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Red
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April 13, 2013, 08:12:39 PM |
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Even if you distribute the wealth evenly to everyone on the earth, after a while, some of them will go broke and some of them will become super rich
What you write here seems quite fair, but the suppositions that follow don't really follow... Some people are more productive and others less. What you describe above restates that fact. However, bitcoin inequities don't follow from the same principles. Very productive people have zero bitcoins because they are busy building houses with their time. Other chronically unproductive people chose to burn cpu cycles instead. It seems like all cpu work was valuable, but it really wasn't. If one tenth as many people has burned one tenth as many cpu cycles... the same amount of work would have been done. |
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myrkul
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April 13, 2013, 08:14:09 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
"Pointless calculations," eh? In that case, cash out your Bitcoins, and donate your fiat to good causes, because giving Bitcoins to any "good causes" that accept bitcoin will only support additional "pointless calculations" to disperse and use those Bitcoins. Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them. |
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Red
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April 13, 2013, 08:14:15 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
Are you interested in contributing to the solution to that? |
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myrkul
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April 13, 2013, 08:25:02 PM |
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Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them.
It turns out that's not really true. The calculations are pretty pointless now. Except as a really expensive random number generator. No calculations, no network. No block generation. No transactions. No Bitcoin. We can do it with fewer, easier calculations, but not none. |
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batcoin
Full Member
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Activity: 238
Merit: 100
In Gord We Trust
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April 13, 2013, 08:37:13 PM |
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No, he's right. So...
Introducing Commie-coin, the egalitarian alternative to Bitcoin. Commie-coin, available to anyone, no hard-core mining equipment (nor even a computer) needed. Commie-coin is simple, each commie coin is denoted by the letters CC followed by a 16 digit hexadecimal number. Just pick one. Here, just to prove how easy it is, I'll mine one right here in this thread
CC0000000000000001
And as a show of good faith and an example of my generosity, I'm going to gift it to revan.
Security? Not needed. If your coins get stolen, you can just create more. Double spending? Not an issue, there are not rules against duplicate commie-coins. For the same reason, deflation is not an issue, commie-coin can simply be inflated by anyone anytime they like. You don't even have to be a fat-cat banger to do so. How's that for egalitarian?
Revan, don't spend it all at once now. I'm sure it's going to be a big success.
You took the words right out of my mouth. Verbatim. God I love Commie-coin. Let me try it out. No, he's right. So...
Introducing Commie-coin, the egalitarian alternative to Bitcoin. Commie-coin, available to anyone, no hard-core mining equipment (nor even a computer) needed. Commie-coin is simple, each commie coin is denoted by the letters CC followed by a 16 digit hexadecimal number. Just pick one. Here, just to prove how easy it is, I'll mine one right here in this thread
CC0000000000000001
And as a show of good faith and an example of my generosity, I'm going to gift it to revan.
Security? Not needed. If your coins get stolen, you can just create more. Double spending? Not an issue, there are not rules against duplicate commie-coins. For the same reason, deflation is not an issue, commie-coin can simply be inflated by anyone anytime they like. You don't even have to be a fat-cat banger to do so. How's that for egalitarian?
Revan, don't spend it all at once now. I'm sure it's going to be a big success.
Double spending! It WORKS! revans, you can have my commie-coin too! Copy it a few million times and you can be an early adopter who can give them all away and feel good about it! BTW, please take a look at my signature if you are feeling like being far. I most certainly do not have just under a thousand BTC. Love, Bruce W. |
If you have more than 0.01BTC and complain about early adopters, please consider donating to this address: 1P11Dz4mhDcJvetHqEJu35KNEVqSRmqo3b
General Tips: 1P4YfrYwQKKtfwszzb2aHgLVLiWQCrJfwi
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gradient vector
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April 13, 2013, 08:38:13 PM |
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No early adopter can print bitcoin at will.
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pretendo
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April 13, 2013, 08:41:15 PM |
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So other people having better foresight and investing savvy than you is inequality? Well, yeah. They are better at taking good risks than you, I guess.
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Qoheleth
Legendary
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Activity: 960
Merit: 1028
Spurn wild goose chases. Seek that which endures.
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April 13, 2013, 08:43:22 PM |
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The whole point of the blockchain, proof-of-work, everything, is to prevent double-spends without relying on a trusted bookkeeper. The textbook attack is the double-spend - spend the same coin with two merchants, and make off with their goods before they can realize what happened. To prevent this, everyone needs to know what coins have been spent or not spent. Who do we trust to say which transaction actually happened first? Your proposal seems to be, okay, we trust the exchanges. If they disagree, they all die, so they'll surely work out their differences and agree on the transaction order. In the meantime, can you trick Alice into giving you something for coins that have already gone to Betty? If a "trustworthy exchange" has secretly become insolvent for whatever reason, can't it generate a massive golden parachute for itself by assisting an evildoer in making a big double-spend? Even if it fails afterwards - it was going to fail anyway! If those exchanges get shut down for whatever reason, what then? The whole point of Bitcoin over earlier cryptocurrency experiments is to stop having to rely on any given party (e.g. the exchanges) to be a trusted bookkeeper and dictate the "true" order of transactions. Instead you trust that "all trustworthy people" can outvote "any given villain" in computational power. If you think the former is sufficient, there's nothing wrong with that. But Bitcoin-type cryptocurrencies (and indeed, blockchains generally) are trying to solve a problem you don't have. What do you look for in a cryptocurrency, if I may ask? What features are essential to you? |
If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the prevalence of users convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and of the con-artists who have followed them here to devour them.
