What are the most convincing arguments against Bitcoin?

[cdog]

The most convincing argument against mass Bitcoin adaoption to me is this:

1. The average human IQ is 100. Let that sink in for a while: 100 is average.

Think about what a massive challenge that represents.

[DavidZ]

The most convincing argument against mass Bitcoin adaoption to me is this:

1. The average human IQ is 100. Let that sink in for a while: 100 is average.

Think about what a massive challenge that represents.

You could have used that argument against the mass adoption of computers 30 years ago...

[taltamir]

1. Thats not what a 51% attack is and doesnt let you do that. do research.
2.bitcon isnt centralized, pools are false centralization. ie. if someone pulls some shady stuff, the people 'get out of the water' and they lose the hashrate and peoples faith in them, pool owner then loses their income stream. any other form of centralization is just as much BS. do research.
3.no it doesnt... do research...

1. I have done my research. Do yours
2. I wasn't talking about pools. I was talking about mining cartels and ASIC manufacturers. Or in the future, just banks. If bitcoin is accepted I can see many governments spending a lot of money to make massive mining centers to ensure they control the currency. They can then treat it like they do regular banking today.
3. If this was the case we would have prunning already

[taltamir]

The most convincing argument against mass Bitcoin adaoption to me is this:

1. The average human IQ is 100. Let that sink in for a while: 100 is average.

Think about what a massive challenge that represents.

IQ is a test designed specifically and explicitly for detecting learning disabilities that prevent someone from succeeding in mainstream school systems. The test had 5 iterations so far which meant to refine its ability to detect issues such as dislexia and other learning disabilities. The revising also were used to adjust to cultural changes as scores rapidly shifted, eg, when 120 became the average they refactored it so that 100 is the average again.

Scores over 100 are largely meaningless because of this.

Furthermore, the score is calculated as 100*X/Y
where X = The average age of an average student in the K12 system whose academic performance matches yours
where Y = Your actual age.

So a 10 year old who has the academic performance of an average 15 year old has an IQ of 100*15/10 = 150. If you haven't realized it yet, IQ is a percentage.

This also means it is a completely meaningless score for adults.

[jinni]

1. Thats not what a 51% attack is and doesnt let you do that. do research.
2.bitcon isnt centralized, pools are false centralization. ie. if someone pulls some shady stuff, the people 'get out of the water' and they lose the hashrate and peoples faith in them, pool owner then loses their income stream. any other form of centralization is just as much BS. do research.
3.no it doesnt... do research...

3. If this was the case we would have prunning already

As far as I have understood, Gavin and the developers have promised that pruning will be ready "when it is necessary". I have no reason to doubt the developer team, but when is it really necessary to prune, at 1TB? Has anyone come up with a timeline? What proof is there that pruning will be possible when it really is necessary?

[jinni]

Most people are not technically savvy enough to store their bitcoins themselves.  Without a trusted, insured deposit institution, they'll lose their savings to trojans, social engineering, and computer failures.  There may be regulatory difficulties in creating such a service down the line.

In the long term I don't see how this could be a problem. There are several people making more and more secure and easy-to-use wallets, besides, with the current technology the problem isn't the infrastructure but how to get the information. When it comes to money spreading that information will be quite easy and fast. I mean, grandparents can use facebook and internet banking no problem, why wouldn't they be able to understand that you could print a paper wallet for ultimate security with a click?

After that it is just a matter of hiding it in a safe place. Besides, for smaller amounts of money, a usb stick could easily provide more than enough security.

Ease of use is not a long-term issue.

[jinni]

Two major obstacles:
      1.Lack of trusted exchanges to properly trade bitcoins.
Me sent money orders (significant amount) to those crooks at Camp BX.
They don't answer phone, no email return and keep claiming not received money.
Next week I'll call FBI to put these scammers where they belong.
     2.Lack of proper info. on line(even this board is not caring about) how to open a stuping wallet and get keys for it.
For. ex. I downloaded one from bitcoin.org but unable to get the keys of that stupid wallet.
Very frustrated process and ended up to uninstall the software .

