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

[JorgeStolfi]

"Socialism" is loosely defined as "social ownership and democratic control of the means of production."

That is more like the definition of "communism". 

It is the dictionary definition of socialism in English.

Dictionary compilers cannot avoid having their political preferences... 

The above quote states control, not necessarily ownership. "Control or regulation" would also be an okay definition, but this seems redundant to me.

It is a very poor definition, because it looks at only one narrow issue (ownership and control of means of production), ignoring all the other aspects where socialism differs from the right-wing ideologies (capitalism, conservatism, neo-conservatism, whatever you call them), including those that I listed.  And that definition is quite wrong in that point, because socialism does not at all imply "social ownership of the means of the means of production".  Again, that is in fact the feature that defines communism, specifically, as an extreme type of socialism.  In fact, socialism does not imply democracy: nazism and fascism are standard examples of non-democratic socialist regimes, and that is the case of several countries today, including some monachies in the Middle East.  (So much so that the "social democrats" often feel the need to explicitly qualify themselves so.)

[billyjoeallen]

Even knowing that one's own vote will not decide the election, a "socially intelligent" person will take the time to vote according to his desires; because democracy has a chance of working if, and only if, everybody does that. 

Only a minority of voters are socially intelligent, and I include you in that group and you know almost nothing about economics. So let's assume half the voters are socially responsible and half vote selfishly in their own special or short term interest. Let's also assume roughly half are smart and half are dumb. You have four voting groups: smart and good, smart and selfish, dumb and good, dumb and selfish.  How do you get a majority of beneficial election outcomes from that? 

Economically, the State is an engine for concentrating benefits and distributing costs. Reformers bear the full cost of reforms on themselves and when they are successful, the benefit is distributed to everybody. The end result is that most reformers go broke before meaningful reforms get implemented, but lobbyists for special interests get rich.  This is the same for every government everywhere. Governments concentrate benefits and distribute costs. it's what they do. it's not a bug, it's a feature.

My experience is that even the poorly educated people can vote much better than the elites claim.  When democracy fails, it is often because it is not given a fair chance, or not used often enough.  (Here in Brazil the main Executive and Legislative posts are elected, but the Judiciary is totally self-selected and indepednent. As a result, while the first two branches barely work, and are highly corrupt, the latter does not work at all, and is totally corrupt...)

My experience is that even poorly educated people can make good economic decisions much more often than elites such as yourself claim. The problem is that they are faced with perverse incentives such as working less to maintain welfare benefit eligibility.

Democracy is BY DEFINITION the domination of the minority by the majority. Politics is merely the art of convincing enough people to agree with you so that you can FORCIBLY impose your will on those who don't.

That is true, but the alternative is, inevitably, domination of the majority by some minority.  Methinks that, by and large, the latter is much worse.

You are locked in the statist paradigm. Maybe power shouldn't be concentrated in the minority OR the majority. Maybe power shouldn't be concentrated.  Such a society would still have poverty, crime, and violence, but it wouldn't be locked into some zero-sum winner-loser one-size-fits-all solution to every problem.  If you want to get out of a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. If you want a prosperous peaceful society, perhaps eliminating the wealth-consuming violence monolopoly in the middle of it is a good start.

[CuntChocula]

... because socialism does not at all imply "social ownership of the means of the means of production". ...

Again, you're dead wrong. cite your sources.
I'll cite mine: Socialism is a political ideology and movement[1] which has proposed a set of social and economic measures, policies[2] and systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production

Original research: Brought up in USSR. The second S is for "SOCIALIST."

So I hear you ladies like to Anarchism?

"Anarcha-feminism, also called anarchist feminism and anarcho-feminism, combines anarchism with feminism. It generally views patriarchy as a manifestation of involuntary coercive hierarchy that should be replaced by decentralized free association. Anarcha-feminists believe that the struggle against patriarchy is an essential part of class conflict and the anarchist struggle against the state. In essence, the philosophy sees anarchist struggle as a necessary component of feminist struggle and vice versa. L. Susan Brown claims that, "as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist.""

