[POLL] Are You losing Interest ?

[dinofelis]

So hmm have an agenda much ?
One is on a mission to defend Monero pretty much and the other is making his own Bitcoin Killer.
Both want no laws at all to further their agenda.

You just mentioned my agenda: "no laws".  I like monero in as much as it can be a tool to escape laws.  I don't like monero for monero's sake.  The day that monero is not a tool any more that might help escape laws, I won't like monero any more.  This is what is happening right now with bitcoin.  Bitcoin is essentially over as a tool to escape the law.  It is being fiatized at light speed.  That's why it is going to the moon, BTW, because the powers that be are taking it over, and have seen the use of it to tie people up.

When in reality it's not.
More losers = more people leave crypto.

Those "losers" should finally learn what crypto is about: trustlessness.  

Since the scene has no rules the guys who run exchanges and make coins can rig the game to make sure they always win.
You WILL lose !
Keep gambling and you will guaranteed be broke.
All the while the corrupt players say it's going great counting YOUR cash !

There can be no corruption in a game that is based upon trustlessness, can there ?  Do you really understand what that means, trustlessness ?  It  means that you shouldn't trust anybody, because everybody is trying to rip you off.  So if people get ripped off, that means that "trustlessness" is working at full speed, and as someone who is wanting more adoption of trustlessness, it is a strange thing to be obfuscated when people cannot be trusted and "scam" one another - which is exactly what trustlessness is about.  It is an even stranger thing that people wanting general adoption of trustlessness would want people who are not to be trusted to be punished by law, so that trust comes back to the scene of trustlessness.

Do you understand the mega-contradiction of your sayings ?

If you want crypto (the technology that handles trustlessness) to be adopted, you also want trustlessness to be adopted, which means that you want it to be essentially impossible to be able to trust anything.  Of course you cannot want this, and at the same time, whine about scams, and crying for law and regulation.

[1714899759]

1714899759

[1714899759]

1714899759

[1714899759]

1714899759

[1714899759]

1714899759

[iamnotback]

I was thinking about getting into monero but now that I hear that it is used for deepweb or darknet purposes have turned me off it all together,
I don't want to be part of or support something that makes me feel bad everytime I use it.
Atleast bitcoin has had it's bad times but it is trying very hard to separate it's self from those "Dark Days" of it's questionable beginnings.
So atleast it is trying to make a new dawn in a good light for itself.

Btw, I agree that the focus on marketing to dark markets is not wise. Isn't a mainstream nor appropriate way to teach thinking about organizing for freedom. I've been happy to stand back and watch Monero shoot themselves in the foot.

Please understand that Bitcoin joining the fiat system is not a good thing:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1798356.msg17966654#msg17966654  <--- READ @dinofelis's point please
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1798356.msg17960724#msg17960724

Instead we need anonymity that is compliant with a civilized society:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1796575.msg17968724#msg17968724

Note anonymity will never be 100% iron-clad. The bad guys can still be tracked down. But we need privacy, else we will have totalitarianism. We can't take away the power of the little guy because then we will end up with an asymmetrically all-powerful corrupt State (1984).

[andrei56]

Getting the feeling of being burn out is something very common and happens to everyone at some point in their lives no matter how passionate they are about a particular subject, sometimes the best is to take some time off and then see if that improves your mood regarding crypto and related subjects.

[dinofelis]

I was thinking about getting into monero but now that I hear that it is used for deepweb or darknet purposes have turned me off it all together,
I don't want to be part of or support something that makes me feel bad everytime I use it.
Atleast bitcoin has had it's bad times but it is trying very hard to separate it's self from those "Dark Days" of it's questionable beginnings.
So atleast it is trying to make a new dawn in a good light for itself.

Btw, I agree that the focus on marketing to dark markets is not wise. Isn't a mainstream nor appropriate way to teach thinking about organizing for freedom. I've been happy to stand back and watch Monero shoot themselves in the foot.

My opinion is that if people are so much indoctrinated that they associate "dark market" with "bad" and not with "freedom", there's no amount of teaching that can help them.  Because dark markets are essentially about freedom.  Most participants in dark markets are consenting adults that gain mutual advantage from it in an economic relationship that harms nobody else.  There are a few exceptions, like dark markets for murder or child porn: I agree that these are bad things, because they deal with suffering/death of third parties.  But by far most dark markets are for "illicit" goods, read drugs.

While the only drugs I'm using is beer and wine in moderate amounts, and I don't want to take drugs because I don't want to damage the machine that brings me most of my joy, my brain, I understand that many people do want to take drugs, and their totally *intimate* experiences they obtain with that is totally *their business*.  Maybe these people have moments of intense happiness - which is, after all, the only goal in life. It is a fundamental freedom to want to be happy for half a day and die, rather than to live 50 more years without that extasy.  It is not my piece of cake, but I can very well understand that many people want that.

So why do states outlaw drugs ?  Because they know that there's an almost inelastic demand for it, and that this will give rise to "dark markets".  They outlaw drugs, to make the business of drugs lucrative and illegal, in other words, to obtain sufficient organized crime.  The premium for the illegality of drugs makes it a very risky, and hence, very lucrative business.  The risk, and the gains, are so high that this motivates several actors to take on high risks, get high rewards, and hence, don't mind using violence and other bad actions.  In other words, states outlaw drugs in order for there to exist  sufficient organized crime.  This gives states their opportunity to exist, to oppress, to control.

States need organized crime, terrorism, or other states as a threat, in order to make the gullible population accept their oppression, control and surveillance.

Dark markets are nothing else but distorted places of freedom, distorted by the huge premium of the risk of illegality, brought by the state, in the pockets of organized crime.

