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People who say "we need a world without money" are actually saying "we need a world without trading and barter," for the two are the same.
Money is simply the good for which people most commonly barter. Remove any form of money from society and you'll quickly observe people finding other things to trade with.
If trade and exchange are occurring, then goods are being traded between people. Whichever good is most commonly used in trade is given the name of money. Not only is it a silly idea to "remove money" from society, but it is in fact as impossible as removing speech.
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Any plans to restrict payment to a certain area? (ex. US only, california only)
You mean so that sponsors only pay for retweets in a certain area? It would be useful for some sponsors, for sure, but practical implementation is extremely difficult. A) it makes the site much more complicated and B) it's hard/impossible to screen users based on their REAL location. Also, what if a user wants to retweet for multiple regions that are relevant, etc. Basically, the more we look into that, the more it convolutes things, and much of the attraction of FeedZeBirds is the simplicity and speed of the system. We ARE making other languages, however. Japanese is our first - Twitter is big in Japan... and soon Bitcoin will be too muahahahaha |
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You are a smart guy, but your slip is showing.
My slip is very well concealed, actually! |
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You are not getting the point. It is very simple. The reason Dubai imports foreign workers to work for substandard wages and living conditions is because they believe the OFWs to be inferior races.
Right.... as if the developers care about the race of the workers more than the price  Actually, the Filipinos (OFWs?) in Dubai make considerably more than the Pakistanis and Indians. This is primarily because they are much better at English communication. Profit-seeking entities care about prices, not skin color. |
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I wasn't going there, but you did. They are paying the going rate of people they know they can exploit.
Define "exploit" and we can discuss it. In the USA, people work for a minimum wage. It isn't much, but it's a lot more than $10 a day.
Actually, the minimum wage in the US is $0 per hour. It occurs when an employer decides not to hire someone because the government won't permit a mutually-profitable wage. I'm not sure if you feel good forcing people to pay higher than market-rate for things, but a "minimum wage" does not make labor more productive... it makes it unemployed. Why do you believe it's moral to forcefully prevent mutual employment? People are free to live as they choose, not forced to live in dormitories. When I buy a loaf of bread, or clothing, or electronics, I try to avoid items that exploit and oppress workers. In fact, I buy very few material things at all. I do help people in impoverished countries directly, as much as I can while I endure my own burdens.
The workers aren't "forced to live in dormitories." They chose to move there from their grass huts without running water or electricity... you might just make the same decision. I'm glad you try to help people in impoverished countries, that's commendable and I do as well. But, all the help you try to do is reversed if you're advocating a minimum wage for those very same people. What is your standard for a "minimum price of labor?"
Every person's "standard" is different. Let people make their own decisions, freely and without coercion. I can tell you that if you mandated the minimum wage of America onto the workers in Dubai, they'd all still be back in Pakistan. I wonder if they would be pleased with you? America "imported" laborers too, until the Civil War. I live with these Johnny Rebs that want to see the South rise again. Hate is alive and well.
Those were slaves, not voluntarily contracted laborers. Don't confuse the two, especially considering the irony that you're the one advocating the use of force on peaceful people. And if people in "the South" want to secede, who are you to force them not to? Isn't that like... slavery? |
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Tell me you're joking. Dubai is a hellish shit-hole. They foreign workers are abused and treated like slaves.
I'm not joking. Certainly some people who visit Dubai hate it, and you're welcome to your opinion... it's a polarizing type of place. Personally, I loved it, although no place is without problems. Your generalization of foreign workers is problematic... certainly some have been abused by some developers. It's a minority, but of course thats what makes the headlines. Some abuse, I'll grant you, but "treated like slaves".... sorry, no. They were not captured at gunpoint from their lives in Pakistan and boated over on slave ships with chains and shackles and zero pay for all eternity. They were enticed to work by a salary that was greater than what they'd earn back home. My father used to deal with property in Dubai and no way are they happy. They are forced into the crappiest situation. Many are starved, beaten or extorted. They have no due course with the law either.
I didn't say the laborers were "happy," although I lived on a bloc where eleven 60+ floor towers were being built 24/7. I walked among thousands of workers every day. In general, they were smiling, joking with their buddies, drinking Mountain Dew and talking on their cell phones. It looked like hellish work to me, but to call it "slavery" is pretty disingenuous. You are trying to hold them against a standard that you as a Westerner enjoy. These are people who come from villages without running water, and here they are in Dubai earning enough money to support their families back home, they have water, electricity, food, and an environment at least as safe as where they came from. Maybe the few forward facing workers packing bags at the mall are fine, but not the backend slaves. That's why Dubai has had numerous riots from the workers (who are jailed and then deported without anything).
As I said, I lived on a block of towers with thousands of laborers and I was around them for two years. I could see them working on site, during their breaks, and coming and going. Not once did I see a riot or a single act of violence against any worker (isolated riots have occurred typically due to a developer running out of money and not paying the wages). The country is horrid for human rights. I hate the place and never want to go back. It's a gigantic artificial motorway complex with nowhere to walk and no natural beauty. Biggest hotel, biggest skyscraper, biggest shopping centre, biggest indoor ski slope, biggest artificial archipelago, biggest fake islands, and most retarded city built by uncivilised backwards sheep herders with more money than sense.
