[Sci-fy topic] Searching bitcoin's intrinsic value...

[paraipan]

If someday we manage to create matter from energy with methods within reach for everyone, could it be a problem ?
Maybe critics will find intrinsic value of bitcoin at last. I don't want to go too sci-fy here but recent discoveries made me believe we may have star-trek "replicators" more close than we thought... link

Imagine a world, 50 years from now, in which everyone has it's personal "replicator" just the size of a microwave oven where he can push some buttons and replicate any material thing you can think of like food, raw metals, tools, you name it [edit->] with pure energy gathered from the surrounding vacuum.

In that case what would you use as store of value ?  Could bitcoin be our latinum ?

(Best documented post, and on topic, gets 1 bitcoin from me. All members take part at voting the best one by quoting it.)

edit: bitcoin won by "sadpandatech"

[bulanula]

First. Do I get the 1 BTC ?

[paraipan]

First. Do I get the 1 BTC ?

you wish , add some value to your post...

[finway]

Less chance than breaking SHA256 or ECDSA.

[paraipan]

Less chance than breaking SHA256 or ECDSA.

hope so...

[the founder]

Honest answer?

Something that can be replicated with the push of a button won't be a store of value... because everyone can replicate it.  The store of value in the case described above would be the replicator machine itself or better said the inputs that it creates the objects from.

Let's say that a replicator machine can make anything out of  silver, uranium and water.

The store of value in that case would be silver, uranium and water... because those materials would be in demand to feed all the replicator machines.

I hope I got my BTC


send bitcoin to : 17KxFiNCwDXdxDxUMhWb7RLj7REnSJ1M8P
e-mail bitcoin to : president@yooter.com  
send bitcoin to ID : president

any method works


To answer your question if the Bitcoin can be our latinum ..  technically yes... if it was appended to an input.   You could theoretically ping a btc (or fraction of bitcoin, or in 100 BTC to one unit of input) and people could trade it that way on an exchange or person to person.

Make it so number 1...4th star to the left.

[paraipan]

Honest answer?

Something that can be replicated with the push of a button won't be a store of value... because everyone can replicate it.  The store of value in the case described above would be the replicator machine itself or better said the inputs that it creates the objects from.

Let's say that a replicator machine can make anything out of  silver, uranium and water.

The store of value in that case would be silver, uranium and water... because those materials would be in demand to feed all the replicator machines.

I hope I got my BTC


send bitcoin to : 17KxFiNCwDXdxDxUMhWb7RLj7REnSJ1M8P
e-mail bitcoin to : president@yooter.com  
send bitcoin to ID : president

any method works


To answer your question if the Bitcoin can be our latinum ..  technically yes... if it was appended to an input.   You could theoretically ping a btc (or fraction of bitcoin, or in 100 BTC to one unit of input) and people could trade it that way on an exchange or person to person.

Make it so number 1...4th star to the left.

indeed, most extensive answer till now but you forgot one detail though... it would create matter, silver, uranium or water from pure energy gathered from the vacuum around it. The analogy with the "replicator" is just an example, the real technology enabling us do all of that would not have to "dematerialize" any material thing we know. My post has...

Code:

...matter from energy...

in there for a reason

i will wait for a few more theories, if any is posted, before paying you... if you don't mind

[Explodicle]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society. In such a place, the main source of value would be goods with artificial scarcity, like Second Life items and Bitcoin. If the cost of energy is significant, then it would be a good source of value too, so people would trade in joules stored somehow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity

Land would also retain its value, since the total mass of the Earth (and hopefully density!) would remain unchanged. Land owners could rent the area as smart property to facilitate rapid land-backed transactions. You can just break an improvement down into energy to move easily, so switching costs would be close to nil.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property

My guess is that by the time this happens, people might become "uploads", having scanned their brains and emulated them on computers. In this case, computing power would be the greatest asset.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

If this is sci-fi enough, I'm 13K6ukroqbAcajtNezR4G8w94DyX96kVMK

[sadpandatech]

Please forgive me if my presentation is lacking in proper grammatical form.

  A traditional search for intrinsic value of anything that is not a tangible object may prove quite difficult. Not so much in the inability of a digital value to be of worth but in the constraints of the human species inability to rationalize such value in a broadly acceptable way. As humans it is engrained in our psyches to only value what is ‘real’ and verifiable by our senses. We want to be able to grasp something physical, compare it, assess it and weigh it against other things that we can compare its intrinsic nature to.