Lack of information online is not a long-term problem as more trustworthy exchanges will arise, and more secure and easy to use wallet solutions will come for the less technology savvy.

[jinni]

Another serious problem is the distribution. Some early adopters may hold a ridiculously large amount of BTC that may make them some of the richest men in the world. Most people have to buy bitcoin from those who have them which are, early adopters (since half the bitcoins where mined in the first 4 years). These people have got an unfair advantage over others.

The only way to fairly distribute bitcoin would require the mass scale infrastructure of the goverment. And we all know how much goverments would like to see their currencies become useless.

If someone has 1 Million BTC and the price goes to 10k then they will have more monetary power than Bill Gates. This money however hasn't been created in goods and services but has been redistributed almost arbitrarily. I somehow doubt really early adopters will just give away 99% of their wealth. Even if they should. 

This is clearly an issue. The more unequal the spread of wealth the more problems. 

Here is a great video: Paul Piff: Does money make you mean?

Personally I believe that unequal spread of wealth is both a cause and a symptom. But the symptom is deadly in itself and should therefore not be ignored.

Some of the solution will come from philanthropy, some will come from better education/culture and I can't help some of it will come from some kind of voluntary basic income though I have no idea of how it would look.

[jinni]

Too few people exist on the planet that would use Bitcoin simply for altruistic reasons.

The altruism/egoism debate is a sidetrack. It is impossible to be completely altruistic or completely egotistical.

[jinni]

The other big problem with Bitcoin is that it isn't legal tender, and thus it is taxed on changes in its value unlike legal tender. Thus Bitcoin can NEVER be a non-anonymous currency.

So Bitcoin has very powerful arguments against it. The OP is naive.

In Germany, neither Gold nor Gold 2.0 is taxed (VAT).

http://www.welt.de/finanzen/article120823372/Zahlungen-mit-Bitcoins-sind-umsatzsteuerfrei.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/477785

Germany is an example of a country that so far has managed to balance it's socialism with strong individual rights in many cases, after the war it has always championed a hard currency (even if it is a hard fiat currency) in addition to having a strongly federal political system as well as having a populace generally more politically aware than most others. However, they have no freedom of speech for neo-nazi groups, and much worse, criticism of Israel is still taboo.

I think many of Germany's good policies are remnants of guilt after the second world war and memories of the DDR. These things will eventually fade.

[taltamir]

This is clearly an issue. The more unequal the spread of wealth the more problems.

Other way around.
Equal spread of wealth = everyone is poor, downtrodden, and live short brutish lives.
The more unequal the spread of wealth the more prosperous a society is for everyone, even the people at the bottom.

[jinni]

1) Volatility. As long as the exchange rate fluctuates wildly, BTC as a currency is highly unlikely to become mainstream. However, I think this is a short-term problem, as more acceptance/use of BTC will lead to less volatility, or more importantly, less tying the value of BTC to the dollar.

This was a problem in the US when the gold standard apparently led to panics that created an unstable economy and thus hardship for many. Savings accounts and insurances could help solve this though, it is a matter of culture, not Bitcoin or any restricted-supply currency in particular.

[MoonShadow]

The other big problem with Bitcoin is that it isn't legal tender, and thus it is taxed on changes in its value unlike legal tender. Thus Bitcoin can NEVER be a non-anonymous currency.

So Bitcoin has very powerful arguments against it. The OP is naive.

In Germany, neither Gold nor Gold 2.0 is taxed (VAT).

http://www.welt.de/finanzen/article120823372/Zahlungen-mit-Bitcoins-sind-umsatzsteuerfrei.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/477785

Germany is an example of a country that so far has managed to balance it's socialism with strong individual rights in many cases, after the war it has always championed a hard currency (even if it is a hard fiat currency) in addition to having a strongly federal political system as well as having a populace generally more politically aware than most others. However, they have no freedom of speech for neo-nazi groups, and much worse, criticism of Israel is still taboo.

