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Will Legitimacy Spoil Bitcoin?
New submitter F9rDT3ZE writes "Salon writer Andrew Leonard examines the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's (FinCEN) first 'guidance' regarding 'de-centralized virtual currencies,' noting that Bitcoin's supporters call it a 'currency of resistance,' while others suggest that 'the more popular Bitcoin gets, whether as a symbol of resistance or a perceived safe haven in financially troubled times, the more government attention it will inevitably draw, and the more inexorably it will be sucked into existing regulatory structures.'"
No matter what you trade, if it has value, the state will look to control it's function.
Restore the madness of youth's lechery
This is why people will start buying bitcoins from local sellers, avoiding the electronic paper trail of the major exchanges.
No, now by a namecoin add redirect it to Mr Goatse's Picture!
If this gets, score 5, troll, then I will donate 1 bitcent to all those who replly after 24 hours!
there are malcontents in every era of man
where they have a legitimate gripe that resonates across the masses, you get revolutions. where they have loony complaints that leaves people rolling their eyes, you get cranks
bitcoin is the crank's currency. cranks don't do legitimacy
so bitcoin will lose its lustre with those who launched it onto slashdot's front page for the past few years
look out for the rise of the new utopian idealization project:
"bytecoin", or "bitdollar"
or heck, just go with "crankmoney"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Unlike gold or silver, bitcoins don't even have a vague amount of price stability that lets them be a store for value. They're purely transactional currency, designed to be hard enough to make that their value probably won't change very much very fast, but easy enough to make that the quantity can expand to support a growing market (at least for a while.) So they're useful for online drug deals, where the potential currency risk is a lot smaller than the profit from making convenient transactions possible, but they're not something that it makes sense to stash in your mattress as a hedge against inflation. Their value isn't backed by a useful commodity, like gold or oil, or by the ability of a government to tax its subjects, they're just backed by the fact that they're designed to be useful for some kinds of transactions that might not happen otherwise, and by the existence of exchanges where you can trade the things for cash at today's price, which is random but usually somewhat close to yesterday's.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Bitcoin is just a protocol, a tool, people are controlled by their respective government, so you either follow the rules that your government puts forward or you don't, some people like their governments, some people don't like other governments, and some people don't like any government, bitcoin doesn't care.
Perhaps someone has been trying to sell you snake oil too. Currencies when not controlled by the state have always ended up being controlled by the oligarcy; the invested minority. Once they control the production of currency, they control everything. Look at what happened in the past with gold and silver standards.
And yes, this is socialism, which is a good word anywhere in the world except for the US and among said oligarchs. If governments control the currency at least we still have a semblance and will to control the government. We would have no control over private business interests monopolizing our currency.
Yet a very compelling argument could be made for no.
Every innovation took root in an illegitimate environment, whether in service to vice, war, or simply struggling against its own irrelevancy as an apparent waste of time to the common zeitgeist. But having sprouted, these ideas are limited without receiving greater sunlight. Ah, but this means the innovations are now out of doors, and must be pruned and otherwise kept up to a public standard -- they may thrive, become uniquitous even, but at the cost of being planted in an orderly fashion.
Can BitCoin grow under public scrutiny? I'd argue that's the only way it can grow. But at the same time, it can only grow so tall, or perhaps wide, without people going "Damn, your BitCoin's starting to become a nuisance, and I think there's some bees in it." You can try explaining that bees don't build nests, hornets do, and even though they're some stingy bastards they do keep the mosquito population in check. It doesn't matter.
This is the sort of topic for which Salon was invented to cover.
Will Legitimacy Spoil Bitcoin?
No need to worry, I'm sure Bitcoin won't become a legitimate currency any time soon.
Seriously, how can something with price fluctuations of 10% on a daily basis be a "perceived safe haven"? Keeping them for any length of time in this nasty, volatile bubble is a gamble.
I think more regulation on Bitcoin trades can only serve to help protect people from Ponzi schemes. No, I'm not like those other people who call Bitcoin a Ponzi, they are not. However, the exchanges that are now springing up are amost a perfect recipe for one. Someone sets up an exchange, pople open accounts to which they deposit money to engage in bitcoin trading, exchange operators help themselves to funds, either for operational expenses or to line their pockets, and instead back the accounts with bitcoin, bitcoin innevitably suffers a 'market correction,' there's a run on the cash accounts, and the exchange can't keep up with the cash withdrawals, voila, classic ponzi.
Tell me, do you dress up the black boots and the little mustache when you spew that shit?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
when you can only process opposition to your worldview in simpleminded cartoon stereotypes, you might have a problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
idkfa idkfa idkfa idkfa. Are you still here?
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Bicoin will either be absorbed by an entity with the physical means to project force, ie a government or be eliminated in some manner. Orlin Grabbe tried a similar scheme (digital money trust) in the early 90s and suffered that fate, for the same reasons.