States will never shut down dark markets entirely.  They cannot, but they don't want to either.  However, they need to take down some of them regularly, because otherwise, these become normal markets, the risk premium goes down, and crime doesn't thrive, which is against the wishes of the state.

Silk road was essentially taken down because if it were running too smoothly, it would have broken the crime aspect of drugs markets.  Silk road was taking out too much of the violence and crime of drug markets.  It was killing the crime premium.  If it would continue, it would have become the amazon of drugs.  What put Silk Road out of business, was the rule of non-violence.  States cannot cope with non-violent dark markets.  People would realize it is simply about economic freedom, and not about "bad guys with guns harming people".

[Spoetnik]

The govt's exist to coral us and manage money etc.
So you guys are saying the main point to all of this is to unravel the world's govt's ?
Crypto is about toppling the govt structure ?

Ya know i am not against that per say.. the problem i have with is it is practicability.

Take away the US & CAN govt and remove the FIAT dollar from existence.
How do you expect your garbage to be picked up when there is no one to do it ?
Who will fly the fighter jets to defend your country ?
Who will come when you call 911 ?
Who will put out the forest fires that break out ?
Who will build the roads ?
Who will arrest that serial killer or Terrorist plotting an attack ?
Who will fund that NASA space program ?

What i hear is backyard-existentialists chanting their ideology with little thought to reality.
All of it severely drenched in conspiracy and talk of NWO cabal's out to get us etc.

I got to say "The Man" has provided me a lot !
Yeah he may take my taxes and yeah he may be planning a grand population culling with Chemtrails..
But i have a roof over my head and a road to drive on and i am not flying the North Korean flag.

Topic ?

Ok well i'll play along.
What are the odds that you CAN topple FIAT / The Govt's ?
How much of a bloody battle would this be and how long will it take ?
Know why this matters ?
Because children in school are here RIGHT now investing in "rebel coins"
They are not here chanting in 100 years FIAT will be gone..

You guys spouting off all this ideology are are leading the rats to the slaughter.
The naive traders assuming they CAN do this so it's legit don't see the battle incoming.
Nope.. they are sold the Freedom speech and told Free Market is good etc.
While no one says a word to them about the risks of investing in "Bring Down the Government Coin"

So when ? how ? who ? Notice these guys will not even stop using an exchange that says they hand over their data to US fed's getting us arrested ?
They just keep using them !
Who is going to fight this battle vs the worlds govt might.. which is pretty strong i might add.

Puttering around here selling idiots a fantasy for profits is what it amounts to.
Like i just said on the last comment i made here.

When the heat comes they will bolt !
If this was not true everyone would still be bag-holding those first coins that came out.
All they do is jump and run when the pressure is put on them.
See why TIME matters ?

You all need to make at the very least a small effort to be grounded in reality.
Your little insulated facade bubble here is NOT protected.. theymos will hand over your ass to the Fed's *if he has not already done so on occasion.

In piracy circles some stings last 4, 5 or even 6 years.
Providing a false sense of security until mass arrests were rolled out.
Get lippy here all you want about Anti-Law bullshit but i know you will all fold when they are at your door.  

Grow up.

[dinofelis]

The govt's exist to coral us and manage money etc.
So you guys are saying the main point to all of this is to unravel the world's govt's ?
Crypto is about toppling the govt structure ?

To be able to live without it if you want to.

Ya know i am not against that per say.. the problem i have with is it is practicability.

Take away the US & CAN govt and remove the FIAT dollar from existence.
How do you expect your garbage to be picked up when there is no one to do it ?

By paying for it, like you pay for your cell phone, your bread, your electricity ?

Who will fly the fighter jets to defend your country ?

You don't need that, as there is no country to defend.  If every citizen is armed and independent of any hierarchical structure, there's nothing to attack.

Who will come when you call 911 ?

The emergency company you contracted with.

Who will put out the forest fires that break out ?

The organisation you paid for that, if that's one of your worries.  

Who will build the roads ?

The same private companies that build roads today.  If you want a road, you can pay for it.  If you don't want a road, you don't pay for it.

Who will arrest that serial killer or Terrorist plotting an attack ?

Citizens that like to do that, or a security company you pay for, if you want that guy stopped and you don't feel like defending yourself.

And there won't be any terrorist attack of significance, as terrorists aim for political influence, and there's no such thing as a state to influence.  Moreover, terrorist attacks are negligible.  They are blown out of proportion by states to increase their power, but the chances of you dying in a car accident are orders of magnitude larger than the chances of you dying by a terrorist attack.

Who will fund that NASA space program ?

Whoever likes that.  And those that don't like it, don't need it.

Who will fund movies ?  Who will fund baking bread ?  Who will fund making music ?  Who will fund the internet ?  Who will fund growing food ?  Who will fund building houses ?   Who will fund computer software ?  Who will fund windows ?  Who will fund linux ?  Who will fund google ? 

If you really need it, you will find a way to pay for it, and someone will find the opportunity to do it for you.  And if you don't really need it, well, you don't really need it.

[dinofelis]

I got to say "The Man" has provided me a lot !
Yeah he may take my taxes and yeah he may be planning a grand population culling with Chemtrails..
But i have a roof over my head and a road to drive on and i am not flying the North Korean flag.

People in North Korea say the same, but with "and I'm not flying the USA flag".

The difference is much smaller than you think.  Which is exactly what "The Man" wants you to think, and he succeeds.

A slave that doesn't know he's a slave, is it a slave ?

[Spoetnik]

You are spewing a never ending stream of hypothetical bullshit.

There is no replacement setup to do the jobs the US govt does.
Sure you could hypothetically privatize a lot of it but at a certain point it just isn't doable and you then have to form a govt of sorts.