  Though such a concept is not hard to philosophize and is possible to accept, in at least some form. One fine example would be our current money. Even though the medium itself is near worthless, we are able to accept its value based on the ‘backing’ of a ‘trusted’ source.  I believe the biggest hurdle in moving from something that is tangible to one that is completely digital will require a small revolution of conscience to enable us to loosen our mental grasp on only holding value in things of a physical nature.

  To more directly answer the questions you posed. I would suspect stores of value, as were pointed out previously, would still be in the materials used to create such a world but would be measured more finitely. Without knowing much about how replication from energy would work exactly, I would assume that different materials would require vastly different amounts of energy. Hence, could we not measure value in the effort used to acquire said energy?

  Certainly Bitcoin could be used in the case of replication, assuming that one could not simply replicate the atoms necessary with a bit combination that could mimic value that was already existent in the system.

  In any case, the second biggest hurdle will be finding a way to Globally back the ‘value’ of a non-tangible that could be agreed upon by the people.

  Well, hope any of that rambling made sense and thanks for reading it. =)

  Cheers,
     Derek

[sadpandatech]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society. In such a place, the main source of value would be goods with artificial scarcity, like Second Life items and Bitcoin. If the cost of energy is significant, then it would be a good source of value too, so people would trade in joules stored somehow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity

Land would also retain its value, since the total mass of the Earth (and hopefully density!) would remain unchanged. Land owners could rent the area as smart property to facilitate rapid land-backed transactions. You can just break an improvement down into energy to move easily, so switching costs would be close to nil.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property

My guess is that by the time this happens, people might become "uploads", having scanned their brains and emulated them on computers. In this case, computing power would be the greatest asset.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

If this is sci-fi enough, I'm 13K6ukroqbAcajtNezR4G8w94DyX96kVMK

  Ahh yes, land. How could I have forgotten about that? I was just telling my wife when we last payed the property taxes on a piece of land, "It's the one thing they don't make more of..."  I'd buy every bit of it I could afford to get my hands on if it were more 'fluid' in its value and I lived longer. ;p Good catch.

[the founder]

Code:

...matter from energy...

in there for a reason

My friend,  then Energy would be the store of wealth.    The input would be the store of wealth if it's energy, uranium, water or coffee grounds..

In this case without energy the replicator won't work...  So the guy that has control of the energy needed is the guy that can charge for it...  in bitcoins

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Please forgive me if my presentation is lacking in proper grammatical form.

  A traditional search for intrinsic value of anything that is not a tangible object may prove quite difficult. Not so much in the inability of a digital value to be of worth but in the constraints of the human species inability to rationalize such value in a broadly acceptable way. As humans it is engrained in our psyches to only value what is ‘real’ and verifiable by our senses. We want to be able to grasp something physical, compare it, assess it and weigh it against other things that we can compare its intrinsic nature to.

  Though such a concept is not hard to philosophize and is possible to accept, in at least some form. One fine example would be our current money. Even though the medium itself is near worthless, we are able to accept its value based on the ‘backing’ of a ‘trusted’ source.  I believe the biggest hurdle in moving from something that is tangible to one that is completely digital will require a small revolution of conscience to enable us to loosen our mental grasp on only holding value in things of a physical nature.

  To more directly answer the questions you posed. I would suspect stores of value, as were pointed out previously, would still be in the materials used to create such a world but would be measured more finitely. Without knowing much about how replication from energy would work exactly, I would assume that different materials would require vastly different amounts of energy. Hence, could we not measure value in the effort used to acquire said energy?

  Certainly Bitcoin could be used in the case of replication, assuming that one could not simply replicate the atoms necessary with a bit combination that could mimic value that was already existent in the system.

  In any case, the second biggest hurdle will be finding a way to Globally back the ‘value’ of a non-tangible that could be agreed upon by the people.

  Well, hope any of that rambling made sense and thanks for reading it. =)

  Cheers,
     Derek

Fixed! One period and two commas inserted. Forgiven!

The quoted post was replicated but needed modifications.

[deepceleron]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society.

I have a feeling such technology would lead to nation-state warfare over control of the weapons of mass reproduction, IP lawsuits and corporate dominance, and 6.99 billion people without the means to produce the massive energy even one kilogram of matter contains still fighting over our planet's one-time gift of natural resources and dwindling remainders of land that aren't flooded or consumed by desertification. Mankind is what we is, but even less so.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society.

