2013-04-23 Bitcoin and the dangerous fantasy of ‘apolitical’ money

[conspirosphere.tk]

Maybe someone would like to leave a comment about the deflation scare argument by this "professor of economics":
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/

edit: but on a second thought, is a waste of time: if he feels smarter believing in Santa Claus/politics, and the same do his followers, it's hopeless.

[Dusty]

The usual, boring stuff... But why, I ask myself, those clueless people does not read some forums?

First, because an expected fall in bitcoin prices motivates people with bitcoins to delay, as much as they can, their bitcoin expenditure (why buy something today if it will be cheaper tomorrow?).

Why buy today a PC when tomorrow it will cost less and be more powerful?
Nodoby should have a PC (or any other electronic device, for that matter).

Why buy today a meal when tomorrow it will cost less?
Everybody will surely prefer to starve...

[kiko]

Don't dismiss this guy! He is an economic advisor to Valve Corporation. If you want people all over the planet to be able to buy computer games with bitcoin; he's the guy you need to convince.

Listen to this for a great interview on the structure at Valve and his involvement.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/02/varoufakis_on_v.html

[grondilu]

Don't dismiss this guy! He is an economic advisor to Valve Corporation.

Well, he's probably not the only one, is he?

[matonis]

He may not be the one, but I have been following Valve and I agree with Kiko. Don't dismiss.

Virtual World Needs Laissez-faire Economists:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/07/06/virtual-world-needs-laissez-faire-economists/

[marcus_of_augustus]

Firstly, he's no Nakamoto. He's got numerous details incorrect about the release of bitcoins (mining) ... but even after that I ploughed on through his fluffery that is typical of the high tables of economic halls of academia. They use fluffery to disguise their actual lack of hard data and clear theories so it looks and sounds like science but the more you dig down the less you find until you realise they are just making shit up ... and then pretend that economics is a science and you should just know that they know better.

His key point seems to be that money must be political or it would never work in our particularly special age that we are living in. Sounds like this is the Statist wish so they back-fitted some weird theories to make that conclusion stick. He ignores that bitcoin users are completely free, or not, to choose to use bitcoins and that there may indeed be a multitude of other 'digital' currencies in circulation simultaneously ... as in fact there already are hundreds of them, as he points out in his first paragraph.

... anyway after all the pontificating the crux of his argument comes in the last sentence of the "Epilogue"

 ... It is these two activities, production and investment, that preclude the possibility of apolitical money.

.... and as far as I tell he has just completely pulled this out of his backside. It is an entirely unsupported conjecture that appears from nowhere without data or background, although there are a couple of dubious looking references right below there that look like they may have been left behind to give the whole sham some semblance of authority.

DYODD, but I call BS.

[kiko]

Yves just picked this up too.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/yanis-varoufakis-bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money.html

Man the comments my good men!

[Roger_Murdock]

His conclusions re: deflation are lame, but he does make an important point that's lost on many who mistakenly focus on Bitcoin's "virtual" nature:

So, bitcoin is not novel because it is a digital currency or because it is a ‘made up’ currency. Digital, ‘made up’ currencies are everywhere. What is, however, genuinely novel and unique about bitcoin is that no ‘one’ institution or company is safeguarding the so-called Ledger: the record of transactions that ensures that, when you have spent one unit of currency, there is one less unit of currency in your (digital) wallet.

[Gabi]

What is, however, genuinely novel and unique about bitcoin is that no ‘one’ institution or company is safeguarding the so-called Ledger

True, no bank, government or institution can manipulate it  It is so dangerous yeah? 

[Roger_Murdock]

What is, however, genuinely novel and unique about bitcoin is that no ‘one’ institution or company is safeguarding the so-called Ledger

True, no bank, government or institution can manipulate it  It is so dangerous yeah? 

Good catch. "Safeguarding" is certainly not the word I'd use to describe central banks' management of the master ledger. But I'd go further than "manipulate." What's really prevented by Bitcoin are fraudulent entries.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Maybe someone would like to leave a comment about the deflation scare argument by this "professor of economics":
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/

edit: but on a second thought, is a waste of time: if he feels smarter believing in Santa Claus/politics, and the same do his followers, it's hopeless.

The same can be said about you.

[conspirosphere.tk]

Maybe someone would like to leave a comment about the deflation scare argument by this "professor of economics":
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/

edit: but on a second thought, is a waste of time: if he feels smarter believing in Santa Claus/politics, and the same do his followers, it's hopeless.

The same can be said about you.