You guys have your heads so far up your ass i don't know how you keep posting this silly drivel here with a straight face.
I don't even know where to begin LOL

What part of it all do you want me to point out is silly bullshit ?
You do realize most of the world wants a govt and FIAT and laws right ?
And if you threaten them they will swiftly bury your ass.

I got to stop at this point.
You guys are fucked in the head.
You think Monero can defeat FIAT / Govt ?
Wrong.. all the morons will be rounded up and thrown in jail when ever the hell they feel like it.
And i bet there will also be no resistance from any of them either.
Mr. fluffypony running his gambling site (that sometimes gets hacked) will be standing in the doorway of his house in his old worn-out panties in the middle of the night as the US Fed's "Request" him to come with them..

Notice how the entire forum simply lets 2 guys chant on here with insane rambling ?
See anyone else here bothering to dispute this silly bullshit ?
They know i am right.. and are playing along quietly while the going is good for the ROI's.
The people watching these topics are not going to be fighting any valiant grand battle to topple the govt or destroy FIAT.

If the US govt wants to strangle this shit out it will.
They have not so far because it is not a threat.
In other words what i was just saying over & over.. you are all talk ..SILLY BULLSHIT TALK !
I am sure FBI etc have their feet up on the table reading this laughing their fucking ass off.
After all they created Bitcoin right Shelby ?

Some people went too far down the rabbit hole and are a lost cause.
I would suggest not taking trade advice from rabbits 

Kids tread lightly with your investment / lunch money there is bullshit peddlers here good at giving grand speeches.
Being a long term bag-holder of "Bring Down The Government Coin" may not be a sound investment.

[iamnotback]

So you guys are saying the main point to all of this is to unravel the world's govt's ?

No it is to be able to get out of the way so as to not be trampled when the governments unravel themselves and collapse.

They don't need any assistance with unraveling as that is the one thing they are quite competent at.

There is no replacement setup to do the jobs the US govt does.

I agree that having no government at all would be a power vacuum. I don't think mankind is able to spontaneously organize, such as to defend against significant threats.

This is why for example I have explained we need a form of anonymity which can be compatible with reporting for taxation.

Edit: this discussion continued later.

[Spoetnik]

The precocious idealism you two ramble here incessantly is so far out of touch with reality it blows me away.
I don't know which part of the hypothetical idealistic rabble i want to tear apart first.

One day.. i will make the Bitcoin killer !
One day.. i will defeat the evil FIAT and their NWO overlords freeing humanity from our slave overlords.

Meanwhile.. in the mean time hey, pssst wanna buy some "ICO" coinz ?

You two are delusional and have mental problems.
You don't have a good grasp on reality in the slightest.
This place attracts little know it all's.

Shooting your mouth off here is good short term NOT long term.
Dino's contrarian routine where he spouts off about hypothetical crap trying to find an exception to every rules does not equate to real reality.

Shelby your judgment here is well.. fucked up.
You had your main account banned for as you put it.. posting ETH FUD.
Yup.. they were trying to keep you down and censor you.
Of course it had nothing to do with the blatantly obvious.. posting 5 long rants back to back. (all the time)
Then you claimed you were leaving.. and..
Then you claim Bitcoin was some type of NWO conspiracy.
THEN.. you post shitloads of conspiracy shit in the Political section here.. railing on and on and on and on.

What do people here believe ? Speak up people tell these fucking blow-hard's what YOU think.
The more you stay silent the more they push on overconfident..

You know you guys skip from even taking the first line of code to the "Bitcoin Killer"
straight to we're going to abolish all law and have a free society free of our NWO overlords.
Maybe write 1 line of code then come back and make bold grand proclamations ?

What i am harping on is that giant massive gap in between the 1st line of code and the mighty downfall of the FIAT / Financial system around the globe.
You see in between those two points you have people here clutching BTC looking for a coin to invest in for profits.

Hypothetically we can make the earth stop spinning.. which is just as likely as the shit these 2 guys keep posting here.

Seriously get some fucking med's guys.
Write a book or something.. the fantasy and conspiracy theory shit should sell lots of copies.
Meanwhile the rest of us are here stuck in reality.

I guess Dino and Shelby should be handling the Coinbase IRS case huh guys ?
You can reinterpret their situation as an IRS fishing expedition or claim it's audit only applicable to the IRS themselves and argue on..
Yup the same Coinbase that handed over the KickAssTorrents founders ass to the Fed's who is RIGHT NOW in jail.
I guess he would be free if he posted the silly bullshit Free Market rabble here you two post right ?
His Bitcointalk freedom speeches were weak there for they arrested him LOL

Since ALL OF YOU HERE are planning on destroying FIAT and toppling the govt and abolishing law..
Then i want all of you to tell me EXACTLY how you intend to achieve this lofty ambitious goal
AND.. how long do you expect it to take and which ICO coin do i have to BUY to do it LOL

[iamnotback]

Since ALL OF YOU HERE are planning on destroying FIAT and toppling the govt and abolishing law..

I already told you that we don't have to topple FIAT, as it topples itself every damn time throughout human history over and over again:

So you guys are saying the main point to all of this is to unravel the world's govt's ?

No it is to be able to get out of the way so as to not be trampled when the governments unravel themselves and collapse.

They don't need any assistance with unraveling as that is the one thing they are quite competent at.

As for the global economic collapse underway, you need to study history. Total collapse of empires has happened over and over again.


Hey were the personal insults really necessary. Are you trying to have a civilized discussion or be ignored by everyone. Have I made insulting remarks about you in this thread?