I have a feeling such technology would lead to nation-state warfare over control of the weapons of mass reproduction, IP lawsuits and corporate dominance, and 6.99 billion people without the means to produce the massive energy even one kilogram of matter contains still fighting over our planet's one-time gift of natural resources and dwindling remainders of land that aren't flooded or consumed by desertification. Mankind is what we is, but even less so.

Looks like we have a 7 Billion People denier. Well, guess what?:



And that, my friend, can't be replicated.

[paraipan]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society. In such a place, the main source of value would be goods with artificial scarcity, like Second Life items and Bitcoin. If the cost of energy is significant, then it would be a good source of value too, so people would trade in joules stored somehow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity

Land would also retain its value, since the total mass of the Earth (and hopefully density!) would remain unchanged. Land owners could rent the area as smart property to facilitate rapid land-backed transactions. You can just break an improvement down into energy to move easily, so switching costs would be close to nil.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property

My guess is that by the time this happens, people might become "uploads", having scanned their brains and emulated them on computers. In this case, computing power would be the greatest asset.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading

If this is sci-fi enough, I'm 13K6ukroqbAcajtNezR4G8w94DyX96kVMK

yeah haha, you took it to the next level, good imagination, but didn't actually respond to one or two questions in the first post 

[Mageant]

I think that in a distant future like the one you are describing money will simply not be necessary.

The only reason to store value is so that you can obtain goods at some point in the future when you think you might have some scarcity.

With that kind of technology there is no scarcity to be expected ever so there is no personal reason to store value (for large groups or society as a whole that may be different matter).

I consider Bitcoin a transitory technology which will bring us from the current fiat money system to a world without money, a gift economy.

[paraipan]

Code:

...matter from energy...

in there for a reason

My friend,  then Energy would be the store of wealth.    The input would be the store of wealth if it's energy, uranium, water or coffee grounds..

In this case without energy the replicator won't work...  So the guy that has control of the energy needed is the guy that can charge for it...  in bitcoins

Amigo, the energy cannot ever be a store of value if it's infinite. I really don't want to get into details about "free energy" devices but they are actually able to work in a feedback loop so you will only have to put a small amount of energy to start them up. The human mind cannot cope with infinite amounts, look at what is happening with the paper money issued by the Fed or ECB.

[deepceleron]

I think what you describe would be a practically post-scarcity society.

I have a feeling such technology would lead to nation-state warfare over control of the weapons of mass reproduction, IP lawsuits and corporate dominance, and 6.99 billion people without the means to produce the massive energy even one kilogram of matter contains still fighting over our planet's one-time gift of natural resources and dwindling remainders of land that aren't flooded or consumed by desertification. Mankind is what we is, but even less so.

Looks like we have a 7 Billion People denier. Well, guess what?:

And that, my friend, can't be replicated.

Perhaps my sentence, with a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 20.5, eluded your understanding. With the premise that the reader is also well informed (instead of talking down to them like they don't read news), and using this assumption of a shared cultural intelligence about the recent 7 billion population milestone declaration by United Nations demographers, my post above expects the audience know and recognize the recent news reference and to be able to extrapolate that I am asserting an expectation that only a small percentage of the population would actually have access to such a technology, were it created.

[paraipan]

I think that in a distant future like the one you are describing money will simply not be necessary.

The only reason to store value is so that you can obtain goods at some point in the future when you think you might have some scarcity.

With that kind of technology there is no scarcity to be expected ever so there is no personal reason to store value (for large groups or society as a whole that may be different matter).

I consider Bitcoin a transitory technology which will bring us from the current fiat money system to a world without money, a gift economy.

Agree, you actually half true, we will continue needing a store of value, monetary system, like today only not for buying gas, food, raw materials or tools, instead buy paintings, songs, movies, anything another fellow human created or give coins in exchange for services they do for you. You need it to be artificially scarce enabling all humans measure their wealth easily... Right now i'm paying a bitcoin for the time a person spent writing a good post, do you think anyone would do that if they don't get something of value in return ?

[sadpandatech]

Rabble, grammar, rabble.

Fixed! One period and two commas inserted. Forgiven!

The quoted post was replicated but needed modifications.

  Spanx ya, Bruno!