Bitcoin adoption slowing; Coinbase + Bitpay is enough to make Bitcoin a fiat

[AnonyMint]

If we can change the way websites work so they sit behind an obfuscating P2P layer, then we can also hide all the mining traffic in website traffic. And no more certificate authorities for HTTPS which are probably all backdoored.

What if the website is included in the blockchain, like data in datacoin?

Essentially yes, but there are scaling, redundancy, and minimum path (max bandwidth) issues, so need to use a DHT at least. I posted about this a bit in another thread I started. And also in this thread.

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[AnonyMint]

Sen. Reid on Cattle Battle: "It's not over"

Powerless clowns with their weapon of choice: death by a 1000 paper cuts

[snip]

The TSA at the airport, that is death by a 1000 paper cuts. You are not stopped. Things just suck more and more.

The power vacuum of democracy never gives up until you defund it by making taxation technically impossible.

It is a paradigmatic cancer. It is not the fault of anyone. Even beheading the megalomaniacs won't make the problem go away, the paradigm will sprout new heads spontaneously.

The only solution is to defund the paradigm technologically. In the past this was done by people hiding in the black market, but now due to the internet, that means stepping back into the stone age and the velocity of money and productivity would plummet.

That is why the only solution is anonymous crypto-currency.

[counter]

I agree with alot of your overall assessment but I'm thinking there is more then what meets the eye to your analysis.  As you suggest there is much need for anonymity in the future.

 I think it's a better option to reaveal the things you know but don't want to share but that is your decision.I do appreciate the thought and effort you put into explaining your views.

[AnonyMint]

Won't be anywhere near mad max levels and that is if people don't don't wake up before stuff hits the fan, not that it already hasn't.  That was just an example of what could happen IMO.  I have a feeling some places will get bad but not the all over degeneration people think will take place.

You are dreaming. Here is reality:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=564097.msg6242181#msg6242181

Keep your hand on your wallet (and it better all be anonymous):

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/15/desperate-governments-why-you-have-no-rights-when-it-is-negative-rather-than-positive/

[counter]

I wouldn't say I'm dreaming just holing up hope that the masses will wake up.  I look at the Bundy case as a good thing to wake people up.  I do see the threats and trust me I'm saying things are gonna work out great.  Just holding out hope that people will fight for their rights.  I guess you call it dreaming I just call it keeping hope alive I guess.

[goin2mars]

I wouldn't say I'm dreaming just holing up hope that the masses will wake up.  I look at the Bundy case as a good thing to wake people up.  I do see the threats and trust me I'm saying things are gonna work out great.  Just holding out hope that people will fight for their rights.  I guess you call it dreaming I just call it keeping hope alive I guess.

AnonyMint has laid out a logical set of plans that would seem to unfold in a series of events, leading to a particular outcome. You both seem to  be in agreement that there will be an end in which everything will work out (after a series of events occur) . . which would be the logical end to any scenario in particular not just this one.

Your presented flow of events is, "people will wake up and we'll all be better off" . . which seems quite non-descriptive. Could you provide a basis for your argument? Perhaps one rooted in facts in the past, rather than one rooted in your own personal faith in humanity? I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, or that you have a baseless argument . . as faith itself is something fundamental that I can't really argue against or for . .

It's more that you haven't given much of a foundation for anyone to build off of. I'm just looking to you to provide an example(s), similar to perhaps the Bundy case, in which I can logically conclude that this wouldn't escalate toward MAD.

[AnonyMint]

I just put ... and Martin Armstrong into SCIgen and it produced for me a verbatim transcript of Anonymints posts as presented on Bitcointalk, postulating his Theory of Everything  .

Hey fool, Martin Armstrong is always correct.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/03/02/the-cycles-of-war-model-why/

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I have followed you since your 1985 conference in Princeton. It was your advertisement in the Economist that caught my eye when you bluntly stated that the deflation was over and a major change in trend was at hand. I watched you forecast the takeover boom and I was shocked by your forecast that the Dow Jones would rally from 1000 to 6000 back then. The 1987 Crash was a real eye opener for the very day you pronounced the low was in place and new highs would be seen, the Elliot Wave people said a crash like 1929 was beginning. I watched in amazement your call on Japan, then the currency crisis of South East Asia. Your forecast for the fall of communism and then Russia in 1998 was shocking, however, I must confess, I was not entirely certain how you could do politics and markets. Then the rumors were Goldman Sachs and Buffet wanted you silenced. When it came to markets, I do not think there is anyone who can even come close to your track record. Now I have watched your Cycle of War and after all of these years I think the light has finally gone on. This is what you mean when you say it is all connected. You cannot be right on so many trends for so long unless you were correct about the structure. So do I now get a gold star?