[Spoetnik]

Shelby you never act accountable enough though. (about your crypto history and other related views)
You have to come to terms many of us here (i assume) think you are a bit crazy.
You take it as a personal insult though.
When i say you have demonstrated crazy views i don't mean to trash on you..
..i mean to say this has to skew your perspective.

I could have been nicer about it all and i really do offer you an apology here for my ranting lately Shelby.
All of us know you are smart.. clearly gifted and rather "verbose" LOL

Perspective (context) is a thing we can't ignore.
Step back away from your own position and look at things.
All of us are biased to some extent.
I will always inherently veer in one direction no matter how hard i try.. as all of you will too.
It's your job to resist that and search for "being wrong".

Is the launch of Bitcoin a conspiracy ? How many people believe this ? Majority ?
I am sorry but i don't see tangible proof to back it up.

When i say you two have your positions earlier.. you do.
One of you is going to make the Bitcoin Killer and the other is always defending Monero sort off (or defending ANON)
That is a fact.
In other words i think i come to the table more neutral than you guys.
I *could* change my mind to if i was convinced.. hell i thought we should resist laws when i got into Crypto.

So you did not address what i was saying earlier and claimed i insulted you.
I have to keep re stating what i already said over & over in a dramatic fashion to hammer the point home and get you guys to reply back honestly.. for the viewers here.
Any time you two agree with me you slide it in real quiet in some large rant then carry on about other things.

All i want is to see this stuff as it is.. not how it SHOULD be.
I want to be honest, realistic and practical about it all.
And if there are problems then so fucking what !
If we acknowledge them we can then move forward.

Scroll back and read what i was saying earlier.
You anti-law free market guys i think are fucking bat shit crazy. LOL
It has nothing to do with WHOM has these views.. it's the view itself i insult

I will say again if Shelby or Dino or any others felt i was personally insulting then you really do have my apologies.
We do all have our bad qualities etc ..you all know i do hahhaha

[dinofelis]

There is no replacement setup to do the jobs the US govt does.
Sure you could hypothetically privatize a lot of it but at a certain point it just isn't doable and you then have to form a govt of sorts.

You have to distinguish 2 different questions:

1) is a society without a human-led violence monopolist that dictates the law *thinkable* and potentially functional ?

2) is there a way to go there when you already have such a violence monopolist who doesn't want to give up its privileges ?

My stance on 1) is a clear yes, but I agree that 2) is a serious problem.

What part of it all do you want me to point out is silly bullshit ?
You do realize most of the world wants a govt and FIAT and laws right ?
And if you threaten them they will swiftly bury your ass.

That is part of the indoctrination.  Most of the world wants you to worship Allah too.

You guys are fucked in the head.
You think Monero can defeat FIAT / Govt ?

No, that's not the idea.  Governments will end up collapsing under their own weight.  If an alternative economic system is "ready to take over" at that point, it may succeed ; in the mean time, it should stealthily develop underground without too much noise.

Notice how the entire forum simply lets 2 guys chant on here with insane rambling ?

Count yourself in too  You even got a thread about your ramblings

If the US govt wants to strangle this shit out it will.
They have not so far because it is not a threat.

The biggest threat to the US government is itself and their puppies in the UK and elsewhere.  You talked about fighter jets and terrorism.  Islam terrorism is a pure product of the US government.  They used their jet fighters to construct Islam terrorism entirely.  This was done by their total support for the Saoudis since about 70 years.  The abominable colonisations by powers like the UK, France, and so on, followed by geopolitical games mainly lead by the US afterwards, have made that people in the Middle East have been under horrible regimes that were armed, and kept in power by exactly the jet fighters of the US government, making a feeding ground for religious-based hate across the whole middle east.  This has been instrumentalized and pushed to an extreme by the US government in its fight against the Soviet Union.  Islam terrorism was a US invention in Afghanistan, to piss off the Soviets.  They have amplified it later with the biggest lies in history to start a war with their jet fighters, when they turned Iraq into the biggest Islam terrorist training camp of the world.   I think that if you would have been an Iraqi citizen, your hate for the US and their puppies would be so great for what they've done to you and your people, that you'd be happy to blow yourself up if you can blow up a few of those idiots cheering and financing that crime against humanity.  I think that from their viewpoint, there's no difference between what the US gov, his jet fighters, and their puppies, have been doing, and what the Jews had to live with the Nazi regime.
And now, to "protect" their citizens against these people, the US government needs more jet fighters and needs to reduce liberties, and needs more surveillance and more income from their citizens.  Where do you think this is going to lead ?

*that* is what "government" is about: do bad things, see some consequences, and want more power to do more bad things "to protect against the consequences of bad things".  I'm not particularly talking about the US government.  History is full of examples, and the US government is not an exception.  Concentrate violence and power in the hands of a few (that's what a government is), and ugly things happen.

[iamnotback]

@dinofelis, for as long as physical violence is effective, we will continue to have government (per Max Weber's canonical definition of government as a "monopoly on the use of violence"), because the primary reason government formed was to enable civilization to progress from warlords to investment in commerce via sea transport (Athenian Empire) and roads (Roman Empire) for the Agricultural (first and second) revolutions. Government was necessary to aggregate the capital and protection for large economy-of-scale fixed capital investments continuing into the First and Second Industrial Ages. We are now entering the Second Computer Revolution which my thesis posits is spawning the Knowledge Age due to network effects from the First Computer Revolution.

So to get rid of the natural demand for government, then we need to transition the economy away from fixed capital investments to non-fungible, decentralized creativity. This is what my seminal essay in 2012 "Rise of Knowledge, Death of Finance" was about.

