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781
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Ideas for a Bitcoin 2.0
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on: October 15, 2011, 09:01:32 PM
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Have you tried pitching NORMAL Bitcoin to ordinary people yet? It sounds like a crazy internet scam enough without financially dangerous legal agreements. What incentive does the lender have to ever denominate in fiat instead of BC2? It would only be used against him.
The secret to Bitcoin success is not more lawyers.
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782
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Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: SolidCoin 2 Release - Monday 10th October 23:35 UTC
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on: October 15, 2011, 03:52:47 PM
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I can confirm that sd has solid evidence about what he is telling.
Unfortunately, it is closed source at the moment, so you get to take my word on this one. Cool, I have some hard evidence also. Take a look at the new SolidCoin v2.0 interface and see the improvements it has to make things easier for everyone. Now you can just tell your mother or sister to download one thing and in two clicks she is mining or sending money to others. Neat isn't it. That's evidence of a feature-rich client, but not evidence of a secure client. |
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783
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Respond to corporate Acts Of War against the United States
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on: October 15, 2011, 04:47:57 AM
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Do you want a "government by the people" or a "government by the corporations"?
I'm trying to get lobbying classified as an Act Of War, so it will be a "government by the people", a democracy. Buying votes or buying laws should be illegal.
The problem is that there is an enormous financial incentive to buy each congressman. So long as that incentive exists, the rich will find a way. Both parties are willing and clever. |
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784
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Economy / Trading Discussion / Re: Decentralizing prediction markets
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on: October 15, 2011, 02:07:39 AM
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If you worry about a site getting taken down, convince them to register it as a .bit domain.
I'm thinking this could even be done with a p2p program, no websites required. I lack the programming skill myself, but if anyone knows of bounties related to this sort of stuff I'd be happy to pitch in. |
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785
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Economy / Trading Discussion / Re: Decentralizing prediction markets
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on: October 14, 2011, 05:23:10 PM
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3) Multisigned transactions may also be useful. It's basically escrow built in to the software, requiring multiple private keys to release funds. By sending all bets as multisigned transactions to multiple bookies/agents, lone defectors wouldn't be able to steal the pot. This reduces the risk of theft but increases the risk of accidental loss.
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786
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Other / Beginners & Help / Re: why mess around with alt coins, litecoin
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on: October 14, 2011, 01:22:14 PM
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The success of a currency or commodity can not be based on just accepting CPUs and banning GPUs in mining or whatever silly reason. Initiatives based on those fundamentals are doomed to fail.
At the moment I see no viable alternative to Bitcoin in the crypto-currency world. There are no crypto-currencies that offer any advantage that Bitcoin can not offer.
Maybe that is why nearly 99% of all value in crypto-currencies are stored in Bitcoin.
Sorry, does Bitcoin offer two-and-a-half minute confirmations? Why stop there? Geist Geld will confirm your transaction in seconds. |
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788
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 13, 2011, 09:53:50 PM
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I still find it funny that this thread continues on.
If you support democracy, then you should realize that this thread has already determined that democracy is a bad idea via a democratic vote.
The majority has decided.
You've repeated this enough to make me worry that you may actually be serious, that you may actually think an anonymous poll on a libertarian forum means anything. Perhaps we should ask the Ubuntu forums if Microsoft Windows is a good idea? There are plenty of smart objections against democracy. Read them. Frederic and I might not agree but at least he has engaged in intelligent, good-faith discussion. Not this wiseass strawman argument ad nauseum. |
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790
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 12, 2011, 01:02:20 PM
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From what we have established so far, true libertarianism means that you can make your own army. You can get tanks and aircraft from a foreign power. You can make your own laws and your own courts. Only if someone else has a more powerful army, can you lose. Otherwise, true libertarianism means that you are a dictator.
If I have missed something here, feel free to tell me.
Try again. I made no mention of republicans or socialists.
