Incompetence, malfeasance, and fraud. Oh My!

[Meatpile]

I wonder why no one has bothered to try and make a REAL democracy yet? Like where they make sure every single citizen has an electronic, verifiable, publicly audited vote on everything?

[grod]

I wonder why no one has bothered to try and make a REAL democracy yet? Like where they make sure every single citizen has an electronic, verifiable, publicly audited vote on everything?

Average IQ is 100, and half the population is dumber than that.  I'm fine with a loosely representative corporate police state until something better comes along.  I can participate by timely buying a piece of the correct entities.

A pure democracy would be horrifying.

[Anonymous]

It doesnt matter what 300 million people want as its up to the 5 people on the supreme court.

Their opinion on what the constitution says is the final arbiter so really there is no 'will of the people'.

[kiba]

Average IQ is 100, and half the population is dumber than that.  I'm fine with a loosely representative corporate police state until something better comes along.  I can participate by timely buying a piece of the correct entities.

A pure democracy would be horrifying.

The average IQ will always be 100.

[tvbcof]

The average IQ will always be 100.

Arguably (and fascinatingly) untrue:

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

[kiba]

The average IQ will always be 100.

Arguably (and fascinatingly) untrue:

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

IQ tests are updated periodically.

[iamzill]

It doesnt matter what 300 million people want as its up to the 5 people on the supreme court.

Their opinion on what the constitution says is the final arbiter so really there is no 'will of the people'.

Constitutional amendments have nothing to do with the supreme court. A successful constitutional amendment requires two-thirds majority in both houses and ratification in 38 states. It does not involve the supreme court at all, so their opinion is irrelevant in the subject matter.

The average IQ will always be 100.

Arguably (and fascinatingly) untrue:

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

Nothing in that article contradicts kiba's statement. In fact, in the first paragraph it clearly states: "by convention the average of the test results is set to 100".

[tvbcof]

The average IQ will always be 100.

Arguably (and fascinatingly) untrue:

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

Nothing in that article contradicts kiba's statement. In fact, in the first paragraph it clearly states: "by convention the average of the test results is set to 100".

Just after calibration, it is 100 (by convention).  Between calibrations it drifts.  It probably drifted downward at certain times (e.g., in Cambodia when the intellectuals were knocked off.)

Anyway, that is my interpretation of the Flynn Effect, and as I said, it's arguable.  And I sense that Flynn kind of dedicated his career to rendering the notion of IQ useless for whatever reason.  One way or another it's terribly pertinent to Bitcoin (although that is arguable too I suppose.)

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I wonder why no one has bothered to try and make a REAL democracy yet? Like where they make sure every single citizen has an electronic, verifiable, publicly audited vote on everything?

Average IQ is 100, and half the population is dumber than that.  I'm fine with a loosely representative corporate police state until something better comes along.  I can participate by timely buying a piece of the correct entities.

A pure democracy would be horrifying.

The average police officer, we'll call him Flynn, effectively has an IQ of less than 100. On the other side of the (bit)coin, the average rocket scientist is not capable of going to, let alone finding, a McDonalds and ordering a Big Mac. Imagine the look on their face when first asked, "Would you like that super sized?"

[wumpus]

A pure democracy would be horrifying.

Even more horrifying than the current status quo? I used to agree with you, but the recent years it seems that "representative democracy" is not representative anymore in any way. Politicians change their mind much faster than the period between votes, and the world changes much faster than the period between votes. The system needs an overhaul for this fast, digital age, with zillions of different interest groups.

[Hunterbunter]

I wonder why no one has bothered to try and make a REAL democracy yet? Like where they make sure every single citizen has an electronic, verifiable, publicly audited vote on everything?

hehe...that thought brings a smile to my face.

Firstly, I'd love to also see this system in place. Attach it to our mobile phones or something. Citizen -> register phone number -> setup super passwords etc -> off you go. We would be able to run a referendum on pretty much everything.

Secondly, this would probably never happen in practice. Democracies are horrible, as most people just don't know or care about the stuff politicians talk about all day. If you really wanted to decide what the laws of your country are, you would go into politics, law and/or business. Governments, corporate structures, and military ranks exist partly because people want to abdicate responsibility and decision making, which can be a very tiresome thing. Most people, when looking at their little referendum question will not know the difference on whether to lift the debt ceiling or not, and will look at their friends, or favourite information sources and just do whatever they say they're doing. As such, the vote will always follow the network of friendships and information, rather than a true individual assessment of the question.

