Ah thats were your mistaken my friend. They both may have 'thought' they are getting the better deal, but reality says someone had to have gotten the upper hand, even if they didnt know it.
Okay let's make this simpler... Two cave men. One which is good at making straight spears out of wood. The other is good at making arrowheads out of rock. If they only use their own skills, both of them starve to death because the spear is incomplete. However, a simple trade makes them both measurably better off. Now, why do you still say that one of them is getting ripped off, that one is made worse? Please explain, because it seems quite clear to me that by trading wealth is being generated and both are made happier for it. |
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Capitalism is fair.
No...its not. Individuals are only free on the condition that the great mass of people taken collectively- are not. We could not have capitalism without a working class and they are not free within the capitalist system to cease being wage laborers. A people's capitalism is nonsense. A capitalist system does not have "classes." It's a fallacious term applicable to other systems of social organization but not to capitalism. And what is "working class?" That term is thrown around but it means nothing. I dare say the CEO earning $500,000 per year and working 16 hrs a day is more aptly labeled "working class" than most who ascribe that title to themselves. All men must produce, trade, and negotiate to their best of their ability. The fact that some are less successful than others, or run across worse circumstances than others, does not discredit those who are more successful or run across better circumstances. So long as one is not lying, cheating, stealing, or hurting his neighbors, he is behaving fairly and morally, and a system which enables men to behave fairly in that way becomes a capitalist, or "market based," system, inevitably. |
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You cannot have capitalism without someone losing out and thats precisely why Im a capitalist!
 A man trades his candy bar for some money. Another man trades his money for the candy bar. Who lost out? |
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Oh wow... but which one do they want to do, a 51% attack or just mine a large amount of bitcoins?
Why waste the time and effort mining? They can buy every single btc in existence for what is to them a very small sum... and continue buying till the last of the 21 M... Basically any goverment or reasonable sized entity could do it if they wanted to kill Bitcoin. False. Buying every bitcoin is impossible as price would approach infinity. They could buy a few million, but doing so would make Bitcoin the number 1 financial news topic and instead of "killing bitcoin" it would almost guarantee its success. |
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Bitcoin did it right. Don't get all emotional over a few people who got free coins in the beginning, it's a tiny problem compared with the ones Bitcoin solves. Altering the rules to prefer equality over fairness would destroy the very heart of Bitcoin, the part which makes it better than classical currencies.
Well said, lots of smart comments today! |
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"Money" is simply the most successful barter-good in an economy.
So far. Something better will come along as only technology will provide. I can't tell what that even means. Yet it seems to be the entire basis behind this whole "resource-based economy" stuff. Evoorhees' statement is just a description of what money is. Almost anything, in the right conditions, can be money. "Something better will come along". Something better than money? OK. Then that will be the new money. Something better than trade? BS. Even in a world of unlimited energy and StarTrek-level replicators, there will still be trade, for storytelling, massages and new fashion designs if nothing else. And that trade will, on it's own, as a natural consequence of human nature, prompt a search for convenience--a medium of exchange. Little kids on playgrounds get this. A generation or two ago, those colorful little glass balls made an excellent currency for trading sandwiches, favors, etc. A while back, it was colorful pieces of paper displaying fictional anime creatures. No one told these kids to do this. Most probably didn't even have examples of how to do it "properly." But if you don't think even children can continually re-invent this concept, and master it to the point they have a fully functional marketplace with detailed valuations and exchange rates, then you seriously don't understand human nature. Money is NEVER going away. The fact that some seem to see it's absence as desirable (or even possible, for that matter) is beyond baffling. Brilliantly stated |
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In other news, people who bought shares during Google's IPO don't deserve to profit from it, because they didn't participate in making Google's products.
If that was not a big enough hint: There are more ways to participate in an economy than to provide labor. People who buy bitcoins increase the total worth of all bitcoins, thus the incentive of merchants to accept Bitcoin, thus help grow the Bitcoin economy. If this growth results in the success of Bitcoin and a corresponding price appreciation, those who took a risk by investing in bitcoins have every right to profit from it.
Ding ding ding! +1 |
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Yeah, you can get some bitcoin, but what are you going to spend 0.0002 bitcoin on? There is a thread asking what to spend 1 BTC on, we should start a thread asking what to spend 1 mBTC on!
Many people have lots of Twitter followers and can make reasonable money from FeedZeBirds. Campaigns pay as high as .1btc per 1,000 followers. Someone with 5,000 followers could earn a bitcoin with just a few tweets. |
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Bitcoin is a money and a money transfer system. It is not an anti-fraud service nor is it a substitute for diligence, prudence, and caution. Of course... I could also say that because MF Global went bankrupt by betting on sovereign debt of Europe, a Bitcoin-world would have prevented the very deficit spending which led those sovereign bonds to the graveyard. So in a roundabout way, Bitcoin may well have prevented MF Global from going under  |
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Cryptoxchange also lets you buy bitcoins via local bank deposit, or even internet banking transfer - doesn't get much easier than that.
