.......

I'll bite.

If it isn't the elimination of a given species, then what is the problem that greed is causing in these instances?

This one is something I'm surprised still has legs: the idea that declaring a species off-limits (or as belonging to "the commons") helps it to survive.

There's no shortage of cows or chickens. No one holds protests with signs saying "Save the Corn!"

When people are allowed to have ownership of a thing, and have a free market where they can profit from said thing, and have no guarantee of a bailout or entitlement should they screw up, then they have every incentive to manage their property well enough to continue profiting. When it comes to animals & plants, that generally means managing them well enough that they continue to reproduce more.

Don't know whether it's a scam or not, but out of curiosity... is there a minimum payout threshold?

Of course there's self-interest there.

My point is, self-interest is not, in and of itself, an evil thing. Arguing against self-interest because it's ubiquitous isn't exactly a profitable exercise (although if you want to argue that self-interest is inherently bad, by all means go right ahead.)

When self-interest BECOMES greed, through one's desires becoming excessive, then there's a problem.

Hmmm.

I'd restate the highlighted portion as:

What's the benefits of participating in mixing someone else's coins, when no one else has to mix yours?

Even as someone who despises the concept of "tainted coins", and totally embraces anonymity, I have to admit, this proposal bothers me a little. Particularly the "opt-in" part.

I have the concern that by clicking to opt-in to mixing, I might wind up with the large majority of people I mix with being those trying to hide the source of stolen funds. What benefit is that to me? Sure, my financial history is obscured, but if that's achieved by hiding my financial movements among those of people with legitimately criminal financial activity, have I really gained anything?

If the rebuttal is, "well, most people will choose to opt-in" (which is questionable), then what's the point of the opting-in? Why not just make it a built-in, mandatory part of clients and be done with it?

I'm convinced passive coin mixing won't work unless it's automatic and widespread. Which means I'd be more supportive of an opt-out (or better yet, mandatory) client-level mixing methodology, but I still think the best way to do automatic, widespread mixing is to alter the protocol.

As a bonus, this would force those people who insist on having traceable transactions to go make their own fork.

It might help if we agreed on a definition of "greed" here, or at least take note of which one others are using. I usually use the textbook definition:


Emphasis on excessive. As in, if your desire for wealth is so strong that you've just sold your grandma into slavery for thirty pence, yeah, that's definitely excessive, and it's definitely bad.

I understand the desire to defend it as OK when people start saying ridiculous stuff like "You don't want to pay taxes?! You're just an evil, greedy ogre!" But:

(1) That's hardly greed. Wanting to keep what you earn is in no way "excessive."

(2) What it IS, is simple self-interest, which is what most free market supporters accept as OK, and really, one can't argue that.

Calling greed good may be an effective way at making liberals/socialists/etc. flinch, but it hardly seems to be defensible without conflating greed with self-interest.

Yep.

Well, I've given friends and loved ones wallets on CD-Rs. Even giving them two copies of each CD, I find myself nervous as to the chances that they'll be able to retrieve the wallets in the future. (Sure, I can tell them to make copies, keep the discs in separate locations, and all that, but you know how it sometimes goes giving such instructions to the less tech-savvy....)

With these, I think their private keys would have a much better chance of surviving.

+1

Considering continued inflation, the reward halving, growing awareness of Bitcoin, the public impact of the release of mining ASICs and other geopolitical/economic factors, I think we stand a good chance at seeing $32+ by this December, even if it's just a temporary spike (I don't anticipate a bubble though; I don't see it dropping much below $30 again even if it does break the previous high as a result of a spike.)

Oh, of course. But along with those other media (and possibly cloud storage) I think adding something like this to the mix is a good idea. (So far, I'm relying on hard drives, flash drives, CD-Rs and paper for non-brainwallet critical backups; I'll definitely be looking into getting M-Discs as well.)



Now this is a decent idea. If I ever get ahold of an M-Disc writer I may add blockchain copies to my backups (I'd likely have extra space, so might as well.)

Well, expecting to keep a digital medium around for decades is unwise (who has a 3.5" floppy reader nowadays?) but there's still value in the product; you can be assured your disc won't degrade before you get a chance to transfer it to the newest storage format that comes out just before your DVD reader bites the dust.

A lot of people in the hard money camp (gold/silver over fiat) have a hard time with Bitcoin. They think that because it's unbacked, it must be just another type of fiat, and destined for worthlessness. Convincing them of the cryptographic integrity of the 21-million cap is probably the best way to get around that sentiment, but it's a slow, difficult process, especially for those who are not very math/tech savvy.

Don't bother. FirstAscent has no intention of doing that much work. Why would he? He doesn't care about the actual influence of guns on crime anyway. Again, for him, the real desire is to strictly control the average, peaceful, innocent citizen's gun ownership. The fact that he won't address this moral angle (probably because he knows he'd lose the argument,) but instead attempts to get others running in circles producing data that he knows won't convince him, and knows will always be able to be nitpicked, speaks volumes.

The excitement level is irrelevant. The important part, is that this IS a possibility. And that the appropriate response is NOT totalitarian police states for all, just because you fear the possibility.

And for the umpteenth time, if you believe it is, you are wasting your time espousing such a sentiment here.

As far as 3d printing of guns? Yes, totally excited about it. I'm looking forward to acquiring a 3d printer even more now.

Well, I'm not sure that there aren't. I don't travel in the gun-heavy circles, so I don't know, but I find it hard to believe that this isn't becoming popular. I guess I'll visit the next local gun show and ask around.

Or, you could just be honest and admit that you already know all the numbers in the world won't convince you.

In my experience, the side that can't address their points with serious intellectual honesty is usually the wrong one. You don't need cheap tactics and underhanded behavior when logic and facts are in your favor.

Well, depending on the situation and person, maybe it's just easier (and possibly cheaper) in the long-term to gift them a 3D printer instead?

You guys just had to. Ugh.

Well, I'd thought about it earlier but hadn't wanted to resurrect this thread. Might as well toss this into the mix now, since we all really know this is much less about disarming criminals (ha!) than about disarming the average, innocent citizen:

http://www.webpronews.com/gunsmith-uses-3d-printer-to-make-a-rifle-2012-07

(Funny how the original article seems to have disappeared....)

You're forgetting about the inflation that artificially low interest rates cause. That hurts the poor far more than the rich.

+1

Although I realize, based on general human behavior, we seem to be in the minority.