Bitcoin - powered by greed?

[Spendulus]

Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is.  I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense.

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[myrkul]

Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is.  I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense.

Greed is simply self-interest. Wanting to improve your situation. Some people don't like that.

[hawkeye]

Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is.  I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense.

I think it is perceived to be bad because of the imbalanced society that we live in. 

Also indoctrination and propaganda.  The wise leaders will provide for us, so it is in their best interests to denigrate those who bring wealth.    When you put forth the bankers who have a truly obscene amount of wealth that wouldn't be possible in a free market it is easy to do so.   Never mind that govt interference in the market is what created the wealthy bankers.  There's no way they would attain that kind of disparate wealth in a truly free market because it would be too competitive to garner massive profits.

Think of it this way, is it a bad thing that, say, Steve Jobs was "greedy"?   Was he greedy or did he just want the best for himself and his family and as a result help many others to wealth while providing the rest of us with good useful products?

[Spendulus]

Greed is fine in the free market because to be greedy you have to provide products and services to people. ...

Thinking about it, I'm not even sure I know what greed actually is.  I know the word is used many ways by different people, sometimes in a perjorative sense, sometimes in a descriptive sense.

Greed is simply self-interest. Wanting to improve your situation. Some people don't like that.

  Suppose the idea of greed originated in agrarian society, and was applied to anyone who ate too much of the stores during the long, cold time between crops.  Or who ate the seed stock for the next year's plantings.

That would endanger survival of the group.

I'm basically an Ayn Rand type thinker, but I could agree with the above as a valid use of the term.  Then we've got the other, contemporary uses of the term.

[ktttn]

'Cancer research' on the whole may not be a scam, but mostly it sure seems to be.

This caught my eye. Can you elaborate?

Folks donate without knowing where their money goes. Even If the money gets to the lab it can, and is easily, be misspent, be used to bring the facility into compliance with nutso govt regulations, or is used entirely for more donation soliciting ads.
One can hope this is the exception to the rule. Inevitibly, it happens, though.

[hawkeye]

Suppose the idea of greed originated in agrarian society, and was applied to anyone who ate too much of the stores during the long, cold time between crops.  Or who ate the seed stock for the next year's plantings.

That would endanger survival of the group.

I'm basically an Ayn Rand type thinker, but I could agree with the above as a valid use of the term.  Then we've got the other, contemporary uses of the term.

Right.  That would be a case of where you had a shared store and someone took more than their fair share.  I could go along with that definition being "greedy".

Maybe it's because we have all these collectivist ideas today that people are classed as greedy.    Those who don't pay their "fair share" of taxes for example are just greedy.    They don't realise that society is not actually a collective.  Though the nationalist democratic system makes it seem that way.

[hayek]

So I read that bitcoin is now the most powerful distributed computing project in history.

I find it ironic that the cure for cancer and the search for extra terrestrial intelligence are lower on the scale of human priority than currency.  Not that I don't think bitcoin is good, or that greed is necessarily bad.

Is the success of bitcoin based on greed?

Well, in this situation I usually ask: How would Folding or SETI be any better if Bitcoin didn't exist?

In most cases greed puts more wealth back in to the world than it takes out. Yes, yes, externalities exist. Market failures exist. But if you never let the kids go in the pool they won't learn to swim. Sure, no one would ever drown but the best situation is letting each person decide for themselves how much risk to acquire and what to spend their resources on.

Also consider charity workers for a second. They're greedy too. Maybe not in an "Acquire as much currency as possible" sense that greed is usually painted. They are still interested in acquiring what makes them feel good and as much of it as possible. That's greed for their own self-interest. I would still argue someone creating a product or service does more to help the world than charity workers but that's a separate argument.

[Gordonium]

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.

You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.

To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the Bitcoin and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or Bitcoins. Take your choice. There is no other.

And your time is running out.

[Spendulus]

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.

You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood – money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves – slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer. Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers – as industrialists.

To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money – and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being – the self-made man – the American industrialist.

