Thoughts on Zcash?

[spartacusrex]

Sorry - not read paper.. Just a couple of questions..

Are the amounts hidden ? (As in confidential transactions)

Is this something gmax won't be able to crow bar into bitcoin ?

Is it quantum secure ?

Thanks.

Ok, now been to site..

For anyone else who's interested.

Yes.

Of course he can.

No. Also - doesn't the use of accumulators leave a trapdoor?


I think it brings up an interesting point though. If any technology appears that is truly 'cool' , won't bitcoin simply hard fork it in ?

[1714001574]

1714001574

[1714001574]

1714001574

[1714001574]

1714001574

[TPTB_need_war]

yep, hard fork, airdrop, and instant true anon glory

and thank you zcash team for your contribution to the bitcoin network

bitcoin is just a group of equity owners agreeing to transmit said equity over an agreed upon protocol

such is the nature of open source

Be careful with assuming anyone can apply the Zcash open source. Zcash has the zk-snarks inventors on their team and there may be not so trivial tweaks that need to be made over time.

Afaics, if they play their cards well (e.g. no 11% premine for private placement investors), they should be in the driver's seat on their technology.

[cryptohunter2]

Anyone here invested already as a founder?

[ArticMine]

...

Be careful with assuming anyone can apply the Zcash open source. Zcash has the zk-snarks inventors on their team and there may be not so trivial tweaks that need to be made over time.

Afaics, if they play their cards well (e.g. no 11% premine for private placement investors), they should be in the driver's seat on their technology.

Sure if they stuck to a pure Free Libre Open Source Software Funding model they could very well be in the driver’s seat on the technology, but they chose a proprietary funding model by creating a lockin between the currency and a private company in the form of an 11% premine. The leaves them open at least to:
1) A fork of the technology into a true FLOSS project. The "Litecoin/Monero" response.
2) Very significant regulatory non compliance issues. No longer a decentralized virtual currency as per FinCEN in the United States for example.
3) A combination of 1) and 2). For example regulatory enforcement by FinCEN triggering a true FLOSS fork.

Also just because they invented the technology, it does not mean that others cannot figure the technology out and improve on it.

[CoinHoarder]

You guys are clueless as to Zcash not being able to succeed with a 11% block subsidy. Ripple premined 100% of their coin and they are doing quite well, Dash did too. Bitcoin was effectively "instamined" by early adopters. There is no way to fairly distribute any cryptocurrency. Then again, this being "fatal flaw" is being brought up by someone that insist they should include a backdoor for the government, so I will take anything you say about their business plan (and the fact that yours is so much better) with a grain of salt.

And he will not also admit the following is why he incorrect about stealing content.

Governments are organizing now around controlling the internet. The illegal activity through Bittorrent (which also steals from ISPs which have higher upload bandwidth allowances) is helping the governments feel they are justified in regulating the internet via Net Neutrality and other measures. You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent. You are not going to create the new Knowledge Economy with your theft model. And by advocating theft, you are helping the NWO totalitarianism to take form by providing an economic incentive and political support from millions of artists who are violated by piracy. Dumb. But I expect that from you.

I didn't have time to go over this earlier, but you are using a straw man argument here. My point in bringing up Bittorrent is that decentralized technologies exist that the government cannot shut down. I was not condoning or promoting Bittorrent's copyright infringement, but rather admiring the technology behind it. You said that anything that broke laws or regulations would be shut down by the government, even if it is built on decentralized technology, and I was pointing out that is not necessarily the case.

I wish CoinHoarder appreciated the work that developers do and how pedantic it is.

I actually do appreciate developers, but you are not a developer. Your main job is to spread FUD about other cryptocurrencies. You don't even have a dog in the fight, you just want to watch everything burn to the ground. You push your vaporware "solutions", that hardly anyone has peer reviewed because no one has time to read the million words you post a day. Your discourse amounts to FUD because you assume that an open-sourced cryptocurrency cannot update its code base to fix whatever flaws may exist.

Bitcoin has gone through 100s of iterations to get to where it is today. But no, if you find one little thing the coin is a "dead end", "fatally flawed", or a "scam".... and you spam that opinion across every thread. Hence your temporary ban the other day for spamming the same thing on multiple threads (your big red font "Ethereum is fatally flawed" message.) Even the greatest masterpiece could be described as flawed if one focuses purely on the flaws like you do.

