I agree we are creating a new form of politics, A politics for the masses. We are all communicating, sharing our ideas, we just have to figure out how prevalent certain ideas are and what percentage of the community agree with certain things, how it evolves over time. At any given moment there are people behind those beliefs that act upon them moving it forward, as it evolves it will get better. More people, more minds, more hands, more resources acting independently with accurate data each person can act correctly upon those ideas to help create what they believe in.

What is government after all think of all the different type of government that we have had over the millenias.

Bands,Tribes

Chiefdoms, Feudalism, Monarchys, Empires

Oligarchys, Republics, Democracies


Most of these systems except the smallest communities have a central control to act and speak for the community.
What caused this to be necessary? The size of the community. The larger the community the more it frays at the edges with regard to constant exposure to cultural norms, information movement brakes down... this all changed when the internet was created.

In my opinion, we are not really countering to anything. WE are creating this technology as a new business, why ask for permission to do something and be told if we can do it or not? It simply is not relevant, a better system is being built that requires the input of everyone; How are people going to remix this idea?

If this amazing new world is done the right way, it will provide relevant data to everyone without compromising anyones identity. and it's customizable so that you can add extra layers to it if you want extras, but the foundation is openness of information for everyone without compromising ones safety wherever you are.

people can safely do what they want to do without oppressive governments deciding what they should do, but the governments still get to remix the idea... but they cannot shut it down... they must convince us by choice to follow their leads; Now they have to be real leaders.

As I see it, we are simply doing what is natural, we are networking and self-assembling connections to one another, when would this reality of the internet be apparent? That the internet is acting as a Brain and each one of us is creating the web of knowledge that links us all together. We are just creating different networks to those of the governments, after all we are just talking peer to peer hear, why does there have to be someone in the middle to hear us speak?

Dude if all the world's governments, banned Bitcoin tomorrow and enacted some Drakonian legislation to put all users in jail... Namecoin would bind with Bitcoin, no central DNS authority to block Bitcoin traffic and if a Hash scheme like Magnet links was implemented we could build fully decentralized websites impossible to take down. Just imagine going to your favourite website and knowing that every single person who has visited the site had to go to namecoin to get the authenticated hashes of a website, then connected to the namecoin torrent swarm to download the parts of the website you wanted... then add a p2p layer using Bitmessage for users to communicate data across those hashes of the sites, and you have a dynamic decentralized, no IP address communication system... people wouldn't even know where the hell you are, just that your signature has a list of hashes that you have ready to be distribute website content... individuals become servers to information... you do not find locations anymore... you find Information only.

I was thinking about this last night, just all the OpenSource programs that are availabe, we have a whole ecosystem ready to make the impossible happen.

Bitcoin: Hyper-exchangable currency to instantly transact over the internet.
Namecoin: Decentralized DNS service, censorship resistant.
Bitmessage: Decentralized, location masking, communication protocol
Alt-currencies and Microcurrencies: exchange mediums that attract specific types of people, eg. Devcoin, Tagcoin, sexcoin, they add an extra distribution layer to cryptocurrencies, they are given to people for specific actions, creating a extra vector of society to propagate through.
Open Transactions: A exchange marketplace and business library to exchange cryptocurrencies
Ripple: The centralized, decentralized barter trade system to exchange currencies and items directly to and from the people. no banks.

I can imagine this creating a very interesting webscape. Spam would have to be relevant and innovative to spread, as with commercials as well, who would spread advertisements? Content is spread out dynamically, only the original source that wishes it to propagate permanently would have it at all times. The availability of hashes would precisely measure the relevance of content to the community: all content on the internet could be gauged to it's true value. Users could change their address whenever they wanted, securely transact through the internet knowing that all content streamed from the swarm is 100% secure as it's original posters intended it to be, no tampering.

This will be determined by the depth of the average pockets. A lot of people are buying BTC every month, using it as their investment fund for the future. If this  plays out right, we could get a windfall of people; Bigger market, more movement, more customers, it starts working more like a currency. The ATM recently installed in Vancouver, is proof there is demand, but the hassle of trying to get it is daunting and could be detrimental to a mass adoption; We need more ATMs on the ground.