So we can't go all the way to Stage #6 in one step. We have to go through Stage #5 as a process of evolution.

Thus our decentralization technologies need to be compatible with Stage #5. That is why I am outlining what I conjecture to be some flaws in Monero's anonymity design. Afaics, we can't go all the way to "no taxes" now. Impossible. Asia will rise up and they don't have the socialism clusterfuck of the West, so they can have effective governance with low taxes. Thus IMO, Monero will not be tolerated by the society and thus governments in Stage #5.

Your model is too black & white. You need to imagine the transitional evolution mankind must go through.

@Spoetnik, my analysis of what has been transpiring and will transpire has been excellent. Have you reviewed the partial account of highlights my record? I'd prefer we stay on topic of the issues and that means not arguing about whether I am crazy or fallible. Refute our arguments instead.

[dinofelis]

@dinofelis, for as long as physical violence is effective, we will continue to have government (per Max Weber's canonical definition of government as a "monopoly on the use of violence"), because the primary reason government formed was to enable civilization to progress from warlords to investment in commerce via sea transport (Athenian Empire) and roads (Roman Empire) for the Agricultural (first and second) revolutions. Government was necessary to aggregate the capital and protection for large economy-of-scale fixed capital investments continuing into the First and Second Industrial Ages. We are now entering the Second Computer Revolution which my thesis posits is spawning the Knowledge Age due to network effects from the First Computer Revolution.

I don't fully agree with this analysis.  I think cause and consequence are inverted here, although you do have a point.  I don't think that government *was needed* ; rather that it was *unavoidably created*.  To me, the "warlords" ARE the governments, and they arise BECAUSE there is wealth to steal ; not the other way around.  It is not because one created governments, that wealth occured ; it is because there was wealth, that warlords became governments.
That said, it is true that the monopoly of violence (the ultimate winner of the law of the strongest) DID have a positive side-effect: as there was no competition on the violence side any more (there was no incentive to do so, as the monopolist was so terribly strong that it was a waste of effort, and would lead to one's demise), it DID allow for the investment in violence to be left to the government, which, through economies of scale, could reduce the total expenditure for violence (and limit the total amount of capital destruction by violence).
The price to pay was a submission to a warlord (the government).  I do not agree that the government permitted less violence: what was local small scale violence, was replaced by inter-governmental wars on large scale.  But one did win by economies of scale on the violence effort: instead of everyone investing in some small-scale defence, one could profit from the economies of scale to have relatively modest expenditures for much larger scale violence in warfare.

I think the total amount of violence increased with the advent of states ; but the total investment in it lowered, because of economies of scale.  One could kill much more people, and destroy much more property, with less investment using states and armies, than the investment needed by individuals to protect their families and ownership, which was a hugely inefficient way to do mass killings and destruction.

So to get rid of the natural demand for government, then we need to transition the economy away from fixed capital investments to non-fungible, decentralized creativity.

There is no natural demand for government in my opinion.  There is a demand for a mutual agreement for non-violence but that doesn't need to go through the concentration of violence in the hands of warlords (states) that use this to fight each other in wars.

Violence is a "market failure" that is only made worse by the advent of governments if you want to.  And there's no way to ever become insensitive from violence.

However, there is a way to empower individuals with weapons of mass destruction.  As such, the economies of scale on the level of warlords/states will lose its significance.

I see two paths to weapons of mass destruction for modest individual investments.  The first is laser-isotope separation.  This is a technology of which development was stopped because one realized the danger of it, but one cannot stop eternally technological knowledge.  The day that isotopic separation by lasers becomes fully efficient, with table-top equipment it will be possible to turn natural uranium into bomb-grade U-235.  You'd need, say, 10 kg to make a bomb, which means you'd need about 1 ton of natural uranium.  This is a small truckload to smuggle.  It is probably out of reach for a modest individual, but a rich individual, or a small group, can easily do so.
In as much as plutonium production is messy, dirty, and needs huge installations because of the radioactive problems, natural uranium isotope separation doesn't need strong precautions.  Also, the triggering of a plutonium bomb is difficult, while an U-235 bomb is easy to build and activate.  The most difficult problem is the isotope separation, which still needs huge factories (it is what the Iranians try to hide from the US).   Natural uranium can be found a bit everywhere in nature, and if isotope separation can be done with table-top laser equipment, nothing can stop individuals or small groups to make a Hiroshima-type nuke in their basement.

But the second, much more attractive weapon of mass destruction I see evolving, is what I'd call "DNA printers".  If you have a DNA (or RNA) synthesizer - which will most probably be developed in the near future and will be of the size of less than table-top - you can synthesize about any known or artificial virus, and its antidote.   Give it 20 or 30 years and I think this kind of technology will be available.  The spread of a virus (eventually a triggerable virus, that you first let propagate without symptoms to get sufficient people contaminated, and that you can activate afterwards by a second infection that can be much more targetted) can then be done very very easily by just any individual who created or downloaded the right virus file and "printed" it, while giving himself and his kin the anti-dote.

When individuals can whipe out entire cities or continents, I don't see how the governments can keep their monopoly on violence based upon their economies of scale on warfare and killing.

[iamnotback]

@dinofelis, for as long as physical violence is effective, we will continue to have government (per Max Weber's canonical definition of government as a "monopoly on the use of violence"), because the primary reason government formed was to enable civilization to progress from warlords to investment in commerce via sea transport (Athenian Empire) and roads (Roman Empire) for the Agricultural (first and second) revolutions. Government was necessary to aggregate the capital and protection for large economy-of-scale fixed capital investments continuing into the First and Second Industrial Ages. We are now entering the Second Computer Revolution which my thesis posits is spawning the Knowledge Age due to network effects from the First Computer Revolution.

