For me the general rule is that your Dwolla transfer will go through shortly after the bitcoin market rebounds and you can no longer take advantage of a good opportunity.  

(But I think it actually depends on your physical bank more than anything else)

(1) They caved in to Sen. Lieberman and pulled the plug on Wikileaks so that Americans cannot easily support a publisher of free speech.

(2) They withhold funds and terminate accounts capriciously.

(3) They are a special interest that is likely to feel threatened by a strong bitcoin economy. When/if politicians start looking for ways to shut down bitcoin you will almost certainly be able to trace some of the money back to PayPal. (owned by Ebay).

I am Spartacus.

Also, you don't need 50, only about 5 and about 4 hours (or something like that). I also like the sound of what you are working on and share your concerns as well as your hopes. You seem like a talented person and I would love to hear your ideas and any updates on your progress.

Those are awesome hobbies. I hope to learn about exactly those things. I'm glad more people like you are learning about bitcoins.

Shortly after beginning this thread I was elevated to the level of a Jr. Member (a proud moment indeed).  But I will not forget my roots. You can be sure that I will check this board often so that others may get their posts. Though I may one day dream of posting with the Heroes on the boards of Valhalla, I know where I came from.

I see so many people saying things like this.  Where does faith like this come from?  Is it a statement of personal experience or is it confidence in a trusted authority? Or is it that for some of us the 'free market' has become part of our identity and not having faith in it is too much like heresy?

I do not know you so I am not really talking about you here. I just see people having faith in economic ideas a lot. This seems like an especially bad thing to have faith in. It adds to the irony that a lot of people have strong faith in economic ideas even when they make fun of people who have faith in other things.

I bet a lot of Fox News viewers literally have faith in "free markets" and a lot of MSNBC viewers have faith in Keynesianism. I doubt either group really has any good reasons for what they think, but both groups are likely to get angry at people who doubt them. This is the danger of false certainty.

I have been lurking on here long enough to have read several of your posts. I know you are not like the people I described in my last paragraph, and I am also inclined towards a confidence in 'the market'. It's a point of view I favor because it makes sense to me and fits in nicely with my other values. When people challenge the idea it seems a little like they are challenging me and I am likely to defend it with some zeal. That is why I caution myself to remember that 'the market is a benign force that inevitably brings about what's good for people' should not be an article of faith, and is probably, sometimes, wishful thinking.

Well yes this is a simplified thought experiment. If the answer is that it just can't ever happen then I suppose that is an answer.

But this is basically the way retail business work.  (1) buy from a wholesaler at whole sale prices. (2) sell to the public at retail prices.

A widget is some generic thing and the bitcoin prices are intentionally made up.  Depending on what it is and how fast you can sell the widget it is not implausible that the value of a bitcoin rises faster than the profit margin.  That means you are always paying more in bitcoins for the widgets than you are able to get anyone to pay you for them later. (because now a bitcoin gets you more widgets than it used to).

Of course this means that a rational person just doesn't go into business, but that is the point - a viable currency shouldn't punish people who go into business with it.

I am playing devils advocate here. I am pro-bitcoin. I do think this is some kind of problem that deserves a serious solution though. Maybe it means some kinds of businesses can't be done with deflationary currencies but others can. It's not clear.

Also, to be sure, person A who did nothing did not make any money. It's just that they still have 100 bitcoins.  They have more wealth because now you can get more stuff with one bitcoin.  The person who went into business has the same exact wealth as before, even though they lost a bitcoin.  So the paradox (apparent (but possibly not actual) contradiction) is that someone who does nothing increases their wealth relative to someone who goes into business.

How about this example

Person A and person B both have 100 bitcoins.

Person A just holds theirs and does nothing with them.

Person B goes into business. Person B buys a widget at wholesale prices, in order to be a widget retailer.
So say B buys a widget for 100 bitcoins in order to sell it to someone else. By the time B sells his widget the bitcoin has deflated and it takes less bitcoins to buy a widget. So he sells it for 99 bitcoins.

On the one hand, B has the same (or greater) amount of WEALTH but compared to A (who did nothing) he has fewer bitcoins.

A is the winner for doing nothing. Isn't this a problem for an economy when people who do nothing fair better than people who go into business?

