Bitcoin, ECB and a Free Money Movement.

[Ichthyo]

So after all that, basically you want to say that you think that a Free Money Movement would be a bad idea.

This is your supposition. Are you lacking the ability to read my responses and understand them?

We get it, you disagree with Hayek.
Your ideological stance based on your subjective opinion (gut feel?)

Come on, you seem to be the people spreading ideology here.
Hayek to the contrary was a educated and insightful person

...is that the freedom to experiment with value transfer information technologies of choice would be a bad idea.

And now right away you start the defaming. Is your argumentative position really this weak?

...can we move back to the topic now, and stop derailing and dragging the thread off on wrong-headed, illogical tangents?

If someone contradicts you, this obviously is "derailing" and "dragging", wrong-headed, illogical and so forth.To apply your kind of "reasoning": it needs to be, since, by presupposition, everyone who doesn't like the "right" point of view needs to be brainwashed.



So to draw some intermediary conclusions.
Up to now, you have provided zero arguments to show that there is the necessity of a "Movement". And you have provided zero substantial content for such a "movement". All you have done is to allude vaguely, that, by "prompt removal of all the legal obstacles", somehow magically things will turn to the better. Step-1: destroy existing structures. Step-2: everything becomes "good".

But actually we lack a coherent model of the existing structures. And existing societies aren't coherent either. So we don't know what to "remove". And, even more importantly, it is not clear what is "good" and "the better". Actually this is the most pressing issue. People disagree so vigorously on what is "good" that they're readily start killing each other about those questions of "doing it right".


So we don't need "Movements", actionism and propaganda, but we need understanding.
And we need the empirical approach: build small unspectacular but innovative things and study how they're working out.

If there is something in the last years since the crisis which could be labelled a "movement" of some kind, then it's the new openness within the economic sciences. There isn't just the Austrian school, there is a whole bunch of heterodox schools of thought, which engage in discussions crossing the boundaries of the individual schools. There is even some openness within the mainstream economy at places.

This is a step in the right direction. And it also makes still the more painfully clear, that, overall, putting all the various schools of thought together, we fail to capture even the simplest concepts of the economic reality consistently.

This is where we should start with doing our homework. Abandon the "right solutions" and start understanding the real world.

[marcus_of_augustus]

So after all that, basically you want to say that you think that a Free Money Movement would be a bad idea.

This is your supposition. Are you lacking the ability to read my responses and understand them?

We get it, you disagree with Hayek.
Your ideological stance based on your subjective opinion (gut feel?)

Come on, you seem to be the people spreading ideology here.
Hayek to the contrary was a educated and insightful person

...is that the freedom to experiment with value transfer information technologies of choice would be a bad idea.

And now right away you start the defaming. Is your argumentative position really this weak?

...can we move back to the topic now, and stop derailing and dragging the thread off on wrong-headed, illogical tangents?

If someone contradicts you, this obviously is "derailing" and "dragging", wrong-headed, illogical and so forth.To apply your kind of "reasoning": it needs to be, since, by presupposition, everyone who doesn't like the "right" point of view needs to be brainwashed.



So to draw some intermediary conclusions.
Up to now, you have provided zero arguments to show that there is the necessity of a "Movement". And you have provided zero substantial content for such a "movement". All you have done is to allude vaguely, that, by "prompt removal of all the legal obstacles", somehow magically things will turn to the better. Step-1: destroy existing structures. Step-2: everything becomes "good".

But actually we lack a coherent model of the existing structures. And existing societies aren't coherent either. So we don't know what to "remove". And, even more importantly, it is not clear what is "good" and "the better". Actually this is the most pressing issue. People disagree so vigorously on what is "good" that they're readily start killing each other about those questions of "doing it right".


So we don't need "Movements", actionism and propaganda, but we need understanding.
And we need the empirical approach: build small unspectacular but innovative things and study how they're working out.

If there is something in the last years since the crisis which could be labelled a "movement" of some kind, then it's the new openness within the economic sciences. There isn't just the Austrian school, there is a whole bunch of heterodox schools of thought, which engage in discussions crossing the boundaries of the individual schools. There is even some openness within the mainstream economy at places.