[billyjoeallen]

This descending triangle closes in few hours. Dumpage incoming

looks short term oversold to me. beware of the fourth punch: the second bounce.

did you hear that everyone ?? the four punchmens are raiding.

I don't know that, but it's a real possibility. The spike wasn't as "spikey" as usual, but still very obviously there. I'm just saying be cautious. That's all. 

[JorgeStolfi]

Someone like Wences or Keiser should waste a few thousand with paid for media blowing the lid off the fact that Mike Hearn was not an actual core dev.  It would probably really fuck Hearn over and make him wish he never wrote that blog post if it appears that he was misrepresenting who he actually was.  He's not a complete idiot, but his authority figure status over Bitcoin is more similar to some random guy like Peter R than Satoshi.  The articles all pretend like he was running the show.

Gavin (8 years at SGI) and Mike (7 years at Google) were the only core devs with significant experience in professional software development; indeed, in the development of sensitive products and services worth billions of dollars.  

AFAIK, all the other developers are amateur hackers, that do not know what "professional" means, and do not want to know.  Greg's apparently serious discussion of using the PoW self-destruct button if the miners choose Classic is just one of the many incidents that show their total lack of qualifications for the role that they want to have.  

But, thanks to Blockstream and its 21 million DirtyGreenCoins, they managed to oust the two boringly conservative guys, who nixed all their brillian plans to improve the protocol; and now they have the field all to themselves, and can happily hack away...

The thing that should worry you all is that the Classic team is not much better qualified, although it seems to have better goals (like BitcoinXT had).  Fact is, control over the future evolution of your precious coin is being disputed by two bands of amateur hackers.

The Chinese miners perhaps have sided with the Core developers so far only because, from the other side of the planet, it is hard to see how incompetent and misguided that team is.  Maybe Greg's lunatic menace will open their eyes.  Anyway, if they had had any sense, they should assemble their own team of professional software developers, and take control of the protocol -- as it is meant to be.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin


Explanation

[billyjoeallen]

the order book is looking very lopsided. a bounce could come at any time. Maybe $415 before going back down.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Will I / Wont I troll the Core PR7833

Aw heck, I think I just did.

 

Reader Exercise:  Identify the rogue PR's in COre....

PR ####  Change constant 'COIN' to 1 Bong
PR ####  FULL RBF activation date change to Ratember TonTi

 

I love it when 4Chan meets Wall Street.

Eesh. I'm so evil.

[CuntChocula]

...
The thing that should worry you all is that the Classic team is not much better qualified, although it seems to have better goals (like BitcoinXT had).  fat is, control over the future evolution of your precious coin is being disputed by two bands of amateur hackers. ...

There are times when a talented amateur...

http://s28.postimg.org/ncujhw4fx/you_just_gotta_believe_me_by_mrboltitude_d5bm78o.png

jk, they're pretty much forked.
But this pic rocks (?? middle panel, "Also, everything is totally real." ), and not shitty faux-naif but really some kid learning to draw.

[billyjoeallen]

The wall has been breached! REPEAT: THE WALL HAS BEEN BREACHED!

[CuntChocula]

Oy vey...

[r0ach]

(2) property and economical rights of the individual are not absolute but are subordinate to the interests of society as a whole

So you are a communist...

(3) the state is supposed to provide public services like health care, education, social security, transportation infrastructure, emergency and security services, etc.;

So you are a communist...

(4) the state should try to ensure equal opportunities to everybody and ensure that everybody has a decent minimal living conditions.

So you are a communist...

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

Does a transaction fee market exist Without A Block Size Limit? Yes, according to a paper presented at the 2015 Scaling Bitcoin Workshop in Montreal.

No gifs tho.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin


Explanation

[JorgeStolfi]

But in that case the laws and contracts are useless, because the dispute will be decided by the expected costs and benefits of each action (e.g., the party with the machine guns gets his way), and not by any laws or contracts.

as opposed to being decided by who has the best political connections or the most expensive lawyers?  