(note: I am a huge supporter of bitcoins and their future, I'm just posting this as a philosophical question out of curiosity for good answers).

I heard you are from Russia. Is that so? Do you think the Russian government will be favorable to bitcoins? Many fear that the US government will try to squash them. And yes, I am, in part, giving you a chance to make another post.

Out of curiosity, how do you see it pushing you to write good content? (note: by answering my question it gives you another post, and one step closer to getting out of here. )

mining2.bitcoin.cz is working for me. Thanks slush.

He is not welcome to post any other place than right here because he is a newbie. It was not his choice it is the policy of this forum.

Out of curiosity, how does it measure how long a user has been logged in?  I think it was an option to never log out.  Does it look for clicks on the site, posts that were made, or something else as the 'keep alive' event?

How many posts are needed to no longer be a 'newbie'?  I had read this forum for quite a while and had recently made some posts in other areas. Are you concerned that alienating people might not be good for the long term health of your community?

It would be unfortunate if good people who could make significant contributions will be put off by this policy change.

Have the 'newbies' been rustled up and put into a pen where non-newbies will rarely ever reply to them, and so they are unlikely to be part of conversations that would give them an authentic chance to become full members?

Are you trying to create an incentive for people to make a lot of posts that have little content?

I apologize if my questions are out of place in this part of the forum, I would have been part of the discussion about this policy change had I seen one.

Hi, I'm new to this forum although I have been reading it for quite a while.

Were 'newbies' just recently restricted to this part of the forum? I was under the impression that I had posted some replies in other parts.

Anyhow, I am very enthusiastic about bitcoins and their potential to even the playing field. I am working on projects that I hope to share in the future. I look forward to contributing to the success of bitcoins however I can.

How many posts does one need to no longer be considered a newbie?

Well as you can see I am a 'newbie' myself so I cannot comment on whether this forum is 'infested' as you say. If that really is a problem though I suggest re-organizing this forum into areas more friendly to beginners and those explicitly intended for the well seasoned. I don't think it would be a good idea to splinter a community on the basis of seniority. It would seem that a welcoming attitude toward new arrivals is an important part of the longevity of any community.

I wouldn't be interested in it, in that case. How did all the known faces arrive on the scene without ever being a newbie?

Agreed. A problem you may run into, in practice, are the people who will tell you its not essential when the (voluntary) collection hat comes around, but then use the service anyway (for example a road or public park). So there will need to be a mechanism to prevent such people from using any services they voluntarily chose not to support. But then one begins to wonder if a mechanism like that, if it is robust enough to prevent people from driving down certain roads or admiring the nicely groomed park, is not just another government by a different name. No?

I live in the United States and for much of my life I enjoyed the belief that my country was relatively free and stood behind the values of a free market. I have long since been disabused of this myth but now and again something happens to hammer home just how false it is.

I now see -- very clearly -- that all the talk about a 'free market' is strictly intended for the common man. When an ordinary person has fallen on hard times they really need to learn the value of taking responsibility for their actions, show some initiative, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and other platitudes. Being disciplined by the market is good for ordinary people.

But not for the wealthy. When the wealthy and powerful fell on hard times, responsibility for  their actions was out of the question. Not a single one of them has ever been held accountable. All have received their bailouts. Socialism was good enough for them.

I own a small business and I believe in genuine capitalism. I believe in actual free markets. I just don't believe you can find any in the United States (or elsewhere?). The process of starting up an off line business revealed a lot to me about how the 'system works'. My research into possible opportunities with bitcoins has been similarly educational. In both cases what I have found is a system where those who make the rules do so primarily for the benefit of those who have already broken them, in order to make it very difficult for anyone else to succeed.  Above all else our government exists to make sure those who have everything, always will.

But I am an optimist.   When problems have no solution they can sometimes be transcended. Bitcoins are a wonderful example of that, and they give me a lot of hope. I will do all I can to be a part of the success that is to come.

I think it would be prudent to get the domain if that is possible. Are you able to contact the current owner of the domain?

This thread seems to have drifted a bit toward something like, "is .com too mainstream for the likes of bitcoins" but I agree with noagendamarket that it could be a liability for the legitimate bitcoin community if the brand were abused. I would chip in to a bounty to secure the .com domain for a group I trusted with the integrity of the community.