As opposed to the USA government which keeps printing money and de-valuating its own currency?
Shame there's no "-1, closest fascist" option. And yet you claim you think that intellectual property is incoherent.
Let us all be good little citizens. Ein, zwei, drei, vier!
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
What we should ask ourselves, as people, not as techies, however, is just how much regulation currency really needs. I for me think that for various reasons (anti-drug wars, anti-terrorism wars, and so on) the financial industry has become more of a control tool of than a service to its users. The big players get by, the little ones, not nearly as much. bitcoin is a useful tool, and it'll likely survive even heavy regulation. This simply because its nature makes it hard to regulate, except where it interfaces with other currencies, that is, at the fringes.
What regulation will do, however, is criminalise the fringes and invite more crime there; identity theft to ensure access to exchanges, money muling, that sort of thing. The net effect of all that regulation and its side effects is increased cost, directly and indirectly, that is invariably borne by the people that're supposed to be protected. Thus, just sucking bitcoin into the morass of red tape will not achieve much at all. Better to rethink the regulation, but given the state of government, that won't happen.
Thus, regulation will be the cause of crime, yet it'll be bitcoin that'll get blamed. That needs a strong marketeering offensive to offset. Best to get cracking if bitcoin is to survive.
Not opposed, but in addition to.
I can't question its legitimacy until I see some evidence that it has any.
Life needs more saving throws.
You don't have to be a crank to see the US government is madly increasing the money supply. What do you suppose is going to happen when the economy starts growing again?
Yes, of course. Otherwise people would be doing things without permission.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Sieg Freud...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/5759/20130323/lockhead-martin-quantum-computer-speeds-through-problems-millions-times-faster.htm
How fast could this thing mine bitcoins?
If one were a major superpower with access to this tech and if it could be used to produce huge amounts of bitcoins... and if one wanted to destabilise the virtual currency...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
In what sense has U.S. currency been devalued? Its real purchasing power has remained quite strong over the past few decades; there hasn't been a significant erosion of real purchasing power (i.e. high inflation) since the late-70s/early-80s period of inflation.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I think that a bunch of alternatives to bitcoin will eventually emerge so if government regulates one virtual currency there are going to be other safe havens.
I'm guessing you work at the checkout lane at Walmart?
Why doesn't slashdot just post a topic each day that says simply "Bitcoin!!!!1!!" so we can read the same comments every day?
The US dollar is indeed being devalued, but bitcoin is very nearly totally worthless.
Can I pay for my food at the grocery with it? No.
Can I pay my rent with it? No.
Can I pay ANY of my monthly bills with it? No.
Can I spend them at the local used game store? No.
Can I buy any of the stuff I buy on Amazon.com with them? No.
Can I deposit them in my 401k and have them managed with the rest of my assets? No.
Can I trade them to my next door neighbor for his help fixing my car? No.
They're worthless in the real world.
you do understand processing any opposition to your worldview only according to a simpleminded cartoon only demonstrates own failures, right?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i know the answer won't be found in the realm of financial kookery, that's for sure
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of the best features of science is that it allows us to make predictions.
For example, to calculate the trajectory of a cannonball we do not need an almanac of cannonball weights cross-referenced by gunpowder loads and indexed by cannon type. We have a handful of formulas for the future behaviour of any projectile based on simple measurements - mass, force, air resistance, and so on. The formulas work for cannonballs as well as electrons as well as planets.
The science of economics also brings us simple formulas which allow us to calculate the precise trajectory of the economy. Such calculations were used by economists of the early 2000's to predict and avert what would have been the worst depression in the history of the US. All the top-level economists were in agreement, who further suggested minor changes in the regulatory structure which are predicted to avoid any such event in the future.
"It would have been obvious in retrospect" said one leading economist.
Unlike gold or silver, bitcoins don't even have a vague amount of price stability that lets them be a store for value. They're purely transactional currency, designed to be hard enough to make that their value probably won't change very much very fast, but easy enough to make that the quantity can expand to support a growing market (at least for a while.) ...
Yet another triumph for the science of economics! Instead of vague storytelling such as would be expected from Astrology or Chiromancy, the author outlines a set of assumptions and real-world measurements, then predicts future behaviour using well-established principles and relationships.
His logic is impeccable, the only way to dispute his position is to attack the underlying assumptions. His model clearly predicts that BitCoins are not now and can never be a valid currency, and his position is supported by all the major economists.
Everyone should immediately stop thinking about BitCoins and apply their efforts to something more useful.
I'm convinced! How about you?
Assassination Politics., but does bitcoin have the necessary infrastructure?
Nice copy/pasta there... Shirley you can troll better than that.. I mean, with all the practice an' all...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Same thing could be said about the dollar bill at some point in time.
You're either a survivalist or you're trying to evade taxes or both. Either way, you're going to lose.
