rpietila Wall Observer - the Quality TA Thread ;)

[molecular]

Some quite interesting ideas.

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_market

[molecular]

Thanks ErisDiscordia for your excellent post and especially for quoting from R. A. Wilsons "Prometheus Rising", a book that has greatly influenced me when I first read it a good 20 years back.

I think you have correctly identified a large part of humanities current problem as a resource distribution problem.
(btw: when I say "resource" I mean natural resources, like fossil fuel, fertile soil, water, metals, etc.... I specifically exempt human labour, I don't view that as a resource... in fact I think we should largely do away with the whole concept)

There are many suggestions how to solve this problem (how can we all live happily without destroying earth), some of which I like, some of which I don't like. I don't want to go into them but try to take kind of a broader view. Let's start with some facts:

• centralization of power leads to corruption and inefficiencies in resource usage
• the use of fiat money leads to inefficiencies (misallocations of capital and war (Stefan Molyneux argues this well in a recent talk)
• Money is an excellent mechanism to reach efficient use of resources to satisfy peoples needs.

If one accepts these facts, one can derive that in order to organize efficient resource use one needs to utilitze a decentralized sound money (can't be centralized, can't have elastic supply, must be money).

I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir and/or sounding like a broken record, but I must say: I truly think the single most effective measure we can take for more prosperous conditions for humanity is the widespread use of sound money on a global scale (like Bitcoin, you guessed it). This has the potential to solve many problems in one fell swoop without having to administer more specific measures in a top-down coercive manner. With sound money things like price signals and saving actually work. Bad actions are punished and good ones rewarded. The way it should be.

We already started our first steps on this path. Let me lay out in rough terms how it could go down:

• liquid global sound money is invented (crypto)
• people use it as a speculative commodity and increasingly as store of wealth (good money drives out bad)
• people increasingly value bitcoin as the best way to save their wealth and since it's also easily transactable globally, it gains traction for payments, in turn increasing its value for store-of-wealth (positive feedback loop)
• the fiat currencies continue their race to the bottom. Wealth is increasingly being stored in hard assets (land, art, companies, crypto,...). Not sure wether the banking system will collapse or adapt, but the economy will survive (not without a good cleanup, though). There will be much debate (and fighting) about who owns what (except with crypto, on that front it's quite clear: whoever has access to the private keys can spend)
• with fiat growing increasingly irrelevant, governments crumble or downsize considerably becoming fiscally prudent or non-existant in the process. Maybe different organizational structures (rules?) of differing sizes and shapes might evolve.
• same goes for big corporations: they'll either fail or adapt (regulatory capture and corruption don't work well any more)
• things like global surveillance of the population, wars, etc will become much less common because noone wants to pay for that stuff
• we have a largely level playing field, honest work and good innovation is being rewarded while bad action is being punished (failures allowed to happen, no lender of last resort, incentive to not fuck up). This should lead to more efficient use of resources.
• existental fears are much less widespread
• Largely in control of our own well-being, we all lead a mostly happy and prosperous life.

Now maybe it's naive to believe things can evolve like that and actually lead to later points (I also omitted some important things, like who controls public opinion), but I'm willing to try to take the chance and continue spreading the use of crypto.

;tldr: the use of sound money is the single most effective measure we can take to improve (or prolong) our collective well-being (on a side-note: I also think the use of crypto (mainly Bitcoin) as a store of wealth is the single most effective measure one can take to improve and prolong his personal well-being)

[Erdogan]

Thanks ErisDiscordia for your excellent post and especially for quoting from R. A. Wilsons "Prometheus Rising", a book that has greatly influenced me when I first read it a good 20 years back.

I think you have correctly identified a large part of humanities current problem as a resource distribution problem.
(btw: when I say "resource" I mean natural resources, like fossil fuel, fertile soil, water, metals, etc.... I specifically exempt human labour, I don't view that as a resource... in fact I think we should largely do away with the whole concept)

There are many suggestions how to solve this problem (how can we all live happily without destroying earth), some of which I like, some of which I don't like. I don't want to go into them but try to take kind of a broader view. Let's start with some facts:

• centralization of power leads to corruption and inefficiencies in resource usage
• the use of fiat money leads to inefficiencies (misallocations of capital and war (Stefan Molyneux argues this well in a recent talk)
• Money is an excellent mechanism to reach efficient use of resources to satisfy peoples needs.