+1 CryptoXChange.com. Deposit cash at Bank of America, appears in your Crypto account within 24-48 hrs. Are you associated with CryptoXChange, Eric? I see you posting about them practically everywhere. I am indeed - I met the owner (Ken) several weeks back and was really impressed by what they were building, so I'm running communications and marketing now for Crypto. And yes it's Erik with a K  |
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Hello Bitcoin Newbs- Many of you are learning about Bitcoin, and are wondering how to get some quickly and easily. FeedZeBirds.com pays you Bitcoin for retweeting sponsored Twitter messages. Payouts are instant and anyone in the world is eligible - sign in with your twitter account (you don't even need to create a new account!) You can literally have Bitcoin 30 seconds from now... |
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Cryptoxchange also lets you buy bitcoins via local bank deposit, or even internet banking transfer - doesn't get much easier than that.
+1 CryptoXChange.com. Deposit cash at Bank of America, appears in your Crypto account within 24-48 hrs. |
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OP- thanks for your tale!
The easiest way to buy Bitcoin is just to have a CryptoXChange.com account and deposit cash at a Bank of America. You'll have Bitcoins 24-48 hrs later. No dwolla, no wire transfers, no verification.
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Animals don't need money. Humans are animals. Therefore humans don't need money.
OMG Neither do animals need computers, vehicles, agriculture, electricity, chairs and tables, and ski resorts. Shall we do away with all benefits unique to humans because lesser creatures have been unable to produce them as well? Perhaps you'll bless humanity by ridding it of running water, for animals seem quite happy without it. Families take care of one another throughout most of the animal kingdom. They share resources.
Many families in the animal kingdom also eat each other. You look to curious places for behavioral guidance. For resources to be shared among a family, they must first be produced. Will each family produce all the things it needs? Who among your family knows how to produce a ballpoint pen - remembering to drill for iron, smelt into steel, procure and prepare plastics and inks and molds. Who among your family has the skills to conjure up the LCD screen upon which you read this message? Who among them can produce penicillin or even soap? What narrow diet will you enjoy having only a few people, unable to engage in food production for they are busy trying to decipher the instructions for the penicillin? And how did you acquire those instructions? Animals do share resources with each other - among tiny groups of families. And, consequently, they live in poverty, like animals. There is nothing stopping you from restraining your trade to only those within your family. You can start today, why wait? Money was probably created to make the weekly sacrifice to the gods easier.
Money wasn't "created." It evolved organically via barter over time. That thing most commonly bartered for was given a name - money. It was not "decided" by a church or government or some wise tribal leader. Just as nobody "created" language as a tool of humanity, neither did anyone create money. Money allowed wealth to aggregate for the institution of temples and palaces.
Actually, deceit, lies, and coercion allowed wealth to aggregate at temples and palaces. Sure, money makes barter easier just as dogma makes thinking easier.
That's a pretty disingenuous comparison. More accurate: money makes barter easier just like language makes communication easier. Maybe we can soon put money to rest and learn to go back to sharing resources smartly.
You first, there's absolutely nothing stopping you. |
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But a world without money is NOT the same as a world without barter.
Yes, it is. In a world wherein people barter, you would find them inevitably tend to barter with common goods that were marginally more universally desired. If you want the wheat I'm selling, and I want something from you, I will tend to desire a good that you have which I know I can trade to someone else. That means, I'll pay you a higher quantity of wheat in return for, say, some lumber planks as opposed to your collection of paintings. Why? Because the lumber planks are more easily tradeable to someone else. As this process happens, a natural price-differential occurs favoring those items which are more easily traded. Eventually, a few of these items become so universally traded (whether lumber planks or rice or seashells or gold) that BOOM they are now the money of that society. "Money" is simply the most successful barter-good in an economy. It is thus impossible to remove "money" from society without removing trade entirely. |
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Bitcoin still behaves like money.
In what way would you prefer it to behave? |
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Maybe they just don't want governments able to print as much money they want to keep bailing out banks
I doubt many of them would advocate removing the monopoly authority of Government (or the Fed) to coin money. I can't imagine them suggesting that money be provided by the marketplace, or even for a Government-money backed by gold. At the heart of the Occupy protests is an antagonism toward material inequality - they don't want rich people to be rich when poor are poor. The couch it in terms of corruption, yet they do not protest any corruption or cronyism on the left - such as the Solyndra scandal or Soros' influence on prominent politicians. They're just socialists who don't mind government power and corruption as long as it's used to force people into equality. |
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Don't get me wrong. I actually think these experimental cities are inevitable. I still don't understand how Libertarians plan to make them sustainable. I suppose that if they are getting foreign aid, then they will not really be Libertarian. It's likely they will become opulent resorts for extremely wealthy heirs longing to satiate desires unattainable in civilized nations. If so, they will end badly.
What aspect exactly don't you think is sustainable? |
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