Throughout history, societies have found that method much better than the alternative of "who has the biggest guns".  In fact, societies often opted for very stupid divination methods to decide disputes, because even a judicial system with 50% error rate is better than the Far West system.

Only a minority of voters are socially intelligent, and I include you in that group and you know almost nothing about economics.

Well, thanks for the first part, but I would quite dispute the second one.  I admit that, like most computer nerds, my knowledge of economics was actally negative, only two years ago; but I think that I learned quite a bit watching bitcoin.

And I have also lived under a right-wing military dictatorship, various populist presidents, an earnestly neo-con president, a Keynesian-socialist president, not to mention 13 years of neo-con goverments in the US.  I think that those experiences entitle me to have my own opinion on such things...  

Maybe power shouldn't be concentrated in the minority OR the majority. Maybe power shouldn't be concentrated.  Such a society would still have poverty, crime, and violence, but it wouldn't be locked into some zero-sum winner-loser one-size-fits-all solution to every problem.  If you want to get out of a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. If you want a prosperous peaceful society, perhaps eliminating the wealth-consuming violence monolopoly in the middle of it is a good start.

I would love to live in a society that gets the good things that governments are supposed to offer, but without a government.  

I just think that it is not a real possibility, and dreaming about it is a waste of time.  So I prefer to think of what we can do to make governments work better.

Again, you're dead wrong. cite your sources. I'll cite mine: Socialism is a political ideology and movement[1] which has proposed a set of social and economic measures, policies[2] and systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production

That is from the English Wikipedia.  Since your quote comes from a bitcoin site, I suppose that both were written by Libertarians, who obviously thought that they knew all about politics and economics.  

Until I get around to fixing that Wikipedia article, let me quote another paragraph from it, that is somewhat less wrong:

The socialist political movement includes a diverse array of political philosophies that originated amid the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 1700s out of general concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism.[10] In addition to the debate over the degree to which to rely on markets versus planning, the varieties of socialism differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, how management is to be organized within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4][10]

But the Frenck Wikipedia has a better explanation:

Le mot socialisme recouvre un ensemble très divers de courants de pensée et de mouvances politiques1, dont le point commun est de rechercher une organisation sociale et économique plus juste. Le but originel du socialisme est d'obtenir l'égalité sociale, ou du moins une réduction des inégalités2. Plus largement, le socialisme peut être défini comme une tendance politique, historiquement marquée à gauche, dont le principe de base est l'aspiration à un monde meilleur, fondé sur une organisation sociale harmonieuse et sur la lutte contre les injustices. Selon les contextes, le mot socialisme ou l'adjectif socialiste peuvent qualifier une idéologie, un parti politique, un régime politique ou une organisation sociale. Le mot socialisme lui-même entre dans le langage courant à partir des années 1820, dans le contexte de la révolution industrielle et de l'urbanisation qui l'accompagne : il désigne alors un ensemble de revendications et d'idées visant à améliorer le sort des ouvriers, et plus largement de la population, via le remplacement du capitalisme par une société supposée plus juste. L'idée socialiste, sous de multiples formes, se développe au long du XIXe siècle et donne naissance dans le monde entier à des partis politiques s'en réclamant sous diverses dénominations (socialiste, mais également social-démocrate, travailliste, etc.)3.

The word socialism covers a very diverse set of intellectual currents and political movements, whose common point is to seek a more just social and economic organization. The original goal of socialism was to obtain social equality, or at least a reduction of inequalities.  More broadly, socialism can be defined as a political tendency, historically labeled leftist, whose basic principle is the desire for a better world, founded on a harmonious social organization and the fight against injustices.  Depending on the context, the word socialism or the adjective socialist may designate an ideology, a political party, or a social organization. The word itself became current in the [ French ] language starting in the 1820s, in the context of the industrial revolution and of the urbanization that it entailed: at the time, in signified a collection of revindications and ideas directed towards improving the life of workers, and more broadly of the population, through the replacement of capitalism by a societly supposedly more just.   The idea of socialism, in multiple forms, was developed through the 19th century, and gave birth through the world to political parties that claimed to share it under various names (socialist, but also social-democratic, labor, etc.)