I don't fully agree with this analysis.  I think cause and consequence are inverted here, although you do have a point.  I don't think that government *was needed* ; rather that it was *unavoidably created*.  To me, the "warlords" ARE the governments, and they arise BECAUSE there is wealth to steal ; not the other way around.  It is not because one created governments, that wealth occured ; it is because there was wealth, that warlords became governments.

Incorrect.

Warlords (feudalism) is what you get when there is a power vacuum and thus nothing can be organized on any sufficient economies-of-scale. It is what the Western Roman Empire collapsed back to for a Dark Age, because we didn't have the Roman military guarding the road construction and commerce.

That said, it is true that the monopoly of violence (the ultimate winner of the law of the strongest) DID have a positive side-effect: as there was no competition on the violence side any more (there was no incentive to do so, as the monopolist was so terribly strong that it was a waste of effort, and would lead to one's demise), it DID allow for the investment in violence to be left to the government, which, through economies of scale, could reduce the total expenditure for violence (and limit the total amount of capital destruction by violence).

Not only that, but it enabled protection for large scale infrastructure and commerce.

Competing Dark Age warlords means interstate commerce dies.

I do not agree that the government permitted less violence: what was local small scale violence, was replaced by inter-governmental wars on large scale.

Agreed, but it did enable massive progress for mankind. You can't deny the Agricultural, Industrial, and now Computer revolutions of which the first two at least could not have happened without the nation-state as I explained above.

So to get rid of the natural demand for government, then we need to transition the economy away from fixed capital investments to non-fungible, decentralized creativity.

There is no natural demand for government in my opinion.  There is a demand for a mutual agreement for non-violence but that doesn't need to go through the concentration of violence in the hands of warlords (states) that use this to fight each other in wars.

It requires a nation-state and it is a natural demand when the economies-of-scale of humans was in physically threatened work in the agricultural and industrial ages.

However, there is a way to empower individuals with weapons of mass destruction.  As such, the economies of scale on the level of warlords/states will lose its significance.

That is a non-sequitor. Chaos of physical security on the large scale would only send us back into a Dark Age with warlords.

Rather if human activity becomes sufficiently decentralized, then we no longer are threatened by physical attack. For example, it is impossible to attack the heartland of the USA with an army because there is a citizen's gun under every blade of grass. (the heartland can be attacked by isolating it from commerce and trade though, because we aren't 100% in the decentralized Knowledge Age yet)

But the second, much more attractive weapon of mass destruction I see evolving, is what I'd call "DNA printers".  If you have a DNA (or RNA) synthesizer - which will most probably be developed in the near future and will be of the size of less than table-top - you can synthesize about any known or artificial virus, and its antidote.   Give it 20 or 30 years and I think this kind of technology will be available.  The spread of a virus (eventually a triggerable virus, that you first let propagate without symptoms to get sufficient people contaminated, and that you can activate afterwards by a second infection that can be much more targetted) can then be done very very easily by just any individual who created or downloaded the right virus file and "printed" it, while giving himself and his kin the anti-dote.

When individuals can whipe out entire cities or continents, I don't see how the governments can keep their monopoly on violence based upon their economies of scale on warfare and killing.

In the decentralized Knowledge Age, the important people won't live in any concentrated area.

Sorry we can't move (within the next decade or two) to Monero's absolute anonymity. Sorry. We need a more pragmatic approach for Stage #5 of the global economic collapse because the State will still be strong in Asia and destructive in the West. I propose anonymity that is compatible with taxation, because Asia will have strong States not total collapse.

I sure hope you aren't throwing all caution to the wind and deciding to hell with it and you will break the law and hope the State collapses without consequences. If that is the Monero community's attitude, then the project will be doomed.

[dinofelis]

I don't fully agree with this analysis.  I think cause and consequence are inverted here, although you do have a point.  I don't think that government *was needed* ; rather that it was *unavoidably created*.  To me, the "warlords" ARE the governments, and they arise BECAUSE there is wealth to steal ; not the other way around.  It is not because one created governments, that wealth occured ; it is because there was wealth, that warlords became governments.

Incorrect.

Warlords (feudalism) is what you get when there is a power vacuum and thus nothing can be organized on any sufficient economies-of-scale. It is what the Western Roman Empire collapsed back to for a Dark Age, because we didn't have the Roman military guarding the road construction and commerce.

In my view, a state is nothing else but a warlord, one that got so strong over a territory, that competition was exterminated, and that the only warlords remaining, were the neighbours.

I think that what states do, is nothing else but "upscale" feudalism.  Instead of having local fights, you get more global wars, and instead of having a fight every year, you get a serious war every few decades.  Now, this is maybe what you are referring at, that as these "windows of opportunity" get larger, during these periods of prosperity, in between periods of slavery, war and destruction, there's enough room to progress and "set information aside" for the next cycle, which is less the case if these cycles happen on smaller scales, with less violence, but also with less large windows of prosperity.

I think the fundamental error is to think that the problem of violence can be solved by having such a big violence monopolist that everybody has to surrender to it.  This only slows down, but amplifies, the cycles of violence and slavery.  True, as the cycles are slowed down, the windows of opportunity grow larger (but the destructions that follow are also more severe, maybe to the point of no return).  That said, the *natural tendency* for war lords is, by economies of scale, to obtain automatically a violence monopolist.  So the appearance of states is a natural consequence.  But that doesn't mean that one has to approve it. 

Not only that, but it enabled protection for large scale infrastructure and commerce.