Well we have to look at this carefully this demand is coming from China, What will happen once the buying volume goes down? demand outpaces supply of Btc? The price will level off, but it could set off a wave of buying that could self sustain itself, It depends on how large the outside market is compared to china's.

It could remain stable any more rapid rises should be analyzed to see the size of the correction before it happens, It'll bounce back, but... if the demand is there, it could go to 1000.00 USD. That would mean a market cap of 12 Billion USD/BTC in circulation, that is a lot of cash to be moving around, the velocity of money should rise with the extra capital injected into the system. I am thinking it could create a Bitcoin business boom, maybe get a little circulation happening on the streets for a change.

excellent discussion.

so, we must think of this problem in the right context.

We are a highly decentralized group, with different backgrounds, nationalities, languages.

If we are to do this we must be fully decentralized within the world culturally and ideologically.
How do we create this?

How do we reach consensus on what we know, believe or trust?

How do we reach consensus on what we should do?

How do we interface with the legacy governing system?

As a decentralized group, knowing what we know is more difficult to gauge than anything, getting a % of who believes what is also difficult. We must do this efficiently and transparently indeed. The foundation of a Direct Democracy system must be that of openness, openness so profound that it would be considered the most Open project ever made.

And this can be done now using Bitmessage, this is what I propose.

We use Bitmessage to broadcast our beliefs and propositions, our polls and ideas. These statements would be broadcast to a public ledger with the hash of the post, which can be downloaded BitTorrent style to save people the hassle of downloading all the posts; Yes, a Blockchain.

people can be nodes for democracy downloading the whole Direct Democracy ledger, and allowing people to find the posts they want to find, or giving them web interfaces to the posts to be downloaded dynamically in a p2p fashion.
People can also simply download the posts they believe in, distribute those and erase posts you disagree with to prevent them from being distributed. The more people believe in a post the faster it will propagate.

All the posts would be categorized and linked to all relevant and related information, a web of categories and associations. Each post can be given a secondary hash that is simply the metadata for the categories given by the OP, they would be able to change what they want their posts to be categorized or associated with without affecting the hash of the original post.

Each person can sign their messages to guarantee the source of the post.

The more people have a particular hash to share the more likely it is what the community believes, knows, or is trying to figure out collectively, if it's spam or just plain bad... no one will keep it. the hashes always remain on the ledger, but not on peoples hard drives.

This would at least get us agreeing.

If they are thinking of making it easier that would be great... but only time will tell, and how would they do that anyway?
Can they Bypass federal regulations?

Agreed.

We already have a forum to discuss our ideas, we just have to do polls on all subjects.
and above all make it easy to find those polls and categorize them for easy tracking.

The idea of proof of ownership is pretty good too, but what if someone just made up a lot of names and spread their BTC across multiple accounts? and besides it would cause a anonymity problem, makes people easy to track.

We can vote on trust, If a trust rating system is setup to represent the entire community it could be done.

everyone gets 100 trust points to start, everyday you log into the forum you get 10 points, based on forum participation you get automatic trust points; The more you post the more points you get, but these points can be offset by negative trust... basically you get -100, negative points that you can give to people's post, just to stop spamming.

the positive points are for voting, if someone comes up with a proposition or idea that is really good, you give that idea points; If a poll is relevant you give that poll points, if a poll is to your liking you can vote using one of your points; All points you give out go to the person who posted any of the types of the aforementioned posts.

People who do good by the community get more chances to vote, so vote responsibly.  

If we branch and categorize the propositions,ideas and polls properly, just basically adding metadata to connect all relevant information, by the original poster of course, modifiable only by them, we can create a robust branched category of relevance between all the senate voting.  Plus, make all the points given to those posts visible, so the most agreed upon posts can be easily known.

I'm envisioning a graphical user interface, if possible, where you see the web of categories that can be re-arranged to your search criteria and see all relevant categories to view posts; The posts with the most points are easily visible but the least considered ideas will be further away.

It could work for mass voting.

 

we have so many tools, but no one has setup tutorials on how to use all of them.

think of it we have all the tools to do this now.

Bitcoin:Gold Standard backing
Litecoin: Silver standard, regular use currency.
Namecoin: Public ledger, internet routing
Open Transactions: Business transaction service, safety net
Ripple: Decentralized liquidity system, barter exchange
Bitmessage: safe communications protocol

we just have to accelerate development of these projects so that they are commercial grade, user friendly programs.

