How evil is Bitcoin ?

[kiba]

I am currently a teenager with no job.
Before you start accusing me of living of my parents.
My parents where decently living in Poland before we moved here 16 years ago. They had good jobs (Teacher and Programmer) and a house and where able to support doing almost whatever they felt like.
Now that we moved to Canada.

I think we have found the disconnect.  Canada isn't a capitalist society, it's a social market democracy like many in Europe.  You're blaming capitalism for problems not caused by it.

My parents pay the mortgage too and my mom just doesn't make all that much. We're in the same socialeconomic status, but we hang out with entirely different folks.

I hang out with hackers and geeks, all of which tend to be oriented toward libertarianism. This has lead me to a very different understanding of the world.

The situation isn't exactly analogous to be sure. My relatives own two nail shops. They're rising in socialeconomic status. My family does, with my sis finished her college education.

The Vietnamese people tend to integrate politically well. They also tend to be vehemently anti-communists. They also happen to own supermarket, nail shop, saloon, etc. They are a very entrepreneurial people. I think entrepreneurial traits is very consistent with immigrant populations in the United States.

Even so, hackers start all sort of startups these days, not just work for pointy haired boss. It's very hard to say "I hate capitalism" in that environment, in that philosophical framework. It just doesn't make sense. Even if I am poor as dirt, I have a future, I can advance, and help make the world a better place.

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[asdf]

I am currently a teenager with no job.
Before you start accusing me of living of my parents.
My parents where decently living in Poland before we moved here 16 years ago. They had good jobs (Teacher and Programmer) and a house and where able to support doing almost whatever they felt like.
Now that we moved to Canada.

I think we have found the disconnect.  Canada isn't a capitalist society, it's a social market democracy like many in Europe.  You're blaming capitalism for problems not caused by it.

Agreed. The reason for your impoverishment is due to the quasi-socialist government parasite sucking the wealth out of the economy with burdensome regulation on business, redistribution of wealth and a bloated corrupt bureaucracy which wastes social resources and produces nothing. The best thing is a truly free market and a small, limited scope government.

I recommend the work of Milton Friedman. Check out his documentary series "Free To Choose", where he outlines the failings of socialism and government interference in the economy/markets.

[hugolp]

It seems we both don't know each others stories.

I am currently a teenager with no job.
Before you start accusing me of living of my parents.
My parents where decently living in Poland before we moved here 16 years ago. They had good jobs (Teacher and Programmer) and a house and where able to support doing almost whatever they felt like.
Now that we moved to Canada.
My mom works 50 cents above minimum wage and several illegal jobs. My fathers bust his ass in a factory just to pay the mortgage.
I steal my neighbors Wifi, dumpster dive and shoplift. I also have 3 younger siblings. At school we have fundraisers that I cannot afford to take part of. Such as casual Fridays because it costs 15 bucks a year. I share alot of books and other stuff with my friends who are also politically anarchocollectivist/anarchosyndicalist. To me I know that we dont live in poverty but this is not how each person should live on the world. That is why I hate capitalism.

Just wanted to clear that up so you don't think I'm a 40 year old guy who has no one to feed and claims he can fix the world.

Why did your parents move from Poland to Canada?

By the way, you might like this: http://c4ss.org/

EDIT: If you dont mind sharing.

[hugolp]

I will just leave this here

[The Madhatter]

I think we have found the disconnect.  Canada isn't a capitalist society, it's a social market democracy like many in Europe.  You're blaming capitalism for problems not caused by it.

Very true.

The system we have here is also very deceptive. It is a double-headed snake.

We have a constitutional monarchy (Common Law) that operates upon the 'Dominion of Canada' ('Dominions' are always under empires. The 'British Empire' in our case. The dominion was never properly federated.), and the sovereign provinces. The people on the lands invest their sovereignty with the queen/king in exchange for certain protections that are outlined in the Magna Charta (and the Bill of Rights). The protections are universal. Kind of like the USA's constitutional republic. (Limiting power is always a good idea.)

We have a queen "in trust". The "governor general" is our viceroy (latin for "in place of king"). Essentially she's a trustee. She holds the queen's power on our lands over here. We don't get to vote her in. The queen appoints the governor general.