If one accepts these facts, one can derive that in order to organize efficient resource use one needs to utilitze a decentralized sound money (can't be centralized, can't have elastic supply, must be money).

I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir and/or sounding like a broken record, but I must say: I truly think the single most effective measure we can take for more prosperous conditions for humanity is the widespread use of sound money on a global scale (like Bitcoin, you guessed it). This has the potential to solve many problems in one fell swoop without having to administer more specific measures in a top-down coercive manner. With sound money things like price signals and saving actually work. Bad actions are punished and good ones rewarded. The way it should be.

We already started our first steps on this path. Let me lay out in rough terms how it could go down:

• liquid global sound money is invented (crypto)
• people use it as a speculative commodity and increasingly as store of wealth (good money drives out bad)
• people increasingly value bitcoin as the best way to save their wealth and since it's also easily transactable globally, it gains traction for payments, in turn increasing its value for store-of-wealth (positive feedback loop)
• the fiat currencies continue their race to the bottom. Wealth is increasingly being stored in hard assets (land, art, companies, crypto,...). Not sure wether the banking system will collapse or adapt, but the economy will survive (not without a good cleanup, though). There will be much debate (and fighting) about who owns what (except with crypto, on that front it's quite clear: whoever has access to the private keys can spend)
• with fiat growing increasingly irrelevant, governments crumble or downsize considerably becoming fiscally prudent or non-existant in the process. Maybe different organizational structures (rules?) of differing sizes and shapes might evolve.
• same goes for big corporations: they'll either fail or adapt (regulatory capture and corruption don't work well any more)
• things like global surveillance of the population, wars, etc will become much less common because noone wants to pay for that stuff
• we have a largely level playing field, honest work and good innovation is being rewarded while bad action is being punished (failures allowed to happen, no lender of last resort, incentive to not fuck up). This should lead to more efficient use of resources.
• existental fears are much less widespread
• Largely in control of our own well-being, we all lead a mostly happy and prosperous life.

Now maybe it's naive to believe things can evolve like that and actually lead to later points (I also omitted some important things, like who controls public opinion), but I'm willing to try to take the chance and continue spreading the use of crypto.

;tldr: the use of sound money is the single most effective measure we can take to improve (or prolong) our collective well-being (on a side-note: I also think the use of crypto (mainly Bitcoin) as a store of wealth is the single most effective measure one can take to improve and prolong his personal well-being)

You nailed it.

[WoopDeBoop]

The last few posts remind me of that Captain America quote

"To build a better world, sometimes means tearing the old one down"

[inca]

Thanks ErisDiscordia for your excellent post and especially for quoting from R. A. Wilsons "Prometheus Rising", a book that has greatly influenced me when I first read it a good 20 years back.

I think you have correctly identified a large part of humanities current problem as a resource distribution problem.
(btw: when I say "resource" I mean natural resources, like fossil fuel, fertile soil, water, metals, etc.... I specifically exempt human labour, I don't view that as a resource... in fact I think we should largely do away with the whole concept)

There are many suggestions how to solve this problem (how can we all live happily without destroying earth), some of which I like, some of which I don't like. I don't want to go into them but try to take kind of a broader view. Let's start with some facts:

• centralization of power leads to corruption and inefficiencies in resource usage
• the use of fiat money leads to inefficiencies (misallocations of capital and war (Stefan Molyneux argues this well in a recent talk)
• Money is an excellent mechanism to reach efficient use of resources to satisfy peoples needs.

If one accepts these facts, one can derive that in order to organize efficient resource use one needs to utilitze a decentralized sound money (can't be centralized, can't have elastic supply, must be money).