To which human rights are you referring? Yes speech is curtailed, but not hugely. Yes, foreigners are treated more poorly than Emiratis. Yes, someone could get in serious trouble for illegal drugs. All of that I will not defend. However, unlike other "modern cities," Dubai doesn't routinely rob its population of wealth at gun point. What you earn, you keep. What is more of a human rights violation... Dubai which infringes on press freedom, or the US, which extracts wealth to pay for violence, murder, and pillaging of foreign countries? You call everything there "fake," but I call it man-made. Are you not sitting on an "artificial chair" typing on an "artificial computer"? Dubai has created a fascinating and thriving city out of what was a bleak desert 15 years ago. If skycrapers aren't your thing, fine, but there's plenty of beauty in Dubai, and for all the country's problems, it is doing many things right of which the rest of the world might want to take note. |
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It's funny because it has roughly the same predictive power as most of the charts placed in the speculation section  |
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Awesome, I love seeing the free market at work.
BitcoinCigarettes - you guys should advertise on FeedZeBirds.com
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Crypto X Change accepts cash deposits at any Bank of America.
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I wonder why they don't just employ workers from neighboring Arab countries for those jobs? Mexico pays workers low wages in their resort cities, but they are their own people. I wonder why they pay so little when they have such wealth and opulence? Perhaps in Dubai, Pinoys, Pakistanis, etc. are considered untouchables?
[edit] This is a personal issue with me and people I know working in Dubai. Nuf said.
Well first, you say "why don't they" as if it's one big collective. The property developers in Dubai are private companies, though some have ranging co-ownership by UAE government groups (the government there actually runs itself more like a business, generating profits instead of taxing the hell out of everything... it's nice). But, any developer who hires a Pakistani instead of an Arab is simply making a rational profit-maximizing decision. The Pakistani is willing to work for less than the average Arab. They're not hired "because they're Pakistanis"... rather, they're hired for rational commercial reasons; the most cost-effective means of production will be sought out and utilized. And you ask, "why do they pay so little when they have such wealth and opulence?" Come on man... when you go to the store, do you pay what the bread costs? Or do you voluntarily offer to pay more? You, with your computer, are a wealthy and opulent person by world standards... so why don't you offer to pay more for things? The same self-interest that you (correctly) exhibit is also exhibited by a group of people calling themselves a corporation. It's just a matter of scale, and until you offer to pay more than the minimum price for your bread at the store, it's hypocritical to chastise a company that pays the minimum price for labor. |
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Dubai was built by slave labor held at gunpoint and is going bankrupt. Maybe Bitcoin will save it from impending bankruptcy.
Where do you get your information? I lived in Dubai for two years. A) There is not "slave labor held at gunpoint." There are some unscrupulous developers who deceived immigrant workers, or renegged on contract obligations. However, this was a minority of developers and is indeed criminal. Most developers simply imported workers from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan... paying them perhaps $10/day. Why would anyone agree to that? Because back in their countries they made $3/day. Many workers who immigrated to Dubai endured a very difficult job, but were able to send money home to their families and support them much better than if they stayed home, unemployed. B) Dubai is not bankrupt. The gov incurred significant debt, but it is far less on a % of GDP basis than most countries around the world. Further, the debt was in many ways a good investment, as it turned the city into a thriving metropolis. The financial situation for Dubai is far better than America or any country in Europe. |
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nagle finally got bored of waiting for the ask price to reach $0.0000
LOL Man I could buy hundreds at that price! |
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It's impossible NOT to have an exchange rate between USD and BTC.
All things in an open economy have an exchange rate, whether directly or by proxy of a money substitute.
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Um, excuse me? all OTHER instances aside, here, all he did was set something up on ANOTHER service, THAT SERVICE is collecting money only from those who believe it's a good cause, and that service gives money to OTHER people. I don't see "Atlas" begging for, or receiving, any money. As certain someone would say, "check your premises"  He's soliciting for money to be sent to a "project" under his control. For the tenth or so time. He gets involved in a lot of projects. That's a good thing. In general the things for which he requests donations are worthy and relevant to people. I don't see the problem. |
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Its just basic logic that when difficulty is high and price is low, if someone wants bitcoins they will buy them (and push up the price). Conversely, if difficulty is low and price is high, mining them is cheaper.
That basic logic is problematic =) When difficult is high and price is low, miners will stop mining, and the difficulty will fall. Mining will always tend toward zero-profitability, and will never affect pricing in any significant way or for any lengthy time. |
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As certain someone would say, "check your premises" |
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There's a fundamental flaw I think in supposing that difficulty dictates price. I'd take it the other way: price determines difficulty.
Bingo. Mining, and mining difficulty, is an unfortunate distraction for many people when discussing Bitcoin. Mining will always tend toward zero-profitability, because whenever it is profitable, new people will start mining. It's an asymptotic relationship toward zero-profit. The Bitcoin price is not determined in any way by the difficulty of mining. The relationship is opposite, and thus no observance of mining trends will predict prices with the exception that miners are also speculators like everyone else, and if they believe the price will rise they may start mining before the price rises - thus making it appear as though mining difficulty caused the price increase, but it's a deception. So, some of the OP's points on the mining/price relationship are odd and problematic. However, very well written and well presented! And, to be sure, much of the geopolitical arguments are correct. Yet, I don't believe any Governments will ever embrace bitcoin, because it prevents their ability to deficit spend. See Alan Greenspan's 1968 article "Gold and Economic Freedom" for the most revealing discussion of this you may ever read. Thanks for the post OP, and I'll be buying alongside you all the way up and down the next bubbles as well |
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You peoples need to understand the difference between "forced centralization by design" and "voluntary centralization by the market"
A national fiat currency system is the former.
Paypal is the former.
Visa is the former.
e-gold is the former.
Bitcoin is the latter.
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