I don't just believe Bitcoin can coexist with other cryptocurrencies, I think if Bitcoin succeeds it's inevitable that other cryptocurrencies (at least one) will follow, and will stand firm beside it. The silver (and possibly copper and platinum and more) to Bitcoin's gold, as it were.

Funny how it always comes back to the same false accusations. Apparently only Bitcoinica and those earnestly trying to track their coins aren't thieves (oh, and Mt. Gox too, for some reason.)

How about you TaintFreeCoin folks go start your own fork? Add whatever makes you feel good about your digital cash being safe from all thefts forever and ever, nevermind the harm to innocents to get it to work. Heck, invite governments in to help out, and they can even guarantee your funds and help you reclaim your lost wallets too!

But I'm never touching that fork. And if it's the main fork that's compromised, whether through protocol changes or social conditioning, I'll be among the first in line to direct funding and effort towards a new cryptocurrency that won't allow for this nonsense. And I know I won't be alone.

Of course, at that point, I'm sure the anti-bitcoin lobby (which is what they are, whether they want to believe it or not) will chase right after us and do what they can to undermine it again. Won't you? <-- *1 BTC says that last question won't ever get an honest answer from any of them.*



You made it quite clear what you meant. You're the one using the term "taint" to describe it, and as you chose to use it, it's a figment of your imagination just as it would be to declare a pile of gold bars as "tainted" because there are a few atoms (or moles, or micrograms, or ounces, or whatever) in there that came from a shady source. Such a declaration, even if proven true, says NOTHING about the imagined "moral state" of the gold bars, or of the person holding them. And it's nonsense to pretend that shaving off some of the gold and doing something with it changes things.

Again though... go ahead and start implementing your designs. Just don't be shocked when they're ignored by the bulk of the bitcoin community.

No, it was not already there.

"Taint" exists only in the minds of people who think fungible goods can be stamped with some moral seal of approval.

Thief steals $10. The money changes hands. Eventually some of it winds up in the church offering plate. And from now on, by the power of fungibility and through the magic fiction of "taint," every check that church writes is rendered unclean... sorry, "tainted."

I don't even know where to start with that.

At least you stopped defending the proposal.

Watching.

Ah. Well, I see where you're coming from, but please keep in mind I'm just presenting how legal tender works. By definition, if a nation has legal tender laws, those laws to some degree or another mandate acceptance of the national money.

Even in the case of international trade, if a business is exporting goods in exchange for foreign currency, and the other company violates their contract by refusing to send the foreign currency but instead offers local currency, generally speaking that local currency will have to be accepted (although I would imagine in most cases the exporting business would be pleased, not upset at the development.) The fact that foreign businesses don't typically do this has more to do with the convenience for them (since they have their own legal tender money) rather than with their lack of ability to do so due to legal tender laws.

Legal tender laws and the requirement that taxes be paid only in the national currency are the two key ways a government ensures that there will be widespread circulation of their money in the national economy. This is something Keynesians take as a given, and most seem as if they would be very much against actual abolition of legal tender law (when they actually want to speak directly to the question.) From what I can see, Keynesians are against monetary freedom.

I'm not ignoring the snipped portion, I'll address it below.

I think the blanket statement that it's "immoral to allow" something is a slippery slope. Yes, I believe that generally speaking, someone with the power to do good for someone who needs it, but who doesn't do it, is wrong. But IMO such things should be examined and sometimes taken on a case-by-case basis.

That said, I understand where you're coming from, and tend to agree with the sentiment.

The question becomes, is a formal nation-state the most appropriate (and most effective) way to handle that? After all, all nation-states themselves initiate force on innocents to varying degrees. If you're willing to just settle for the state because it initiates less visible, less damaging force, then why bother trying to argue that it has any level of legitimacy? Why not just state, "they're a less violent gang, so I support them, even if they do wrong," and be done with it? That's what most people arguing against the state resent most... the societal lie that the government has some sort of legitimate authority for what it does.



This happens in situations with police, courts, and the rule of law as well. Even the most tyrannical regimes usually codify the evil they do as legal, for some strange, perverse reason (witness the U.S.'s NDAA and other recent laws.) Even though in some situations a government comes in and actually does good, the overall idea that government = safety, no government = destructive chaos is a false one. Such wrong usually occurs or fails to occur regardless of government presence.

There are a number of modern, wealthy society where most of the people aren't prone to this sort of thing in the first place, which can be seen somewhat by how often such things actually happen... police may act as a deterrent but they rarely actively prevent crimes, and if the populace is set on doing something, they will do it unless forcibly prevented. In such a society, I see no reason to believe that the replacement of a government with other, voluntary means of protection is going to be anything but positive.

Thanks for your openness on this.

I've recently placed the magazine into the hands of folks who are interested, but not exactly technically savvy. I'll be sure to check on what they found easy to digest, and what they didn't, and comment on it.

I presume you meant that NOT being able to force legal tender onto someone is the exception? I'm pretty sure that despite the few cases to the contrary, it's routine in most countries that acceptance of the nation's money is legally mandatory to some degree or another.

Still, the exceptions are somewhat interesting. Clearly the ideal is for the populace to demand monetary freedom.

But that's just not true, either on an individual level or on a societal level.