This is a step in the right direction. And it also makes still the more painfully clear, that, overall, putting all the various schools of thought together, we fail to capture even the simplest concepts of the economic reality consistently.

This is where we should start with doing our homework. Abandon the "right solutions" and start understanding the real world.

Economics is not a science.

So in amongst this whole trolling spiel have you come up with one good reason why the maximal amount of freedom possible to experiment with any/all value transfer systems is the wrong solution? Logically, it is the only rational solution to a messy, complicated, real world system, where noone can have complete knowledge ... i.e. as a single controller system it is uncontrollable because there are always system dynamics that are unobservable.

This is my basic supposition, so far you have nothing to refute it instead you spam this topic with some tangential reasoning and underhanded digs and jibes. Clever, but useless and not helpful ... please start your own thread somewhere else, call it the Anti-Free Money Movement or whatever?

The topic was how to get such a movement going, NOT arguments of why it is/isn't a bad idea. Take your arguments elsewhere (this is the third time I've asked you).

PS:
And the one thing you did not re-quote:
(Hint: do some research on efficiencies provided by emergent behaviours if you have doubts about the efficacy of free markets and freedom in general.)

[Ichthyo]

You start a thread, asking "Is it finally now time to try to coalesce willing partners"

So you have to stand that someone answers, no, it is not the time.
Your proposed movement is lacking substance. Unless your goal is to start a believe-system,
a "church of satoshi" where every diverging pont of view will be banned to hell.

Up to now, you were only able to provide vague hints, lots of allusions and propaganda-speak.
And all your messages are coloured by a hymnic tone.

And yes, economy and financial constructions are rational endeavours, so only arguments count.


"the gross market distortions and costs born by society while not allowing the ECB monetary product to be challenged and regulated by the natural forces of the free market"

"How many more central bank instigated boom-bust cycles, inflations, stagflations, deflations, bouts of economic and financial instability, that benefit only a few at the expense of the majority, must we endure? "

unproven pretences.
It is unproven that the current crisis is caused by "regulation". It has some likelihood, but we don't know anything conclusive. Some schools of thought say yes, others pretend that regulation damps and ameliorates the problems. And none of the economic schools has come up with a conclusive model of the macro economy.

It is controversial that the boom-bust cycles are instigated by central banking. The form they are taking on is certainly shaped by the existing economic system. But, given what we know about closely coupled, networked systems, there is a high probability that huge oscillations are inevitable.


And what is even more important: your core assumption is tainted by mythological, irrational concepts.

Hey, come on. What the hell is "natural"?? We're living in a man-made civilisation since ages.
And how come you to assume that "nature" will work to the "good"

And what "freedom"? Freedom for the Americans to consume all the natural resources of the planet? Freedom for the Chinese to do the same? Freedom for the Mafia? and so on.

You're barely scratching the surface of the problem.


"the totalitarian stance being increasingly adopted by the state money powers to hold together their wretched, creaking fiat currency monopolies"

An increase of "totalitarianism" by an purposeful evil instance "state/banks" is also an unproven pretence.

The fact is: we have now increased technological means at our disposal. The economy and especially investment banking system is readily using them. The Mafia is using them. With some delay, the governmental systems are using them. And now, the anarchistic grass-root circles also start using them. Its an arms race. Everyone of these is following their own agenda, and none of these agendas do align with one another. That's our current situation.


No one denies that the global economy is facing difficult times.

But what exactly are you proposing as a solution? Huh?
Well, that's my criticism. You don't have anything substantial to propose.
You want to "remove" some "obstacles" but you can't even tell what to remove precisely.
Nuke away all banks? Fine. And then? what happens then?? This is Kindergarten level.


In your initial message, you refer to "Bitcoin's working example"

Please be more specific regarding this "working example"!

Up to now, there is a niche economy, which just extends existing structures of the economy. Most notably there is Silk Road. Then there are lots of clone-copies of financial instruments taken from existing world of finance. Some start-ups create competition in payment systems. Fine, but nothing new. And there is a promising feed of further project-ideas and small shops accepting bitcoin.

