Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[billyjoeallen]

So who builds the roads now? The government? No. It just pays for them. It hires private companies to build them (in most cases. Sometimes they will have their own national road building company) So how is that working out for us? Is it the most efficient way available? Is it the most fair? I would doubt it. Just because the government has been the sole provider of something during your whole life doesn't mean it is impossible to provide in different (and better) ways. What about progress?

And who will build them in your ideal world? The same private companies. Then who will pay for them? Who gets to drive on them? If it's tolls, the poor with commutes to their jobs will be adversely affected by it, especially when taken in the context of minimum wage no longer being a thing. If it's everyone pays a flat fee, again the burden is on the poor because paying $1,000 out of $10,000 hurts a hell of a lot more than paying $1,000 out of $100,000 (similar arguments work for thing like police and fire departments, etc.) If it's everyone pays a percentage of what they make, that's straight up taxes and the government is whoever is collecting those taxes.

No matter how you slice it, your world will in all likelihood suck for the have-nots.

Life always sucks for the have-nots but in our world there will be less of them. A booming economy creates a bidding war for labor, even unskilled labor.

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[octaft]

You are assuming most people pay as much attention as you do. Most people donate to the charity they see on TV the most. They don't give a shit about said charity's efficiency, they just want to say, "Oh, I got this pretty pink ribbon, see how great I am!"

They probably assume that if a charity wasn't making good use of the money, government would do something about it. A poor mentality too often encouraged.

Oh come on man, you are really stretching here. Most of them aren't assuming anything at all. They don't think about it. They did their good, leave them alone is the mentality.

It's human nature to seek rewards for what we perceive to be good deeds. If anybody is taking advantage of these people, it's the charities handing out the goddamn ribbons and throwing their ads on candy bars and shit (where probably a whole 5 cents will go to the charity), or talking about how a portion of proceeds for that $600 dress goes to charity (and almost certainly as relatively small a portion). And they're not exploiting sheep. People are not sheep. People are glorified, tribal monkeys. They're exploiting our monkey tendencies to seek out rewards and get mad when we are given a slice of cucumber for our good job rather than a grape.

[freebit13]

Quick thought: I'd say size has a lot to do with is size... large unmanageable bureaucracies are a sociopaths dream come ture

Agreed. But the argument becomes a bit nuanced then, no?

"Statism doesn't work for very large countries".

And the conclusions (assuming the above is true) would also be a bit more subtle: you could fix large dysfunctional nation states either by breaking them down into more manageable units (c.f. "Bioregionalism"), or by reducing the power of the state. In which case I suspect a break-up into smaller sub-nations is becoming more likely as well.

Oh no, I didn't mean to cloud the waters Imo Statism doesn't work [period], it's just that in the smaller countries it's not as easy to distance the decision makers from the 'normal' citizens.

[octaft]

So who builds the roads now? The government? No. It just pays for them. It hires private companies to build them (in most cases. Sometimes they will have their own national road building company) So how is that working out for us? Is it the most efficient way available? Is it the most fair? I would doubt it. Just because the government has been the sole provider of something during your whole life doesn't mean it is impossible to provide in different (and better) ways. What about progress?

And who will build them in your ideal world? The same private companies. Then who will pay for them? Who gets to drive on them? If it's tolls, the poor with commutes to their jobs will be adversely affected by it, especially when taken in the context of minimum wage no longer being a thing. If it's everyone pays a flat fee, again the burden is on the poor because paying $1,000 out of $10,000 hurts a hell of a lot more than paying $1,000 out of $100,000 (similar arguments work for thing like police and fire departments, etc.) If it's everyone pays a percentage of what they make, that's straight up taxes and the government is whoever is collecting those taxes.

No matter how you slice it, your world will in all likelihood suck for the have-nots.

Life always sucks for the have-nots but in our world there will be less of them. A booming economy creates a bidding war for labor, even unskilled labor.

Or corporations choke job offerings for a while, until people are outbidding each other to work for bottom dollar. How certain can you be that will not happen?

[aminorex]

"Statism doesn't work for very large countries".

No. Simply the bigger the state, the worse the detriment. Possibly even non-linear.

US seems to be faring pretty damn well with its 300 million. Germany too.

I'm sorry, did you mean to say "failing pretty damn well"?

[aminorex]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

[JayJuanGee]

Government is not Other people ganging up on you - even though frequently, it may seem as if an individual cannot do much to change the society in which s/he lives, but government is NOT the same as a thief.  

I have already made my point several times that a person asserting that the government is the same as a thief is failing to recognize complexity..

you have made absolutely NO point. You just keep repeating, that government is not the same as a gang of thugs and taxation is not the same as stealing, then fail to elaborate why. Then you accuse other people of doing exactly that - repeating one point without adding any arguments. Also you keep saying that "it is not the same, because it is complex" and you complain about fuzzy logic?? Sorry, this holds no ground.

O.K. we are NOT getting anywhere, and I do NOT want to waste additional time on these various arguments that some people believe the solution to all woes is to get rid of government and the sooner we do it, the better.... what a disaster in the making.