If I see that the police in my city are corrupt, and specifically that Officers Adams, Baker and Crowley are guilty of abusing their powers and hurting innocent people, I can't decide to fire them, or to start paying them $0. Yes, I could try to convince their bosses to do so, but the point is, it's not my decision as an individual.

And even if the entire society wants them gone, who's going to make it happen? As long as the people making the decisions an the people wielding the guns act in accord and protect each other, nothing can be done. In the U.S., over 90% of the populace was against the first round of bank bailouts. The rulers knew this. They ignored it, and nothing has happened to them. Even the voting is gamed. It may have been better in the past, and it may be better in other countries, but only because the ruling class wasn't inclined to be so brazen about flaunting their control, and the lack of the people's control. In any society, if the ruling class decides to stop pretending that the people have control, then the people will find out pretty quickly that they don't.



If I were to have a true choice, it wouldn't be from the alternatives you offer... I'd rather choose a society with no government, but with people choosing voluntary protection services (or self-protection,) and with enough wealth to defend themselves from foreign states too. If Afgahnistan can do it, then a government-less U.S. could easily repel foreign states, and likely several other advanced nations could too.

Now, I honestly doubt that'll ever materialize in my lifetime, or anytime in the near future, but it's the moral ideal, and the most practically effective in terms of providing security and allowing for prosperity, so of course I try to choose options that lead closer to that ideal.

Given an already advanced and wealthy nation, and the option of continuing its government or disbanding it (or at least disbanding the higher levels,) I'll always opt for the latter. And while I believe it'll lead to greater personal benefit for me, that's not why I'd choose it... I'd choose it because I believe that that is the moral option, because I believe that initiating force against someone who has not done so is wrong, and is one of the greater wrongs that mankind is capable of.

That's how legal tender works. If someone delivers on their half of a contract, the other party can legally get away with paying in or with exchanging legal tender instead, even if the contract specified an exchange in gold, bitcoin, chocolate chips, or even another nation's currency.

The problem this leads to is that it effectively eliminates those types of non-legal-tender-accepting contracts from the market. People can sign on the dotted line saying they'll pay in gold, or that they'll barter toothpaste for the product, but they can be fully intending from the start to ignore that and pay you in paper. And legally there would be nothing the seller could do about it. That's the problem with specifying a method of payment in the contract. It's unenforceable, and typically meaningless. Even though the occasional participant will honor it, there's no (legal) obligation to do so, and over time fewer will.

And Krugman, and economists with similar beliefs (Keynesians,) believe in legal tender. In fact, they assume it, and much of their theories revolve around the presumption that the government will force a specific monetary system onto the people, especially through forcing people to accept that government money even if it's not in their contracts. They don't rage against barter because (1) their theories already presume an environment in which barter will realistically be unenforceable, and (2) they don't actually want to come out and plainly say that they dislike barter, and want it to be unenforceable because they know how something so intrusive will sound.

Saying they work for us is pretty much a joke when they force us to provide them their paychecks.

And given that, it becomes clear why, over time, governments act less and less as if they're "tied up" with any sort of limitations.

Yet you want to take a group of people with mass violence as part of their nature, and give them a socially-accepted monopoly on initiating violence.

Considering the millions that governments, even "democratic" governments have killed (especially in the 20th century) and continue to kill, I have a hard time seeing why you feel that a society without a centralized nation-state would be more dangerous overall than one without.

+1

Yes. Thank you.

Krugman says things that make me think there's no possible way he can be intelligent, educated and in any way knowledgeable and actually believe those things.

Well, how each person looked is probably quite subjective.

To me, Krugman certainly seemed more assertive, but in the somewhat frustrated, hint-of-barely-restrained-anger tone that many intellectually dishonest academics seem to use when their most central beliefs (especially the ones regarding Their Area of Expertise (TM)) are challenged.

Also... "real facts from post-WW2" vs. "spurious historical facts"?... ok....

Hmm. Just noticed your honey caramels. Will definitely try (I'll visit the web site and email you.)

Jan, are BitcoinSpinner private keys still in SIPA format?  It seemed odd that neither Blockchain nor Strongcoin recognized it.

Creative collaboration is usually more of a two-way street. You might need to provide more info.

What does your company focus on? What's it's big selling point? What single quality of TizzyTazzy makes you most proud?

Asking for a "fresh cool crazy spontaneous" slogan is itself a little generic. Can you narrow down your focus here? Short or long? Buzzword-heavy or sassy-yet-vague? Should it bring attention to something about the company, or just grab people's attention directly (and what are your limits on how bold such an attention-grab should be?)

The more descriptive you are, the more people will know about what you want (and what you don't want.)

To those who had the 20/30-minute download times...

Are you all using Windows?

Hmm. Well, I'm stumped. Sounds like the latest update may have a bug or two, in which case you should probably wait on Jan. He might want your phone model, OS version, and version of BitcoinSpinner too for good measure.

Last attempt: try going to Blockexplorer and looking for your first BitcoinSpinner address, and see what happened to your coins after they were initially sent to the address. If they didn't move from that address at all, it sounds like they may be lost for good. OTOH, maybe, just maybe the address produced was invalid, and the original coins never left your desktop client (if Blockexplorer reports your address as never having been seen, that's a good sign.)

Just to be sure, you used BitcoinSpinner's "Advanced" settings option and used "Export Private Key," right? That's not the same code as the wallet backup.