Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Torque]

Any suggested places to withdraw to?

Betty Ford

[rocks]

Any suggested places to withdraw to?

Withdrawing is more a state of mind than an aspect of geography.

Bingo.

[vokain]

Any suggested places to withdraw to?

Withdrawing is more a state of mind than an aspect of geography.

Bingo.

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

Why should I stay somewhere where I can summarily be rounded up for suddenly breaking some new unconstitutional law passed (see Snowden donations)? What if that place is imminently changing expatriation laws to make it near impossible to shed citizenship? Then withdrawing would be throwing away what our founders built akin to the Niemoller "First they came..." lesson, and the only moral thing to do staying is being some sort of beacon for liberty.

“If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do... HOW WOULD I BE? WHAT WOULD I DO?”

[79b79aa8d5047da6d3XX]

[...]

To me a blockchain is just that, a chain of crytographically connected blocks. A blockchain can be imagined to have any security mechanism.

Bitcoin's security mechanism is an SHA256 based lottery system, this makes the security mechanism to be a distributed system where any miner can participate and add their hash power.

Google or the FED could create a blockchain with a single signer security mechanism. For example Larry, Sergey or Yellen could have the only key to sign and validate a chain of blocks. They would then issue new blocks every x minutes, creating a chain. Anyone and everyone could transact on that blockchain in the exact same manner as Bitcoin. The only difference is there would be a centralized server to communicate with (not a P2P network) and you'd have to trust Larry, Sergey or Yellen (not distributed hash power).

To me a blockchain is just a chain of crytographically connected blocks, of which there are many options.

Bitcoin's blockchain adds to that by implementing a distributed security mechanism on top of the blockchain. At least that is my terminology.

That may be your terminology, but in that case we are not talking about a technological breakthrough, just about a simple data structure with pointers.

[rocks]

[...]

To me a blockchain is just that, a chain of crytographically connected blocks. A blockchain can be imagined to have any security mechanism.

Bitcoin's security mechanism is an SHA256 based lottery system, this makes the security mechanism to be a distributed system where any miner can participate and add their hash power.

Google or the FED could create a blockchain with a single signer security mechanism. For example Larry, Sergey or Yellen could have the only key to sign and validate a chain of blocks. They would then issue new blocks every x minutes, creating a chain. Anyone and everyone could transact on that blockchain in the exact same manner as Bitcoin. The only difference is there would be a centralized server to communicate with (not a P2P network) and you'd have to trust Larry, Sergey or Yellen (not distributed hash power).

To me a blockchain is just a chain of crytographically connected blocks, of which there are many options.

Bitcoin's blockchain adds to that by implementing a distributed security mechanism on top of the blockchain. At least that is my terminology.

That may be your terminology, but in that case we are not talking about a technological breakthrough, just about a simple data structure with pointers.

The blockchain (assuming my terminology above) was not a technological breakthrough by any means. You are right, the blockchain is just a simple tree based data structure and there is nothing special about that, at least to anyone with a CS background.

What is special about Bitcoin is the distributed security mechanism. Creating a SHA256 based lottery that rewards a scarce token in order to facilitate a distributed P2P security mechanism, was a wholly unique idea. Satoshi was the first to create that, and since Bitcoin was the first implementation it is Bitcoin that will win (if any do). It was the distributed security mechanism that Satoshi invented in creating Bitcoin.

[rocks]

FYI, Marcus has been on a posting tear over at Reddit for awhile. That place is usually a den for collectivists.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/319rp8/a_scary_story_of_a_bitcoin_traders_arrest_and/cpztxdo

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/319rp8/a_scary_story_of_a_bitcoin_traders_arrest_and/cpzumsp

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3104l0/should_the_judge_of_silk_road_case_be_sent_to/cpxn41i

[BillyBobZorton]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

[marcus_of_augustus]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

Does your monkey like shiny objects? Wears gold chains perhaps?

[Q7]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

  Everything right on the part that relates to definition of value, except a bit of doubt there on the monkey analogy. If only I could ask the monkey that question, perhaps if he could understand me or maybe if they monkey can think rational, he would rather have the whole warehouse of gold bullion and use that to buy acres of banana farm

[solex]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/04/02/how-bitcoin-will-end-world-poverty/

Posted by Steve Forbes himself.

there's that blockchain again!

Terminology doesn't matter.
e.g. UBS to Open Blockchain Research Lab in London

Troy = the fiat-debt-money bankster citadel
Wooden Horse = the blockchain
[inside] = have a bit of a guess... :-)

[ssmc2]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/04/02/how-bitcoin-will-end-world-poverty/

Posted by Steve Forbes himself.

there's that blockchain again!

Terminology doesn't matter.
e.g. UBS to Open Blockchain Research Lab in London

Troy = the fiat-debt-money bankster citadel
Wooden Horse = the blockchain
[inside] = have a bit of a guess... :-)

Love this - "The blockchain is the public and decentralized online ledger which verifies transactions in digital currencies such as bitcoin. It is an indelible record, whose authenticity is verified by a network of computer users rather than a centralized authority."