Our 'overlords' (sarcasm) realized that they could not control the free men/women very well so they incorporated "CANADA". (Do an EDGAR search on sec.gov for CANADA if you don't believe me.). CANADA was incorporated in Delaware. (I have the filings if anyone wants them.) They then offered social security, welfare, and passed legal tender statutes. (This should sound familiar.)

Each new birth (humans are born, not "birthed"), is incorporated (more accurately, it is a trust corporation) under "CANADA". Under this corporate system (our version of a democracy) our rights are given to us as a privilege. We are told we are free, but we are under debt slavery. Our sweat equity floats a bond that is used to borrow money against. This money is injected into the general economy.

As it stands today every province is a corporation, every police "service" (no thanks), every city, and every court.

The corruption is even deeper than this. We have more than one corporation for many Canadian cities. They are often incorporated here, and in some US state. When someone pays a traffic ticket where is the money going? Probably to the corporation in the USA. It keeps it off the books in Canada so they can borrow even more from banks and enslave us all further. And I digress...

I see (your opinions may differ) the corporate/democracy layer over my lands as a complete scam. The Common Law system still exists, but unfortunately, less and less people know how to use it, and less and less courts seem to want to even deal with it.

To quote a great man: "Our forefathers made a nation and we inherited a corporation".

[Babylon]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

[FreeMoney]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

I hoped and expected you would be okay with those actions. Now if some neighbors don't like vegetables and trade them for something else is that okay? What if you trade the veggies fist and give them what they want directly?

[Babylon]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

I hoped and expected you would be okay with those actions. Now if some neighbors don't like vegetables and trade them for something else is that okay? What if you trade the veggies fist and give them what they want directly?

Sounds good to me.

Anarchists of any stripe are generally not opposed to markets.  I know I am not.  Where I would have a problem is if someone manages to get a group together to control enough of the fields that people locally are unable to feed themselves without accepting the terms that are dictated by that person.  At that point a government has arisen.

[FreeMoney]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

I hoped and expected you would be okay with those actions. Now if some neighbors don't like vegetables and trade them for something else is that okay? What if you trade the veggies fist and give them what they want directly?

Sounds good to me.

Anarchists of any stripe are generally not opposed to markets.  I know I am not.  Where I would have a problem is if someone manages to get a group together to control enough of the fields that people locally are unable to feed themselves without accepting the terms that are dictated by that person.  At that point a government has arisen.

Okay, sorry for taking it so slowly, I expected you to have some sort of problem with markets and I wanted to pin down exactly when trading things for labor (even guarding) became bad.

There are plenty of self described anarchists that are opposed to markets though. From what I gather they are not just opposed to some of the current particular 'markets' but actually oppose ownership and trade. I think they are confused, but that's what they think right now.

There is no government. There are simply people who are willing to initiate violence (or advocate for it) and those who are not. I am against all initiation of force, and will be after governments are disintegrated. It just so happens that right now most force is government force so thats what I care about.

Lately I'm learning that people advocate or use force and coercion because it was used on them as children. I am particularly appalled by the use of force on children. Voluntary education is good, forced education is bad. Voluntary sex is good, forced sex is bad.

[hugolp]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

I was not pretending to say it otherwise, and I am happy to be in the bitcoin project with everyone. Hope that is clear.

Now that we have taken that out of the way I honestly think that your definitions are too subjective or vague. "control to exert power over your neighbors" can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Its very opinable. To support something I need a clearer explanation on how things would work.

[Babylon]

I'm not a troll,  I've been a part of the bitcoin forums for a while and intend to stick around for a while yet.  I don't check in all that often so don't always respond quickly.

Defending one's fields by having neighbors assist in defending them and paying with vegetables is community action, that is at the heart of Anarchist thought (at least Anarcho Socialist thought) but it does mean that in a certain way the fields belong to all of the neighbors.  Holding a giant compound with security doors meanwhile, I don't know that I can address that properly.  I suppose that so long as you are not using that control to exert power over your neighbors there is really nothing wrong with it.

I hoped and expected you would be okay with those actions. Now if some neighbors don't like vegetables and trade them for something else is that okay? What if you trade the veggies fist and give them what they want directly?