The existing economic activity in bitcoin land is afflicted, even scattered by scams. And after the initial excitement is gone, there is now demand within the community for a "Bitcoin Police". There are endless, non-conclusive discussions about "tainted coins" and "regulating bitcoin", becoming "legit" or going to the dark market and so on.

This is all nowhere close to a working example of a healthy economy.

It is promising, indeed. Especially the stuff the developers are working on right now. This stuff has the potential to open some new possibilities, like a -- lets call it "anonymous, mechanised trust" (based on coloured coins, contracts or similar stuff). But, right now, no one really knows how to put all these approaches together, it just has to be tried. There needs to be much of small steps, trial and error, economic failure to learn from.

So we have lots of work to do. The last thing we need right now is a "we against them" and "good against evil" mindset.
So please stop it and provide something rational and substantial.


And now it's your turn.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Okay, so I'll put you down for a definite no then, (timing is wrong).

Next.

[marcus_of_augustus]

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=3420

Money is not a “social institution”, as the report claims. The ECB is a social institution. Money is the property of individuals; it does not depend on any institution for it to come into being or have its value (Bitcoin being the latest example of this, if indeed it is money; the FSA in the UK says it is not) and the best form of money is gold. Gold in your hands is separate from any issuer, has a value in and of itself, “inherent value” and is not a part of ‘Society’ or a ‘social institution’ or any other fictional socialist nonsense.

Money has not been affected by technological innovations; it remains exactly the same in nature, just as man’s nature has not changed because he can make a phone call. This is a fundamental, though not surprising, error of the authors of this work.

Thought this subtle, yet crucial, point was made succinctly.

[TraderTimm]

The creation of Napster meant the music industry was obsolete.

The creation of Bitcoin means the banking industry is obsolete.

All that is needed is participation, the rest will take care of itself - inexorably and silently until the walls crumble down upon those holding meetings to handle the "new" threat.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The creation of Napster meant the music industry was obsolete.

The creation of Bitcoin means the banking industry is obsolete.

All that is needed is participation, the rest will take care of itself - inexorably and silently until the walls crumble down upon those holding meetings to handle the "new" threat.

Yeah, maybe. But look how the whole Napster, Gnutella, Lime-Wire, MegaUpload thing panned out? We now have massive state apparatus in place globally for monitoring points on the internet ostensibly for "illegal" file-sharing, and who knows what else that will be used for in time? If back when there was enough wisdom and education within policy-making (and less vested interests from the twilight industries) file-sharing may have been widely accepted as a natural evolution of an interconnected network of computers, something to be embraced, not feared and hounded out to the margins of acceptability.

If freedom was widely accepted as the way forward to a prosperous future, not something to be feared in ignorance, and regulated out of existence, how much better off could we be? Maybe there aren't any purely evil actors within the central banking structures (not going to rule that out though) but that does not mean the structure itself can not be systemically evil, an out of control gargantuan machine of oppression.

[sunnankar]

But look how the whole Napster, Gnutella, Lime-Wire, MegaUpload thing panned out? We now have massive state apparatus in place globally for monitoring points on the internet ostensibly for "illegal" file-sharing, and who knows what else that will be used for in time?

And how is that 'massive state apparatus' funded? Confiscation through inflation which is a form of taxation without representation.

Bitcoin is a lot different because its very adoption results in less resources channeled to the State without the explicit, voluntary and informed consent of the populace.

[marcus_of_augustus]

http://lfb.org/today/currencies-of-the-future/

Many people complain about government control of currency, but only a few do something about it. I’m not talking about movements to “audit the Fed” and such. I’m talking about real innovation that makes an end run around the government’s iron grip on the monetary system.

Ironically, while some economists are pooh-poohing Bitcoin, the ECB devotes some of their lengthy report to the idea that the Austrian school of economics provides the theoretical roots for the virtual currency. The business cycle theory of Mises, Hayek and Bohm-Bawerk is explained in the report and Hayek’s Denationalisation of Money is mentioned. ....
The report writers indicate that Bitcoin supporters see the virtual currency as a starting point for ending central bank money monopolies.