Thanks for everything;

JCH

Include his recent prediction that Gold & silver would top in 2011 and then decline to below $1200 into 2014 at least. Goldbugs were resisting all the way down, until they finally capitulated to $1150 recently.

Edit: here is another list of amazing predictions he did correctly:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160612.msg2864869#msg2864869

Add: here is yet another list I compiled years ago and had forgotten about:

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/t11p30-stocks-vs-precious-metals-vs-bonds-vs-real-estate#4728

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/16/20305/

A client has tweeted a picture of a slide from our 1998 World Economic Conference tour we did around the globe. In retrospect those forecasts were simply astonishing all based upon alignments with the ECM. I think if I had another whole lifetime, this whole thing would keep me occupied trying to figure out this amazing order masked by what people think is random chaos. The ECM is simply the frequency of life for everything seems to align with it no matter what the field. The mere fact there are the Four Blood Moons that line up to 2 days before the turning point 2015.75 when there was no input regarding planetary movement is just mind-bending.

This is not my theory – it was my discovery.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/04/16/is-anything-really-random/

ANSWER: It is impossible to create any system that is random. No matter what, in computing, a pattern will always emerge precisely as this pretend random image that quickly falls into a pattern. It is simply impossible to create a truly random number generator. In gambling, there are card counters that they make illegal. Look at a casino and you will notice that they rotate the dealers regularly moving them from table to table. WHY? Because they will end up in a pattern.

Armstrong is correct. The more scientific way of stating is that the entropy of the universe is not infinite, rather it trends to maximum. Thus Bitcoin's proof-of-work is more randomized than proof-of-stake, because the entropy of spontaneous outcomes includes every computer in the network trying to guess the mathematical solution (for the nonce of the hash) to the next block in the block chain.

How can you all continue to deny that NOTHING in the universe is random?

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (which even Einstein said was more fundamental than his relativity) says entropy trends to maximum, not is infinite. Infinite entropy would be required for a truly random universe.

If you want to explore more the meaning of infinity w.r.t. to our universe and the properties of our minds, see my two blog essays:

http://unheresy.com/The%20Universe.html#Matter_as_a_continuum
http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#Algorithm_!=_Entropy

Rather the appearance of disorder (a.k.a. randomness) is an illusion of complexity of high entropy.

Maximum entropy is obtained with the maximum number of potential equiprobable outcomes, i.e. maximum degrees-of-freedom which is same as saying maximum potential energy. I explain that and give citations at following posts:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg3804256#msg3804256
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg4576810#msg4576810
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg3852724#msg3852724

[aminorex]

I don't even take it seriously because it can't address mining (because all side coins are merge-mined with Bitcoin's existing mining) where the crux of the problems are.

The issuance could be moved to a side-chain.  The attraction is that block rewards could then be issued more frequently, in smaller size.  This would reduce the pressure for pool consolidation, and reduce that vulnerability proportionately.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, perhaps.  Bitcoin may or may not be incrementally perfectible -- it is difficult to see a lilypad path of local pareto optima which takes us all the way from here to there -- but bitcoin could be improved and made more robust against these threats.  Re-decentralizing mining would be a very constructive step, and seems like an achievable one.

The very desirable step which does not seem achievable yet is changing the hashing algorithm.  Miners obviously would not co-operate.  But that may not be strictly necessary in order to prevent bitcoin from being seized through control of mining:  If the granularity of block rewards is small enough, pools will be obsoleted.  It is increasingly difficult to mine profitably.  Large pools may collapse in bankruptcy, leaving only fully distributed amateur nodes minting blocks, operating at a nominal loss, in order to keep the network strong.  After that occurs, a consensus among miners might be achievable, allowing a change of the hash function.

[aminorex]

http://twister.net.co/ Twister p2p microblog system.
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page  bitmessage p2p messaging system

[AnonyMint]

I don't even take it seriously because it can't address mining (because all side coins are merge-mined with Bitcoin's existing mining) where the crux of the problems are.