Then you condemn us for "mining the speculators" while at the same time "mining the speculators" yourself (assuming you actually release anything at all.) First you discredit everyone else and all existing cryptocurrencies, then you release your own cryptocurrency to "mine the speculators". You are a hypocrite in the making.  This holier than thou attitude is repugnant. You are an idiot for not being able to figure out why people dislike you. Then you cry that I am "attempting character assassination" as if you are not one of the most repulsive human beings to ever troll these forums.

So then CoinHoarder gets angry at me for having formed an opinion over the past 3 years of the way those guys think and make choices.

You are the one bringing up Bitshares. I actually do not currently own any Bitshares at the moment. More straw men arguments from you. Your posts are filled with so many of them that it makes it very tedious for anyone to rebut. Someone would have to dedicate their entire life to defending your FUD and straw men arguments.

I understand he is upset at me because I don't have a high opinion of Bitshares (and on that point I will be vindicated once again ... so he can fight all he wants but it won't help him because I can already see the traits of Dan & Stan Larimer ... and he resents that I could have any following on the forum because I do make such a judgement on the Bitshare's Brothers ahem I mean Father & Son ... smart guys, apparently prolific coders ... but incorrect conceptualization of technological uses and markets).

More BS that has nothing to do with anything I've posted in this thread. n00bs like you love to bring up Bitshares when "debating" random topics with me that are completely unrelated to Bitshares. More straw men arguments from the straw men king.

[st0at]

You guys are clueless as to Zcash not being able to succeed with a 11% block subsidy. Ripple premined 100% of their coin and they are doing quite well, Dash did too. Bitcoin was effectively "instamined" by early adopters. There is no way to fairly distribute any cryptocurrency. Then again, this being "fatal flaw" is being brought up by someone that insist they should include a backdoor for the government, so I will take anything you say about their business plan (and the fact that yours is so much better) with a grain of salt.

Yeah that idiot TPTB thinks every anonymous coin should have a viewkey, but you are correct that Monero should be shunned because it enables auditing!

Mega Kim.Com is our hero! He is a marketing genius (who studied under Charles Ponzi's mastery of manipulating human psychology) cleverly amasses $100 million by charging us small commissions to provide Bittorrent links so we can steal all the content we love (from our beloved artists or from Hollywood) and be free of the censorship that we can't otherwise post to our blog for free access to readers.

Yeah we love Hollywood's content because we love a model of interaction wherein we are dumb zombies who do not create content but sit in front of the TV. Because long live TV and the model of non-interaction as content!

Yeah you are so smart and TPTB is so dumb. Thank you immensely for leading your generation to the truth. Amen.

And he will not also admit the following is why he incorrect about stealing content.

Governments are organizing now around controlling the internet. The illegal activity through Bittorrent (which also steals from ISPs which have higher upload bandwidth allowances) is helping the governments feel they are justified in regulating the internet via Net Neutrality and other measures. You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent. You are not going to create the new Knowledge Economy with your theft model. And by advocating theft, you are helping the NWO totalitarianism to take form by providing an economic incentive and political support from millions of artists who are violated by piracy. Dumb. But I expect that from you.

I didn't have time to go over this earlier, but you are using a straw man argument here. My point in bringing up Bittorrent is that decentralized technologies exist that the government cannot shut down. I was not condoning or promoting Bittorrent's copyright infringement, but rather admiring the technology behind it. You said that anything that broke laws or regulations would be shut down by the government, even if it is built on decentralized technology, and I was pointing out that is not necessarily the case.

Yeah let's move the goalposts and nobody will notice. That is just a little secret between you and I.  

Yeah the word 'decentralization' is always correct, even when the concept of decentralized file storage has the inviolable issue of enabling copyright theft until an algorithmic identification of sameness is invented.

I wish CoinHoarder appreciated the work that developers do and how pedantic it is.

I actually do appreciate developers, but you are not a developer. Your main job is to spread FUD about other cryptocurrencies. You don't even have a dog in the fight, you just want to watch everything burn to the ground. You push your vaporware "solutions", that hardly anyone has peer reviewed because no one has time to read the million words you post a day. Your discourse amounts to FUD because you assume that an open-sourced cryptocurrency cannot update its code base to fix whatever flaws may exist.