"Such as bitcoin" lol

I can see it now. All these research units coming out from behind closed doors after 6 months to say: "Well, it turns out the blockchain IS bitcoin! Buy Buy Buy!

[Erdogan]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

There is a thing called intrinsic value. It means that the thing has value in itself. The intrinsic value is subjective, as you stated. Most things have intrinsic value. It is only money that have value that is not intrinsic, money has exchange value. So for instance fiat money have no intrinsic value, the only value is speculation that others will exchange something for it in the future, near or far.

From this we can draw the conclusion that paper money, and bitcoin has only speculative value, gold and houses have partlty intrinsic value, partly speculative value, and most other things have only intrinsic value.

Please don't spread confusion, these concepts are really easy to understand if not clouded.

[sporket]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

There is a thing called intrinsic value. It means that the thing has value in itself. The intrinsic value is subjective, as you stated. Most things have intrinsic value. It is only money that have value that is not intrinsic, money has exchange value. So for instance fiat money have no intrinsic value, the only value is speculation that others will exchange something for it in the future, near or far.

From this we can draw the conclusion that paper money, and bitcoin has only speculative value, gold and houses have partlty intrinsic value, partly speculative value, and most other things have only intrinsic value.

Please don't spread confusion, these concepts are really easy to understand if not clouded.

Not as simple as that.
"Intrinsic" has several usages/definitions.  There's a relatively rigid definition for "intrinsic" as used in the context of philosophy--
"An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, independently of other things, including its context. An extrinsic (or relational) property is a property that depends on a thing's relationship with other things."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_properties_(philosophy)

In other words, your claim that "intrinsic value is subjective" is nonsensical.  It breaks the definition.

"Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end or (in Kantian terminology) end-in-itself."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(ethics)

This is another piece of phil. jargon, differentiating "intrinsic value" from from "instrumental value." An example of "intrinsic value would be something like "Truth is good, art is good, murder is bad"--things that are good in themselves, not as a means of getting at something else.  These are held as axiomatic & not requiring further proof, so there's that.

Here's an example of "Instrumental value": "A shovel has instrumental value--it is useful for getting gold, which, in turn is also instrumentally valuable for obtaining the thing I ultimately want--bliss."

Again, intrinsic value, by definition, can not be subjective here either.  It could be [convincingly] argued that there's no such thing as "intrinsic value," but subjective it ain't.

Finally, there's an iffy definition of "intrinsic" as used in finance:
"In finance, intrinsic value refers to the value of a company, stock, currency or product determined through fundamental analysis without reference to its market value.[1] It is also frequently called fundamental value. It is ordinarily calculated by summing the discounted future income generated by the asset to obtain the present value. It is worthy to note that this term may have different meanings for different assets."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(finance)

Feel free to rassle with that one

[Miz4r]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

There is a thing called intrinsic value. It means that the thing has value in itself. The intrinsic value is subjective, as you stated. Most things have intrinsic value. It is only money that have value that is not intrinsic, money has exchange value. So for instance fiat money have no intrinsic value, the only value is speculation that others will exchange something for it in the future, near or far.

From this we can draw the conclusion that paper money, and bitcoin has only speculative value, gold and houses have partlty intrinsic value, partly speculative value, and most other things have only intrinsic value.

Please don't spread confusion, these concepts are really easy to understand if not clouded.

You could make the argument that intrinsic value does not exist for any good or service except its price which is a reflection of its demand and supply position and not of any inherent quality. This is the same for gold, houses, paper money and Bitcoin. All these things have no value in and of itself.

[Erdogan]

i made a point some time ago that if Bitcoin were to become a global reserve currency, much like gold, due to maintaining the 1MB block size, all Bitcoin 2.0 projects trying to ride the MC would be eliminated due to high tx costs.  in that case, the blockchain would only be applicable to Bitcoin as Money:

https://twitter.com/bramcohen/status/557287567121346560

There is no such thing as intrinsic value.

All value is subjective , as beheld in the mind of the observer.

All value is subjegated collectively through the market which reaches a consensus price.

If you do not beleive me ask a monkey what has more value - a warehouse full of gold bullion or a single bannana.

There is a thing called intrinsic value. It means that the thing has value in itself. The intrinsic value is subjective, as you stated. Most things have intrinsic value. It is only money that have value that is not intrinsic, money has exchange value. So for instance fiat money have no intrinsic value, the only value is speculation that others will exchange something for it in the future, near or far.

From this we can draw the conclusion that paper money, and bitcoin has only speculative value, gold and houses have partlty intrinsic value, partly speculative value, and most other things have only intrinsic value.

Please don't spread confusion, these concepts are really easy to understand if not clouded.

You could make the argument that intrinsic value does not exist for any good or service except its price which is a reflection of its demand and supply position and not of any inherent quality. This is the same for gold, houses, paper money and Bitcoin. All these things have no value in and of itself.

Cheezus. How is it possible to turn straightforward things into nonsense.