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Luckybit
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April 13, 2013, 08:45:05 PM |
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So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.
When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.
Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats
Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.
I'd rather have early adoption. At least if you take risks and have the knowledge you get rewarded. It's more fair than just having to be born at the right time, place, family. |
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Luckybit
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April 13, 2013, 08:46:09 PM |
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So, one of the main arguments I encounter when discussing Bitcoin with its promulgators is that it can potentially free the financial system from the cabal of plutocrats that currently run the show, and who have lavished enormous wealth on themselves and their cronies. This argument seems to entirely dismiss the actions of the shady cabal who mined huge numbers of Bitcoins when doing so was trivial (and prior to any public availability), and to a lesser extent the early adopters.
When central bankers throw money like confetti at themselves and their friends whilst most others must struggle to earn small amounts of it this is deemed a moral evil. Yet when the progenitors of Bitcoin and their acolytes do much the same; capture the low hanging fruit and leave everyone else fighting over increasingly complex computational scraps this is hailed as a brave new world of financial freedom.
Should Bitcoin ever achieve the kind of ubiquity its most ardent fans hope for, these people will wield more financial power than any of the Banksters they decry. They will also control such a large amount of the monetary base that they too could end up becoming plutocrats
Far from being a revolution, the future as envisaged by Bitcoin fanboys will be little more than a changing of the cast of villains.
There are always winners and losers and always going to be inequality and elites. Deal with it. The people who helped make Bitcoin deserve it. |
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revans (OP)
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April 13, 2013, 08:47:20 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
"Pointless calculations," eh? In that case, cash out your Bitcoins, and donate your fiat to good causes, because giving Bitcoins to any "good causes" that accept bitcoin will only support additional "pointless calculations" to disperse and use those Bitcoins. Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them. I was referring to the mining aspect |
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Qoheleth
Legendary
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Activity: 960
Merit: 1028
Spurn wild goose chases. Seek that which endures.
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April 13, 2013, 08:47:58 PM |
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I think you're misunderstanding Red's contention here. If I understand correctly, it's not that proof of work is unnecessary if you want to reach consensus on transaction order without trusted bookkeepers. Rather, it's that having trusted bookkeepers isn't so bad. |
If there is something that will make Bitcoin succeed, it is growth of utility - greater quantity and variety of goods and services offered for BTC. If there is something that will make Bitcoin fail, it is the prevalence of users convinced that BTC is a magic box that will turn them into millionaires, and of the con-artists who have followed them here to devour them.
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revans (OP)
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April 13, 2013, 08:49:46 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
Are you interested in contributing to the solution to that? I think solutions are out there now, but what they need is user adoption. I imagine with increasing media coverage of Bitcoin will come increasing scrutiny of its origins and the coin distribution. |
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myrkul
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April 13, 2013, 08:51:34 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
"Pointless calculations," eh? In that case, cash out your Bitcoins, and donate your fiat to good causes, because giving Bitcoins to any "good causes" that accept bitcoin will only support additional "pointless calculations" to disperse and use those Bitcoins. Those calculations are how the network works, chief, and you can't get rid of them. I was referring to the mining aspect So was I. |
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revans (OP)
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April 13, 2013, 08:52:18 PM |
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So other people having better foresight and investing savvy than you is inequality? Well, yeah. They are better at taking good risks than you, I guess.
'investment'? I thought Bitcoin was a medium of exchange. And therein lies the problem; early adopters now see Bitcoin as a meal ticket for life, not as a payment system. |
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alcibiades
Jr. Member
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Activity: 39
Merit: 1
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April 13, 2013, 08:53:17 PM |
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No, having more people throw more computational power at pointless calculations is the root problem, not something to which I wish to contribute.
Are you interested in contributing to the solution to that? I think solutions are out there now, but what they need is user adoption. I imagine with increasing media coverage of Bitcoin will come increasing scrutiny of its origins and the coin distribution. Proof-of-stake is really cool. We need a coin-design forum to discuss the different algos we can use to build a blockchain. Bitcoin was the first but it isn't the best. |
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Luckybit
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April 13, 2013, 08:53:59 PM |
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Think of the early adopters like founding fathers. If you were an early adopter in Bitcoin you were risking your life to develop and test the idea during a time where every government in the world and every bank wanted to stop you.
If you were brave enough to take the risk at that time you should be rewarded. Why wouldn't you want to reward bravery? At the same time miners have to be rewarded as well for protecting Bitcoin. Family dysnasty doesn't really serve any function in society. They protect a broken system. I could see if the US economy were working or if the Euro were working but these are broken systems and only solutions from outside the system can work because they have too much to lose to experiment or take any risk.
The best solution they could come up with was to either raise taxes or cut benefits or bailouts to austerity. But none of that shit helps people in my age range 20s-30s or younger. Bitcoin as unstable as it is, at least it's an alternative to the sure failure which awaits us in the fiat currency.
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