I think I have seen your sort of outlook enough times to recognize the basic principles behind it. Would I be correct in assuming, that you think that:
1) government is a necessary part of society without which society can not function

You are NOT correct to think these various points b/c these are NOT my points.  

Regarding your first point:  I am saying that currently we have a whole system set up.  WE can have all kinds of future set-ups, so merely getting rid of government in the short term is NOT any kind of meaningful solution.  There may be ways around all kinds of societal set ups that do NOT require government.  I am NOT for government, merely for the sake of government.

2) it is possible for well intentioned people to do good through the government

It is possible for both well intended people to do good and bad intended people to do bad through government.  In fact, there are a lot of good intended people involved in various aspects and various roles in government.   So what is your point, here, exactly?

3) it is possible for you as an individual to influence the government in a meaningful way?

Many individuals have set goals to make certain influences in life - including influencing the direction of the government.   And, sometimes these kinds of focuses have resulted in meaningful changes to government.  Individuals can do these kinds of things, but it is likely rarely a product of any one individual but rather teaming up in various ways to accomplish objectives. Personally, I would rather spend my time in other ways, and I have made my various dents in life.... individually and as a part of various groups. Whether I will continue to make any dents will depend upon how I focus my energies.  At the moment, I have NO current intention on making any meaningful dents in the direction of government - b/c I am planning for future travels - however, my life trajectory could change b/c of turns of events that are NOT expected.

anyway, your only argument thus far has been:

You as a citizen have a role in government, and you have a choice in where to live.  

to which I say: WHERE THE HELL IS MY CHOICE TO LIVE WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT?

There you go... trying to minimize anything I said by asserting my ONLY argument has been...   I made several points - and repeatedly asserted that I did NOT want to get into these kinds of discussions about the role of government... Weren't we talking about thefts and mt gox at some point?

You seem to be getting caught up... in some physicality.. and I would think part of this "where" question is physicality and part of it is a state of mind and acceptance of the community in which you live.  Maybe you could attempt to live in nature somewhere... like in alaska.... .. anyhow, if we live in modern society we partake in the roads and the schools and the hospitals and other forms of infrastructure... Difficult to get around these things.. and also difficult to make credible claims about "I built this" when your building depends upon others and depends upon infrastructure.

[N12]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

You were talking about the rate. You'd look at a logarithmic chart for that, and oh look, you are wrong based on your own metric. The rate of growth is historically decreasing.

Typical argument here: This time is different, because this time, I am aboard. Literally and figuratively.

[billyjoeallen]

When do you expect this supposed governmental collapse?  In the lifetime of anyone reading this thread?  within 70 years?  I probably only have 30-40 more years left in me, at best, if I'm lucky.  

YOU are talking pie in the sky, if you think that you have a vision and a prediction about the downfall of government that is more sound and more realistic than anyone else's b/c your prediction is based on some kind of mathematics (that certainly cannot fail to prove correct, yeah right).

It's collapsing now. It may seem slow, but from a historical perspective, it's much faster than the decline of Rome. The standard of living in the U.S. peaked in the last half of the 20th century and is now declining. Europe is much the same.

U.S. government debt is now greater than 100% of GDP. We are literally living on borrowed time. Government entitlement programs are an actuarial time bomb. The collapse can be dampened (and prolonged and exacerbated) by money printing, but that's just an accounting trick. We are slowly becoming a third world nation.

[aminorex]

That's officially the worst graph I've seen this year so far

There are many that show much the same thing. I picked one that wasn't too busy and included the countries you named. I'm dicking around on a forum, not conducting a research project.

tl;dr With some effort one can probably find a correlation between national wealth and economical permissiveness. That however only shows that *too much state interference* hinders economic progress, not that a *total absence* of state would be the ideal condition for economical development. Subtle, but important difference.

Fine. Let's start with getting rid of the "too much state interference" and when/if it seems to start hurting things, then we can stop. We are heading in the wrong direction currently.

+1

Inevitable, the suicide of the state needs to be managed.  If the state is willing and able to scorch the earth to protect itself from all disruptive organic change, then there will be a sharp structural break, inevitably, which will be very costly in human terms.  Much better if either the state is co-opted to serve the people and stop crushing them, to live on as an entity enlightened by its past mistakes, and its failures in this range are met with substantial decentralized measures to ameliorate its failures and mitigate its damage.

There is a powerful and well-resourced globalist oligarchy, which is becoming increasingly organized, and will fight for further centralization, because it is easier to strangle one neck than 7 billion necks.  It will use the decay of the nation-state as a stepping-stone to global governance.  If you think the drama of the nation state in the 20th century was nasty, just wait until there are no exits.  Much better to gradually supplant the functions of the nation-state with more local autonomous solutions (local in the sense of communities of aligned interests, whether geographic, economic, ideological, or cultural) which deal efficiently with the problems than to let a power-vacuum arise in which a spectacularly centralized interest becomes the emperor of all.