Bitcoin has gone through 100s of iterations to get to where it is today. But no, if you find one little thing the coin is a "dead end", "fatally flawed", or a "scam".... and you spam that opinion across every thread. Hence your temporary ban the other day for spamming the same thing on multiple threads (your big red font "Ethereum is fatally flawed" message.) Even the greatest masterpiece could be described as flawed if one focuses purely on the flaws like you do.

Then you condemn us for "mining the speculators" while at the same time "mining the speculators" yourself (assuming you actually release anything at all.) First you discredit everyone else and all existing cryptocurrencies, then you release your own cryptocurrency to "mine the speculators". You are a hypocrite in the making.  This holier than thou attitude is repugnant. You are an idiot for not being able to figure out why people dislike you. Then you cry that I am "attempting character assassination" as if you are not one of the most repulsive human beings to ever troll these forums.

So then CoinHoarder gets angry at me for having formed an opinion over the past 3 years of the way those guys think and make choices.

You are the one bringing up Bitshares. I actually do not currently own any Bitshares at the moment. More straw men arguments from you. Your posts are filled with so many of them that it makes it very tedious for anyone to rebut. Someone would have to dedicate their entire life to defending your FUD and straw men arguments.

I understand he is upset at me because I don't have a high opinion of Bitshares (and on that point I will be vindicated once again ... so he can fight all he wants but it won't help him because I can already see the traits of Dan & Stan Larimer ... and he resents that I could have any following on the forum because I do make such a judgement on the Bitshare's Brothers ahem I mean Father & Son ... smart guys, apparently prolific coders ... but incorrect conceptualization of technological uses and markets).

More BS that has nothing to do with anything I've posted in this thread. n00bs like you love to bring up Bitshares when "debating" random topics with me that are completely unrelated to Bitshares. More straw men arguments from the straw men king.

Yeah bro we are mad as hell and we ain't gunna take it any m00r.

I am witch you on dis. Let's the three 0f us release 0ur frustrations in the backseat 0f stoat's Pint0 this c0ming Friday.

[TPTB_need_war]

You guys are clueless as to Zcash not being able to succeed with a 11% block subsidy. Ripple premined 100% of their coin and they are doing quite well, Dash did too. Bitcoin was effectively "instamined" by early adopters. There is no way to fairly distribute any cryptocurrency. Then again, this being "fatal flaw" is being brought up by someone that insist they should include a backdoor for the government, so I will take anything you say about their business plan (and the fact that yours is so much better) with a grain of salt.

[...]

Yeah you are so smart and TPTB is so dumb. Thank you immensely for leading your generation to the truth. Amen.

Note it was some where recently I wrote that all coins are effectively premined because the distribution is to speculators and not to the eventual mass adoption users (assuming crypto ever does make it to mass adoption).

Also my input has been entirely misconstructed by the dufus. He could read but refuses:

https://forum.z.cash/t/funding-the-founders-reward/205/5

The salient points fly over this head apparently:

The issue I pointed out is just to make sure the coins are widely distributed (i.e. not concentrated into fewer HODLers). And to give time for the coin to be adopted as the coins are distributed, so that wide participation (and thus wide distribution) are achieved.

That is not free market price discovery.

Their current braindead plan isn't generous to anyone, not even to themselves nor their investors!

[newb4now]

1) A fork of the technology into a true FLOSS project. The "Litecoin/Monero" response.

I like the idea but without the publicity of ZCash I am not sure how much market share a fork will achieve.

[r0ach]

You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent.

I view this in completely different terms.  Before file sharing existed, people would record songs off the radio onto their tape cassettes.  The music was already technically (but not legally) out in the public domain for anyone to hear, you were just bypassing the business model of ad supported revenue.  The music was even being beamed at you via radio waves against your own will, yet there's probably plenty of obscure laws trying to govern whether you can or can't record it and what you can do with it.

We have a similar situation with ad blockers on websites.  Their business model is starting to fail.  To me, the whole situation with music is just the state trying to prop up an invalid business model.  In the old days, entertainers were considered to have the lowest of social status possible.  This is one of the initial reasons Nero was ridiculed as an emperor, because he wanted to be an actor and emperor at the same time.  Even if entertainer's social status was garbage, they could still get paid doing it, they just had to do it through live performance.  There was no "record thyself and make millions".
 
Modern civilization elevates these entertainers from the social status of garbage men, to basically higher than the president of the country in both fame and wealth.  This is not to say they shouldn't get paid, but past history and current technology both point to the idea that they will likely be required to do so only through live performance.  If you're saying it's the government's job to make sure their invalid business model is still able to make them mega-millionaires without even having to do live performance at all, then that would be an extreme left wing view.