Intrinsic value is the use value of the thing itself. Everyone has his or her opinion of what is more valueable, that thing or another thing. It is intrinsically valuable to you if you want the thing itself. If you want money to buy a nice vacation, the moneys value is not the money itself, rather the vacation you can buy for it. So money has no value to you in itself, no intrinsic value, but it has exchange value, because you can exchange it for something of intrinsic value.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Value, as a concept, is inherently subjective.

Therefore the "intrinsic" adjective is redundant so should be just dropped for correctness once you grok the value=subjective bit. Intrinsic value is a sloppy term, historically used to describe the objective physical properties, e.g. conductivity, malleability, corrosion-resistance of gold, silver, lead. The intrinsic properties of objects can be valued, but the existence of the properties themselves is an objective reality that can not be extended to the human values placed upon them.

[ssmc2]

Value, as a concept, is inherently subjective.

Therefore the "intrinsic" adjective is redundant so should be just dropped for correctness once you grok the value=subjective bit. Intrinsic value is a sloppy term, historically used to describe the objective physical properties, e.g. conductivity, malleability, corrosion-resistance of gold, silver, lead. The intrinsic properties of objects can be valued, but the existence of the properties themselves is an objective reality that can not be extended to the human values placed upon them.

 ^ This

"If people value something, it has value; if people do not value some­thing, it does not have value; and there is no intrinsic about it."

[worth]

Value, as a concept, is inherently subjective.

Therefore the "intrinsic" adjective is redundant so should be just dropped for correctness once you grok the value=subjective bit. Intrinsic value is a sloppy term, historically used to describe the objective physical properties, e.g. conductivity, malleability, corrosion-resistance of gold, silver, lead. The intrinsic properties of objects can be valued, but the existence of the properties themselves is an objective reality that can not be extended to the human values placed upon them.

Absolutely true. Value is a "nominalization" to borrow a term from NLP: http://youtu.be/1sceRsmT1yc

[cypherdoc]

[...]

To me a blockchain is just that, a chain of crytographically connected blocks. A blockchain can be imagined to have any security mechanism.

Bitcoin's security mechanism is an SHA256 based lottery system, this makes the security mechanism to be a distributed system where any miner can participate and add their hash power.

Google or the FED could create a blockchain with a single signer security mechanism. For example Larry, Sergey or Yellen could have the only key to sign and validate a chain of blocks. They would then issue new blocks every x minutes, creating a chain. Anyone and everyone could transact on that blockchain in the exact same manner as Bitcoin. The only difference is there would be a centralized server to communicate with (not a P2P network) and you'd have to trust Larry, Sergey or Yellen (not distributed hash power).

To me a blockchain is just a chain of crytographically connected blocks, of which there are many options.

Bitcoin's blockchain adds to that by implementing a distributed security mechanism on top of the blockchain. At least that is my terminology.

That may be your terminology, but in that case we are not talking about a technological breakthrough, just about a simple data structure with pointers.

The blockchain (assuming my terminology above) was not a technological breakthrough by any means. You are right, the blockchain is just a simple tree based data structure and there is nothing special about that, at least to anyone with a CS background.

What is special about Bitcoin is the distributed security mechanism. Creating a SHA256 based lottery that rewards a scarce token in order to facilitate a distributed P2P security mechanism, was a wholly unique idea. Satoshi was the first to create that, and since Bitcoin was the first implementation it is Bitcoin that will win (if any do). It was the distributed security mechanism that Satoshi invented in creating Bitcoin.

while we did have previous digital monies using transaction hashchains and data trees, we never had one that linked a chain of "blocks" together whose purpose was to perform transaction ordering and clearing via a timestamping mechanism.  and it's more than just a chain of crytographically connected blocks; it is a summation of POW target hashes each of whose security gains the deeper it is buried into the chain.  i once likened it to the individual floors of a skyscraper built from the ground up.  you only get a brief chance to significantly modify the floor you're working on before it gets buried beneath all the other upwardly ascending later floors that make any subsequent modification of lower floors impossible.  and the builders of the floors of this skyscraper come from all over the world, like they do in Dubai. alot of them die on the way up to building the 163rd floor.  

except this skyscraper is going to the Moon.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Value, as a concept, is inherently subjective.

Therefore the "intrinsic" adjective is redundant so should be just dropped for correctness once you grok the value=subjective bit. Intrinsic value is a sloppy term, historically used to describe the objective physical properties, e.g. conductivity, malleability, corrosion-resistance of gold, silver, lead. The intrinsic properties of objects can be valued, but the existence of the properties themselves is an objective reality that can not be extended to the human values placed upon them.

Absolutely true. Value is a "nominalization" to borrow a term from NLP: http://youtu.be/1sceRsmT1yc

Good vid thanks. Feel like I could have wrote much of that myself! but Worth has lucidly expounded and expanded on it thoroughly ... and it is a much needed topic that people need to learn about, kudos.

Edit: here's another great, clear vid re: What is Bitcoin wonder if these have made it on top r/Bitcoin yet?