Has the 'Bitcoin Experiment' changed your political or economic views at all?

[cunicula]

I was a left libertarian highly skeptical of "market anarchists" and libertarians. Bitcoin basically confirmed my views. It's still useful as a relatively low volume crypto-currency for TSR (which remains pretty much bitcoin's only large scale viable marketplace) but other than that it seems to be primarily a bunch of people who would screw over their own mother if it made them another buck or two. The fallacy of a perfectly self regulating free market has been exposed as the lie it has always been. Bitcoin will perhaps bootstrap itself into some sort of quasi-stable state without being destroyed by scammers, but I feel that the general character of a right-libertarian project has been plain to see compared to most left libertarian projects I have been involved in.

Many of the smartest and highest integrity people here are right libertarians, so I am not saying that all right libertarians and market anarchists are scammers, just that market anarchism is a sort of cesspool of ultra-greedy people who quite frankly, I don't want to work on anything with.

Awesome news. I am an economist, so I can't judge integrity (you need to have integrity yourself to do this). I learned from the forum that libertarians are idiots.
I'll take your word on it that they are dirtbags as well.

[sunnankar]

Orthodox economists are simply ignoring bitcoin, not dismissing it. Economists who dismiss bitcoin are primarily Austrians. Look up their backgrounds.

As if ignoring it will make it go away. It is the Austrians that dismiss Bitcoin that are the true idiots though given their ideology and Hayak's Denationalization of Money you would think they would be all over it if they were intellectually and ideologically consistent.

Many of the smartest and highest integrity people here are right libertarians, so I am not saying that all right libertarians and market anarchists are scammers, just that market anarchism is a sort of cesspool of ultra-greedy people who quite frankly, I don't want to work on anything with.

Isn't think just characteristic of humans in general?

[adamstgBit]

At first i just had a feeling it was all a big show and the guys with the money at the top made all the real decisions...

Then i started bitcoining!

and now i know.

 

[cunicula]

It is the Austrians that dismiss Bitcoin that are the true idiots

FTFY. It is more concise that way.

[sunnankar]

It is the Austrians that dismiss Bitcoin that are the true idiots

FTFY. It is more concise that way.

Just watch Ron Paul smash Paul Krugman on Bloomberg. Too funny. 

[Jutarul]

I went to a PhD program at one university. The university faculty all ascribed to one faction (no surprise they hire each other). I 'learned' that the other dominant faction was full of shit and held laughable views. I was never formally taught what those laughable views were. They were just irrelevant. This is typical of economics PhD programs. There is a war over who gets to be orthodox. It is like a religion.

Reminds me of something Max Keiser was complaining about. He argued that economics if full of voodoo mumbo jumbo.

I am coming from a physics education background. I think the best way to analyze economics is to think in terms of game theory, since economics is created by the interaction of people with different strategies and belief sets. The role of macroeconomics is then to lay the ground rules (incentive systems).

This is what explains why I think bitcoin is disruptive and revolutionary: In bitcoin the ground rules of the economy are generated by a consensus of the players. In centralized money systems, a privileged group of players is allowed to determine and manipulate the incentive system, thus corrupting the whole game and giving themselves a huge advantage over the average player.

[Rassah]

After college I changed my views to socially-left/economically-center. I guess I was a pro-business moderate. After exploring Bitcoin and all the discussions on this forum, I've changed to anarcho-capitalist/libertarian. Ironically, it was all the economics and business classes and education I got from my state university that helped me understand why libertarian free-market economic theories are valid and would work. (P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

[molecular]

After college I changed my views to socially-left/economically-center. I guess I was a pro-business moderate. After exploring Bitcoin and all the discussions on this forum, I've changed to anarcho-capitalist/libertarian. Ironically, it was all the economics and business classes and education I got from my state university that helped me understand why libertarian free-market economic theories are valid and would work. (P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

what?

[Rassah]

(P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

what?

Aka, what getting a university degree is called in American deep south, and within certain extreme righ-wing, armchair economist circles.

[molecular]

(P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

what?

Aka, what getting a university degree is called in American deep south, and within certain extreme righ-wing, armchair economist circles.

da fogg! I can read "elititst", I can decipher "librul" as "liberal", but I can only guess "ejukashun" as something close to "ejection", which doesn't make sense even after your eplnahation.

[Rassah]

(P.S. Don't knock "elitist librul ejukashun." Economics is economics)

what?

Aka, what getting a university degree is called in American deep south, and within certain extreme righ-wing, armchair economist circles.

da fogg! I can read "elititst", I can decipher "librul" as "liberal", but I can only guess "ejukashun" as something close to "ejection", which doesn't make sense even after your eplnahation.

education?

[ElectricMucus]

The Bitcoin forum thought me about libertarian ideology and it's fallacies by first hand observation. At some time I even considered them bearable but not anymore, they are selfish, rude and hypocritical.

I still consider myself an anarchist and have assumed that libertarians share some of my views, but sadly from what I've leaned here nothing can be further from the truth. They propose a system where a binding contract is enforced by hierarchical structures which is ultimately harmful. Debt should never be considered to be backed by law because it undermines trust. Payment should be instant and the fulfilment of debt voluntary.
Bitcoin is a good example of a system which ultimately doesn't work with debt (or more specifically profiting from other people debt) and the recent failures within this community are directly linked to libertarian ideology.