The issuance could be moved to a side-chain...

Are you sure? How would they insure the 21 million total supply isn't increased? That was the entire point of Adam's proposal and why it must be merged-mined.

[aminorex]

I don't even take it seriously because it can't address mining (because all side coins are merge-mined with Bitcoin's existing mining) where the crux of the problems are.

The issuance could be moved to a side-chain...

Are you sure? How would they insure the 21 million total supply isn't increased? That was the entire point of Adam's proposal and why it must be merged-mined.

Yes.  Naively, the side-chain proposal doesn't affect mining.  Transactions get processed on side chains despite a lack of coin issuance, because they are merge-mined, so the transaction fees are an approximately cost-less gain for the miners.  Fine.  But it doesn't matter which chain the mining occurs on because the same hashing gets done either way.  If a special chain does all the issuance, it can run at a different block reward rate.  If the block award rate is higher  (and the reward reduced proportionately) then the variance problem for miners is diminished by that factor.  Thus miners have much less incentive to pool.  The coin issuance rate is unchanged overall, so the 21 million limit is unaffected.  The only reason anyone could object to this is because they want to attack bitcoin, and it makes it harder for them to do so.

[AnonyMint]

I don't even take it seriously because it can't address mining (because all side coins are merge-mined with Bitcoin's existing mining) where the crux of the problems are.

The issuance could be moved to a side-chain...

Are you sure? How would they insure the 21 million total supply isn't increased? That was the entire point of Adam's proposal and why it must be merged-mined.

Yes.  Naively, the side-chain proposal doesn't affect mining.  Transactions get processed on side chains despite a lack of coin issuance, because they are merge-mined, so the transaction fees are an approximately cost-less gain for the miners.  Fine.  But it doesn't matter which chain the mining occurs on because the same hashing gets done either way.  If a special chain does all the issuance, it can run at a different block reward rate.  If the block award rate is higher  (and the reward reduced proportionately) then the variance problem for miners is diminished by that factor.  Thus miners have much less incentive to pool.  The coin issuance rate is unchanged overall, so the 21 million limit is unaffected.  The only reason anyone could object to this is because they want to attack bitcoin, and it makes it harder for them to do so.

I had no idea what this gibberish is supposed to mean, but if a side-chain is awarding new coins, then 21 million will increased. Merged-mining means the side-chain does not issue its own new coins.

Please study your Bitcoin 101.

[AnonyMint]

I appreciated very much your views on Europe and especially Germany.  Most of what I read says that Germany is really rockin' even while not mentioning the strong ties that Germany has with the rest of (faltering) Europe.  Your comments balance that noise...  

Don't get me wrong, Germany is still kind of rocking, at least compared to much of the rest of the EU...

You are uninformed as 0.7% growth (and on a consistent decline after peaking at 4.2% in 2010) is not rocking:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg6167555#msg6167555

All of Europe will sink into negative growth later this year or next.

Global sovereign debt BIG BANG starts 2015.75.

And it will be worse than horrific.

WTF is wrong with you people? This is a 200 - 300 year high in global debt (even the IMF said that).

This is a 200 year event.

This ain't gonna' be no Great Depression 2.0. It is going to be like the collapse of Rome from 1.4 million to 30,000 population and stayed that way for 600+ DARK years.

Do you boiling frogs have any freakin' clue why? Look at what the bastards are doing:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=564097.msg6278398#msg6278398

[JorgeStolfi]

Dear @AnonyMint, we could hardly be further apart in our political views, especially the value and role of government.  Therefore I would rather not discuss that topic, but would like to comment on a few peripheral points:

* It is debatable whether Europe went into 600 years of darkness after the fall of Rome.  Our view of History is biased towards recorded History, and the end of the Empire meant the end of the largest and most punctillious record keeping organization of that Millenium.  The centralized administration collapsed, and with it the supply network that sustained the large population in Rome; but it seems hard to evaluate whether the life of the Europeans as a whole regressed in the following centuries, or continued to improve.  Many cities throughout Europe surely kept growing and became more "civilized".   Perhaps the "total degree of civilization" kept increasing, but in a quantitative rather than qualitative sense --- that is, a lot of people improved, while a few regressed.   To tell whether this happened or not, one would need statistics that seem largely unavailable.

