Economic Totalitarianism

[trollercoaster]

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-up-for-discussion-at-commonwealth-virtual-currency-meeting/

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[username18333]

I think Bitcoin investors do not really believe it can happen, because they would not invest in inflatacoin.

For the last two months, developers and users of Dogecoin, the shiba-themed altcoin (alternative Bitcoin), have been trying to hash out whether it should be an inflationary or deflationary currency. On Saturday, Jackson Palmer, the creator of Dogecoin, wrote on Github that the developer team would keep the code as it is—allowing for some limited inflation.

[cbeast]

BTC flawed 'cause 51% attack? He didn't say anything we didn't already know...

I didn't think Snowden's thoughts on bitcoin were entirely that bad, and agree that it regarded nothing that most people haven't already accepted ie possibility of 51% etc etc.

A 51% attack can create as many Bitcoins as it wants to.

I think Bitcoin investors do not really believe it can happen, because they would not invest in inflatacoin.

But it is much more likely than they believe.

First of all, it would require a lot of money to invest in equipment. Orders like this are hard to keep secret. Someone would investigate. It would have to be a sustained 51% for many many blocks or else the miner would be DDOSd, IP blacklisted, or worse. That would end their Bitcoin career, and if they are lucky they could sell their used equipment to partially recoup their millions. That equipment would then make Bitcoin stronger against the next attack. If they were successful for any length of time, the price of Bitcoin would plummet (markets would close) and they would not be able to sell their fake bitcoins anyway. Besides, the people with that much money to throw away are unconcerned about Bitcoin anyway because they don't care about anyone's future but themselves.

[username18333]

First of all, it would require a lot of money to invest in equipment. Orders like this are hard to keep secret. Someone would investigate. It would have to be a sustained 51% for many many blocks or else the miner would be DDOSd, IP blacklisted, or worse. That would end their Bitcoin career, and if they are lucky they could sell their used equipment to partially recoup their millions. That equipment would then make Bitcoin stronger against the next attack. If they were successful for any length of time, the price of Bitcoin would plummet (markets would close) and they would not be able to sell their fake bitcoins anyway. Besides, the people with that much money to throw away are unconcerned about Bitcoin anyway because they don't care about anyone's future but themselves.

(He refutes, already, that argument in the rest of his post.)

[...]

Everyone knows that Bitcoin mining MUST become more centralized (in order to scale up transactions) and thus it will likely (almost certainly IMO) eventually become controlled by the G20 that can regulate a few 100s of mining nodes. Will be justified by the G20 doing coordination against terrorism, money laundering, and tax cheating.

And the masses who use Coinbase wallets and other large providers such as the Blockstream.com (3 million wallets) CEO shaking hands with the Prime Minister of the UK upthread, won't care! They are sheep. They follow. They are preoccupied.

[arielbit]

Living in a rural location myself, I've been wondering too at what options there might be. I'm pretty new to this and have been trying to work out what kit would be needed. Any layman-friendly advice from out there would be appreciated ;-)

I came across this a while back:

"Building a Rural Wireless Mesh Network":

PDF here:

http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide_Download

had a quick look...it was tcp-ip based and uses wifi..

wifi are short range and can be converted to long range using dish antenna. but short wave radios are more low tech, far reaching, maybe cheaper, and made from discrete circuits making them repairable(components are easily available) and hardy.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_circuit


and the designs could be..

- shortwave radios being interconnected to internet (tcp-ip)
or
-shortwave radios having a network of their own (independent from the internet)

[bigtimespaghetti]

I wonder about the practicality of a meshnet when a government has an explicit ban on them, I'm unaware of anything like that in the EU. But even if innovations in this area were not available to the public you would still likely get network enclaves and at the very least high capacity USB data stick swapping (as in North Korea with distribution of western and eastern media) and perhaps even dead-drops of data.

[TPTB_need_war]

My prior research (from 2013 when I was AnonyMint) and thoughts about memory-hard hash functions, and particularly with respect the Cryptonite proof-of-work hash function in Monero and other Cryptonote coins:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1139756.msg12190327#msg12190327

[tabnloz]

And, after Citizen Four, No Place To Hide and WikiLeaks / Sarah Harrison involvement, I am convinced that Snowden is legit and heroic. It would seem to be plenty harder to do things the way he did than a preplanned conspiracy. The repercussions from his exposures are global and have changed the world: reflecting poorly on US, negatively affected US companies, led to scrutiny of all governments and countries. As for the NSA / Tor link, it is over 2 years post Snowden, creeping up on 3 if you think about the preparation that would have been involved, so there is a possibility that either a) he didn't have access to that info, b) info is still to be released or c) the program was still in germination phase. But all in all for me, despite the capabilities of TPTB to control the narrative, this is one case I think he is a true whistleblower.

