Wouldn't it be more fair if the bitcoins were shared equally?

[taltamir]

If you think you have a better way than Bitcoin, by all means, start your own coin and see how many people are willing to adopt it.  I for one, would not. But don't let that stop you!

This is a very good argument. Bitcoin is not backed up by any government or body. its a crypto currency which people just decided to use on their own and not the first one.
It would be easy enough to create your own crypto currency called sovietcoin (or sharingcoing) which you distribute equally amongst all people. Go ahead and do so

Also: Bitcoin (unlike the hypothetical sovietcoin) was specifically designed to protect against governments run by people with the opinion of the OP. It is designed such that there is no issuing body that can start redistributing it or printing money willy nilly. Its the only reason anyone uses it in the first place

[ronenfe]

Ok, I want to ask a question, suppose you and 99 other men are living in a different planet, until now you trade things.
Suddenly you come with the idea it will be easier to use money instead of trading, everybody agree with you.
You all decide to create 1000 coins, now you want to share the coins between all of you. how many coins each one will get and why?

Now suppose that the coins you decided to use had to be manufactured in an expensive process to prevent counterfeiting. When this became known 95 of the 100 people involved decided to not bother. As time passed more and more of them joined in and worked hard to create more and more coins.
Now some guy in the 20 who never bothered working for it decides it would be more fair if he gets a cut out of the work everyone else did "just because".

First of all, I have never said people should give their coins after they had them, I said that originally it should be equal share.
This is not the case here, the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided. In any case lets say that only 5 people willing to participate.the 1000 coins should be distributed between the 5 people that wanted to participate, each gets 200 coins. How will they decide the value of each coin? I think they will have to experiment with it until it's stabilized. later comes another one that wants to join,  they can create him another 200 coins.

[greyhawk]

First of all, I have never said people should give their coins after they had them, I said that originally it should be equal share.
This is not the case here, the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided. In any case lets say that only 5 people willing to participate.the 1000 coins should be distributed between the 5 people that wanted to participate, each gets 200 coins. How will they decide the value of each coin? I think they will have to experiment with it until it's stabilized. later comes another one that wants to join,  they can create him another 200 coins.

So how do you stop person #6 coming by and joining another time and another time and another time and a 50000th time in a pseudonymous environment?

[taltamir]

Ok, I want to ask a question, suppose you and 99 other men are living in a different planet, until now you trade things.
Suddenly you come with the idea it will be easier to use money instead of trading, everybody agree with you.
You all decide to create 1000 coins, now you want to share the coins between all of you. how many coins each one will get and why?

Now suppose that the coins you decided to use had to be manufactured in an expensive process to prevent counterfeiting. When this became known 95 of the 100 people involved decided to not bother. As time passed more and more of them joined in and worked hard to create more and more coins.
Now some guy in the 20 who never bothered working for it decides it would be more fair if he gets a cut out of the work everyone else did "just because".

First of all, I have never said people should give their coins after they had them, I said that originally it should be equal share.
This is not the case here, the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided. In any case lets say that only 5 people willing to participate.the 1000 coins should be distributed between the 5 people that wanted to participate, each gets 200 coins. How will they decide the value of each coin? I think they will have to experiment with it until it's stabilized. later comes another one that wants to join,  they can create him another 200 coins.

This fundamentally cannot ever be bitcoin, bitcoin is not designed that way.

However I had myself imagined something similar as an improvement to the existing fiat system of many countries.
As long as it is tied up legally to be near impossible to change (tied up legally so the ratio cannot be changed without 95% of eligble voters voting yes on it... not 95% of people who make it to the polls... so you first have to convince everyone to go out and vote... the 2012 US election had slightly under 50% turnout amongst eligible voters according to my math from data taken from census).
That is, new currency is created OR destroyed by the government until total currency matches 1000$/citizen alive. If population expands government supplements taxes with printing. If population contracts government must spend some of tax money to destroy money. With a built in cap to only change 10% a year.
The difficulty of changing it will protect it from moronic temporary politicians who don't understand you can't muck about with currency with impunity.

And I don't think this can ever be an alternative currency. You need to know exactly how many people are involved and if the issuing body isn't the government then who gets the new coins? every wallet? if that was the case then many people will create a million wallets for the free money.

[Aahzman]

they can create him another 200 coins.

aaaaaand right here. This is the point where the Ignore button comes into play.  You want to just create currency whenever someone decides they want to be part of the economy? Do you have any idea what that does to the economy? Go read up on Zimbabwe. A prime example of a country trying to money-print its troubles away. The Soviet Union, same thing. They kept printing rubles after rubles after rubles, till people were wheeling carts full of bills to the store to buy a loaf of bread. The 'create as needed' method has been proven to NOT WORK. Currency has to be backed by SOMETHING. With fiat, it's backed by governments, by reserves of precious commodities in vaults somewhere, etc. With bitcoin, it's backed by the network, the blockchain, the work that the entire bitcoin using community contributes to the health and promotion of the bitcoin economy. Every time I send 0.10 bitcoins to bitmillions.com, i attach a miner's fee (generally 0.005 for small stuff, 0.01-0.05 for bigger more important transactions), contributing to the network and to the blockchain, keeping the wheels of cryptoindustry greased.

