Depends on what you consider "efficient". If you want the most coins for your effort, then:

Work whatever job you're best at for local fiat currency
Use the local fiat currency to buy a mining rig
Mine your coins with the rig

If you for some reason can't buy coins OR work a job, then you might want to use the computer you're typing on to mine Litecoins and exchange them for Bitcoins.

However, for most people mining would be harder than normal jobs. Why don't you want to buy Bitcoins?

Bingo. I was hoping Occupy would become Chartism 2.0.... look at their demands here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism

Chartism seems completely reasonable to most people now. But at the time it was radical. They had a clear agenda, and although they failed at the time, they won the hearts and minds of future generations.

What will future generations take from Occupy? That complaining alone isn't enough. Make a solid suggestion and go through the trouble of arguing it, even if it hurts your numbers.

Sorry, when I said CPU-specific I really meant GPU and FPGA resistant. That's Tenebrix. Short history:

Bitcoin comes out, originally CPU mined.
GPU mining is invented.
Tenebrix invented to keep CPU mining worthwhile, using Scrypt.
People who are pissed off about the Tenebrix pre-launch mining launch Fairbrix.
At some point SolidCoin is launched with GPU mining, but after a series of successful attacks becomes centralized (as a defense) in SC2 and adopts "wacky wild who cares since mining doesn't matter" mining.
A few random popular features in alternative coins (like Scrypt) are lumped together to make Litecoin. It doesn't actually have anything new, but its open launch and better support make it the dominant "CPU coin".

My bias towards Litecoin is obvious here, but I don't actually own any FWIW. I've just been paying attention the whole time.

So please forgive me if when I read this...

... It looks an awful lot like this...


Face it, you're fighting against Mexican immigrants because of the actions of two governments - one that they don't want to be a part of, and one that will forcefully deport them if they speak up.

And you think Rassah is the brainwashed one.

Because what I just described would break a whole bunch of laws and threaten bloated insurance companies. Without the option of anonymity and really low transaction costs it probably wouldn't even work at all.

2. Transaction fees probably won't rise significantly for a long time, as there isn't much deterring miners from including every transaction that has any fee at all. And even if the average transaction fee does become significant, you'll be able to pay a smaller fee and just get it confirmed more slowly. For smaller transactions the hospital can just accept them unconfirmed.
3. If this large healthcare system is the first big business to adopt Bitcoin, most consumers would probably just interpret it as more trouble than it's worth and just use Bit-Pay or something.
4. That is correct, Bit-Pay does this. You don't need to expose yourself to "Bitcoin the store of value" if you just want to use "Bitcoin the payment mechanism".

Bit-Pay with instant USD payout is 2.69%, versus at least 3.5% for VISA. Unless consumers are willing to hold Bitcoins (and it does seem to be gradually stabilizing IMHO) they very well could end up paying more. But depending on how many times the money changes hands using VISA, those 3.5% fees could really add up. With Bitcoin you only face significant fees while entering and exiting the system.

(This is slightly off the topic of transaction costs)

I was thinking that the greatest benefit Bitcoin might bring to the health care system might be that now it's technically feasible to set up free market health insurance companies, or even decentralized health prediction markets.

Right now in the USA, you're forced to buy health insurance from one of many heavily regulated companies. With each one, the entity who determines whether or not the claim is paid is the SAME company who would have to pay it - talk about a conflict of interest! If you don't like it, your only option is to challenge them in court. Up until recently, the insurance companies could even wait until AFTER insurance was quoted and AFTER a claim was made to assess "preexisting conditions" and then deny payment!

I think a better alternative would be to separate the entity deciding who "wins" and the entities accepting the financial risk. You would bet on being sick, and a neutral person (or company) of your choosing determines if it's true when you file a claim. Free competition could lower health insurance costs drastically.

So because the Mexican government does bad things, the consequences are the fault of "the Mexicans", even unwilling individuals leaving the country?

That sounds like it should be really insightful but I still don't understand. Would you please explain that by either
A) Heavily elaborating your analogy
B) Describing it using economics, not thermodynamics (strongly preferred)

Then maybe people will start paying fees.