Moreover, if one looks a bit beyond Europe, one can say that the center of civilization simply moved elsewhere, to the Caliphate -- that built an Empire about as large as the Roman one, and was just as civilized and progressive as the Romans had been. 

* You are right that knowledge may be 1000x more valuable than matter, in terms of the results it may produce; but value does not equate to price (that is, how much one can obtain in exchange for it).  Just consider that air is infinitely more valuable than caviar, for example.

In a free market, the price of a product eventually settles to the cost of production plus a few percent.  But the cost of duplicating knowledge is almost nil now.  Threfore, if/when knowledge will be traded in a few market, it will cost almost nil.  We are seeing it happen now: newspaper paywalls, copyright, and DRM are only a nuisance, since people can get most of the news and entertainment they want from free sources.   

Copyright and patent royalties can be collected only when and where the government is corrupted by the "intellectual property owners" to forcefully prevent the development of a free market of information.   If that free market existed, "knowledge makers" would be paid only for producing new knowledge, and only while they are producing it; not for selling or renting knowledge that they "own" -- just as a mason only gets paid while he works, not for rent in perpetuity of the houses that he built.

* I am very skeptical of anonimity as a "weapon of freedom".  On one hand, one cannot build a functional society only with anonymous interactions.  What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other.  In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

Bitcoiners claim that their contraption removes the need for mutual trust or a trusted intermediary in commercial transactions, but that is not true.  A commercial transaction involves two transfers, money in one direction and goods or services in the other direction.  Bitcoin only handles the former; but one still needs trust (or a trusted intermediary with teeth), in order to ensure that the customer will pay for the goods that have been sent, or that the merchan will ship the goods that have been paid.  I don't see how to get that with anonymous transactions and without a government to enforce honest dealing.

Anonimity would be important in times when democracy has failed and citizens need to conspire underground in order to remove an illegitimate, undemocratic  government.  Unfortunately, such governments can and will easily prevent anonimity.  Even technically sophisticated citizens will have little chance against a determined ditactorial government. 

[AnonyMint]

* It is debatable whether Europe went into 600 years of darkness after the fall of Rome.  Our view of History is biased towards recorded History, and the end of the Empire meant the end of the largest and most punctillious record keeping organization of that Millenium.  The centralized administration collapsed, and with it the supply network that sustained the large population in Rome; but it seems hard to evaluate whether the life of the Europeans as a whole regressed in the following centuries, or continued to improve.  Many cities throughout Europe surely kept growing and became more "civilized".   Perhaps the "total degree of civilization" kept increasing, but in a quantitative rather than qualitative sense --- that is, a lot of people improved, while a few regressed.   To tell whether this happened or not, one would need statistics that seem largely unavailable.

Moreover, if one looks a bit beyond Europe, one can say that the center of civilization simply moved elsewhere, to the Caliphate -- that built an Empire about as large as the Roman one, and was just as civilized and progressive as the Romans had been.

Pottery records show activity collapsed after the 5th century.

That activity continued or increased elsewhere is of no consolation to those who had to abandon all their real estate as Rome collapsed from 1.3 million to 30,000 population. No mention those who lost their lives.

* You are right that knowledge may be 1000x more valuable than matter, in terms of the results it may produce; but value does not equate to price (that is, how much one can obtain in exchange for it).  Just consider that air is infinitely more valuable than caviar, for example.

That shows how utterly stupid you are, to compare an abundant fungible resource to knowledge production that is not fungible.

[snip]

* I am very skeptical of anonimity as a "weapon of freedom".  On one hand, one cannot build a functional society only with anonymous interactions.  What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other.  In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

You entirely missed the upthread point made that reputation does not require personal identity.

Btw, we always had anonymity with cash, now we are losing it. And so now we move to the slavery State if we don't have anonymity.

The Truth About the BLM - Bundy Ranch Dispute Explained

http://youtu.be/tAwALTdrMZ8

The real goal (and Agenda 21 fits in) is Smart Growth which is moving people into cities to be slaves:

http://youtu.be/hfbpNpq0YBI

The man-made global warming hoax, environmentalism, carbon taxes, Smart Electric Meters, and Technocracy is all tied in.

Make sure you see my Agenda 21 and Georgia Guidestones posts upthread.