Democracy is impossible for the human being.

[elggawf]

I wonder why no one has bothered to try and make a REAL democracy yet? Like where they make sure every single citizen has an electronic, verifiable, publicly audited vote on everything?

It's been done before, the Athenian democracy coming to mind.

It's a beautiful idea in theory, every man having a voice. In reality, it's as described: "two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner".

A pure democracy would be horrifying.

Even more horrifying than the current status quo? I used to agree with you, but the recent years it seems that "representative democracy" is not representative anymore in any way. Politicians change their mind much faster than the period between votes, and the world changes much faster than the period between votes. The system needs an overhaul for this fast, digital age, with zillions of different interest groups.

Yes. People are stupid, and pure democracy is a mob rule (see above quote, commonly attributed to Franklin but I don't believe it's his).

The only thing that's really wrong with the current system? Well first of all the two party thing polarizes everything and it encourages people to vote on one particular emotional issue (ie, I know of a few people who vote the opposite of everything else they believe in solely based on how they feel about issues of reproduction). Second, we must remove the influence of money somehow. The founding fathers believed in every man having an equal voice in one house, and every state having an equal voice in the other... I don't believe at any point did they factor in bank balances (other than that I know a few of them were very insistent on politicians making enough while in office so that it wouldn't be a case of only the idle elite would bother to run).

But a representative democracy has it's own charms - the reason for lengthy elected terms is the exact same reason Bitcoin doesn't recalculate the difficulty every 30 minutes... it smooths things out and makes the output more rational (in theory).

[hayden]

People don't spend $2000 to open an anonymous LLC in a tax haven to conduct legitimate business.

People only do that to commit tax fraud, and now, bitcoin fraud.

A WHOIS lookup takes 2 seconds. Even without the WHOIS information I already knew it was a scam from their business model.

+1 agreed.

-1 disagreed. Many people open accounts outside the US, because the US tries to interfere with and steal from their legitimate business. Now, perhaps MyBitcoin is a total catastrophe, and perhaps the owner was ill-intentioned all along, but please don't vilify honest people who simply don't want the tyrannical US Gov't interfering with them.

I strongly disagree with the US' current citizenship-based tax policies and income tax in general. I try to change these laws by speaking out against them, writing to my congressmen, and voting against statist politicians. However, until those laws are repelled, I am obligated to pay my share of the taxes as a citizen of United States, regardless of how much I may disagree with the tax regimen.

For those people who really do earn a legitimate amount of their income overseas and feel they are getting unfairly taxed based on their citizenship, they always have the option of denouncing their citizenship: http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

This isn't true. A US citizen cannot simply denounce their citizenship and be guaranteed that they no longer have to pay any US taxes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_Tax

I believe the US is the only country to have laws that say even if you aren't a US citizen, do not live in the US, do not have a business in the US, or make money out of the US, you still owe us tax dollars. They also have the right to seize any assets in the US that you may own.

[idev]

Democracy means you get to vote against the laws that you don't like, it does not mean you can disregard those laws at your personal discretion.

You can disregard immoral unethical laws.  You know that the vast majority of Americans were against the bank bailouts, but congress did it anyway?  And that the vast majority of Americans are against the illegal wars, but congress does it anyway?

You have no voice in The System except as a milk cow from which they extract your substance.  Come on, man!  Grow some cajones and don't cooperate with an immoral system.

What if the population choose an unethical and evil action? You could vote against it but half of the population already choose to do EVIL!

Democracy doesn't fix things, just give voice to a larger population of people, who may or may not choose wisely.

There is no democracy in this world of false flags , END OF.

[SlaveInDebt]

Hearing reports of the polish exchange losing all btc etc.
http://hackerne.ws/item?id=2828445 not finding much that is translated.

[idev]

Hearing reports of the polish exchange losing all btc etc.
http://hackerne.ws/item?id=2828445 not finding much that is translated.

Seems it up for sale @ 17,000 EUR
any takers ?