Sounds good to me.

Anarchists of any stripe are generally not opposed to markets.  I know I am not.  Where I would have a problem is if someone manages to get a group together to control enough of the fields that people locally are unable to feed themselves without accepting the terms that are dictated by that person.  At that point a government has arisen.

Okay, sorry for taking it so slowly, I expected you to have some sort of problem with markets and I wanted to pin down exactly when trading things for labor (even guarding) became bad.

There are plenty of self described anarchists that are opposed to markets though. From what I gather they are not just opposed to some of the current particular 'markets' but actually oppose ownership and trade. I think they are confused, but that's what they think right now.

There is no government. There are simply people who are willing to initiate violence (or advocate for it) and those who are not. I am against all initiation of force, and will be after governments are disintegrated. It just so happens that right now most force is government force so thats what I care about.

Lately I'm learning that people advocate or use force and coercion because it was used on them as children. I am particularly appalled by the use of force on children. Voluntary education is good, forced education is bad. Voluntary sex is good, forced sex is bad.

I do think that violence is sometimes unavoidable.  That includes the initiation of violence as opposed to the use of it in defense.  I think it should be avoided if possible, but there are times when it cannot be.  Also, what is perceived as violence varies based on a person's perspective.

For example, if all of the fields in an area are owned by one man, we'll call him mister farmer, and he pays those that labor in his fields barely enough to get by for their labor, while demanding exorbitant prices from those that work in other ways for the products of the fields.  Not to get into the nature of ownership, since in this case it is largely a legal construct in any case.  If a group of people from the local area come and start farming those fields without Mr. Farmer's permission and redistribute the vegetables thus produced to feed themselves from Mr. Farmer's point of view that is initiation of force against his property.  However from the point of view of those people it is Mr. Farmer and his employees (who are, presumably, paid to defend his fields) that are initiating force by physically preventing them from farming food and feeding themselves.

I identify as Anarcho-communist because I feel that the engines of economy and social justice are best situated at the small community level, not at the individual level and also not at the level of states. 

To Hugo, If I am compelling behavior from someone through threats to their physical well being then I am exerting control over him.   Whether I am doing so through a threat of physical violence or through control of the things that he needs in order to survive is, to me, fairly irrelevant.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I don't know if sb already said that and im too lazy to check, but money itself in any form is not "evil" nor "good".

It is what the people do with the money that is either good or evil.

[grondilu]

I don't know if sb already said that and im too lazy to check, but money itself in any form is not "evil" nor "good".

It is what the people do with the money that is either good or evil.

Thing is :  bitcoin is not just a currency amongst other currencies.  Bitcoin is a form of money that can't be taxed.

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic".  Imagine what he would say about bitcoins. 

[hugolp]

Thing is :  bitcoin is not just a currency amongst other currencies.  Bitcoin is a form of money that can't be taxed.

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic".  Imagine what he would say about bitcoins. 

Bitcoins CAN be taxed. Tax evasion can happen in any currency, easier or harder, but can happen.

What makes bitcoin different from dollars or any other important currency is that its a voluntary currency, and therefore it wont be inflationary.It will keep the natural market rates and avoid the boom and bust cycles.

[FreeMoney]

Yeah, the way taxation usually goes is, "Give me money or I'll hurt you" "Okay, here you go"

[grondilu]

Yeah, the way taxation usually goes is, "Give me money or I'll hurt you" "Okay, here you go"

+1

[MoonShadow]

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic". 

We live in barbaric times.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic". 

We live in barbaric times.

More like moronic times.

[kiba]

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic". 

We live in barbaric times.

More like moronic times.

And inflations have a tendency to end empires.

[MoonShadow]

Keynes called gold "the barbareous relic". 

We live in barbaric times.

More like moronic times.

And inflations have a tendency to end empires.

The US should never have been an empire to start with.  I would say that the end of the US empire is a good thing in the long run, but we live in the short run.  It will be a better nation for those who survive the short run, even if the federal union fails and states break apart.  The best state to live in under such a breakup is probably Texas.  I'm probably too old to see the end of such a conflict, myself, and would just bail on the whole nation and retire to some English speaking third world country.