I almost only use Linux nowadays.

But even as I love to see Linux dominate the poll, I can't help but thinking that it says a lot about how representative this community is of the computer using world.

Protein folding, prime number finding, DNA analysis, data mining. Lots of research applications, from what I understand. Anything involving lots of parallelizable computation would stand to benefit, really.

I give up. it's like trying to convince a jew that pork is good for you. I will tell you this: Don't expect to keep any property past the time the owner comes back. When I get home from the store to find squatters have moved in during my absence, I will treat them like any other infestation.

Oh please.
If socialism is such an hell on earth, why are the scandinavian countries so successful? How many Norwegian re-education camps have you seen? How many political prisoners are there in Sweden? How many Finns are taken away and shot by the secret police?

Socialism has its share of problems, but so does the anarcho-capitalism that people here seem to love so much.
Want to experience the result of a weak government? Go to Somalia.

I believe that a free market needs to be regulated to be efficient. How much is a matter of opinion.
IMHO a complete laissez-faire economy would be catastrophic for the large majority. As would a planned economy.

That's not what I asked. My point is, it's perfectly possible for Bitcoin never to gain sufficient critical mass to remain viable and for the economy to slowly grind to a halt, without any technical flaws at all.

That's an interesting statement.  Let me repeat, in answer to you, that I am not proposing any solutions.  Unplanned pregnancy can be a serious problem for people, and I am posing the problem, not suggesting any solution.  I'm still waiting for the libertarians and anarchists of this forum to explain how they would improve on the current situation.

Well, the "garbage" of austrian economists is many orders of magnitude closer to reality than the garbage of "standard" economists and/or keynesists.

*actually, I agree he deserves to be paid fairly, but only Bob can make that designation

foolish (and Alice is taking advantage of his foolishness), a fetishist, or doing Alice a favor.

The discussion is not about the current protocol, but future extensions.

We don't need miners, we need users/dealers/consumers... the miners will inevitably follow.

Some people posting on this thread seem to believe bitcoins have no intrinsic value.  That is simply not the case.  Bitcoins can be readily transferred electronically, mathematics and a widely distributed system of trust ensure their limited supply, transactions are pseudo-anonymous, they are impossible (practically speaking) to double spend.  It's incredulous to me that people could even imagine that bitcoins have no intrinsic value in the face of these facts.  It's true that if hoarders dumped their hoards on the market, the prices would fall, but certainly not to zero...and the hoarders would have little rational economic incentive to do that (I mean, it's not like a run on a bank...due to intrinsic value, it is more like a stock and as prices fall, they would find a natural level of support).

In fact, given these properties, one could argue that bitcoins have far greater intrinsic value than gold (which has similar intrinsic value, but is stuck in the physical world).

I agree.  That some people view the world in such stark terms shows a strong lack of wisdom and experience.

The world is not so black and white.  I have already thought of a scenario involving a non-voluntary but non-violent interaction, I'm certain the forum could think of more.  If I tell you, da2ce7, will you soften your attitude?  I respectfully suggest that your kind of thinking does nothing other than polarise people, causing them to harden their views both for and against you.  Whatever it is you want, you'll never find a solution that way.

You are advocating taking property away from people. People tend to get upset when you do that.

It should be noted that kiba has previously stated he is located in china. Yeah. Capitalism oppresses people.