All U.S. citizens pay plenty of taxes. Property taxes (schools, police), gas taxes (roads), sales taxes (state programs), corporate taxes (military), etc.

What benefit do we supposedly derive from paying the IRS' income tax? Do you even know where the money goes?

Now you know what those of us in the know, who understand just how unbelievably, insanely corrupt the governments in the U.S. are (with the Feds being the worst) are up against.



They are already doing this. They literally lobby for new laws, for harsher laws, for all of it.

Tell the average U.S. citizen on the street, and they'll either deny it and call you a "crazy conspiracy theorist", or shrug and keep walking.



Yep.



This is just the tip of the iceberg of the corruption that exists behind the scenes in the U.S. I am not kidding. And the reason it's gotten to the level it has, right under the nose of the populace, is because (1) they're convinced that the holy, omnipotent sugar-daddy U.S. government (and by proxy of course, them) is righteous and infallible, and (2) those who would be educated enough to understand it all waste time fighting over implementing their pet government programs, essentially rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.



Unfortunately, the fallout from all of this already reaches far across the globe (Afghanistan being a prime example.) And the worst is yet to come.

Or at least the modern-day concept of the fraudulent "nation-state."

Let's hope.

Other.

I don't mine now, but have pre-ordered a single BFL coffee warmer.

Seems to me ASICs, done right, are increasing casual mining, not killing it.

While I understand people have limited time during their day, I find it very interesting the posts (and portions of posts) those who support government healthcare choose to respond to, and which ones are snipped or ignored.

Hmm. Seems as if several of us are suddenly jumping on Hawker at once. For the record, that wasn't my intent (despite having strong views on Hawker's perspective being flawed,) and as I have someplace to be, I'll leave the thread for now.

But your question presumes that the only two options are: (1) wachtwoord pays via national healthcare, or (2) the poor baby dies. That is a false dichotomy.

(And as an aside, there are also issues with option (1) of the false dichotomy itself, the most notable being the presumption that it ensures that the baby won't die.)

Surely you realize that's a false dichotomy.

Not too surprised. If anything, I'm just surprised at the magnitude of it (not a simple, short press release, but an appearance on the Sean Hannity show? Really, Rand? Why not just twist that knife in your dad's back while you're at it.)


 

This view has a number of problems. First, the universal declaration that people never stick to it. The Amish don't believe in stealing to get what you need. And they've setup a community to help each other so they don't need to rely on national healthcare. And yes, there are non-Amish who also take the position that they shouldn't get what they haven't paid for... and actually stick to it.

Second though, is the curious thought... are these people, after suddenly renouncing their stance due to a personal crisis, showing up at hospitals with guns and forcing healthcare from others? No? Then how are they obtaining it? Because others are choosing to give it to them. How that gets resolved afterwards is the issue. The obvious solution would be debt, or some other payment plan, or simply not giving them the care they can't afford, or giving the healthcare away as charity (from what I understand, many doctors in the past used to do this, before our modern system.)

The impression I get is that you view debt/payments/no-care/charity as a bad, unacceptable array of responses to the problem of some people not taking responsibility for their health care... as so bad, that you consider a inefficient, corrupt, national-scale government wealth redistribution program to be a better option.

Seen in that light, can you understand why so many disagree with you?

Cash can be converted to money orders and/or cashier's checks.

The thing is, step 2 is largely irrelevant. The bulk of the business will be done in USD, Euros or whatever, and any profits still have to be converted back to bitcoins.

Of course, one could claim the business was done in bitcoins. But that has problems that could actually be worse than the whole thing just being a ponzi. At the very least it would suggest that those borrowing the bitcoins are selling goods and/or services directly for bitcoins. I find that pretty implausible myself.

Not an expert.

But, correct me if I'm wrong, it boils down to the following easy-to-determine model (in the case of Bitcoin at least:)

1) People contribute their X bitcoins
2) The "business" does something with the bitcoins
3) Everyone receives X+Y bitcoins back

If there's no other reasonably plausible source for the Y bitcoins, it's almost certainly a ponzi scheme.

Now, concerning the individual accused of having the above business model. I've not read all of the related threads; has he provided a reasonably plausible source for the bitcoin "interest" he returns? My understanding was that he avoids using the exchanges.

The 256-bit number of the private key doesn't have to be low. As long as it is less than:

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEBAAEDCE6AF48A03BBFD25E8CD0364141

you'll be safe.

The transactions aren't all recorded so we know everyone's balance. Yes, that would be inefficient.

They're all kept, forever, so we can prevent double-spends.

I don't even know if those terms apply. It wasn't just them not knowing what questions to ask about the "investments." I mean, even scammers fell for them. It seems like such frauds simply cater to the greedy: if your greed overpowers your knowledge and diligence, then you get burned.

I also just now realized how much money these scams netted after Stephen's post above. Funny how the author of the article never once mentioned the USD/Euro/etc. value of what he stole. All the better to let himself sleep, I suppose.

Anyone who won't say what they intend to invest your money in, and won't explain how they plan to make money from doing so, can't be trusted. That's the first hurdle they should have to jump, and if you're not even demanding THAT, you're just giving your money away.

We should all know this by now.

This.

The horror stories I hear about Paypal should be reason enough for online sellers to embrace Bitcoin.

Of course, the decentralized (read: unstoppable) alternative it provides to a debt-based monetary system should be good enough reason for everyone else to embrace it. The fact that many people don't realize it's good for them doesn't mean that it isn't.

I don't see how anyone is thinking the release of ASICs is in any way going to centralize Bitcoin mining.

For example, I personally could already be mining, but the reason I haven't done it isn't hardware cost. A cheap graphics card isn't exactly extravagant. It's because of (1) the hassle (mainly heat output, but also other problems if scaling up) and (2) the electrical costs. That's just not convenient for casual mining.

Now, I can pre-order a $150 device that draws less power than a fluorescent light bulb and has nearly-negligible hassle, and keep it turned on for the heck of it. I'm helping secure the network, and making a little in the process... it's about like CPU mining before the GPU days, but with a small(ish) upfront cost. And the fact that I have pre-ordered one, but had no intention of GPU (or FPGA) mining just proves that the market of potential miners has expanded, not contracted.

Seriously, I don't understand the fuss.

(Even the 51% attack is less feasible... with more people mining, and a higher hash rate per miner, it's win/win. And it's not as if some agency couldn't just make their own ASICs if no one else did, although eventually someone was bound to.)

Wow, weekly? You really think the level of enthusiasm is enough to support such frequency? If so I'm pleasantly surprised, and glad to see Bitcoin making such inroads into the community.