[TPTB_need_war]

You young fellow feel free to pursue theft of music and other content which deprives the millions of artists of income to pay their rent.

I view this in completely different terms.  Before file sharing existed, people would record songs off the radio onto their tape cassettes.  The music was already technically (but not legally) out in the public domain for anyone to hear, you were just bypassing the business model of ad supported revenue.  The music was even being beamed at you via radio waves against your own will, yet there's probably plenty of obscure laws trying to govern whether you can or can't record it and what you can do with it.

We have a similar situation with ad blockers on websites.  Their business model is starting to fail.  To me, the whole situation with music is just the state trying to prop up an invalid business model.  In the old days, entertainers were considered to have the lowest of social status possible.  This is one of the initial reasons Nero was ridiculed as an emperor, because he wanted to be an actor and emperor at the same time.  Even if entertainer's social status was garbage, they could still get paid doing it, they just had to do it through live performance.  There was no "record thyself and make millions".
 
Modern civilization elevates these entertainers from the social status of garbage men, to basically higher than the president of the country in both fame and wealth.  This is not to say they shouldn't get paid, but past history and current technology both point to the idea that they will likely be required to do so only through live performance.  If you're saying it's the government's job to make sure their invalid business model is still able to make them mega-millionaires without even having to do live performance at all, then that would be an extreme left wing view.

I really read your rebuttal with an open mind, because if I am incorrect I will suffer immensely. So I am not writing the following based in what I want to believe, but rather based on my sober analysis of the facts. I am eager to read any rebuttal which can teach me why I am wrong.

First of all, distinguish SUPER STARS from the average indie musician earning couple of $100 a month, or the more successful indie or small label outfit earning just above the poverty line. The former number several dozens to maybe a few hundred (active) whereas the latter number in the 100,000s to millions (and maybe much more if they could earn a bit more).

Depriving indie musicians of a decent income (not even wealth!) to pay their rent and food is not the way to build a new age Knowledge Age economy wherein we creative people create things and sell them direct to each other instead of being slaves to corporations. If you are going to advocate stealing music, and since we are moving into a digital age where all work will be digitized, then let's advocate stealing everything then including 3D printer designs, commercial software, etc.. so that we will be reduced an economy valued only by physical raw materials and energy production so the bankers will own and control all value in economy. Yeah nice.  

Afaik, the reason artists were devalued throughout history was due to two facts:

• Lack of abundance in the ancient economy which is required to produce a gift culture. The artists in a gift culture are on the receiving end of the gifts because they don't directly produce necessities of life that are thus in abundance in a gift culture.
• Economies of yore have been capital intensive, economies-of-scale (e.g. Rome road building, post Dark Age agriculture, Industrial Age factories) thus artists contributed no useful labor to the capitalists. The point being that the capitalists were in control. But I have explained this all changes in Knowledge Age[1]

Why you not want to pay an insignificant tip to indie musicians so they can flourish and you don't have to view ads? We are now in an abundance economy. There is no excuse to not tip the indie artists.

Would you prefer to have massive unemployment and social welfare system that will sink us into a Dark Age?

Do you want all those unemployed artists on welfare to vote to steal your money with capital controls because the economy failed them?

Not everyone wants to be a programmer or what ever.

If you enjoy or listen to a song regularly, then is absolutely no financial reason you can justify for not tipping the creator a penny. You will only destroy society, the Knowledge Age, and yourself by being so selfish and myopic. Perhaps you could justify it for other reasons such as micropayments being a hassle and subscription being a lockin (to one provider) paradigm.

What might be more convincing to me, is to argue that those people who are going to steal (or who won't bother to find the music in official venues) will do it any way (or at least will have been exposed to the music thus potentially being another fan for the musician to sell a T-shirt to), thus arguing there is no economic incentive to prevent bootleg copies from appearing on decentralized file storage systems. And thus to argue that the business model that works is give away free the downloads, and sell the fans trinkets and live performances. Perhaps that is your point?