If we had to we could  set up a system to work with in no time.

The OP is basically saying that since all coins that people sent and recieve are composed of bits of other coins... so yeah.

when you receive a transaction that transaction may have multiple inputs from thousands of other people who have used the system.

so, your BTC wallet is dirty by a certain %... no matter what, only newly created coins are clean and they progressively get dirtier... separating the tainted
from the clean... will be very amusing.

"Sorry sir we cannot accept .3% of your money so you'll have to come up with the difference in clean currency."

But hay it's Bitcoin, they should do it see what happens, add info to coins to see how they move through the economy.
find all the people who own funny hats that use Bitcoins and figure out their aggregated habits.
Build the ZeroCoin protocol to add privacy or modify the system in a way that give users the privacy they want and only release their
transaction history if they themselves want.

The blockchain is impressive really when you consider the types of information that can be extracted with just a bit of voluntary information.
All this information is freely available, If I wanted to add up all the people that have known BTC addresses tied to their real names and saw how
the coins flowed i could do it privately without anyone knowing, it's just free data.

as far as I know the banking system uses a 5 back-up system, you find the locations of all the servers emp blast those and you reset the entire credit system for that individual bank... they'd never be able to recover, not without serious back-tracking, only money that could be traced to other banks would be safe. But that would still mean a large chunk of the inflationary money supply would be destroyed.

over a wide area a orbital detonation could wipe out all the servers in North America, all those banks would be destroyed... the blockchain would go on.

You know the best way to kill a Dragon?

From the inside. 

wow... I know that Bitcoin is free, but man the way this particular article intends to modify Bitcoin is hilarious.

I can imagine this in a different scenario.

"wow, this thing is amazing, it regulates itself, even allows people to use it as they like."
"hmmm,.... this won't do, how do we get people to do as we say and not as we do?"
"I know! well monitor the people monitoring the monitor! just threaten them to use it as we want them to."
"Even better! lets tell them they need a licence to use it and make it impossible to get, lol!"

Then Satoshi came along and said fuck this, I'll do it.

Bitcoin is whatever you want it to be... i'm sure someone will figure their way out of this mining centralization... if only all those ASIC chips could stop mysteriously being delayed. I'm sure there is someone out there able to capitalize on this... for the greater good, it is demanded.

don't worry about it, it is all politics with the politicians, rhetoric.

they can't impose this anymore than you or I can... this is Direct Democracy. If it keeps the people who think they are in charge, feeling like they are in charge, then no sweat.

Everyone in the Bitcoin world has the power of choice. I simply cannot imagine them imposing us to use that system if the foundation of Bitcoin is on voluntary acceptance or not... you can always make your own branch, or ecosystem where all coins are accepted.

it is anonymous just that a lot of people are okay with letting some of their information out, and that is okay, they can always spend away their whole wallet and restart again.

They do ask a lot from users, all that ID; I had a thought that may be one of the reasons Bitcoin is not meeting so much resistance, The system coupled with the legacy banking system and a bit of information can make money traceable across the planet, publicly. The user information is only through the exchanges, and as the BTC economy progresses it will be a smaller and smaller part of Bitcoin, too many people have gone through the gates, their part of the community just a matter of time before businesses can self-sustain wages to pay their employees.in BTC and people start demanding to earn BTC then the economy will begin to diversify and look more like what we are used to seeing when money flows.

I found this great thread that can further enhance any alt-coin outthere, everything you need to get going with Open Transactions.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=212490.msg2251931#msg2251931

Edit: phenomenal literature http://ft.vm.to/files/britto/FT-thoughts.pdf

Most definitely, so how does OT do it? and why can't we create a hybrid of both, maybe an upgrade that downloads the blockchain from distributed sources in a peer to peer manner?

Lord of the Coins, Lord of the Coins: The Two Powers, Lord of the Coins: The Return of the Source.

    One Coin to rule them all, One Coin to find them; One Coin to bring them all

    and in the darkweb bind them.