Self-defense and all the contractual consensual behavior that leads up to it, does not produce a dictatorship except and unless you violate the NAP. Amassing all the various protections and weapons that could possibly be invented in the advent of potential threat also does not create a dictatorship. Your confusing individual or group defensive preparedness with collective conscription. Correct me if I am wrong. The NAP is voluntary. The guy with an army may not agree to it. Your whole argument is based on the assumption that having fought his way to being the most powerful army, he will then decide to start following the NAP. If he doesn't, then you have replaced democracy with dictatorship. You're not the only one who sees this coming. Everyone would. That's why people would buy insurance ahead of time to use against him if needed, for example hiring a foreign army to help fight the evil local army. The main reason this hasn't happened after historical conquests is because they lacked a robust and independent financial system. |
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791
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 06:16:10 PM
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So its like life insurance limited to covering death by assassination? That fantastic if you are rich in a libertarian paradise. You get the assassination insurance on someone you dislike and get paid when they die. You kill them. You own the court and you own the police. You won't be arrested and even if you were your employee, the prosecutor, would accept self-defence and drop the case. Remind me again how this is an improvement on what we have now? Because immediately afterwards, the peasants who are getting knocked off by this rich guy pool THEIR money together and kill HIM. The fact that he has most of the power, owns the cops, owns the law... Won't protect him. Um no. He has the army. As Stalin said of the Pope, "How may divisions does he have?" If you can't defeat the army, you are dead. If you kill the leader, he will be replaced by his second in command. Its not realistic to arm people and hope that a shifty assassination will deter them from tyranny. What you're describing sounds more like a dictator than a random rich person. Why would he even bother with anonymous markets when he can overtly order hits anyways? Besides, we don't even need assassination markets to deal with such blatant abuse of power - the Arab spring proved that. But for fun let's run with this scenario. Let's say each peasant would gain 50 BTC worth of utility from "evil army loses City X" or something. They each bet 50 BTC that the evil army will hold the city. If the city falls, then it's a fair deal for everyone who lost money, their utility remains constant. If the army stands, the peasants are reimbursed and can bet again the next week/month/whenever. Meanwhile, Evil Dictator may bet against them to keep the potential profit margin down. He must choose between continually reimbursing peasants for their suffering, or gradually increasing chances of rebel attack. This is what happens when real peasants bet against a real bastard with a militia. Indiscriminate slaughter followed by a generation of exploitation. I'd ask you to contrast how police handle political opponents here and then see democracy is better than dictatorship. Your scheme of allowing the rich to have their own armies, courts and police can end in one guy dominating an area exactly as thoroughly as Assad dominates Syria. So the potential downside is huge. And I have yet to see a potential upside :S No one used anonymous electronic markets in that village. They did not employ any technological capitalist solution similar to the one described here. I'm not disputing that democracy is the best system, and certainly never meant to imply dictatorship even comes close, although I'm of the opinion that crypto-anarchy wouldn't be so bad. They might not even send political opponents to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured without trial. The potential downside of representative democracy is that our representatives can be bought by corporations and wealthy people who write their own laws, strip away our freedoms, and poison the Earth. They are killing all of us right now. The potential upside of crypto-anarchy is to end that. |
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792
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 04:03:03 PM
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So its like life insurance limited to covering death by assassination? That fantastic if you are rich in a libertarian paradise. You get the assassination insurance on someone you dislike and get paid when they die. You kill them. You own the court and you own the police. You won't be arrested and even if you were your employee, the prosecutor, would accept self-defence and drop the case. Remind me again how this is an improvement on what we have now? Because immediately afterwards, the peasants who are getting knocked off by this rich guy pool THEIR money together and kill HIM. The fact that he has most of the power, owns the cops, owns the law... Won't protect him. Um no. He has the army. As Stalin said of the Pope, "How may divisions does he have?" If you can't defeat the army, you are dead. If you kill the leader, he will be replaced by his second in command. Its not realistic to arm people and hope that a shifty assassination will deter them from tyranny. What you're describing sounds more like a dictator than a random rich person. Why would he even bother with anonymous markets when he can overtly order hits anyways? Besides, we don't even need assassination markets to deal with such blatant abuse of power - the Arab spring proved that. But for fun let's run with this scenario. Let's say each peasant would gain 50 BTC worth of utility from "evil army loses City X" or something. They each bet 50 BTC that the evil army will hold the city. If the city falls, then it's a fair deal for everyone who lost money, their utility remains constant. If the army stands, the peasants are reimbursed and can bet again the next week/month/whenever. Meanwhile, Evil Dictator may bet against them to keep the potential profit margin down. He must choose between continually reimbursing peasants for their suffering, or gradually increasing chances of rebel attack. |
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793
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 01:48:21 PM
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So its like life insurance limited to covering death by assassination? That fantastic if you are rich in a libertarian paradise. You get the assassination insurance on someone you dislike and get paid when they die. You kill them. You own the court and you own the police. You won't be arrested and even if you were your employee, the prosecutor, would accept self-defence and drop the case. Remind me again how this is an improvement on what we have now? Because immediately afterwards, the peasants who are getting knocked off by this rich guy pool THEIR money together and kill HIM. The fact that he has most of the power, owns the cops, owns the law... Won't protect him. |
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794
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 01:12:44 PM
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...snip...