Afaics, SoundCloud was supposed to be offering that model and the musicians pay SoundCloud to offer the downloads for free. In return musicians could afaics promote their music and gain fans for example on their Facebook page and then sell the fans stuff such as T-shirts. But lately SoundCloud has started to limit apps to 15,000 plays per day, apps that play SoundCloud content aren't allowed to develop social networking type features, and SoundCloud disabled their Facebook embedded player (changed it to a link to SoundCloud's website) so that SoundCloud could drive ad revenues and/or synergies on their own site. Appears SoundCloud was being hammered by the RIAA with DCMA requests and SoundCloud caved in to the major record labels. Now Universal has accesse to delete any song from SoundCloud.

So one could argue that a decentralized file storage could provide the function SoundCloud was supposed to be offering.

Musicians like to get statistics on how many plays their song has. They like to get feedback on their songs. Etc.

If society decides to adopt the decentralized file storage and end copyrights, then I will adjust to it. But for the time being, it is not clear whether that is the best model for the indie artists and for our Knowledge Age future.

For example, it is not clear to me that I need 150 T-shirts, one each from each indie band I like. And then how do I tip them for new music they create if I already bought a T-shirt? I don't have time to go to live concerts and what if the band is not in my area. We are moving to global economy (check out songdew.com for music from India). Wouldn't it make more sense for my music organizer to tip them automatically based on my plays? So I don't have to hassle with it making sure I take care of the artists who provide my music that I love.

So you could argue okay, but no reason to not let others steal it if they really want to. Well maybe true, but in that case the decentralized file storage can coexist with the micropayment model.

Which outcome do you think is realistically the most likely and why?

[1]	https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg13761518#msg13761518 (see the "Edit:")

[CoinCube]

Bruce Charlton has an interesting blog where he argues against the idea of professional performers

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2013/12/against-professional-performers.html

Perhaps the distant future we will approach what he envisions. In the short to medium term, however, the continued existence of professional performers and enforceable copyright appears a safe bet. The current trend in society is towards increasing centralization and control not less.

[spartacusrex]

From the white paper :

Zerocash can be integrated into Bitcoin or forks of it
(commonly referred to as “altcoins”);

Does that mean what I think it means ?

[TPTB_need_war]

Bruce Charlton has an interesting blog where he argues against the idea of professional performers

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2013/12/against-professional-performers.html

Perhaps the distant future we will approach what he envisions. In the short to medium term, however, the continued existence of professional performers and enforceable copyright appears a safe bet. The current trend in society is towards increasing centralization and control not less.

Thanks for that example refutation.

That essay seems to have some non-sequitors.

He says people don't dance any more and somehow thinks that is because we pay for performers but never explains the connection. Afaics, we don't dance any more because we have a zillion other things to do that wasn't the case before electricity and combustion engines back on the farm. Nostalgia is nice, but it isn't a justification that we will necessarily revert.

He argues that we should all be our own performers but then doesn't explain how we will justify it when we have such a great opportunity cost these days given all the means for us to be occupied. Has he ever heard of the inexorable trend of maximum-division-of-labor. Afaics, if we want a diversity of good quality indie artists, then we need to gift something to the artists so they can pay their expenses while producing music. I listened to the YouTube Hangout videos for Synereo, and the musicians point out that creating music is not without effort, time, and expense.

He fails to discuss the point that I may only like a few songs from an artist and may only be willing to transfer a $1 for that music to help the artist produce music. So I can't buy a T-shirt or go to a concert for $1. As well, I can't travel to India just to attend a concert for the interesting Indian music I can hear instantly at songdew.com.

There is no way I want to listen only to the absolute best musicians. I want to listen to 1000s of songs of diversity. I get bored fast listening to the same song over and over. I think that is a critical error of the essay.

Henry Ford jumpstarted the USA manufacturing economy by paying his employees more so they could afford to buy Ford cars.

In a world with 7 billion people and a $40 trillion annual GDP, we can afford to pay 7 million musicians $24,000 a year. That is only $24 per person (on average) per year spent on music. That is only $168 billion per year.

The only question I really have in mind is who should/will pay so we end up with that roughly $24 average per annum per music consumer. Current distribution schemes seem to indicate only about 5% of the people will pay anything significant for music. The rest want it free. But maybe they would pay a little if it was reasonably insignificant and hassle-free. So if the 95% is paying 1/20th of the 5% (and not getting all the frills that the 5% get) then that cmputes as  (95/20 + 5) x = 2400, so x = $246 for per annum for the 5% and $12 per annum for the 95%. See mathematically it doesn't make much sense to target the 5% as it requires 10X more spending from them just to double the revenue of the musician.