[freebit13]

Or corporations choke job offerings for a while, until people are outbidding each other to work for bottom dollar. How certain can you be that will not happen?

Not if corporations are run and managed using blockchain technology (I know it's not been invented yet)... those evil bastards will go out of business real quick 

[aminorex]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

You were talking about the rate. You'd look at a logarithmic chart for that, and oh look, you are wrong based on your own metric. The rate of growth is historically decreasing.

Typical argument here: This time is different, because this time, I am aboard. Literally and figuratively.

Rate is ambiguous to you.  I apologize for my ambiguity.  You understood it to mean in percentage terms.  I meant it in absolute terms.  The slope of a moving average on the linear chart is increasing.  That slope is the rate of change.

If the slope of the logarithmic chart were increasing I might say that the rate of EXPLOSION is increasing.

[oda.krell]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

You were talking about the rate. You'd look at a logarithmic chart for that, and oh look, you are wrong based on your own metric. The rate of growth is historically decreasing.

Typical argument here: This time is different, because this time, I am aboard. Literally and figuratively.

You're right about the rate of change being lower (EDIT to be clear: second derivative). But the chart you linked to also shows why it's unlikely we're going to see a 2011 bear market again: it took about a year, from July 2011 to July 2012 to reach the previous 'unique addresses used' peak again back then -- today, we've already surpassed the previous peak (which, non surprisingly, was in November/December 2013).

Doesn't mean we're about to start another rally, but I don't see a 2011 repeat as likely either.

[xyzzy099]

Or corporations choke job offerings for a while, until people are outbidding each other to work for bottom dollar. How certain can you be that will not happen?

Not if corporations are run and managed using blockchain technology (I know it's not been invented yet)... those evil bastards will go out of business real quick 

It HAS been invented.  The bitcoin network itself is a distributed autonomous corporation.

[JayJuanGee]

what is immoral about placing a low bid?

You are spreading panic and suggesting people they should sell. I often lost money because I listened to some "guru´s" here.

Every transaction has two parties, a winner and a loser. So, there is no good or evil in this realm.

 

In the world of trading, at the time of the transaction, both parties believe that they are winners.  ONLY afterwards does one of the parties, realize that s/he has bet wrong.

Viewing taxation as theft (or as an involuntary taking) is bringing the wrong framework b/c questions about taxation are a lot more complicated than theft  or other categories of involuntary takings.

I disagree. And since you seem to be disinclined to get into the weeds (and this is the wrong forum in any case), I guess that's the end of it.

EXACTLY... Why discuss it?  We have differing opinions on a point that is NOT really related to the thread.

[Dragonkiller]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

You were talking about the rate. You'd look at a logarithmic chart for that, and oh look, you are wrong based on your own metric. The rate of growth is historically decreasing.

Typical argument here: This time is different, because this time, I am aboard. Literally and figuratively.

You're right about the rate of change being lower. But the chart you linked to also shows why it's unlikely we're going to see a 2011 bear market again: it took about a year, from July 2011 to July 2012 to reach the previous 'unique addresses used' peak again back then -- today, we've already surpassed the previous peak (which, non surprisingly, was in November/December 2013).

Doesn't mean we're about to start another rally, but I don't see a 2011 repeat as likely either.

How can the number of unique addresses used decrease? I see it has decreased on the chart during the period you've mentioned during 2011-2012, but I don't understand how the number of addresses used can decrease?

[aminorex]

You're right about the rate of change being lower.

Y'all are so habituated to logarithmic modelling that you can't even see an increase in the rate of change.  You can only see a decline in the rate of growth.

Ah, that's probably my more fundamental mistake.  I said "expansion" which to you implies a rate of growth, and not unreasonably so.

[aminorex]

How can the number of unique addresses used decrease? I see it has decreased on the chart during the period you've mentioned during 2011-2012, but I don't understand how the number of addresses used can decrease?

RECENTLY used.

[oda.krell]

It took 1.5 years from June 2011. Why do you think it couldn't take as long, or even longer than that now?

Because the rate of network expansion is substantially higher.

Show evidence.

Why is everyone so lazy?  Sheesh.
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses?timespan=all&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

You were talking about the rate. You'd look at a logarithmic chart for that, and oh look, you are wrong based on your own metric. The rate of growth is historically decreasing.

Typical argument here: This time is different, because this time, I am aboard. Literally and figuratively.

You're right about the rate of change being lower. But the chart you linked to also shows why it's unlikely we're going to see a 2011 bear market again: it took about a year, from July 2011 to July 2012 to reach the previous 'unique addresses used' peak again back then -- today, we've already surpassed the previous peak (which, non surprisingly, was in November/December 2013).

Doesn't mean we're about to start another rally, but I don't see a 2011 repeat as likely either.

How can the number of unique addresses used decrease? I see it has decreased on the chart during the period you've mentioned during 2011-2012, but I don't understand how the number of addresses used can decrease?

"in use, per day" AFAIK

[Dragonkiller]

thanks