And so it begins .... the more widely it becomes recognised that the monopoly of the money power is the problem, (to the point of being 'obvious' in retrospect), the faster the market can be allowed to fix it.

[phillipsjk]

Money? I do not see money. Bitcoin is just a sophistcated transaction ledger.

Or maybe it is simply a Digital commodity.

Bitcoin's strength is that it relies on a statistical proof-of-work and cryptographic signature to determine if a given transaction is "legitimate." Authority (and Bankers) see this strength as a weakness since no transaction can be black-listed and reversed. That dynamic does not imply that the "free market" will actually do things "better", since the free market is only concerned with the price sytem (ie: it knows the price of everything and the value of nothing).

The discussion about filesharing brings up an important point: If you are focusing only on "free money", your focus may be too narrow. General Purpose computers are being phased out. Source: My "Common Mathematical Locks" page. Walled gardens are going to be very bad for Bitcoin: since they are the definition of central control.

[paraipan]

...it relies on a statistical proof-of-work and cryptographic siganture to...

Could you explain what "statistical proof-of-work" means? I could not find anything on it

[phillipsjk]

...it relies on a statistical proof-of-work and cryptographic siganture to...

Could you explain what "statistical proof-of-work" means? I could not find anything on it

It is kind of off topic, but what I mean is that you can not prove that any given winning block really took trillions of trials. What you can do is say that: "On average, solving a block will take X trials, which will conusume Y joules using current hardware."
Since:

• as far as we know, the hashes are unpreditictable

Thus:

• the trials are independent
• and winning blocks will follow a Poisson Distribution when counting the number of trials required for each block for a given number of trials, assuming the difficulty stays the same.
  

Edit: formatting. I fail statistics forever.

[paraipan]

...it relies on a statistical proof-of-work and cryptographic siganture to...

Could you explain what "statistical proof-of-work" means? I could not find anything on it

It is kind of off topic, but what I mean is that you can not prove that any given winning block really took trillions of trials. What you can do is say that: "On average, solving a block will take X trials, which will conusume Y joules using current hardware."
Since:

• as far as we know, the hashes are unpreditictable

Thus:

• the trials are independent
• and winning blocks will follow a Poisson Distribution when counting the number of trials required for each block for a given number of trials, assuming the difficulty stays the same.
  

Edit: formatting. I fail statistics forever.

Got it, crystal clear

/off topic

[marcus_of_augustus]

Here's another topical article that's worth a perusal:

One of the key pillars to returning money to the people, as Ron Paul mentions in a new edition of The Case for Gold which will be released this week for free to Laissez Faire members, is to undo government’s monopoly on money creation. None of us can imagine what that would be like because the government has held such a monopoly in modern times.

But money is no different than anything else. It benefits from the spirit of enterprise. Competition is good. Competition leads to product innovation. It ensures product quality. In contrast, as with any monopoly provider, the government’s money product has denigrated over time. Since 1971 the U.S. dollar has no backing. The coinage has gone from gold to silver to an alloy of copper and zinc.

http://lfb.org/today/good-money-is-real-money/

As evidence that the market is seeking a sounder currency, the digital world has developed a currency that is getting attention and use, Bitcoin. Bitcoins have no central issuer but are administered through a decentralized peer-to-peer network that began in 2009. There are somewhere around 10 million bitcoin in existence and more will be released until a total of 21 million have been created by the year 2140.

Bitcoins is the currency of the online black market. For instance, The Silk Road (Amazon of the illegal drug trade) only accepts payments in Bitcoin. The European Central Bank observes in a new report that “It operates at a global level and can be used as a currency for all kinds of transactions (for both virtual and real goods and services), thereby competing with official currencies like the euro or US dollar.”

It is not the best or final answer to the monetary problem but it does serve as evidence that market desires something better than what governments are giving us.

[marcus_of_augustus]

http://voluntaryist.com/backissues/156.pdf

"Freedom to Choose your Own Money"

Short article, basic primer on philosophical background and practical considerations.