By the way, in the English Wikipedia it also says that anarchism and Libertarianism are flavors of Socialism!  So Anarchists are in favor of "social democratic ownership and control of the means of production"?

Original research: Brought up in USSR. The second S is for "SOCIALIST."

Yes, communism is a sub-species of socialism, like Mussolini's fascism and Hitler's version.  But socialism is a much wider term than those cases.  Sweden, for example, was widely called a socialist country until some decades ago.

(Another socialist idea that capitalists and neocons hate is the progressive income tax, that in Sweden, IIRC, reched 60% or more for the upper brackets.)

Moreover, just because a country puts "Socialist" in its name, it does not mean that they are really socialist. Ditto for "Democratic", "Free", etc.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

^The professor is here. This telling gif should convince him.

[CuntChocula]

...

Again, you're dead wrong. cite your sources. I'll cite mine: Socialism is a political ideology and movement[1] which has proposed a set of social and economic measures, policies[2] and systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production

That is from the English Wikipedia.  Since your quote comes from a bitcoin site, I suppose that both were written by Libertarians, who obviously thought that they knew all about politics and economics.  

Until I get around to fixing that Wikipedia article, let me quote another paragraph from it, that is somewhat less wrong:

The socialist political movement includes a diverse array of political philosophies that originated amid the revolutionary movements of the mid-to-late 1700s out of general concern for the social problems that were associated with capitalism.[10] In addition to the debate over the degree to which to rely on markets versus planning, the varieties of socialism differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, how management is to be organized within productive institutions, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.[4][10]

But the Frenck Wikipedia has a better explanation:

Le mot socialisme recouvre un ensemble très divers de courants de pensée et de mouvances politiques1, dont le point commun est de rechercher une organisation sociale et économique plus juste. Le but originel du socialisme est d'obtenir l'égalité sociale, ou du moins une réduction des inégalités2. Plus largement, le socialisme peut être défini comme une tendance politique, historiquement marquée à gauche, dont le principe de base est l'aspiration à un monde meilleur, fondé sur une organisation sociale harmonieuse et sur la lutte contre les injustices. Selon les contextes, le mot socialisme ou l'adjectif socialiste peuvent qualifier une idéologie, un parti politique, un régime politique ou une organisation sociale. Le mot socialisme lui-même entre dans le langage courant à partir des années 1820, dans le contexte de la révolution industrielle et de l'urbanisation qui l'accompagne : il désigne alors un ensemble de revendications et d'idées visant à améliorer le sort des ouvriers, et plus largement de la population, via le remplacement du capitalisme par une société supposée plus juste. L'idée socialiste, sous de multiples formes, se développe au long du XIXe siècle et donne naissance dans le monde entier à des partis politiques s'en réclamant sous diverses dénominations (socialiste, mais également social-démocrate, travailliste, etc.)3.

The word socialism covers a very diverse set of intellectual currents and political movements, whose common point is to seek a more just social and economic organization. The original goal of socialism was to obtain social equality, or at least a reduction of inequalities.  More broadly, socialism can be defined as a political tendency, historically labeled leftist, whose basic principle is the desire for a better world, founded on a harmonious social organization and the fight against injustices.  Depending on the context, the word socialism or the adjective socialist may designate an ideology, a political party, or a social organization. The word itself became current in the [ French ] language starting in the 1820s, in the context of the industrial revolution and of the urbanization that it entailed: at the time, in signified a collection of revindications and ideas directed towards improving the life of workers, and more broadly of the population, through the replacement of capitalism by a societly supposedly more just.   The idea of socialism, in multiple forms, was developed through the 19th century, and gave birth through the world to political parties that claimed to share it under various names (socialist, but also social-democratic, labor, etc.)