I know I'm mostly preaching to the choir and/or sounding like a broken record, but I must say: I truly think the single most effective measure we can take for more prosperous conditions for humanity is the widespread use of sound money on a global scale (like Bitcoin, you guessed it). This has the potential to solve many problems in one fell swoop without having to administer more specific measures in a top-down coercive manner. With sound money things like price signals and saving actually work. Bad actions are punished and good ones rewarded. The way it should be.

We already started our first steps on this path. Let me lay out in rough terms how it could go down:

• liquid global sound money is invented (crypto)
• people use it as a speculative commodity and increasingly as store of wealth (good money drives out bad)
• people increasingly value bitcoin as the best way to save their wealth and since it's also easily transactable globally, it gains traction for payments, in turn increasing its value for store-of-wealth (positive feedback loop)
• the fiat currencies continue their race to the bottom. Wealth is increasingly being stored in hard assets (land, art, companies, crypto,...). Not sure wether the banking system will collapse or adapt, but the economy will survive (not without a good cleanup, though). There will be much debate (and fighting) about who owns what (except with crypto, on that front it's quite clear: whoever has access to the private keys can spend)
• with fiat growing increasingly irrelevant, governments crumble or downsize considerably becoming fiscally prudent or non-existant in the process. Maybe different organizational structures (rules?) of differing sizes and shapes might evolve.
• same goes for big corporations: they'll either fail or adapt (regulatory capture and corruption don't work well any more)
• things like global surveillance of the population, wars, etc will become much less common because noone wants to pay for that stuff
• we have a largely level playing field, honest work and good innovation is being rewarded while bad action is being punished (failures allowed to happen, no lender of last resort, incentive to not fuck up). This should lead to more efficient use of resources.
• existental fears are much less widespread
• Largely in control of our own well-being, we all lead a mostly happy and prosperous life.

Now maybe it's naive to believe things can evolve like that and actually lead to later points (I also omitted some important things, like who controls public opinion), but I'm willing to try to take the chance and continue spreading the use of crypto.

;tldr: the use of sound money is the single most effective measure we can take to improve (or prolong) our collective well-being (on a side-note: I also think the use of crypto (mainly Bitcoin) as a store of wealth is the single most effective measure one can take to improve and prolong his personal well-being)

An excellent thought provoking post. I myself see bitcoin as new sound money for the digital world. Youth will rediscover the principles of commodity money as previous generations understood implicitely.

I think history will judge the boomer generation very badly, that 1971 to 2009 will be seen as a terrible aberration of monetary policy.

I would add that in today's crony capitalist Orwellian nightmare the West is becoming , that private banks own the state and by extension the media. It seems incredulous to me that the most powerful entities in the world will not fight to retain power, so things could get very bumpy!

Hopefully democracy and true honest capitalism will drive out the bad money in place of the good (crypto).

[serje]

hmmm, interesting!
looking for (automation) industrial engineers?

Looking for people who can obey orders, smile, clean rooms, serve tables, cook, know wines, stand long hours in scorching sun, nitpick about petty amounts, do gardening, smile, drive cars, furnish rooms, clean toilets, empty trashbins, greet guests, empty ashtrays, water lawns, sell wines, do the laundry, smile, answer repetitious questions, clean floors, obey orders and smile.

Oh yes, and the starting pay is bad but the range goes up to 4000€/month.

As we are an equal opportunity employer, being an industrial engineer is not a disqualifier.

You ask for
people who can obey orders - 5/5
smile - 4/5
clean rooms   - 5/5
serve tables  - 4/5
cook  - 2/5 basic cooking ... mostly breakfast and some pastas
know wines  - I don't know wines
stand long hours in scorching sun - 5/5
nitpick about petty amounts - 4/5
do gardening - 4/5
smile - 4/5
drive cars - 5/5
furnish rooms - don't know exactly what you mean with this ... but if you want to let me decorate a room I can do that
clean toilets - 5/5
empty trash-bins - 5/5
greet guests - 5/5
empty ashtrays - 5/5
water lawns - 5/5
sell wines - I could sell them but I don't know all the details ... if the buyer knows what he wants i can sell him wine ... but I don't know what to recommend him
do the laundry - I'm not good at doing laundry ... one time I tried it and made my pants unwearable! But if someone can teach me I can learn!
smile - 4/5
answer repetitious questions - 5/5
clean floors - 5/5
obey orders and smile - 5/5

what I can offer extra ....
I'm a vodka passionate ... mostly for premium vodka
Organize parties for our guests
Offer VIP service to our guests (I've been in the best clubs in the world and I learned what VIP is about)
I can fix computers and stuff .... but I think everyone here knows that so I don't really consider this as a skill

