a full beard and have shaved things into it in the past just for kicks. Last year I carved "BYTE ME" onto my face on a dare (I'm an EE/CS and a bit of a joker). I did it mostly for fun, but also to see what reaction I'd get. I work at a company numbering approximately 2500 employees, so my face will be seen by all types of people. Apparently you can meet a lot of interesting people this way because they notice your face looks a bit odd (Walmart was interesting) and they start asking questions. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to try an entreprenurial approach. The following are 2 approaches I'd consider unless someone comes up with a more creative way.

Community Contract Option (crowd sourced):

1) Shave "Ron Paul" into my face. Political I know, but who isn't. It would surely make a splash,
    or alternatively, shave Bitcoin and/or a Bitcoin logo onto my face. Or we could vote on one in a poll.
2) Provide bitcoin media and/or product for demo-ing. (i.e. Bitbills, Casascius coins, etc.). Will return if you provide paid postage.
3) Short 30 second message. We could have a poll for what you'd like me to say.
4) Community contributes to the "cause".
5) Provide a "face" stencil. (optional)
6) Optional but very helpful -- A T-shirt with a related message. Obviously there's more space to work with too.

Private Contract Option:

1) Your business logo.
   1.1 Provide a less than 30 second scripted message that I can use to verbally describe your product if I get questioned.
   1.2 Provide me any business cards to hand out.
   1.3 If you have a product I can demo (i.e. Bitbills, Casascius coins, Android apps, Bitcoin cheques etc.)
2) Provide a "face" stencil. (optional)
3) Optional but very helpful --  A t-shirt with a related message. Obviously there's more space to work with too.

Logistics: It would be convenient, perhaps necessary, for the winning bid group or individual to provide a stencil so as to make my face appear just right. I will probably have to provide my facial dimensions to assist in making this work. Any demo product you want returned you must provide paid postage.

Contingencies: If I take too much heat (i.e. potential work issues) and have to terminate before a full week, I will reimburse everyone on a pro rata basis. If there are too many contributors for me to keep track of, I can donate a portion to a good cause. Again, we can have a poll for such a thing. Or, finally if you want to just not worry about it, we could call it even.

Let the bidding begin. Have fun.
5  Other / Politics & Society / Socialism is Force on: December 05, 2011, 04:48:35 PM
I like how Milton smiles in a kind-hearted way while explaining somewhat unconfortable topics and still makes you feel good about it, even if you may disagree with him. I believe he's a genuinely good man who really cares to make a difference. If you think the video is too long, start at the 1:55 mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYeYPcougmA&feature=related
6  Economy / Goods / [CLOSED] 3100 Mhash/s Bitcoin Rig [CLOSED] on: November 08, 2011, 04:41:11 PM
I'm looking to sell 2 bitcoin rigs together or separately. They are each stable at about 1550 Mhash/s (Total 3100 Mhash/s). They can go faster. I haven't tweaked them much. Asking 300 BTC or equivalent USD per rig. Please include shipping from zip code 84321 when bidding.

I accept DWOLLA (ID #: 812-489-3211). My bitcoin address is in the signature line.

**Each** rig contains the following:

5 x 5830 Sapphire
5 x Riser cards (will throw in extra 2)
1 x Sempron
1 x Rosewill PSU (80+% efficient)
1 x 1GB RAM
1 x 2GB+ Linuxcoin USB stick.

All original product boxes, manuals, CD's and accessories are available.

EDIT: One rig has has only 4 HD5830's. I sold one. Hashrate is less (-310 Mhash/s). Prices subject to change.

   
   
Pages: [1]
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!