In order to get people to understand the gravity of the situation, Oliver feels they should frame it differently: d*ck pics. Alluding to the fact that Americans seemed far more outraged over “The Fappening”—the celebrity nude photo hacking spree that exposed a laundry list of A-list actresses last year—than the Snowden revelations, Oliver felt that an easier way to communicate the issue to Americans is as follows: The government is accessing your private d*ck pics.

haha yes very true. and the assumed legal & criminal complexity on top of the patriotic narrative does keep the outrage at arms length..... (no revolution) but globally the revelations haven't cycled out of the news since and has resulted in loss of business for US companies (see moves by Brazil, China)

[TPTB_need_war]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

[TPTB_need_war]

From a private message:

I hate complicated.

I want to explain even very complex topics or math in a way a layman could understand.

I am very much into simplification via unification, i.e. paradigm shifts.

I am an artist not just an engineer. For me programming is painting on a canvass. I want it to be beautiful visually and semantically.

To take away my instruments of creativity in order to satisfy some rigid legacies, is like telling an artist he can't paint with non-standard brushes.

Conformance is a four letter word. Innovation and clever interoption are my sword.

Love me or hate me or ignore me or join me. That is the question.

[macsga]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

In the meantime, Greece is heading for elections on Sept. 20.. There's a physical impasse between ideology and the "EU business" and this has to be cleared out. As I've expressed earlier "Democracy lives no more in Greece" since elections is just another elegant tool of the EU totalitarianism to do their job. There's absolutely no difference what the Greek people will vote.

Our ability as a nation to decide about ANYTHING ended the moment our elected government decided that would be a disaster if we leave the EU. Maybe they know better; but that's not what people elected them for. 

[bigtimespaghetti]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

In the meantime, Greece is heading for elections on Sept. 20.. There's a physical impasse between ideology and the "EU business" and this has to be cleared out. As I've expressed earlier "Democracy lives no more in Greece" since elections is just another elegant tool of the EU totalitarianism to do their job. There's absolutely no difference what the Greek people will vote.

Our ability as a nation to decide about ANYTHING ended the moment our elected government decided that would be a disaster if we leave the EU. Maybe they know better; but that's not what people elected them for. 

Is it possible that a majority government will be elected that are anti-EU?

[macsga]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

In the meantime, Greece is heading for elections on Sept. 20.. There's a physical impasse between ideology and the "EU business" and this has to be cleared out. As I've expressed earlier "Democracy lives no more in Greece" since elections is just another elegant tool of the EU totalitarianism to do their job. There's absolutely no difference what the Greek people will vote.

Our ability as a nation to decide about ANYTHING ended the moment our elected government decided that would be a disaster if we leave the EU. Maybe they know better; but that's not what people elected them for. 

Is it possible that a majority government will be elected that are anti-EU?

Scientifically speaking everything is possible (as explained in detail in MWI model by Graham-Everett-Wheeler) but the most possible scenario would be that PM Tsipras will get rid with a "democratic procedure" the far left wing party that opposes to his "decisions" (or if you prefer the directives the EU officials forced him to implement).

The worst case scenario (which is very possible) is that the far right (the fascist scheme of Golden Dawn) gets a good proportion of the "anti-memorandum" people that in the previous elections vote for SYRIZA and NEW GREEKS parties (which is now government). That would mean the country who invented Democracy ends up with a scheme that eliminates it. This is just fucking sad.

[bigtimespaghetti]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

In the meantime, Greece is heading for elections on Sept. 20.. There's a physical impasse between ideology and the "EU business" and this has to be cleared out. As I've expressed earlier "Democracy lives no more in Greece" since elections is just another elegant tool of the EU totalitarianism to do their job. There's absolutely no difference what the Greek people will vote.

Our ability as a nation to decide about ANYTHING ended the moment our elected government decided that would be a disaster if we leave the EU. Maybe they know better; but that's not what people elected them for. 

Is it possible that a majority government will be elected that are anti-EU?