Will come back with other skills if I remember them


P.S. I'm a morning person, I love to get up early!

[rpietila]

hmmm, interesting!
looking for (automation) industrial engineers?

Looking for people who can obey orders, smile, clean rooms, serve tables, cook, know wines, stand long hours in scorching sun, nitpick about petty amounts, do gardening, smile, drive cars, furnish rooms, clean toilets, empty trashbins, greet guests, empty ashtrays, water lawns, sell wines, do the laundry, smile, answer repetitious questions, clean floors, obey orders and smile.

Oh yes, and the starting pay is bad but the range goes up to 4000€/month.

As we are an equal opportunity employer, being an industrial engineer is not a disqualifier.

You ask for
people who can obey orders - 5/5
smile - 4/5
clean rooms   - 5/5
serve tables  - 4/5
cook  - 2/5 basic cooking ... mostly breakfast and some pastas
know wines  - I don't know wines
stand long hours in scorching sun - 5/5
nitpick about petty amounts - 4/5
do gardening - 4/5
smile - 4/5
drive cars - 5/5
furnish rooms - don't know exactly what you mean with this ... but if you want to let me decorate a room I can do that
clean toilets - 5/5
empty trash-bins - 5/5
greet guests - 5/5
empty ashtrays - 5/5
water lawns - 5/5
sell wines - I could sell them but I don't know all the details ... if the buyer knows what he wants i can sell him wine ... but I don't know what to recommend him
do the laundry - I'm not good at doing laundry ... one time I tried it and made my pants unwearable! But if someone can teach me I can learn!
smile - 4/5
answer repetitious questions - 5/5
clean floors - 5/5
obey orders and smile - 5/5

what I can offer extra ....
I'm a vodka passionate ... mostly for premium vodka
Organize parties for our guests
Offer VIP service to our guests (I've been in the best clubs in the world and I learned what VIP is about)
I can fix computers and stuff .... but I think everyone here knows that so I don't really consider this as a skill

Will come back with other skills if I remember them


P.S. I'm a morning person, I love to get up early!

Okay. Your work starts Thursday, next week. We can pay the taxi from Tallinn! If that is too early, any later day is also possible.

[madmat]

hmmm, interesting!
looking for (automation) industrial engineers?

Looking for people who can obey orders, smile, clean rooms, serve tables, cook, know wines, stand long hours in scorching sun, nitpick about petty amounts, do gardening, smile, drive cars, furnish rooms, clean toilets, empty trashbins, greet guests, empty ashtrays, water lawns, sell wines, do the laundry, smile, answer repetitious questions, clean floors, obey orders and smile.

Oh yes, and the starting pay is bad but the range goes up to 4000€/month.

As we are an equal opportunity employer, being an industrial engineer is not a disqualifier.

You ask for
people who can obey orders - 5/5
smile - 4/5
clean rooms   - 5/5
serve tables  - 4/5
cook  - 2/5 basic cooking ... mostly breakfast and some pastas
know wines  - I don't know wines
stand long hours in scorching sun - 5/5
nitpick about petty amounts - 4/5
do gardening - 4/5
smile - 4/5
drive cars - 5/5
furnish rooms - don't know exactly what you mean with this ... but if you want to let me decorate a room I can do that
clean toilets - 5/5
empty trash-bins - 5/5
greet guests - 5/5
empty ashtrays - 5/5
water lawns - 5/5
sell wines - I could sell them but I don't know all the details ... if the buyer knows what he wants i can sell him wine ... but I don't know what to recommend him
do the laundry - I'm not good at doing laundry ... one time I tried it and made my pants unwearable! But if someone can teach me I can learn!
smile - 4/5
answer repetitious questions - 5/5
clean floors - 5/5
obey orders and smile - 5/5

what I can offer extra ....
I'm a vodka passionate ... mostly for premium vodka
Organize parties for our guests
Offer VIP service to our guests (I've been in the best clubs in the world and I learned what VIP is about)
I can fix computers and stuff .... but I think everyone here knows that so I don't really consider this as a skill