So perhaps the global economy can sustain 700,000 musicians (1/10,000 of the population-at-large) at $24,000 annually with every of the 7 billion expending $2.40 or $0.20 per month. As the developing world becomes wealthier then perhaps $24 per annum for 7 million musicians.

Be honest. I will not spend $246 per year on music. Will you? But I will surely spend $2.40 and probably $24 annually which is less than I spend on food in day or days.

But maybe the 95% just won't pay no matter the price. Then in that case focus on the 5% who pay, use free downloads to promote and be prepared to have 20X less musical diversity.

[CoinCube]

The only question I really have in mind is who should/will pay so we end up with that roughly $24 average per annum per music consumer. Current distribution schemes seem to indicate only about 5% of the people will pay anything significant for music. The rest want it free. But maybe they would pay a little if it was reasonably insignificant and hassle-free.

This is certainly true for me. I have not paid anything for music in the last 10 years. However, I would certainly be wiling to do so if

1) I could easily identify music that I wanted to listen to with spending lots time sorting through music I disliked
2) It was easy to buy and doing so did not take much time
3) The music was easily transportable so I could listen to it without having to worry about remembering to carry around an ipod CD or some storage device all the time.

I suspect there are a lot of people out there like me.

[TPTB_need_war]

The only question I really have in mind is who should/will pay so we end up with that roughly $24 average per annum per music consumer. Current distribution schemes seem to indicate only about 5% of the people will pay anything significant for music. The rest want it free. But maybe they would pay a little if it was reasonably insignificant and hassle-free.

This is certainly true for me. I have not paid anything for music in the last 10 years. However, I would certainly be wiling to do so if

1) I could easily identify music that I wanted to listen to with spending lots time sorting through music I disliked
2) It was easy to buy and doing so did not take much time
3) The music was easily transportable so I could listen to it without having to worry about remembering to carry around an ipod CD or some storage device all the time.

I suspect there are a lot of people out there like me.

You precisely confirmed my logic on what people with money want. Thanks.

Decentralized file storage or not, is sort of irrelevant to your needs (ditto the musician). One can argue that SoundCloud couldn't continue its model because it was centralized and got pressured by the RIAA et al (with the implication that decentralized file storage would be immune, but I have my doubts about that look what they are doing to KimDotcom). But I tend to think they made some poor choices because they didn't understand what you wrote above and some other things.

People have less time than money. That will become true in the developing world soon also (if not already starting to become the case). This is the reason people like Apple products (they work seamlessly and save time).

Damn you precisely hit the nail on my new project with the bolded phrase. Amazing how precisely you even hit the name of my new project with that statement.

Readers this is not some connived BS. I didn't tell CoinCube what to write.

[r0ach]

Afaik, the reason artists were devalued throughout history was due to two facts:

Lack of abundance in the ancient economy

Which is why I find the idea of turning into more of a knowledge age economy unrealistic.  It makes the assumption of permanent abundance on the lower levels of things like Maslow's pyramid (or whatever sociology mechanism you subscribe to), thus forcing the price of those things lower, while giving greater, perhaps unwarranted value (a bubble) to things higher on the pyramid (entertainers).  The fact is, things like the amount of life in the sea and the wild are decreasing, which is diametrically opposed to the functionality of this age of abundance.  Not to mention that such a thing would probably require a flatlined or decreasing population and more intrusive, tyrannical government, with even more power to regulate all aspects of things like copyright.

From doing a brief inventory of the world, it's kind of obvious we're already in this so called knowledge age right now, probably peak knowledge age, at least for our lifetimes, due to the fact that population is still increasing.  Unless population decides to take an immediate nose dive to sustainable, pre-industrial revolution levels (500 million), I see the value of the lower levels of the pyramid (food, housing, etc) increasing, which they are, and the more frivolous things like entertainment decreasing in comparison (bubble dies).

Even if you claim technology and robotics will infinitely scale the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid beyond all human needs, the specialization of skills required to make them function will lead to increased centralization and monopoly to do whatever they want with the price (already happening with Monsanto and we're still relatively low tech).

As for human population, yea, I'm aware how some people forecast we will hit something like 8 billion then start going down, but nothing like this is set in stone.  Humans can only survive by all of them converting to K selection theory.  I think most people who actually work in this field claim that all humans are K selection by default, which seems like complete bullshit to me.  You can find huge differences by looking at different ethnic groups alone, possibly from colder vs warmer climates as well.