[Crypt_Current]

The Bitcoin forum thought me about libertarian ideology and it's fallacies by first hand observation. At some time I even considered them bearable but not anymore, they are selfish, rude and hypocritical.

I still consider myself an anarchist and have assumed that libertarians share some of my views, but sadly from what I've leaned here nothing can be further from the truth. They propose a system where a binding contract is enforced by hierarchical structures which is ultimately harmful. Debt should never be considered to be backed by law because it undermines trust. Payment should be instant and the fulfilment of debt voluntary.
Bitcoin is a good example of a system which ultimately doesn't work with debt (or more specifically profiting from other people debt) and the recent failures within this community are directly linked to libertarian ideology.

OH you mean all those scams?   

Yeeeaaahhhh... Ron Paul made Libertarianism sound palatable for a second, then I got involved with bitcoin and saw all that stuff happen and all these libertarians coming out of the closet with what can only be described as psychopathicly extreme levels of greed here on this board aaaaand...

suffice to say I'm not thinking about libertarianism so much anymore.
Bitcoin has motivated me to research more deeply into the subject of economics than I ever thought I would... Until I discovered bitcoin and the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency, I really thought the whole of economics was nothing but the keynesian sort -- well, worse actually in my mind then; I thought economics was more like religion, something just made up out of nothing by tptb to enslave those that were born with shitty hands (of cards I mean; ya know that metaphor).
So yeah, Bitcoin has caused me to discover that economics is actually substantial.  Pretty deep stuff, with all that math and such.  I was just going over the main difference between the Austrian and Keynesian schools, and apparently it boils down to the Austrians think some equation or maths should be worked out with pure deductive logic, and result in a concrete number that represents something (value or something; it's that whole cardinal dealy versus the umm... ordinal dealy with the Keynesians)...  So the Keynesians use probability and inference as opposed to the Austrians prefer the deductive approach.
I remember Philosophy 110 -- Intro to Logic, and if I can teleport my mind back through all this haze...
Hold on, lots of haze...
Foggy...
Deduction is like, stronger than induction?  Is that correct?
Someone correct or clarify any of the above rambling; I cordially invite you all.  But yeah -- I wouldn't have given two skunks' snatches if it weren't for Bitcoin.

[Rudd-O]

Bitcoin confirmed for me that strictly voluntary relations can work, in more ways than one.  For example, I have traded with over 25 people and only one of them scammed me (for a total of like 8 BTC total, which is a minuscule amount compared to what I have traded so far).

This observation, to me, confirms the well-studied fact that people -- strangers -- are, by and large, trustworthy and well-intentioned even when rules aren't being violently imposed on them, and completely destroys the notion that Mankind is malevolent and therefore it needs a magical group of men (who somehow magically won't be malevolent) to rule everyone else.  I mean, I knew it theoretically from obvious logical deduction that this belief was unfounded and pernicious, but now I know from first-hand experience that it is false.

It also showed me that there is indeed a way to practice agorism and tradecraft, swiftly routing around the psychopathy of the control freaks who do business as "the state".  Before Bitcoin, we knew they were wrong and malevolent -- now we still know they are wrong and malevolent, but we can actually start not giving a shit about them.

And, for that, I am profoundly grateful to everyone who has made Bitcoin happen.  Thanks everyone!

[cunicula]

Wow, bitcoin has helped educate so many people about the evils of libertarian ideology. Go Bitcoin!

[BitcoinCoffee.com]

Bitcoin helped to take me from minarchist to market-anarchist. I was infected by the community and exposed to the likes of Stefan Molyneux, who really made the case for no-state.

Elaborate?

[Rudd-O]

Mmmm.   I posted on the wrong thread.  Sorry about that, carry on.

[Rudd-O]

Bitcoin helped to take me from minarchist to market-anarchist. I was infected by the community and exposed to the likes of Stefan Molyneux, who really made the case for no-state.

Elaborate?

Bitcoin probably eliminated asdf's previous belief that minarchy was the only viable way to organize a society (probably because he wondered "But what about the currencies?" and Bitcoin came at the right time to prove that voluntaryist currencies can and do work).

It's like, you know, we're all repeatedly told for almost two decades that certain things X, Y and Z can only (magically, mysteriously) be made by this group W, and BAM! this guy F comes along and proves twenty years of "it's common knowledge, man" utterly wrong by making Y, and not just Y, but a superior Y.  F being Satoshi + every one of us, and Y being Bitcoin, of course.  After that, you kinda start suspecting whether it's true that only W can make Z and X too.  Doubt's always the first step in shedding false beliefs.

Stefan Molyneux is a philosopher (he runs Freedomain Radio, the largest philosophical conversation in the world) who is very much pro-Bitcoin and pro-voluntaryism.  Stef was the one who "converted" me to voluntaryism, so-to-speak.

[smoothie]

It is the Austrians that dismiss Bitcoin that are the true idiots

FTFY. It is more concise that way.

Just watch Ron Paul smash Paul Krugman on Bloomberg. Too funny. 

Whoa, Krugman looks like he could be Ben B's cousin! LOL!

[Roger_Murdock]

Awesome news. I am an economist, so I can't judge integrity (you need to have integrity yourself to do this). I learned from the forum that libertarians are idiots.
I'll take your word on it that they are dirtbags as well.

You don't often see self-deprecating humor mixed with vitriol.  Interesting combo.