Your ignore tag is already very brown. So guess who's who, troll.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Maybe someone would like to leave a comment about the deflation scare argument by this "professor of economics":
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/

edit: but on a second thought, is a waste of time: if he feels smarter believing in Santa Claus/politics, and the same do his followers, it's hopeless.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

The best thing about Bitcoin, is that it will make most "economists" like Mr. Varoufakis obsolete.  Bitcoin destroys the layers of monetary obfuscation and lies created over the past 100 years, and finally returns the concept of money to common people and common sense, just like what humanity once had with precious metal coinage.  There will be no further need for interpreters or high priests.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Maybe someone would like to leave a comment about the deflation scare argument by this "professor of economics":
http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous-fantasy-of-apolitical-money/

edit: but on a second thought, is a waste of time: if he feels smarter believing in Santa Claus/politics, and the same do his followers, it's hopeless.

The same can be said about you.

Your ignore tag is already very brown. So guess who's who, troll.

C'mon, be brave to admit that u r like the author of the article. He believes in Santa Claus/politics, u believe in Satoshi Nakamoto/Bitcoin. Both of u won't listen to criticism of fiat/bitcoin. Otherwise u would notice that some of the author's statements make sense.

[TraderTimm]

The main problem with anyone relying on Mises Regression Theory is they ignore the virtual. By their very nature, bits and bytes have intrinsic value. They allow us to do computations, they carry information across the internet, they enable the entirety of global commerce.

But because you can't scoop up a bunch of stored charges on a whirling platter or tumble them out of your ethernet cable and hold them in your hand -- bits are given short shrift in economists eyes. Sorry, but the regression theory has been proven, they're just too blind to see it.

Bitcoin has taken raw bits and an initial state of high entropy and have forged order and non-entropic states to convey value. The technical people get it first, because they never had a problem with dealing virtually in the first place. Its all the other fossils that can't get their thick meat-brains around the idea.

[kiba]

2013-4-23 should be 2013-04-23.

[marcus_of_augustus]

The main problem with anyone relying on Mises Regression Theory is they ignore the virtual. By their very nature, bits and bytes have intrinsic value. They allow us to do computations, they carry information across the internet, they enable the entirety of global commerce.=

But because you can't scoop up a bunch of stored charges on a whirling platter or tumble them out of your ethernet cable and hold them in your hand -- bits are given short shrift in economists eyes. Sorry, but the regression theory has been proven, they're just too blind to see it.

Bitcoin has taken raw bits and an initial state of high entropy and have forged order and non-entropic states to convey value. The technical people get it first, because they never had a problem with dealing virtually in the first place. Its all the other fossils that can't get their thick meat-brains around the idea.

This. If you've ever found yourself sitting at a bench, soldering iron in hand, staring off into the distance marveling at the thought that voltage levels on the boards in front of you represent ones and zeros that can be ordered, stored, processed using binary mathematics into numbers, words, phrases, equations, books, pictures .... (gaze off into distance now and wonder about that) ... then you'll have no problem understanding the tangibility of bitcoin.

If it is as voltages inside electronic components or magnetic charges on a spinning disk,  at some level the bits are physically manifest, if they were not your computing device with which you are reading this would not work. As surely as the ordering of protons, neutrons and electrons in the  atom define gold, silver and all the other elements, the human construct of computing ordering physical bits makes them identifiable as tangible objects ... and we choose to trade them. Simple.

[kiko]

This. If you've ever found yourself sitting at a bench, soldering iron in hand, staring off into the distance marveling at the thought that voltage levels on the boards in front of you represent ones and zeros that can be ordered stored, processed using binary mathematics into numbers, words, phrases, equations, books, pictures .... (gaze off into distance now and wonder about that) ... then you'll have no problem understanding the tangibility of bitcoin.

If it is as voltages inside electronic components or magnetic charge on a spinning disk,  at some level the bits are physically manifest, if they were not you computing device with which you are reading this would not work. As surely as the ordering of protons, neutrons and electrons in the  atom define gold, silver and all the other elements, the human construct of computing ordering physical bits makes them identifiable as tangible objects ... and we choose to trade them. Simple.

Science bitchez.

Dancing on the head of a pin is where we eat breakfast!

[marcus_of_augustus]

Dancing on the head of a pin is where we eat breakfast!

This more than your average waltz ... merry jigs, tangos, booty-shakes, moon-walks and I think I saw one guy doing backflips on the head of pin once. 

[StarfishPrime]

This. If you've ever found yourself sitting at a bench, soldering iron in hand, staring off into the distance marveling at the thought that voltage levels on the boards in front of you represent ones and zeros that can be ordered, stored, processed using binary mathematics into numbers, words, phrases, equations, books, pictures .... (gaze off into distance now and wonder about that) ... then you'll have no problem understanding the tangibility of bitcoin.

If it is as voltages inside electronic components or magnetic charges on a spinning disk,  at some level the bits are physically manifest, if they were not your computing device with which you are reading this would not work. As surely as the ordering of protons, neutrons and electrons in the  atom define gold, silver and all the other elements, the human construct of computing ordering physical bits makes them identifiable as tangible objects ... and we choose to trade them. Simple.

I love the smell of rosin in the morning.... smells like..... victory.