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose – because it contains all the others – the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity – to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the Bitcoin and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide – as, I think, he will.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns – or Bitcoins. Take your choice. There is no other.

And your time is running out.

What do you think?  Would a beer named Greed sell?

Hell yes I think it would!

Honey, going down to the store? Pick up a six pack of Greed, will ya?  We're going to have some fun.

[Gordonium]

What do you think?  Would a beer named Greed sell?

Hell yes I think it would!

Honey, going down to the store? Pick up a six pack of Greed, will ya?  We're going to have some fun.

I would buy it.

[Alpaca John]

Greed is the only way to motivate people, its an unfortunate reality.

Ah, I guess we better close down Wikipedia then. And all other open source programs for that matter.

[Foxpup]

Greed is the only way to motivate people, its an unfortunate reality.

Ah, I guess we better close down Wikipedia then. And all other open source programs for that matter.

Greed doesn't mean money. Greed means finding things that make you happy, and trying to obtain them. It is greedy to contribute to Wikipedia for the pleasure of proving people wrong on the Internet. It is greedy to contribute to open-source projects for the fame of having your name appear on the credits. It also looks pretty good on your resumé, improving your job prospects. Double greedy!

[nawazish1]

It's not at all greed. Any Money fills 3 functions:

1) Unit of account
2) Store of value
3) Medium of exchange

Money simply means that I can sell my old camera then maybe buy some pizza with some of the proceeds vs trying to find someone will accept a camera for a pizza, and then give me something that is worth the camera-the pizza for change. Money fulfills a function that allows an economy to work to some degree of efficiency. 

(Psst: Wanting that pizza is greed. Wanting to get the camera is greed. Wanting to get gas for your car is greed.)

Then in your opinion wanting to live life should also be called greed.Then go kill yourself and it will also be called greed for wanting to kill yourself.

[Alpaca John]

Greed is the only way to motivate people, its an unfortunate reality.

Ah, I guess we better close down Wikipedia then. And all other open source programs for that matter.

Greed doesn't mean money. Greed means finding things that make you happy, and trying to obtain them. It is greedy to contribute to Wikipedia for the pleasure of proving people wrong on the Internet. It is greedy to contribute to open-source projects for the fame of having your name appear on the credits. It also looks pretty good on your resumé, improving your job prospects. Double greedy!

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSWnP2Zu5zEnT-BNl10L9hON0hHwqURgqg4MR-vF1Ipj--_ZCKK

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed

[hawkeye]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed

Greed is the inordinate desire to possess wealth, goods, or objects of abstract value with the intention to keep it for one's self, far beyond the dictates of basic survival and comfort. It is applied to a markedly high desire for and pursuit of wealth, status, and power.

OK, now how do we determine what is beyond the dictates of a person's comfort?  Where is the line drawn?  And by whom?

The point I'm trying to make is that whether someone is greedy or not is entirely subjective.

[wdmw]

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue...
...Take your choice. There is no other.

And your time is running out.

No citation?

[ktttn]

Greed is the only way to motivate people, its an unfortunate reality.

Ah, I guess we better close down Wikipedia then. And all other open source programs for that matter.

Greed doesn't mean money. Greed means finding things that make you happy, and trying to obtain them. It is greedy to contribute to Wikipedia for the pleasure of proving people wrong on the Internet. It is greedy to contribute to open-source projects for the fame of having your name appear on the credits. It also looks pretty good on your resumé, improving your job prospects. Double greedy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greed

Quite.

[FinShaggy]

Devcoin is the solution!!!

[wonkytonky]

bitcoin works like anything else in the world: carrot on a stick
and thats ok .. if we had no goals .. we would be doing nothng or still be monkeys on this planet. 

greed is fine, it's the carrot of economics..

personaly I use btc as a hedge against inflation..  even if btc does not skyrockets..(but it is and it will for a long time:) )  i'm fine with it..   it's still much better ten fiat.

[Zaih]

Aren't all economies more or less powered by greed lol. Aren't humans powered by greed? Without greed I doubt much would be going on lol