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That is not a question, we already know that money can exist without central government. First of all people have been using all sorts of things as money without any central government, secondly gold is not declared by central government to be money, it was chosen by people, central governments only adopted it because people chose it (minting coins is really a convenience thing, gold is actually valuable by weight, not by some number on a coin, that's why most gold coins never had any numbers on them). Here is a currency that is used without any State power behind it.

So my point is if Bitcoin fails it does not show that money without central government cannot exist, we already know it can. More interesting question about Bitcoin is can money exist that is based purely on confidence and without central government. Now that is the combination here, not that it is not issued by central gov't but that it is only backed by confidence in the protocol. It is not gold, so it has no intrinsic value, sure, its amount is limited, but even that is not completely true, it can be subdivided into a huge number of smaller units (like micro-bitcoins).

The immediate possible failure of this currency that comes to mind is that if confidence is lost at any point, it will be irrelevant that the number of the coins is limited to a precise amount and cannot be increased. Rarity itself does not guarantee usage as money when it comes to currencies that have no intrinsic value.

Interesting thing about Bitcoins, I spent a few hours looking at Bitcoin protocol, seemed to me it could be used for electronic voting and apparently many people thought the same.

Collectively, people aren't rational actors

- precisely why I am not interested in anything 'collective'. Get it?

It's an individual who wants to win, he can be understood rationally as an entity that wants to win. He or she wants to win in whatever race that they participate in, that's why they try to do things, like invest their savings, run a profit, build an income stream.

In order to do that in a free society they can either go and steal and kill people or they can participate in market activity - try to produce and try and sell something to other individuals.

If they do too much stealing and killing in a free society eventually they will themselves be stopped one way or another, majority of people do not operate that way, because it's a very risky business.

People have been cooperating to eke out a better life for thousands of years. Precisely because it is in their best interest.

- yeah, and about 200 years ago people figured out the BEST way SO FAR to cooperate is to have a free market, and that was the discovery that made it possible for an agrarian society that USA was, an afterthought, way behind Europe, this allowed USA to become a major player, a major industrial producer, exporter, the biggest creditor nation. USA has achieved this before the WWI, mostly this was done in the freest period of its life - after Civil war and before 1913, when the gov't figured out how to use the newly discovered riches of the Free Society and steal from the middle class - professionals and businesses. This was done with cooperation between politicians and some of the shrewder type bankers, who understood it was extremely profitable to run a financial ponzi scheme, starting with the Fed printing fake currency.

Free society produced the most wealth on this planet in the shortest time period, and then it turned into the bread and circuses system that then squandered that wealth and ran into the most debt that any nation has ever had in the history of the world.

As to Somalia - I said on multiple occasions that they are a former British colony, a former Communist nation, that got from under that dictatorial system via a bloody internal conflict.

It's not a rich nation, it certainly doesn't hold any specific 'libertarian ideals', but it is actually now a proud holder of the MOST STABLE CURRENCY in the world.

AFAIC it's an undervalued place, an interesting investment opportunity. You clearly don't understand anything about it though.

Your rugged individualism is more like anti-social behavior to me. I also understand just how thoroughly committed you are to that viewpoint.

- you are right, my position comes out of very strong principles, no doubt about it.

Have fun.

Both these technologies (shoe fluoroscopes and steam locomotives) are good choices for extinction because they aren't things you would either build or use casually

Steam Locomotives

Hmm. Some (not very up to date) data for you: In the US, as of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class, about 3 million people) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers).

And when government interferes to make this better ... this happens :

'nuff said

What you're saying is perhaps even mostly true. And it's certainly not the case that we're perfect. The problem, of course, is that your supposed "solution" is akin to Obama's healthcare suggestion that pacemakers should be replaced by pain medication. Much cheaper.

In socialist countries the top echelon of the party controls ALL the wealth. And since organizations, like political parties of every bent, companies, unions and the like, even in the US, basically trust no-one, that means that per 100 square miles ONE individual can afford a car when socialism holds sway.

The difference between a socialist system and a capitalist one : in a capitalist system the 1% riches control 50% of the wealth (it's not quite that bad yet, but I'm being flexible here). In a socialist system the 0.000000001% richest control 100% of the wealth.

That is your "solution". It is, almost literally, the suggestion of making Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pott/Mao emergency president in order to fix an outbreak of the flu.

At the beginning I guess: Evidence, the links you provided have plenty, thank you for saving me answering this part.

The fact is that public transport at least, consumes more energy per mile than cars.

Actually if you read that table again, you will see that cars are the worst on the list, with the exception of light rail. I could not find the light rail figures in the data linked (no I didn't read all of it so if someone could point me to the relevant table I would appreciate it) so I can only presume the examples cited are among the worst run and designed public transport systems in the world. Apart from this the car is the worst, followed by buses.

the incredibly cheap costs of highway construction

What evidence do you have to back up this? Highways are massively expensive especially in city centres. Highways cost around $1 million per lane mile in the most simple circumstances and as commuter tansit around a large already built up city they are astronomical, not to mention the upkeep and repair costs of highway are much higher than rail. some figures if you have as much trouble accessing that link as I am at the moment you can view screenshots of it here

In addition these figures are for mass transit in the USA, an unashamed car culture. As your own link notes:

Don't Europe and Asia do better? Much better. This Australian Study cites figures saying that Western Europeans use only 76% of U.S. BTUs/pm in their private transport, and only 38% in their transit -- 2.5 times more efficient. Rich Asians do even better at transit -- they are almost 4 times as efficient in terms of energy/passenger-mile.

So it is possible to do it 4 times better than those figure that the car is already at the second to last place on.

Finally

Finally, repeat after me, there is no energy shortage. There is no energy shortage. There is no energy shortage. There is an energy collection, storage, and distribution problem.

Well I hate to break it to you, but collection, storage and distribution problems result in there being less energy available for use than we want and need, this is the definition of a shortage

here's pictures of the train in question. It certainly involves a lot of foreign tech but still, the fastest production train in the world is an achievement.

For interests sake, here are some photos of one of our smaller coastal cities - Note all the wild animals. We have a very healthy human/nature relationship

Agree. Just rocks taking their place in a dynamic environment. And now contractors shall be rubbing their hands together.

I remember what happened to the Dedo de Dios (God's Finger) and what will relatively soon to the Roque del Fraile (Friar's Rock), two of the most remarkable geological symbols of Gran Canaria.

It's not that bad as far as road transportation is concerned.
The national highway network has improved drastically.

See:
First expressway in india
http://www.msrdc.org/projects/mumbai_pune.html

Golden Quadrangle Road Network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Quadrangle_Roa d_Network

Photos of roads built under golden quadrangle road network
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=298 320

I can't even scroll up. I still feel a little weak, my God. I've never had a reaction like this to a picture? I had to look at it a few seconds until I fully realized what it was...and then...pale in the face, sickly feeling. Wow.

more photos here:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=164 772

Here!

You can see some more pictures of this project, along with some of the artist renderings of what the thing will look like when done, here.