By the way, in the English Wikipedia it also says that anarchism and Libertarianism are flavors of Socialism!  So Anarchists are in favor of "social democratic ownership and control of the means of production"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Anarchism to get you started. Trotsky was too anarchist-flavored.

Original research: Brought up in USSR. The second S is for "SOCIALIST."

Yes, communism is a sub-species of socialism, like Mussolini's fascism and Hitler's version.  But socialism is a much wider term than those cases.  Sweden, for example, was widely called a socialist country until some decades ago.

(Another socialist idea that capitalists and neocons hate is the progressive income tax, that in Sweden, IIRC, reched 60% or more for the upper brackets.)

Moreover, just because a country puts "Socialist" in its name, it does not mean that they are really socialist. Ditto for "Democratic", "Free", etc.

So let me get this straight:
English Wikip is wrong,
USSR mistakenly called itself Socialist,
English dictionaries are wrong,
but you, Jorge, while  offering no citations, are right?
And you're gonna go and play wikipedo and fix up pages so that they say what you think they should say?
You gonna edit dictionaries, too?

Lawdy, anywhere you step, there's crazy

Merriam-Webster on Socialism:
"a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies" http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/socialism on Socialism:
"1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which the means of production are collectively owned but a completely classless society has not yet been achieved.

At times when reality, shamelessly, lies, I turn to Jorge. For He is definitive.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

We might be in for an ugly weekend 'price-wise.' As a distraction, I thought it might be nice to take some time to appreciate eachother's contributions to the Bitcoin space.

I'll go first.

[JorgeStolfi]

(1) each individual should be rewarded by society in proportion to what he does for society, rather than by his possestions, descent, titles, intelligence, shrewdness, etc.;  

That's what capitalism does. If you make a profit, it's because you utilized your capital in a way that society a.k.a. the market values.  You get market share by giving customers what they want. You make profits by doing so efficiently.

Not at all!  Capitalism (as a political term) basically says that whatever you can grab by following the rules of the game, you can keep. In particular, it sees no difference between gains from speculative trading,  monopolistic and abusive pricing, deceitful marketing, exploitation of cheap labor, activities that damage the envirnment or public health, etc.; and the state should not try to hamper such activities.  In Capitalism, poverty and inequality are non-problems.

(3) the state is supposed to provide public services like health care, education, social security, transportation infrastructure, emergency and security services, etc.;

and the State gets the resources to do this how exactly? By running a bake sale? If a private organization takes things involuntarily, it's robbery. Just because the State calls it "taxation" doesn't mean it's any more moral. ...

By taxes, of course.  Socialism generally implies higher taxes, and progressive income taxes -- to counter the "rich get richer" consequence of capitalism.

But hey: I am not trying to convince anyone here that socialsm is good.  Just trying to explain what "socialism" means.

Free markets by definition are free from State interference.  Monopolies are only possible with state help. Cartels don't work, witness OPEC.  

That is a serious distortion of the term "free market"  that Libertarians and Anarchists have invented.  Sorry, a free market is totally not a market that is free from regulation and control.  

Basically, it is a market where consumers are free to chose among suppliers, suppliers are free to set their prices as they like, there are no artificial production quotas, and -- most important -- there is no spurious barrier to the entry of new suppliers.  In a free market, theory says that prices will adjust to be the cost of production plus a profit that is about just enough to make that market as profitable as any other activity.  

The opposite of a free market is an oligopoly (including monopoly), where there are few suppliers and new ones are prevented from entry (even if they have the capital and capability to do so).  Then the suppliers can conspire to raise their prices to the level that maximizes their net revenue, which can be much higher than the free market price.

Left to themselves, markets often degenerate into oligopolies or monopolies, because of the same factors that led to concentration of bitcoin mining.  Many countries have antitrust and competition laws to prevent that from happening and keep the markets free.

[r0ach]

The key thing the Stolfinator doesn't understand about being a socialist is, one man's free stuff is another man's indentured servitude.  He keeps preaching this "more just society" nonsense while supporting a pro-slavery ideology.