I think your admiration for the German solution to be misplaced.  It's not just that neo-nazi based ideologies or israeli dissent that is verboten.  Any kind of subculture at all is verboten, although (obviously) some are ignored.  Notablely, however, Christian based homeschooling is not ignored; and a ban on home education of any kind remains in effect as the last edict started by Aldolf hitler still in effect.  Put another way; while politics in Germany functionally ignores the dark side of Islam, but puts devout Christians who consider German state schools to be contrary to their faith in the same catagory as neo-nazi hate groups.  One might come to the conclusion that German polticos fear the idology of such (non-state) Christian spreading into a greater percentage of the electorate. 

[MoonShadow]

This is clearly an issue. The more unequal the spread of wealth the more problems.

Other way around.
Equal spread of wealth = everyone is poor, downtrodden, and live short brutish lives.
The more unequal the spread of wealth the more prosperous a society is for everyone, even the people at the bottom.

This is no more true as an absolute than the false meme that an equal spread of wealth leads to prosperity for the greatest number.  The causes of such wealth disparity is also important to consider.

[jinni]

This is clearly an issue. The more unequal the spread of wealth the more problems.

Other way around.
Equal spread of wealth = everyone is poor, downtrodden, and live short brutish lives.
The more unequal the spread of wealth the more prosperous a society is for everyone, even the people at the bottom.

No, maybe I was to brief in my wording. I'm not saying wealth has to be spread exactly equally for everything to be perfect, only that grossly unequal societies tend to have problems because of the gross inequality (see my video and countless other evidence). It is definitely possible that a really unequal society can be better for the poor than a more equal society, but not if every other factor is equal between those societies.

Look, complete equality should not be the goal of any society, but ignoring gross wealth inequality as an issue is simply not realistic and not backed by science.

[MoonShadow]

1. Thats not what a 51% attack is and doesnt let you do that. do research.
2.bitcon isnt centralized, pools are false centralization. ie. if someone pulls some shady stuff, the people 'get out of the water' and they lose the hashrate and peoples faith in them, pool owner then loses their income stream. any other form of centralization is just as much BS. do research.
3.no it doesnt... do research...

3. If this was the case we would have prunning already

As far as I have understood, Gavin and the developers have promised that pruning will be ready "when it is necessary". I have no reason to doubt the developer team, but when is it really necessary to prune, at 1TB? Has anyone come up with a timeline? What proof is there that pruning will be possible when it really is necessary?

I recently inquired about this issue, and the general response was that pruning is already emplimented in the reference codebase, but isn't yet enabled for the offical client.  This is mostly because of concern about what kind of impact widespread pruning would have on the "many copies keeps data safe" stragedy that the blockchain employs.  Some of the developers don't believe that there are enough full clients at the moment, and that enabling pruning would result in a significant drop in the number of compete copies of the blockchain from which new clients could bootstrap.  I'm not a programmer, but it was strongly implied that certain power users with the programming skills to enable this code themselves already do prune.  So when they say that pruning will become available when it's necessary, they kind of mean that they will turn it on when they feel that the burden of running a full client is reducing the number of full clients, and that we are not to that point yet.

[jinni]

The other big problem with Bitcoin is that it isn't legal tender, and thus it is taxed on changes in its value unlike legal tender. Thus Bitcoin can NEVER be a non-anonymous currency.

So Bitcoin has very powerful arguments against it. The OP is naive.

In Germany, neither Gold nor Gold 2.0 is taxed (VAT).

http://www.welt.de/finanzen/article120823372/Zahlungen-mit-Bitcoins-sind-umsatzsteuerfrei.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/node/477785

Germany is an example of a country that so far has managed to balance it's socialism with strong individual rights in many cases, after the war it has always championed a hard currency (even if it is a hard fiat currency) in addition to having a strongly federal political system as well as having a populace generally more politically aware than most others. However, they have no freedom of speech for neo-nazi groups, and much worse, criticism of Israel is still taboo.