Will come back with other skills if I remember them


P.S. I'm a morning person, I love to get up early!

Okay. Your work starts Thursday, next week. We can pay the taxi from Tallinn! If that is too early, any later day is also possible.

I really enjoyed these posts. Get your job on a forum !!! That is so untraditionnal, i like it.

[Ultros]

It saves my day that someone might get a job thought that thread. Congratulations to Serje and kudos to Risto.

[madmat]

It saves my day that someone might get a job thought that thread. Congratulations to Serje and kudos to Risto.

yes, that is really cool. It should work this way everywhere, get a job easily and keep it only if you do a good job.
If i didn't have a family, i would try to work for Risto.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

For the last 200 years it is a correct assessment, but if you are old enough, comparing 2014 with 1999 in almost every aspect (except, bitcoin  ): living conditions, income and work load in US for a majority of the population are much worse in 2014, no question about it. Creeping unrecognized inflation; long term unemployment; higher premium, but worse medical plans-we have it all. Because of high unemployment, people have difficulty changing jobs and/or moving, etc., etc.
I am trying the Piketty book-it seems that he got something right there regarding the cause of this situation, but I am not sure what solutions (if any) are possible.

That's certainly not the fault of technology. It's the Fed and other government bloat.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

You're right. Those jobs eventually won't exist, because they'll be automated. Instead, other - easier, higher paying - jobs will exist as people desire greater and greater comfort in their lives and hence start wanting tiny, really easy things done.

Proofreading my comments here for readability takes a few extra seconds/minutes. Shall I hire someone to do it? How about hiring someone to adjust the feng shui of my sentence arrangement? Perhaps, as mentioned above, I'll simply pay someone a satoshi to get out of my way since I'm in a hurry. Maybe someone to follow me around at a distance with binoculars to periodically make sure there's nothing embarrassing stuck in my hair or on my face/clothes.

The problem is that in my dystopia, you might be willing and able to pay for such services, but if so you'd be part of the new aristocracy, the lucky few.  The vast majority of people would not be able to spend money on such frivolous expenses, and therefore there would be few oppurtunities to earn money that way.

How does that sound when applied to things like working a cash register? There will always be plenty of work, though its content will change, until that extreme far future time when AIs do absolutely everything anyone could possibly want.

Lack of economic demand doesn't equate to lack of human need.  Demand is a function of price - in economic terms you can only contribute to demand for a good to the extent that you have the means to purchase it.

Yes and the greatest trend in the history of technology is that of more and more people gaining the means to purchase more and more amenities to satisfy their less and less urgent needs.

People had these worries going all the way back to the Industrial Revolution.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

^ Agreed that Bitcoin is the way out. But again, this is another in a long train of technologies that have made everyone's lives better. It's just that now we're getting into the really huge ones. Bitcoin, prediction markets, decentralized everything...then in a short while the pace of new tech becomes impossible to comprehend, let alone predict.