This isn't entirely true.  Big progress is historically made when there were no empires.  Classical culture developed by the ancient Greeks came about when Greece was not part of the Roman empire.  Development essentially halted under the Roman empire.  Yes, they built roads and legal systems and so on.  But scientific development essentially came to a grinding halt.  Arab culture became most productive during the Caliphate (when Europe was part of a few Christian empires and made us go through the Middle ages), which was very distributed, and not very centrally organized.
It is true that the discovery of modern science started inside Western empires, but in fact, mostly *against* the dominant rule of the empires, which was the God-given King and aristocracy.  Galileo, who started the western scientific revolution, got into deep trouble with that.

Now, I admit that most of modern technological and scientific development happened under the gouvernance of relatively young western states, who did, indeed, provide means and protection for these developments to occur.  But these same governments are now suffocating us.  These governments were still OK when they were just put in place after the West cut off the head of their king, fought for their freedom of another king and installed "democratic" governments.  These initially light-weight structures were indeed beneficial at first sight and opened a window of opportunity.

But these same structures grew inevitably to the level of true power structures.  When you look at the US constitution, the Founding fathers built about every thinkable protection into it against such structures, and nevertheless, it happened.  The US government evolved from a system that was designed NOT to become a powerhouse of slavery and violence, into what it is now: one of the worst violence monopolists on earth.  And every precaution has been taken to avoid that.  Which proves that even with the best of intentions, power concentration leads to horror stories.

Competing Dark Age warlords means interstate commerce dies.

Exactly the same situation in Classic ages, and during the Caliphate, made commerce prosper.

I do not agree that the government permitted less violence: what was local small scale violence, was replaced by inter-governmental wars on large scale.

Agreed, but it did enable massive progress for mankind. You can't deny the Agricultural, Industrial, and now Computer revolutions of which the first two at least could not have happened without the nation-state as I explained above.

I think you have this impression because we just had a few decades of prosperity after a half century of devastating war (the first and second world wars were just one war with a pause).  After a period of war, there is always some "relief" (or not, when you look at the soviet union).

However, there is a way to empower individuals with weapons of mass destruction.  As such, the economies of scale on the level of warlords/states will lose its significance.

That is a non-sequitor. Chaos of physical security on the large scale would only send us back into a Dark Age with warlords.

Rather if human activity becomes sufficiently decentralized, then we no longer are threatened by physical attack. For example, it is impossible to attack the heartland of the USA with an army because there is a citizen's gun under every blade of grass. (the heartland can be attacked by isolating it from commerce and trade though, because we aren't 100% in the decentralized Knowledge Age yet)

I don't think that this is related.  Agriculture is decentralized.  But nevertheless, states occured.  I think they didn't occur because people needed protection, but rather because agriculture permitted so much production that the accumulation of wealth and taxation became possible.  When you have a population of nomads that can only just survive, you cannot accumulate wealth by taxing them.  You only kill them, and there's too little to take.  When you have peasants, you can accumulate wealth (food) by taxing them, you can finance armies, and you can become a state.
But the peasants didn't need a state.  Of course, you told them that they needed you, but they didn't.  A passing war lord cannot come and "steal" from every peasant.  That's not lucrative.  But taxing local peasants against "protection", is what made Kings rich.
It is the origin of states.  Production, and theft through taxes.

In the decentralized Knowledge Age, the important people won't live in any concentrated area.

I think we're dreaming of a similar utopia.  But in my opinion, that utopia could have been realized at any stage of development, if people didn't fall for the lie that they needed state protection, and we don't have to wait for a specific technological advancement in order to realize that.  I also think that as long as this erroneous belief lives on, that utopia will remain a dream and states will continue to convince people that they "need their protection".  So there's no reason to wait.

Sorry we can't move (within the next decade or two) to Monero's absolute anonymity. Sorry. We need a more pragmatic approach for Stage #5 of the global economic collapse because the State will still be strong in Asia and destructive in the West. I propose anonymity that is compatible with taxation, because Asia will have strong States not total collapse.

I don't see the use of anonymity if you allow for taxation.  And in fact, you can never prove that you declared everything.  You can prove that everything related to these addresses you own, is declared.  But you can never prove that you DON'T own the keys to other addresses.  What if you owned them, and lost them ?  How can you prove you have forgotten something ?

[NUFCrichard]

I am struggling to keep up interest in Altcoins. It seems like a new wave of coins come through every year or so that are the coins to own and are heavily traded. 
There is profit to be made trading them, but they will be forgotten soon enough, much like Peercoin, Primecoin, Nxt etc before them.

None of them offer me anything except a trading opportunity. Bitcoin is of very limited value as so few people use it. It is also folding under it'd own weight with higher transaction costs and limited transactions numbers.

[sukamasoto]

As I know , altcoin trend is unpredictable so it's difficult for me to make profit from it so I've lost my interest on altcoin
Over a year, I got 0.1 loss and I can't get it back

[iamnotback]

I don't fully agree with this analysis.  I think cause and consequence are inverted here, although you do have a point.  I don't think that government *was needed* ; rather that it was *unavoidably created*.  To me, the "warlords" ARE the governments, and they arise BECAUSE there is wealth to steal ; not the other way around.  It is not because one created governments, that wealth occured ; it is because there was wealth, that warlords became governments.

Incorrect.

Warlords (feudalism) is what you get when there is a power vacuum and thus nothing can be organized on any sufficient economies-of-scale. It is what the Western Roman Empire collapsed back to for a Dark Age, because we didn't have the Roman military guarding the road construction and commerce.

In my view, a state is nothing else but a warlord, one that got so strong over a territory, that competition was exterminated, and that the only warlords remaining, were the neighbours.