This is the future my friend, we have no choice but spread the word to those who will listen, gain their insights and trust to help expand and perfect this technology to it's limits. the more people know the faster this will grow, the more people watch and participate the greater this technology will be as we will all watch out for each others interests, more eyes on the prize makes corruption hard to find.

Thanks to Bitcoin, the main Coin protocol that maintains network security, this is possible; It is the infrastructure, the gateway to this Brave world we are creating.

It is definitely much cheaper that having to make a credit card/ gift card, pay for security etc when it is done safely with the blockchain to maintain security, code is cheap.

I consider a currency to be a release signal for resources, when a certain level of currency is acquired for a specific item, in essence they are gauging the amount of available demand at that price point, What controls the selection process is a complex list of factors that surround the individual making the choice to purchase.

I see a more complex environment if these alt-currencies and micro-currencies are used.

Imagine this.

A world wide signaling system(cryptocoins) to release specific types of intellectual resources or efforts on a world wide basis.
A well known coin, Devcoin for example. Take it to it's limit millions of organizations around the world use Devcoin for signaling the creation of creative opensource work, with specific micro-currencies for different endevours that exchange directly and only with Devcoin. Buy Devcoins for general creative work done world wide, buy the micro-currencies for specific works, music, engineering, architecture, etc. In this scenario everyone in the world knows about Devcoin and it's purpose, and is simply gaining creative resources by how well it is accomplishing this task; People buy the respective coins increasing the value of the coins and increasing resources to be expended within the system. A patron of the coin would buy coins and then give them specifically to artist, writers, engineers that they admire and wish their work to continue, or keep it for themselves when they are in a bind and need the cash.

Underneath Devcoin would be MusicCoin, PaintCoin, ArcCoin, etc each with a micro blockchain connected to Devcoins Blockchain but only downloaded for those interested in making specific donations to those efforts instead of a global effort, Multi-Coin wallets would be the norm.  And maybe even-multi-coin interconnectors that would connect not just a projects coin-interface but would be merged with Devcoin because of the efforts that they would come under. For example, if someone was trying to make an floating city, they would make the floating-city-coin project that people could donate too at any time to move the project forward, but it would be tied to Devcoin for all the creation being made to gain extra funding.

The coins in essence act as giant world-wide campaign signals for development of decentralized projects, no need to know who or what is using it, just knowing that the best efforts that this paradigm is creating is becoming available for all humanity.  A different model far more effective and efficient than the current design of NGOs.

The wealth that these coins need for their projects, would be interfaced from Bitcoin or directly purchased with Fiat. The projects would gain acceptance according to how well they were known, how well they did in telling the community and investors how well they are doing... and with Open Transactions, a market for human endevours could be created, think of kickstarter but with coins and the project works the moment you say go.  All your efforts will determine how well you are gaining the trust of the general public to provide the wealth necessary to make the project move forward.

Massive decentralized movements with millions of individuals with decentralized equipment and tools acting like Non-government-organizations creating enormous projects never before possible in this way with minimal paperwork required, just a Forum, a Coin, a great project, and millions of volunteers willing to be paid in Coins with the backing of the general publics purchasing power.

so if someone did complete the floating Arc, at the end where would the coins go? to it's maintenance? it would plummet in price as the endevour was finished and resource use declined, all coins would have to be bought back by the Coinbased- NGO and returned to the community. The ArcCoin blockchain would be maintained as a record of those who contributed to it's creation.


Just imagine going to a free open-sky concert, free for everyone to attend. The artists would  get paid in MusicCoin for the concert, people who loved the concert would after the fact purchase Devcoins to fund the greater creative effort of free art, giving the coins to the artists in the concert, or purchasing MusicCoins directly would fund the greater effort of art. A world where all creative acts wherever they are done are valued for their contribution to the grandness of the human endevour.

need to fund the saving of humanity? HumanityCoin, where all the combined efforts of all NGO's guarding the welfare of humanity would be amalgamated. I donate 100 dollars in HumanCoin and know that the decentralized system is secure, safe from tampering by a cadre of professionals who are at the mercy of the Blockchain that monitors all their distribution of Humancoins resources to worthy Organizations that are truly helping people. since the blockchain would monitor everything we as a worldwide society can gauge how effective the system is in different areas or if there is corruption within the supply chain. The whole world would scrutinize and guide the efforts of HumanCoin.