[Biodom]

^ Agreed that Bitcoin is the way out. But again, this is another in a long train of technologies that have made everyone's lives better. It's just that now we're getting into the really huge ones. Bitcoin, prediction markets, decentralized everything...then in a short while the pace of new tech becomes impossible to comprehend, let alone predict.

aka Technological Singularity?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[giveBTCpls]

So rpietila is starting a Bitcoin illuminati Rothchild Bildercoin group from hell. Meanwhile im unemployed and still don't have an entire BTC.  Financial freedoom

What's your age range and your skills?  Rpietilla is in his late 30s I think (even though some of his pictures look older.. he he he), so he has had some opportunities (and most likely should admit luck) to have achieved a form of financial freedom - nonetheless, NO one's financial freedom is completely ensured unless they are sure that their assets are sufficiently diversified and hedged.  Also, the person must be able to live within the means of the passive income from the assets.  Accordingly, there may be a need to continuously monitor the status of such "financial freedom" - unless the wealth buffer remains sufficiently great in order to make any threat to "FF" a non-issue.

Im in my mid 20's and my skills aren't anything that can be moniterised, or that can give you more than peanuts, I like music and as you can see I can type in english but I cant teach it because my acccent is shit as I dont have any english friends. My country has the most unemployment in europe. Even if I had skills I would be fucked anyway. Bitcoin doesnt solve this.

Bitcoin isn't a cure-all. It can solve some issues regarding economy and politics, but it won't solve unemployment. You can however use trading to make money - even if you start small. And I do live in Greece btw where unemployment is like 30% / young unemployment is over 60%.

The primary problem is not Bitcoin, the socioeconomic environment etc etc. These are excuses. 99% of the people don't have a vision of what they want to achieve. They live life as life comes to them instead of planning it. Once you have a proper vision, and reinforce it through your subconscious (subconscious programming, visualization etc), stuff will start falling into place. With no vision/purpose, you can't do much. Your body and mind are like a car that goes circles - with no destination.

Trading is too risky and not worth if you are playing with peanuts, whenever i've tried trading I fuck half it up of the times. Whatever happens happen, im not responsible for it and no one is. In a way we are just discovering our lifes which are already determined, this is a hard thing to grasp. This is also why objectively no one deserves to be poor or rich, or be be punished because they killed someone or what not. I mean of course we need to lock "the bad guys" for our own safety, but it's not their fault. Like a I said, it's a hard thing to grasp.

If you are interested in digital currency why not enrol in the MOOC Digital Currency course through Uni of Nicosia? The 3 month introduction is free and the rest of the Masters course is expensive but they are handing out grants to the underprivileged.

Otherwise, try experimenting with your attitude. A determined, positive outlook surely beats hopelessness, give it a try.

So what do you study here exactly and how would that help me getting a job anyway? Is it too technical? Im not a technical person, im not cut for that.

Technical persons weren't technical persons until the day they started to learn technical stuff.

And they are technical persons because of a success of events that lead them to start learning about technical stuff, and their succed then depends on their genetics. I have been put in a place where I should be learning technical stuff but im simply not good at it. It get desperate when trying to learn coding. It's unfortunate but it's the way I react to it. I didn't choose to be like this.

[giveBTCpls]

I try to have long term goals but it's very discouraging when you can't have any savings since it goes to pay basic needs, so you cannot start any sort of meaningful life proyect. I've already given up on owning my own place and bringing girls there and generally living like a normal healthy human being. Im stuck in my parents house for life until I inherit it or some shit.

When I was 12 I realized I need to get to Helsinki or I would be stuck in a village where the distance to the nearest elementary school is 25 km and employment was about 30%. (My brother currently runs the farm and both parents are working outside in addition, to make the ends meet.) So I needed to undergo the following, among others:

- Working on farms (several employers), potatoes, picking strawberries, manufacturing & selling products, general farmwork, to raise money
- Buying and playing every title of the Sid Meier's Civilization series to enhance strategic thinking
- Saving money whenever possible, especially never buying a drink (even at my own sophomore party), always drinking from the toilet tap, going a whole day without drinking if tap water wasn't available, walking up to 8 km habitually just to save money, never buying clothes or food until 18
- Investing in stocks in the age of 16, in Russian market when 18, it went down 75% in 2 weeks since I bought
- Biking 22 km/day instead of taking a subsidized bus, to save money; hopping off bus 1 km early because the fare was cheaper
- Delivering spam to ppl's mailbox, twice per week, up to 830 mailboxes at a time, while trying to study
- Scavenging the trashbins for food, living up to 6 weeks without even once buying groceries, during uni
- Falling victim to multiple scams and money-making schemes
- First company went bankrupt and due to good luck, I did not end up losing all
- Second company was still making loss after 5 years, so essentially I subsidized it with my time and lived off wife's salary
- An arm of the government of Finland confiscated all my assets once for 7 months, no charges, no compensation
- Only occasionally had a car or two (or up to 8 when we had a car rental agency)
- Never owned real estate before buying the castle
...
- Making my first million at the age of 29, a mere 17 years after making the commitment to do so.