Scientifically speaking everything is possible (as explained in detail in MWI model by Graham-Everett-Wheeler) but the most possible scenario would be that PM Tsipras will get rid with a "democratic procedure" the far left wing party that opposes to his "decisions" (or if you prefer the directives the EU officials forced him to implement).

The worst case scenario (which is very possible) is that the far right (the fascist scheme of Golden Dawn) gets a good proportion of the "anti-memorandum" people that in the previous elections vote for SYRIZA and NEW GREEKS parties (which is now government). That would mean the country who invented Democracy ends up with a scheme that eliminates it. This is just fucking sad.

Ah the Many Worlds Model But, that is extremely concerning in regarding to the Golden Dawn. Thanks for the summary.

[dEBRUYNE]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

I have to make a refutation regarding this. Mostly companies don't accept these kind of bills because they don't got enough change in store or they won't have enough change for the next customers. However, these prohibition signs are not new, most gas stations over here (the Netherlands) have them as well. Also, 200E and 500E are rarely used, people get some weird look on their face if they see them. This is probably due to the bank itself or the casino basically being the only places to obtain these kind of bills, since ATM's over here won't give you bills bigger than 50E.

[TPTB_need_war]

You can't spend a $220 bill at a fast food drive-in in Belgium:

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/36159

I have to make a refutation regarding this. Mostly companies don't accept these kind of bills because they don't got enough change in store or they won't have enough change for the next customers. However, these prohibition signs are not new, most gas stations over here (the Netherlands) have them as well. Also, 200E and 500E are rarely used, people get some weird look on their face if they see them. This is probably due to the bank itself or the casino basically being the only places to obtain these kind of bills, since ATM's over here won't give you bills bigger than 50E.

I also had that thought, which is why I wrote $220. That seems excessive to spend at a drive-in fast food establishment.

MA has a tendency to ruin his reputation by exaggerating shit like this. He has done this numerous times.

[TPTB_need_war]

macsga, always democracy is a power vacuum. And thus yes the elite will take control of Bitcoin. No doubt in my mind.

The only way I can see to avoid that is to use technological innovation to remove the need for consensus in crypto currency. Such as eliminating the 51% attack vector and enabling users to burn their coins and transfer them to another chain, so that value becomes orthogonal to chain protocol. Soon we will have this technology.

[username18333]

That would mean the country [Greece] who invented Democracy ends up with a scheme that eliminates it.

Cleisthenes of Athens,  Cleisthenes also spelled Clisthenes    (born c. 570 BCE—died c. 508), statesman regarded as the founder of Athenian democracy, serving as chief archon (highest magistrate) of Athens (525–524). Cleisthenes successfully allied himself with the popular Assembly against the nobles (508) and imposed democratic reform. Perhaps his most important innovation was the basing of individual political responsibility on citizenship of a place rather than on membership in a clan.

[THX 1138]

"Building a Rural Wireless Mesh Network":

PDF here:

http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/wiki/index.php/DIY_Mesh_Guide_Download

had a quick look...it was tcp-ip based and uses wifi..

wifi are short range and can be converted to long range using dish antenna. but short wave radios are more low tech, far reaching, maybe cheaper, and made from discrete circuits making them repairable(components are easily available) and hardy.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_circuit


and the designs could be..

- shortwave radios being interconnected to internet (tcp-ip)
or
-shortwave radios having a network of their own (independent from the internet)

arielbit, thanks for this. I'm still looking into the pros and cons of shortwave for this application - plenty to learn! For instance, do you know how/if the "Rural Mesh Network" above could be adapted to be independent from the internet?

I wonder about the practicality of a meshnet when a government has an explicit ban on them, I'm unaware of anything like that in the EU.

Yes, I was wondering this too.

But even if innovations in this area were not available to the public you would still likely get network enclaves and at the very least high capacity USB data stick swapping (as in North Korea with distribution of western and eastern media) and perhaps even dead-drops of data.

And it reminds me too of hearing those cryptic numbers stations messages - a relic of the Cold War - during the 80s on SW here in the UK.

[TPTB_need_war]

Our ability as a nation to decide about ANYTHING ended the moment our elected government decided that would be a disaster if we leave the EU. Maybe they know better; but that's not what people elected them for. 

...

Everyone needs to jump ship from that sinking top-down morass into the individually autonomous (grass roots, bottom-up) Knowledge Age.

macsga, always democracy is a power vacuum. And thus yes the elite will take control...

The only way I can see to avoid that is to use technological innovation to remove the need for consensus... Soon we will have this technology.