I think your admiration for the German solution to be misplaced.  It's not just that neo-nazi based ideologies or israeli dissent that is verboten.  Any kind of subculture at all is verboten, although (obviously) some are ignored.  Notablely, however, Christian based homeschooling is not ignored; and a ban on home education of any kind remains in effect as the last edict started by Aldolf hitler still in effect.  Put another way; while politics in Germany functionally ignores the dark side of Islam, but puts devout Christians who consider German state schools to be contrary to their faith in the same catagory as neo-nazi hate groups.  One might come to the conclusion that German polticos fear the idology of such (non-state) Christian spreading into a greater percentage of the electorate. 

I probably was too positive to the "German solution". I do not agree that any kind of subculture is verboten as such, in fact I saw much more subculture in Berlin than I have seen in any western European capital ever. Maybe I got lucky, but my impression was that it was less distance from the general populace than elsewhere - though other places in Germany are supposedly less subculture-friendly as far as I've heard.

Personally, I don't think having one religion gives one more right to homeschool a child than having another or none. I think obligatory schooling should be verboten. I agree that Germany is not good for homeschooling, but even though many other countries allow it it is not an option for most people, and hence a somewhat, though not entirely, moot point. Germany uses law where other countries use propaganda.

[jinni]

1. Thats not what a 51% attack is and doesnt let you do that. do research.
2.bitcon isnt centralized, pools are false centralization. ie. if someone pulls some shady stuff, the people 'get out of the water' and they lose the hashrate and peoples faith in them, pool owner then loses their income stream. any other form of centralization is just as much BS. do research.
3.no it doesnt... do research...

3. If this was the case we would have prunning already

As far as I have understood, Gavin and the developers have promised that pruning will be ready "when it is necessary". I have no reason to doubt the developer team, but when is it really necessary to prune, at 1TB? Has anyone come up with a timeline? What proof is there that pruning will be possible when it really is necessary?

I recently inquired about this issue, and the general response was that pruning is already emplimented in the reference codebase, but isn't yet enabled for the offical client.  This is mostly because of concern about what kind of impact widespread pruning would have on the "many copies keeps data safe" stragedy that the blockchain employs.  Some of the developers don't believe that there are enough full clients at the moment, and that enabling pruning would result in a significant drop in the number of compete copies of the blockchain from which new clients could bootstrap.  I'm not a programmer, but it was strongly implied that certain power users with the programming skills to enable this code themselves already do prune.  So when they say that pruning will become available when it's necessary, they kind of mean that they will turn it on when they feel that the burden of running a full client is reducing the number of full clients, and that we are not to that point yet.

Sounds fair. So if we trust the developers on this, then scalability is pretty much solved?

[olinnebit]

ASIC mining farms. I believe Satoshi intended for BTC to be cpu only

[MoonShadow]

Hence hard uncrackable anonymity is needed.
 

You complain that Bitcoin isn't completely anonymous, and then your solution is a impossibility.  Anonymity is a scale that is derived from the actions of the user, not an absolute attribute of any currency.  While cash is certainly more anonymous than Bitcoin, even cash in person isn't 'uncrackable anonymity' because you have to do it in person.  Any detective with the resources to do so can determine who you are by interogating your business counter party and/or tracking location data near the location around the time of meeting.

Keep in mind that Bitcoin is a compromise solution to a preexisting condition, and while it's certainly not perfect, I consider it unlikely that any or all of Bitcoin's own shortcomings will prove to be fatal to it's market dominance.  You shouldn't put to much faith into AnonyMint's musings either.  While he can turn a phrase quite well, I have personally put the lie to all of his arguments that I've seen thus far; to the point that he doesn't even like to respond to me at all.  Feel free to research his and my interactions on this forum, and you will learn more than you did from him alone.