=> Make a target and stick to it. The unalterable laws of statistics favor the determined, if you just roll the ball enough many times

17 years sounds like much, but really if you are now 23, you'll then be 40. Not everyone who is 40 has a million euros! Also you are older in the beginning, so it's possible you can do it ~4 years sooner just for that reason. Then the general speed of things has increased a lot, shave off an additional 2 years. So at 34, you'll be a millionaire!

What people need to see is that most millionaires make their money by NOT SPENDING.  Risto demonstrates this mentality throughout his post.  Saving all your money gives you money to invest when opportunities come around.

I have never wasted a penny on drugs or any kind, I barely waste any money because I have barely any money to waste to begin with, everything goes to fundamental stuff (read Maslow's pyramid).

[giveBTCpls]

Unemployment, insofar as it is involuntary, is mostly the result of minimum wage laws. With Bitcoin it becomes pretty hard to enforce those laws. If a high school student who is unable to find work wants to sell her anime drawings that take her four hours to make for only $10 ($2.50 per hour) and get paid in bitcoins via Tor, who can stop her?

That's baloney... Unemployment is much more complicated an issue than merely the level of minimum wage laws.

There are a variety of infrastructure issues and societal concerns about the distribution of wealth.  If companies and the rich decide how profits are distributed, then they are going to maintain high unemployment in order to exploit workers and there is NO incentive to invest in the infrastructure if there is NOT a decent system of government to protect various assets and making those kinds of infrastructure investments.  A very complex issue indeed, and bitcoin is NOT going to solve all of these kinds of political problems, even though bitcoin can contribute towards resolving some monetary corruption problems.. and to potentially provide a deflationary investment vehicle for the masses.

yeah, the issue is split almost 50/50 at research institutions/universities about whether raising minimum wage is good or bad. there is no consensus, so what you believe is just what you believe.

What does consensus have to do with anything? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

This is basic economic logic: you institute price caps you get lack of sellers (shortages), you institute price floors (in this case minimum wage) you get lack of buyers (in this case employers).

Note that welfare isn't relevant - there's a reason I said "insofar as it is involuntary"; welfare results in some people voluntarily going on the dole, remaining unemployed.

--

As to technological unemployment, it is indeed a good thing. Nay, a fantastic thing. A world without a demand for anyone to work except those who are highly technically skilled would clearly be a world of plenty. Just think about it: no one needs anything non-technical done; that means no non-technical need is going unfulfilled: no one is hungry, because if there were any shortage of food there would be demand for farmers. No one is unclothed, because if there were any shortage of clothes there would be demand for weavers, etc.

And if you'll say that any shortage of clothing will just be met by more machines, YES, that's the whole point and it's great! It means, again, there is no shortage of clothing. Clothing is not in demand. But still more miraculously, no people (or very few people) are required to devote their labor to achieve this state of affairs. It's the whole reason you buy a dishwasher, for example, freeing you up to do something you think is more fun or valuable than washing dishes by hand. You're not working anymore because you don't need to do the work. You're either doing some other work that needed doing, or - if there is no other work at all that needs doing - you're living in a paradise, since all your needs that could be met by any kind of human labor are already met. You don't even need a shoulder massage, because if you did you could hire someone to do that and that would be a non-technical job created, contradicting the initial assumption.