That's what backs bitcoin. The common effort of every bitcoin user to sustain and nourish the blockchain.

[taltamir]

they can create him another 200 coins.

aaaaaand right here. This is the point where the Ignore button comes into play.  You want to just create currency whenever someone decides they want to be part of the economy? Do you have any idea what that does to the economy? Go read up on Zimbabwe. A prime example of a country trying to money-print its troubles away. The Soviet Union, same thing. They kept printing rubles after rubles after rubles, till people were wheeling carts full of bills to the store to buy a loaf of bread. The 'create as needed' method has been proven to NOT WORK. Currency has to be backed by SOMETHING. With fiat, it's backed by governments, by reserves of precious commodities in vaults somewhere, etc. With bitcoin, it's backed by the network, the blockchain, the work that the entire bitcoin using community contributes to the health and promotion of the bitcoin economy. Every time I send 0.10 bitcoins to bitmillions.com, i attach a miner's fee (generally 0.005 for small stuff, 0.01-0.05 for bigger more important transactions), contributing to the network and to the blockchain, keeping the wheels of cryptoindustry greased.

That's what backs bitcoin. The common effort of every bitcoin user to sustain and nourish the blockchain.

Well, those examples are not exactly the same because they created an infinite amount of fiat money.
the 200 in his example was an exact 1/existing pop. As long as they actually DESTROY currency to match citizen count as well as create then you end up with a system less stupid then pretty much every fiat currency in the world right now where they just print money whenever they feel like.

That being said 'less stupid then current fiat system" is not the same as "smart"

The biggest issue is with the idea this could be applied to bitcoins, ever. Bitcoins are not printed by a government who mandates their use; rather bitcoins are are a cryptocurrency based on cryptography that has to be manufactured. You can't just "create" more currency per wallet created in bitcoin. And even if you could it would be insane due to fraud (single user creates a million wallets)

[Mike Christ]

Work in, work out  None of this welfare rubbish.

[RodeoX]

Money is not fair. Nor is it ever equally distributed. If it was, I'd quit my job and become a bong tester. Inequality is also the incentive to do more.

[lassdas]

the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided.

No, no and again no!

You still don't understand Bitcoin.

The work can NOT be avoided!
Even in the far future, when all <21million BTC are created the work still needs to be done!


Did you even read anything posted on the last 6pages? I guess not.

[taltamir]

the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided.

The work is invented on purpose... Key word is PURPOSE rather then "for the lulz".
The "invented" work is also known as cryptography and its purpose is to stop anyone from printing infinite coins as well as to ensure the system is unadulterated by fakes.

Its bad enough when the government is printing infiniate money, give that power to every citizen and you got a worthless "currency".
Can you come up with a way to ensure every living person only has 1 wallet? (answer: no... unless you are the government and institute some strict biometrics)

[ronenfe]

Ok, I want to ask a question, suppose you and 99 other men are living in a different planet, until now you trade things.
Suddenly you come with the idea it will be easier to use money instead of trading, everybody agree with you.
You all decide to create 1000 coins, now you want to share the coins between all of you. how many coins each one will get and why?

Now suppose that the coins you decided to use had to be manufactured in an expensive process to prevent counterfeiting. When this became known 95 of the 100 people involved decided to not bother. As time passed more and more of them joined in and worked hard to create more and more coins.
Now some guy in the 20 who never bothered working for it decides it would be more fair if he gets a cut out of the work everyone else did "just because".

First of all, I have never said people should give their coins after they had them, I said that originally it should be equal share.
This is not the case here, the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided. In any case lets say that only 5 people willing to participate.the 1000 coins should be distributed between the 5 people that wanted to participate, each gets 200 coins. How will they decide the value of each coin? I think they will have to experiment with it until it's stabilized. later comes another one that wants to join,  they can create him another 200 coins.

This fundamentally cannot ever be bitcoin, bitcoin is not designed that way.

However I had myself envisioned this is the ideal fiat currency for a government to issue (tied up legally so the ratio cannot be changed without 95% of eligble voters voting yes on it... not 95% of people who make it to the polls... so you first have to convince everyone to go out and vote... the 2012 US election had slightly under 50% turnout amongst eligible voters according to my math from data taken from census).
That is, new currency is created OR destroyed by the government until total currency matches 1000$/citizen alive. If population expands government supplements taxes with printing. If population contracts government must spend some of tax money to destroy money. With a build in 10% a year change cap.
The unanimous requirement for change will protect it from moronic temporary politicians who don't understand you can't muck about with currency with impunity.