Dumb-ass masses have been manipulated by fear, and their pre-frontal cortex shut down and converted into Malthusians. Malthusians have never been correct ever in the history of mankind since Mesopotamia.

This is a global plan and you can see most of the dumb-ass masses all over the world have fallen into this "Save the Earth" mass delusion.

[Dr.Zaius]

If you want anonymity use paper cash, gold etc, and stay off the internet.

The NSA revelations have merely proven what many have warned for ages. The internet is far from anonymous nor private.

Anonymint, I don't get what you are trying to convey here. You want a 100% anonymous internet based crypto coin that is fundamentally based on government approved and pioneered cryptography? And you want the world using it before your projected 2015-2016 debt apocalypse. Sorry to tell you, but that scenario involves rolling power blackouts(see Greece), kind of nips your idea in the bud. Crypto currencies require sophisticated infrastructure RUNNING in order to work.

[Dr.Zaius]

Dear @AnonyMint, we could hardly be further apart in our political views, especially the value and role of government.  Therefore I would rather not discuss that topic, but would like to comment on a few peripheral points:

* It is debatable whether Europe went into 600 years of darkness after the fall of Rome.  Our view of History is biased towards recorded History, and the end of the Empire meant the end of the largest and most punctillious record keeping organization of that Millenium.  The centralized administration collapsed, and with it the supply network that sustained the large population in Rome; but it seems hard to evaluate whether the life of the Europeans as a whole regressed in the following centuries, or continued to improve.  Many cities throughout Europe surely kept growing and became more "civilized".   Perhaps the "total degree of civilization" kept increasing, but in a quantitative rather than qualitative sense --- that is, a lot of people improved, while a few regressed.   To tell whether this happened or not, one would need statistics that seem largely unavailable.

Moreover, if one looks a bit beyond Europe, one can say that the center of civilization simply moved elsewhere, to the Caliphate -- that built an Empire about as large as the Roman one, and was just as civilized and progressive as the Romans had been.  

* You are right that knowledge may be 1000x more valuable than matter, in terms of the results it may produce; but value does not equate to price (that is, how much one can obtain in exchange for it).  Just consider that air is infinitely more valuable than caviar, for example.

In a free market, the price of a product eventually settles to the cost of production plus a few percent.  But the cost of duplicating knowledge is almost nil now.  Threfore, if/when knowledge will be traded in a few market, it will cost almost nil.  We are seeing it happen now: newspaper paywalls, copyright, and DRM are only a nuisance, since people can get most of the news and entertainment they want from free sources.  

Copyright and patent royalties can be collected only when and where the government is corrupted by the "intellectual property owners" to forcefully prevent the development of a free market of information.   If that free market existed, "knowledge makers" would be paid only for producing new knowledge, and only while they are producing it; not for selling or renting knowledge that they "own" -- just as a mason only gets paid while he works, not for rent in perpetuity of the houses that he built.

* I am very skeptical of anonimity as a "weapon of freedom".  On one hand, one cannot build a functional society only with anonymous interactions.  What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other.  In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

Bitcoiners claim that their contraption removes the need for mutual trust or a trusted intermediary in commercial transactions, but that is not true.  A commercial transaction involves two transfers, money in one direction and goods or services in the other direction.  Bitcoin only handles the former; but one still needs trust (or a trusted intermediary with teeth), in order to ensure that the customer will pay for the goods that have been sent, or that the merchan will ship the goods that have been paid.  I don't see how to get that with anonymous transactions and without a government to enforce honest dealing.

Anonimity would be important in times when democracy has failed and citizens need to conspire underground in order to remove an illegitimate, undemocratic  government.  Unfortunately, such governments can and will easily prevent anonimity.  Even technically sophisticated citizens will have little chance against a determined ditactorial government.  

Well said. Bitcoiner's using the term "trust-less" is ridiculous. This has done nothing but lead people into a den of scams and thieves. Trust requires prudence which is a moral virture. A successful society therefore must be a moral society. Economic exchange cannot occur on large scale without trust. The bitcoin ecosystem is the exact evidence of this, a "trustless" system where 1 in 2 transactions are scams of some sort.