The first CPU-specific blockchain was Tenebrix.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45667

And pray tell what those negative externalities are?

To those who voted for this - how does such a large and accidental group of people actually collude? The only way they could even DETECT someone defecting from this prisoner's dilemma would be if they all shared their wallet addresses with each other, giving up their privacy.

IMHO the early adopters and hoarders here can barely agree on anything. Remember the long and visible argument over BIP 16? No offense, but they lack the social skills and organization needed to maintain a conspiracy for days, let alone months.

Of course, I'm a hoarder too so maybe I'm just trying to throw you guys off...

"Worthwhile employee" is defined by the employer, not by you. You shouldn't assume identical labor demand between countries.

What company? I'm just a random dude who keeps spending cash anonymously on whatever.


So education is a positive externality when provided to the children of Americans, but a negative externality when provided to the children of Mexicans? Won't the kids grow up to be more productive Americans in either case?


It's not hypocracy if you don't consider the white American race to be a species  that needs state protection to survive.

I just can't accept your classification of "us" and "them". People are people - individuals with rights irrespective of ethnicity or national origin - and I refuse to treat them like distinct species as if they deserve this land any less than we do.

+1, that's exactly how I feel when people make this ridiculous argument.

[biased anecdote from personal experience]
Where I live there are a LOT of illegal immigrants. On average they're so poor that they wouldn't pay income taxes anyways. They came here for the work, and do the heavy lifting while lazy Americans cash unemployment checks.

Ask a Mexican illegal about his love for government. Many feel powerless, that it's all just political bullshit and they're just trying to get by.
[/anecdote]

You already DO need to spend money on battleships - the armed forces. Unfortunately, they refuse to extend their protection to Somali waters. At some point with ANY system you're going to have to either pay for someone's guns or be pirated.

(What do you care what teenage boys fantasize about? This seems irrelevant.)

You're right - the current situation is better than everyone in every port mounting guns. It would make more sense to have private escorts who specialize in unprotected waters. But, I still have no idea why that hasn't actually happened, so maybe I'm missing something. Corporations SHOULD be solving this problem.

It is, but piracy is a lot easier when your victims aren't allowed to mount defensive weapons... due to regulations on non-Somali ports.

Why don't we see armed private Somali escorts on the open seas to address this? Seems like it would be a good business.

List of actual merchants flooding in to accept Bitcoin:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

The only active inflationary "cryptocurrency" I'm aware of:
http://solidcoin.info/
(Warning: it's managed by one anonymous guy who keeps changing the rules)

The only inflationary coin proposal that I think could actually work:
http://encoin.bitcoinforums.net/
(Still in early planning stage)

I couldn't find a list of potential merchants that WOULD have flooded in to accept something because it decreases in value. Inflation encourages HOLDERS to want to move the currency - it discourages merchant acceptance.

Part of the reason Bitcoin is deflationary is because it's much simpler that way. The only way a bunch of computer geeks are going to embrace a more complicated solution is if:
A. Bitcoin crashes and burns horribly
B. A better alternative is demonstrated

Exactly. Garbage in = garbage out. I don't think there's much we can do to reduce voter ignorance.

That's where futarchy comes in... we can have citizens/representatives "vote on values, bet on beliefs". The average person can't be expected to understand the complexities of government, but they can much more easily define what consequences they want to see.

(I'm an atheist too)

You should check out Buddhism. IMHO it's way more sane than LaVeyan Satanism. Why hang on to all that anger towards Christianity?

I don't imagine MtGox has much incentive for FRB. They make a lot of money as an exchange, so investment probably isn't worth risking their leading position. Unless MtGox codes start getting used heavily like lonelyminer said, Bitcoin and Bitcoin stocks are just too volitile.

I like the idea and would probably vote for it. However...

Why redirect taxes locally? It would make more sense to just slowly lower state income/sales taxes over a long period like 10 years. That way state agencies can gradually transition to local offices, and cities can vote to raise local taxes accordingly. There's no sense in firing everybody immediately just so they can be rehired in a couple months/years, with wasted labor and unavailable services in between.