This is why national sovereignty is such an important thing.  Nations that don't implode obviously have converted to K selection, then you have people from Marxist, organized Jewry coming along and saying, whoa, homogeneous society is bad (except for Israel of course), it's time for us to use the most powerful lobby in the world (AIPAC) to force you to import some 3rd world R-selection rapefugees to destroy your civilization.  And this is what they have done by overthrowing the 1924 and 1965 immigration act of America.  Their latest foray into blatant hypocritical behavior and destruction of the entire planet is exporting all their K selection refugees out of Israel and into Sweden.  Even though both countries are similar population, Israel said the refugees were a threat to the destruction of the Jewish state, but hey, who cares if Sweden is destroyed right?

http://www.europeanguardian.com/81-uncategorised/immigration/635-israel-is-shipping-its-deported-africans-off-to-sweden

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Eritrean-migrants-resettled-from-Israel-to-Sweden-337414[/list]

So yea, you're not getting any knowledge age as long as you have the all powerful, organized Jewish lobbies attempting to force multiculturalism upon all nations.  Which in reality just means dumping as many K selection groups as possible on top of your functional society to destroy it.  It's no coincidence this is happening right now either.  Right at the opportune moment when bankers are at their weakest an in danger of being overthrown, they wanted to give you a more immediate problem to deal with to distract you.

[ArticMine]

Bruce Charlton has an interesting blog where he argues against the idea of professional performers

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2013/12/against-professional-performers.html

Perhaps the distant future we will approach what he envisions. In the short to medium term, however, the continued existence of professional performers and enforceable copyright appears a safe bet. The current trend in society is towards increasing centralization and control not less.

Thanks for that example refutation.

That essay seems to have some non-sequitors.

He says people don't dance any more and somehow thinks that is because we pay for performers but never explains the connection. Afaics, we don't dance any more because we have a zillion other things to do that wasn't the case before electricity and combustion engines back on the farm. Nostalgia is nice, but it isn't a justification that we will necessarily revert.

He argues that we should all be our own performers but then doesn't explain how we will justify it when we have such a great opportunity cost these days given all the means for us to be occupied. Has he ever heard of the inexorable trend of maximum-division-of-labor. Afaics, if we want a diversity of good quality indie artists, then we need to gift something to the artists so they can pay their expenses while producing music. I listened to the YouTube Hangout videos for Synereo, and the musicians point out that creating music is not without effort, time, and expense.

He fails to discuss the point that I may only like a few songs from an artist and may only be willing to transfer a $1 for that music to help the artist produce music. So I can't buy a T-shirt or go to a concert for $1. As well, I can't travel to India just to attend a concert for the interesting Indian music I can hear instantly at songdew.com.

There is no way I want to listen only to the absolute best musicians. I want to listen to 1000s of songs of diversity. I get bored fast listening to the same song over and over. I think that is a critical error of the essay.

Henry Ford jumpstarted the USA manufacturing economy by paying his employees more so they could afford to buy Ford cars.

In a world with 7 billion people and a $40 trillion annual GDP, we can afford to pay 7 million musicians $24,000 a year. That is only $24 per person (on average) per year spent on music. That is only $168 billion per year.

The only question I really have in mind is who should/will pay so we end up with that roughly $24 average per annum per music consumer. Current distribution schemes seem to indicate only about 5% of the people will pay anything significant for music. The rest want it free. But maybe they would pay a little if it was reasonably insignificant and hassle-free. So if the 95% is paying 1/20th of the 5% (and not getting all the frills that the 5% get) then that cmputes as  (95/20 + 5) x = 2400, so x = $246 for per annum for the 5% and $12 per annum for the 95%. See mathematically it doesn't make much sense to target the 5% as it requires 10X more spending from them just to double the revenue of the musician.

So perhaps the global economy can sustain 700,000 musicians (1/10,000 of the population-at-large) at $24,000 annually with every of the 7 billion expending $2.40 or $0.20 per month. As the developing world becomes wealthier then perhaps $24 per annum for 7 million musicians.

Be honest. I will not spend $246 per year on music. Will you? But I will surely spend $2.40 and probably $24 annually which is less than I spend on food in day or days.

But maybe the 95% just won't pay no matter the price. Then in that case focus on the 5% who pay, use free downloads to promote and be prepared to have 20X less musical diversity.