This would be paradise, a situation where you don't need to work at all and you can still experience a higher standard of living than you do now. On the way there, we'll have intermediate situations where you can work only part time with no reduction in life quality, then only 5 hours a week, then a few minutes a week will do it. Finally most people won't work at all unless they want to enjoy an even higher standard of living or if they just want to occupy themselves with something for the fun or psychic reward of it. There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of about this scenario. And keep in mind at no time is the unemployment involuntary in such a future. It's people working less because they care little to better their already quite nice situation by toiling for hours a day; instead they will work only a few hours a week, or eventually not at all - all the while enjoying an increasing standard of living.

Legit. The problem is, people's brains aren't advanced enough for such an scenareo. Also, for such an scenareo to happen, private property as we knowing must basically dissapear. Things will be lended. Say you need whatever device to do whatever task, like record a movie or whatever, you ask for any free cameras and you get one sent, when you are done you send it back and some other person uses it. Think about it: How much shit do you have at home sitting that never get's used, that other people could be using?
For this scenareo to happen, any monetary exchange must also be gone. Since there isn't any kind of money, there aren't fears of people storing shit because it has no value, as people lend shit instead of buying it, using it 30 minutes then forgetting about it.
But like I said before, while we have people that literally enjoy other people's bad luck and enjoy their good luck position, things will not change.

[giveBTCpls]

As to technological unemployment, it is indeed a good thing. Nay, a fantastic thing. A world without a demand for anyone to work except those who are highly technically skilled would clearly be a world of plenty.

With our market economy as it stands, the world you describe would be a world of plenty for the technologists only.  The masses, whose labour would no longer be needed, would have no money with which to buy these plentiful goods.

Just think about it: no one needs anything non-technical done; that means no non-technical need is going unfulfilled: no one is hungry, because if there were any shortage of food there would be demand for farmers.

Needs would still go unfilled, because people without jobs would not have the money to pay for them.

That would be paradise, a situation where you don't need to work at all and you can still experience a higher standard of living than you do now.

The question that has intriqued me for some time is how we transition from a market economy to the paradise you describe.  Because although the paradise you describe is one possible future, another is that only the 0.01% who are needed to maintain the machines live in a paradise, and the remaining 99.99% are destitute.

roy

All of this is answered in the upper post I made. Any kind of monetary-ism needs to go, it's part of evolution. This step is key. Whatever needs human labour will be done out of voluntarism. Think about it, if there is tons of voluntarism in the current system, a system that doesn't give a fuck about people and it's basically a scam, imagine if the system was a true economy designed for the well being of everyone. It would feel like you are actually contributing to something meaningful, instead of wasting your time being a wage-slave for a luck-privileged guy.

[giveBTCpls]

For the last 200 years it is a correct assessment, but if you are old enough, comparing 2014 with 1999 in almost every aspect (except, bitcoin  ): living conditions, income and work load in US for a majority of the population are much worse in 2014, no question about it. Creeping unrecognized inflation; long term unemployment; higher premium, but worse medical plans-we have it all. Because of high unemployment, people have difficulty changing jobs and/or moving, etc., etc.
I am trying the Piketty book-it seems that he got something right there regarding the cause of this situation, but I am not sure what solutions (if any) are possible.

Maybe if people stopped consuming 105% of their salaries "because I deserve this treat". Their deficit is the businesses' earnings, which goes to stockholders, people who saved so they could invest.

I have heard of many bad things the government does, but never found an explanation for people digging themselves into debt and acccelerating the treadmill of hedonic adaptation on which they are barely keeping up. I have to think that's their own doing.

What about people like me that don't waste any time because they don't have any money to waste to begin with? nice bullshit there to think as if everything fits in (ohh, people in missfortuned economical positions deserve it). Guess what: Nope.
Also, even these poor working class people that thought oh fuck, I deserve something nice for once, and bought a nice car or went to Hawaii for a vacation or god knows what, they aren't also responsible for such an action because a series of hormonal, neuronal, enviornmental phenomena (which at the same time interacts with their minds and bodies) made them choose whatever they choosed to do. Do they deserve living a shitty life being the slave of a bank for life because of that? objectively they dont.

[Wexlike]

wow, a few member really try hard to increase their post counter...