The problem is that its the rich will have the money for paying killers. So if you get into a dispute with your mortgage provider, he can have you killed. Or your employer. Or even if a sibling wants to settle a inheritance dispute with you.
That's not really an attractive prospect. Our existing system, with the right to kill reserved to the State and even then used rarely, is better.
The rich can already pay to kill someone. The only thing that assassination markets change is that they allow large groups of disorganized people to pay to kill someone. FWIW I'm pro-democracy too and agree that law enforcement should capture murderers and those who fund them, but we can't just vote market forces away. Only if they can hide that fact. If its known that someone paid for a contract killing, that person will spend a great many years as a guest of the Queen. In a libertarian society they can go to a market and buy a contract killing the way you and I would buy a butchered pig. Or have I misunderstood this whole "market in assassinations" concept? Yes. I'm sorry, I should have provided a link to avoid this confusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market |
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795
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 12:58:42 PM
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The problem is that its the rich will have the money for paying killers. So if you get into a dispute with your mortgage provider, he can have you killed. Or your employer. Or even if a sibling wants to settle a inheritance dispute with you.
That's not really an attractive prospect. Our existing system, with the right to kill reserved to the State and even then used rarely, is better.
Murder isn't allowed under libertarianism anymore than it is now. So? If you own the court and you own the police, its not murder when you kill people is it? Yes it most certainly is! Murder is murder no matter who tells you it's ok! |
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796
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 11, 2011, 12:54:11 PM
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Forgive me for bringing anarchism with adjectives into the mix, but there are differing perspectives for how an anarchist society would deal with high-status members being abusive. Crypto-anarchists (common here) often suggest assassination markets. Other options include powerful unions and local-scale direct democracy. Pretty much any solution without rulers can potentially qualify.
The very notion that I can go down the market and pay to have someone killed is intriguing. It sounds so much better than the money I wasted on divorce lawyers  Sadly, it would not defeat a well trained army. They can cope just fine with losing officers. And, as a way to run a community, its certainly not better than democracy. You can already do this, especially if you're wealthy. Based on your posts you don't sound like a murderer to me; you would probably only do this to fight off oppressors. And you needn't just assassinate people; any weak point could become a target. You could even short sell "evil army victory" and surprise them with your own profitable guerilla strike to supply lines. The problem is that its the rich will have the money for paying killers. So if you get into a dispute with your mortgage provider, he can have you killed. Or your employer. Or even if a sibling wants to settle a inheritance dispute with you. That's not really an attractive prospect. Our existing system, with the right to kill reserved to the State and even then used rarely, is better. The rich can already pay to kill someone. The only thing that assassination markets change is that they allow large groups of disorganized people to pay to kill someone. FWIW I'm pro-democracy too and agree that law enforcement should capture murderers and those who fund them, but we can't just vote market forces away. |
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798
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 09, 2011, 10:11:24 PM
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Forgive me for bringing anarchism with adjectives into the mix, but there are differing perspectives for how an anarchist society would deal with high-status members being abusive. Crypto-anarchists (common here) often suggest assassination markets. Other options include powerful unions and local-scale direct democracy. Pretty much any solution without rulers can potentially qualify.
The very notion that I can go down the market and pay to have someone killed is intriguing. It sounds so much better than the money I wasted on divorce lawyers Sadly, it would not defeat a well trained army. They can cope just fine with losing officers. And, as a way to run a community, its certainly not better than democracy. You can already do this, especially if you're wealthy. Based on your posts you don't sound like a murderer to me; you would probably only do this to fight off oppressors. And you needn't just assassinate people; any weak point could become a target. You could even short sell "evil army victory" and surprise them with your own profitable guerilla strike to supply lines. |
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799
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Other / Politics & Society / Re: Is Democracy a bad idea?
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on: October 09, 2011, 09:29:10 PM
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Forgive me for bringing anarchism with adjectives into the mix, but there are differing perspectives for how an anarchist society would deal with high-status members being abusive. Crypto-anarchists (common here) often suggest assassination markets. Other options include powerful unions and local-scale direct democracy. Pretty much any solution without rulers can potentially qualify.
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