And I don't think this can ever be an alternative currency. You need to know exactly how many people are involved and if the issuing body isn't the government then who gets the new coins? every wallet? if that was the case then many people will create a million wallets for the free money.

Your idea sounds interesting, I'm not against a centralize authority, and I came to realize that with bitcoins it can't be accomplished. I say I think it's the right and logical system, and such system is possible and simple.

the work is invented in purpose and could be avoided.

No, no and again no!

You still don't understand Bitcoin.

The work can NOT be avoided!
Even in the far future, when all <21million BTC are created the work still needs to be done!


Did you even read anything posted on the last 6pages? I guess not.

I meant that the work is needed because that's the way they decided the coins can be achieved. They could also decide to create all the coins in less time, maybe using different algorithm, couldn't they? But again It's true I don't understand completely how this work this way and why.

[lassdas]

I meant that the work is needed because that's the way they decided the coins can be achieved.

You meant that, yes, but it's wrong.

They could also decide to create all the coins in less time, maybe using different algorithm, couldn't they?

No, they couldn't.

Yes, they could decide to create all the coins right from the start, with the first created block, or even within the genesis-block,
but the work needs to be done anyway.

But again It's true I don't understand completely how this work this way and why.

First time that I agree with what you say, well, not totally.
You not only don't understand completely, you don't understand it at all.  

[taltamir]

I meant that the work is needed because that's the way they decided the coins can be achieved. They could also decide to create all the coins in less time, maybe using different algorithm, couldn't they? But again It's true I don't understand completely how this work this way and why.

The how is cryptography (see bitcoin wiki for detailed explanation)
The why is to prevent fraud

[toz]

Money is not fair. Nor is it ever equally distributed. If it was, I'd quit my job and become a bong tester. Inequality is also the incentive to do more.

And even if it was equally distributed, it would immediately become unequally distributed. The hard question is how to create prosperity, not how to spread it around if you assume it magically appears in abundance.

[memvola]

Money is not fair. Nor is it ever equally distributed. If it was, I'd quit my job and become a bong tester. Inequality is also the incentive to do more.

And even if it was equally distributed, it would immediately become unequally distributed. The hard question is how to create prosperity, not how to spread it around if you assume it magically appears in abundance.

+1

@ronenfe: What you are doing is unfair. Many people with in depth knowledge of such systems have spent a lot of effort to explain the situation to you, but you refuse to get informed and present your opinion in a more enlightened manner. Perhaps if you did the proper research, you would even change your mind. Instead you still only respond to bits and pieces you understand with your current degree of knowledge. There is nothing to be gained here. I don't think you are a troll, but mostly unkind and unfair. Over'n out.

[niko]

Wouldn't it be more fair if the bitcoins were shared equally?

Bitcoins ARE shared equally. Anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute, use, and mine - under equal conditions. You can't do that with dollars, euros, gold, uranium, diamonds, sea shells, or potatoes. You can with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is intrinsically fair. Also, this thread sucks ass.

[mandyb]

IF Bitcoins was shared equally then everybody would have them.  Then what would be it's value? 

[JoelKatz]

Wouldn't it be more fair if the bitcoins were shared equally?

Bitcoins ARE shared equally. Anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute, use, and mine - under equal conditions. You can't do that with dollars, euros, gold, uranium, diamonds, sea shells, or potatoes. You can with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is intrinsically fair. Also, this thread sucks ass.

I don't get it. How are bitcoins and gold different in this regard? Anyone is free to mine gold too. And everyone doesn't have an equal opportunity to mine Bitcoin. For example, some live in areas where electricity is drastically overpriced.

[MoonShadow]

Wouldn't it be more fair if the bitcoins were shared equally?

Bitcoins ARE shared equally. Anyone and everyone is welcome to contribute, use, and mine - under equal conditions. You can't do that with dollars, euros, gold, uranium, diamonds, sea shells, or potatoes. You can with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is intrinsically fair. Also, this thread sucks ass.

I don't get it. How are bitcoins and gold different in this regard? Anyone is free to mine gold too. And everyone doesn't have an equal opportunity to mine Bitcoin. For example, some live in areas where electricity is drastically overpriced.

No, not everyone is free to mine gold.  One must have physical access to the land, and the ability (legal and physical) to tear up the landscape.  This is not true for at least 80% of the population of the Earth.

[toz]

No, not everyone is free to mine gold.  One must have physical access to the land, and the ability (legal and physical) to tear up the landscape.  This is not true for at least 80% of the population of the Earth.

Exactly. And to mine Bitcoins you need access to power, GPUs, Internet, and so on. But you are free to acquire these things and mine, just as you are with gold.