The issue that is being ignored here is that when one pays for "legal" music the actual amount to goes to the artist is in most cases zero and in those cases where there is an actual net royalty to the artist *the very famous" artists it is a minuscule percentage.  The bulk of the revenue goes the "music industry" which has been made obsolete by changing technology. Digital distribution of music is fundamentally different than pressing vinyl or even pressing CDs, in that there is minimal up front up capital required so there is no need for a capitalist to provide this capital. A simple pay what you want approach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want will yield the artist way more by eliminating parasites such as "the music industry" or Apple with its 30% big brother tax. Of course the gross is far less, but would you rather as an artist receive 95% of say 2 USD or 0.0001% of 20 USD?

The same is also the case with book / ebook publishers and authors, and the parasitic scientific publishing industry, vs scientists in  University Industry or Government. These dying parasitic corporate players are causing a lot of damage with "technologies" such as DRM that attempt to protect "intellectual property". DRM and the attempt to protect "intellectual property" is among the greatest threats to civil liberties and individual freedom in most western counties. It is also the ultimate cause of a very significant and rising portion of China's greenhouse gas emissions.  

Edit: One only has to compare the relative Developer ranking in https://www.coingecko.com/en of Monero 81 (Pay what you want) vs Ethereum 74 (Traditional capitalist IPO model). Z.cash is following the Ethereum model with its 11% pre-mine to fund the venture capitalists. Those pictures of spinning diamonds did not come cheap.

[CoinCube]

Even if you claim technology and robotics will infinitely scale the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid beyond all human needs, the specialization of skills required to make them function will lead to increased centralization and monopoly to do whatever they want with the price (already happening with Monsanto and we're still relatively low tech).

Don't count on this. We are not at all far from the point where people can do DNA editing in their garage.

http://gizmodo.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-crispr-the-new-tool-1702114381

CRISPR, a new genome editing tool, could transform the field of biology—and a recent study on genetically-engineered human embryos has converted this promise into media hype. But scientists have been tinkering with genomes for decades. Why is CRISPR suddenly such a big deal?

The short answer is that CRISPR allows scientists to edit genomes with unprecedented precision, efficiency, and flexibility. The past few years have seen a flurry of “firsts” with CRISPR, from creating monkeys with targeted mutations to preventing HIV infection in human cells. Earlier this month, Chinese scientists announced they applied the technique to nonviable human embryos, hinting at CRISPR’s potential to cure any genetic disease. And yes, it might even lead to designer babies.

[r0ach]

Even if you claim technology and robotics will infinitely scale the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid beyond all human needs, the specialization of skills required to make them function will lead to increased centralization and monopoly to do whatever they want with the price (already happening with Monsanto and we're still relatively low tech).

Don't count on this. We are not at all far from the point where people can do DNA editing in their garage.

Hey, I'm not a farmer, I just assume we can't use any mysterious tricks to create an infinite food supply from a finite top soil, seemingly more contested fresh water supply amongst counties and states, and dwindling ocean population.  The last time we tried to farm everything in sight we ended up with "the dust bowl".

The UN is saying people should "eat insects" to fight world hunger:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-22508439

We're obviously not operating sustainably here, and these R-selection groups (mostly everything that isn't a European, Slavic, Jewish, or Northern Asian) are just cranking out kids like no tomorrow.  If Anonymint wants some type of knowledge age, the K series groups would literally need to wage war on the R groups.  Otherwise, they're just going to keep reproducing until not only are the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid the only things of value, but until everyone literally dies in the process.  Resources are one of the main contributing factors to war after all, but ecological collapse is also not the greatest idea.

Most people on this forum have some kind of stupid idea about what freedom is.  Although the libertarian dream seems to be the opposite of what I think, I believe it's when the population is low enough that every square inch of land and resources on earth can't be monopolized or it is unnecessary to do so.  Only then will you have freedom.

[CoinCube]

We're obviously not operating sustainably here, and these R-selection groups (mostly everything that isn't a European, Slavic, Jewish, or Northern Asian) are just cranking out kids like no tomorrow.  If Anonymint wants some type of knowledge age, the K series groups would literally need to wage war on the R groups.  Otherwise, they're just going to keep reproducing until not only are the lower levels of Maslow's pyramid the only things of value, but until everyone literally dies in the process.  Resources are one of the main contributing factors to war after all, but ecological collapse is also not the greatest idea.

You underestimate the toxicity of the modern narrative on human fertility. Once traditional values are undermined population reduction proceeds rather quickly.