Anonymint is pretty correct about Rome collapse. Capital flight took place on a mass scale, and gold was hoarded to the point where we are still digging up old coins. However monks ended up salvaging most of civilization and building fortress monastery's which are still evident in Europe. Eventually they were able to civilize the barbarians which had ravaged most of Italy. This took hundreds of years, I don't think 600 is accurate. It was also the first time in history where human labor was actually valued. Roman's were not progressive's, their economy was based on slavery and money lending. It wasn't until the Christian monks instilled a value for human labor to the barbarians that Western Europe began slowly recovering. Benedictine monks are the fathers of European identity, and exhibited one of the most successful applications of decentralized local rule systems ever. Despite the false promises of the internet, the modern world is more centralized then at any point in human history, even more-so then the Romans at peak empire.

[RAJSALLIN]

* I am very skeptical of anonimity as a "weapon of freedom".  On one hand, one cannot build a functional society only with anonymous interactions.  What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other.  In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

Choice is freedom.
If you aren't anonymous in a transaction since you trust the other party that should be your choice. But on the other hand it should be my choice to stay anonymous if I prefer so. In other words the choice and option to stay anonymous is what drives freedom. In a society were you have no choice and are instead forced to stay un-anonymous there is no freedom. Anyone who doesn't aggree with this should re-read Orwell's 1984.

Also we have come to a time and place were you can't compare a transaction from a 100 years ago to a transaction to today. 100 years ago you could make a non anonymous transaction with someone you knew and be certain no one elese saw this transaction. Today in a non anonymous currency you have the fear of the whole world witnessing the same transaction. So it's not solely the question of a trusted person to person interaction being anonymous or un-anonymous but a question of the network being trusted in the first place and that trust will greatly increase if you are certain the network is anonymous.

[AnonyMint]

Sometimes I wish this site wouldn't allow n00bs newbies to post in my threads, until they've gained some reputation. I wish I had a moderator setting for that. I could delete their posts, but that would make it look like I have no counter-argument.

Any way, I guess it is good to refute this drivel, but I grow weary of repeating myself...

Well said. Bitcoiner's using the term "trust-less" is ridiculous. This has done nothing but lead people into a den of scams and thieves. Trust requires prudence which is a moral virture. A successful society therefore must be a moral society. Economic exchange cannot occur on large scale without trust. The bitcoin ecosystem is the exact evidence of this, a "trustless" system where 1 in 2 transactions are scams of some sort.

Cash was anonymous and this did not lead to a world where 1 in 2 transactions are scams of some sort. Well actually the entire fiat financial system is a scam, but you wouldn't be bothered with that minor detail would you.

And even if were true, why would I care? Each party can choose to know the reputation of the person they are dealing with. Whether you pay with sea shells or wampums doesn't make any difference.

The anonymity is optional.

What you mean to say is you don't want there to exist any anonymous form of payment, because you want the police to be able to catch all the criminals.

This is the most insane fantasy bubble thinking which stems from reading Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid when you were a child and never living in the real world hence. First of all, the police are always last to the crime scene and when they are first it is because they are doing the crime.

More saliently yet, if you remove all anonymity, then when the power vacuum of democracy (i.e. promise everything, leave nothing unstolen) leads to totalitarianism as it does periodically through out history, then a fully tracked 666 society means megadeath and eugenics on a massive scale that will make Hitler and the Stasi look like child's play.

Anonymint is pretty correct about Rome collapse. Capital flight took place on a mass scale, and gold was hoarded to the point where we are still digging up old coins. However monks ended up salvaging most of civilization and building fortress monastery's which are still evident in Europe. Eventually they were able to civilize the barbarians which had ravaged most of Italy. This took hundreds of years, I don't think 600 is accurate. It was also the first time in history where human labor was actually valued. Roman's were not progressive's, their economy was based on slavery and money lending. It wasn't until the Christian monks instilled a value for human labor to the barbarians that Western Europe began slowly recovering. Benedictine monks are the fathers of European identity, and exhibited one of the most successful applications of decentralized local rule systems ever. Despite the false promises of the internet, the modern world is more centralized then at any point in human history, even more-so then the Romans at peak empire.

Sorry to bust your fantasy, but feudalism is not an economically prosperous paradigm. The velocity of money (commerce) plummeted and stayed that way as everything was buried into private hoards and warlords. The anti-usury Dark Age was miserable abject poverty. Have you forgotten Robin Hood?