I think that what states do, is nothing else but "upscale" feudalism.  Instead of having local fights, you get more global wars, and instead of having a fight every year, you get a serious war every few decades.  Now, this is maybe what you are referring at, that as these "windows of opportunity" get larger, during these periods of prosperity, in between periods of slavery, war and destruction, there's enough room to progress and "set information aside" for the next cycle, which is less the case if these cycles happen on smaller scales, with less violence, but also with less large windows of prosperity.

I think the fundamental error is to think that the problem of violence can be solved by having such a big violence monopolist that everybody has to surrender to it.  This only slows down, but amplifies, the cycles of violence and slavery.  True, as the cycles are slowed down, the windows of opportunity grow larger (but the destructions that follow are also more severe, maybe to the point of no return).  That said, the *natural tendency* for war lords is, by economies of scale, to obtain automatically a violence monopolist.  So the appearance of states is a natural consequence.  But that doesn't mean that one has to approve it.  

Not only that, but it enabled protection for large scale infrastructure and commerce.

This isn't entirely true.  Big progress is historically made when there were no empires.  Classical culture developed by the ancient Greeks came about when Greece was not part of the Roman empire.  Development essentially halted under the Roman empire.  Yes, they built roads and legal systems and so on.  But scientific development essentially came to a grinding halt.  Arab culture became most productive during the Caliphate (when Europe was part of a few Christian empires and made us go through the Middle ages), which was very distributed, and not very centrally organized.
It is true that the discovery of modern science started inside Western empires, but in fact, mostly *against* the dominant rule of the empires, which was the God-given King and aristocracy.  Galileo, who started the western scientific revolution, got into deep trouble with that.

Now, I admit that most of modern technological and scientific development happened under the gouvernance of relatively young western states, who did, indeed, provide means and protection for these developments to occur.  But these same governments are now suffocating us.  These governments were still OK when they were just put in place after the West cut off the head of their king, fought for their freedom of another king and installed "democratic" governments.  These initially light-weight structures were indeed beneficial at first sight and opened a window of opportunity.

But these same structures grew inevitably to the level of true power structures.  When you look at the US constitution, the Founding fathers built about every thinkable protection into it against such structures, and nevertheless, it happened.  The US government evolved from a system that was designed NOT to become a powerhouse of slavery and violence, into what it is now: one of the worst violence monopolists on earth.  And every precaution has been taken to avoid that.  Which proves that even with the best of intentions, power concentration leads to horror stories.

Competing Dark Age warlords means interstate commerce dies.

Exactly the same situation in Classic ages, and during the Caliphate, made commerce prosper.

I do not agree that the government permitted less violence: what was local small scale violence, was replaced by inter-governmental wars on large scale.

Agreed, but it did enable massive progress for mankind. You can't deny the Agricultural, Industrial, and now Computer revolutions of which the first two at least could not have happened without the nation-state as I explained above.

I think you have this impression because we just had a few decades of prosperity after a half century of devastating war (the first and second world wars were just one war with a pause).  After a period of war, there is always some "relief" (or not, when you look at the soviet union).

However, there is a way to empower individuals with weapons of mass destruction.  As such, the economies of scale on the level of warlords/states will lose its significance.

That is a non-sequitor. Chaos of physical security on the large scale would only send us back into a Dark Age with warlords.

Rather if human activity becomes sufficiently decentralized, then we no longer are threatened by physical attack. For example, it is impossible to attack the heartland of the USA with an army because there is a citizen's gun under every blade of grass. (the heartland can be attacked by isolating it from commerce and trade though, because we aren't 100% in the decentralized Knowledge Age yet)

I don't think that this is related.  Agriculture is decentralized.  But nevertheless, states occured.  I think they didn't occur because people needed protection, but rather because agriculture permitted so much production that the accumulation of wealth and taxation became possible.  When you have a population of nomads that can only just survive, you cannot accumulate wealth by taxing them.  You only kill them, and there's too little to take.  When you have peasants, you can accumulate wealth (food) by taxing them, you can finance armies, and you can become a state.
But the peasants didn't need a state.  Of course, you told them that they needed you, but they didn't.  A passing war lord cannot come and "steal" from every peasant.  That's not lucrative.  But taxing local peasants against "protection", is what made Kings rich.
It is the origin of states.  Production, and theft through taxes.

In the decentralized Knowledge Age, the important people won't live in any concentrated area.

I think we're dreaming of a similar utopia.  But in my opinion, that utopia could have been realized at any stage of development, if people didn't fall for the lie that they needed state protection, and we don't have to wait for a specific technological advancement in order to realize that.  I also think that as long as this erroneous belief lives on, that utopia will remain a dream and states will continue to convince people that they "need their protection".  So there's no reason to wait.

Sorry we can't move (within the next decade or two) to Monero's absolute anonymity. Sorry. We need a more pragmatic approach for Stage #5 of the global economic collapse because the State will still be strong in Asia and destructive in the West. I propose anonymity that is compatible with taxation, because Asia will have strong States not total collapse.

I don't see the use of anonymity if you allow for taxation.  And in fact, you can never prove that you declared everything.  You can prove that everything related to these addresses you own, is declared.  But you can never prove that you DON'T own the keys to other addresses.  What if you owned them, and lost them ?  How can you prove you have forgotten something ?

All incorrect. In essence you are transposing cause and effect, as well transposing large scale changes from "smaller things grow faster" changes. And the agriculture age required roads for economies-of-scale in commerce thus it was not decentralized. You have numerous errors like that throughout.

But I am not paid to refute every person's unending list of misconceptions.

And so to not further fill up this thread with only posts from myself and yourself, I will for the time being not provide my refutations.

Also I have more urgent other work that beckons.

Thanks for the discussion. Best regards.