And the barbarians co-opted and became (imitated) the Roman system, they were never conquered so to speak.

And the Roman system was all about maximizing production via road networks and military protection for commerce. It just so happened that in that era, manual labor was so valuable that the system ran the best on an indentured model, because otherwise there was no means to fund the military and keep the movement of goods over a road network that spanned Europe all the way to the UK.

I have explained upthread that we now enter a Knowledge Age, where knowledge is not fungible (manual labor mostly was) and thus slavery is a non-functional paradigm.

If you want anonymity use paper cash, gold etc, and stay off the internet.

They can still track you. The NSA has satellites that can read the 2 inch (5 cm) VIN# on the dashboard of your car.  New cars have GPS tracking built in. There are cameras every where tracking your license plate. The government will soon require you join Facebook in order to receive government services (and that will include a permit to drive on government highways). They track your cell phone. etc.

The NSA revelations have merely proven what many have warned for ages. The internet is far from anonymous nor private.

We are fixing this. It is time to replace the internet protocols.

Anonymint, I don't get what you are trying to convey here. You want a 100% anonymous internet based crypto coin that is fundamentally based on government approved and pioneered cryptography?

Yes on first part, and no on Bitcoin. We don't want government approved crap.

And you want the world using it before your projected 2015-2016 debt apocalypse. Sorry to tell you, but that scenario involves rolling power blackouts(see Greece), kind of nips your idea in the bud. Crypto currencies require sophisticated infrastructure RUNNING in order to work.

WiFi mesh networking is now in the iPhone and coming in Android.

I guess you've heard of batteries.

[cocoakrispies]

Sometimes I wish this site wouldn't allow n00bs newbies to post in my threads, until they've gained some reputation. I wish I had a moderator setting for that. I could delete their posts, but that would make it look like I have no counter-argument.

It's too bad that there's no legitimate way to automatically measure whether or not someone's new here, a lot of people recycle their identities into new profiles. The repetitive bashing that results is fantastic though.

* I am very skeptical of anonimity as a "weapon of freedom".  On one hand, one cannot build a functional society only with anonymous interactions.  What makes society work it is the network of person-to-person interactions, where the parties know and trust each other.  In anonymous interactions, outside the reach of government, there is no incentive to honor deals or build a reputation.

This logic is pretty fuzzy. When I go to an ATM and deposit cash . . and then use those funds to purchase something online . . it's effectively an anonymous transaction as far as the merchant is concerned. They don't have any way of knowing that it was my own cash from my own wallet that ended up in their account. They never have. They take the bank's word, on trust, that I paid for what I purchased and that the money is in their account. In this situation, the bank(s) are acting as a type of escrow.

You said that the parties trust each other. That is wrong. The parties trust the bank when a debit or credit card is involved. This has become pretty much every single time. It's now increasingly rare for people to use cash. Even people that have trust in cash have even more trust in their cards: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/newly-wary-shoppers-trust-cash.html?_r=0

Also, I feel like you're severely limiting the interpretation of anonymous transations, and using that to try and justify your main point. You have every ability to make the tx's non-anonymous by exchanging them in person or using a trusted escrow system(where trust takes the place of mistrust in anonymity). This system can be manifested through an actual person or group, or automated like the paypal or now bitstamp bitpay system.

This institution has already been built on anonymous transactions. This can easily be carried over and repeated with anonymous internet money.


Afterthought: Actually this is one of my major focuses that I'd like to work on. If anonymous currencies were to exist, and someone were to develop a banking system on that foundation . . what types of parallels would we expect to see with the current system of exchanging money through a bank?

Does bitcoin, with a traceable blockchain history, negate the need for banking because of the lack of trust necessary? Does an anonymous solution invite them? If we were to fit this into our present solution to inspire trust amongst consumers and merchants by using banks, would creating them again be the only way an anonymous coin would work?

Apart from those questions, the need for anonymous transactions would still be fulfilled in a world where banks built trust in anonymous currency . . because you'd still have the ability to find someone in the world who accepts your cash that trusts you personally to not screw them on the deal (without it being able to be recorded back to you). In this sense, there is quite a bit of anonymity and you only give it up to develop trust in situations where there can be none (for whatever reason).

Also, by saying 'trust' I only mean for the particular transaction. Not that you'd be comfortable sharing details of murder with the person. Just one simple instance of trust.