Personally I'd like to see all the libertarian no-government bitcoiners given some plot of land to make their little distopia. I'm guessing it would be a few months before they start blaming conspiratorial forces for their skyrocketing public health problems and miserable economy. It would be like a failed state, but with mentally unbalanced petit-bourgeois Americans.
i'm not entirely sure when faced with the same mental vomit over and over again why it is my responsibility to find a new creative path to sanity for the crackpot. it is the crackpot's responsibility to make fucking sense
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do you? It sure would be nice to have a currency that couldn't be stripped of it's value at the whim of a government. Maybe the bitcoin isn't it, but when the government suppresses it hopefully people will start to think about what currencies really are and why governments go to such lengths to suppress competitors.
Its real purchasing power has remained quite strong over the past few decades; there hasn't been a significant erosion of real purchasing power (i.e. high inflation) since the late-70s/early-80s period of inflation.
Where have you been exactly where what you have said is true? Do you buy your own groceries? Either the price for most goods have gone up either by a face value increase the product or the quantity has been reduced.
If your are going to point the CPI has evidence, don't bother it's a flawed stat.
money is nothing but an abstract representation of the value of a society. without society, there is no money. any society that is going to have good currency is one that also has good governance
therefore, the very idea of thinking about currency, divorced from good governance, is an absurdity
to pursue currency without government is simply a symptom of bad social skills, horrible indoctrination/ terrible education, and or/ mental illness, something in the realm of paranoia
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
arguing with slashdot trolls surely is a fate worse than death
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If we as a consensus want to start trading internet meme pictures as a form of currency, then that would be our choice in the matter.
Same thing could be said about the dollar bill at some point in time.
When dollars can not be used to pay for things, they will be as worthless as bitcoins. Until then, they are worth infinitely more. There is no remotely concevable set of events that would cause dollars to unusable as payment, and bitcoins to be usable. So, while you can say it, it is not actually true.
One of the things that scream "illegitimate" about bitcoins are their speculative value. Why not create an alternate bitcoin, but tie its value to the dollar? It wouldn't have to be a 1:1 ratio, just track it. At least that way people won't worry about a bubble bursting in the middle of a transaction.
This is Shirley.
This is shorely. (Not a real word)
You were after surely.
At the moment Bitcoin are experiencing massive deflation making it a currency that imposes high costs on anyone contemplating spending Bitcoin.
..until it becomes actual money.
At that point the suits take control, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
That actually addresses the question in TFS: Will legitimacy spoil bitcoin?
First, you have to achieve legitimacy. In the USA, the power of currency, essentially, belongs to the federal government. If they perceive a threat (or simply a challenge) to that power, what do you think they will do? Hint: It's going to be directly related to the term "legitimate."
The thing about the assumption that the state "cannot" control something, is that it is almost always entirely wrong. This discovery is almost always accompanied by wailing and gnashing of teeth.
There is only one condition under which the state cannot control: When the state itself has been dismantled. And there is absolutely no sign of such a thing, even well out on the horizon.
Consequently, the answer to the question in TFS is: No. What's going to "spoil" bitcoin are actions of the state. Guaranteed. It won't be legitimacy, because that's permanently and irrevocably out of reach.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Dollars made of paper or metal can still be used as toilet paper or scrap metal if necessary. As such, they're still worth more than any non-physical currency once money is no longer used for trade.
I wish you were wrong, but it certainly looks that way.
Honestly, I think that's the lottery ticket the FED is trying to buy. They probably think that they can guide the hurricane into blowing over, and then slowly buy back the currency. (see: deflationary spiral; aka the financial bogey-man)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
In the sense of OMGZ!! We're having a recession, it's the end of the world!!!! Never let the facts get in the way of a good headline.
you have a great future in hollywood writing scripts for simpleminded shallow movies with bad dialog
sadly, here, your comments only serve to painfully demonstrate the social/ mental handicap that keeps you imprisoned on your paranoid fringe: an inability to view the world and its actors as anything more than cartoonish extremes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Here's the CPI data: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt Even if you accept that it's representative data, there has still been persistent inflation. Even if it's only 2-3 percent/year, it adds up. One dollar today is worth 79 cents in 2003.
It's too sodding hard to fix governance, so in practice the choice is between "bad government with bad currency" and "bad government with good currency". So, if the opportunity to fix currency avails itself, then I'm going to take it, and so are millions of other people, evidently.
(And this is before considering any second-order effects of good currency on the quality of government.)
...an inability to view the world and its actors as anything more than cartoonish extremes...
No, just you...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
What is supposed to happen: the Fed will raise interest rates and sell some of the trillions of assets it is holding and vacuum up some of that money to balance the money supply with the demand.
He's talking about real inflation, like the shit we had in the 70's. A couple three percent a year in a $15 trillion dollar economy is NOTHING compared to that bullshit.
"where they have a legitimate gripe that resonates across the masses, you get revolutions. where they have loony complaints that leaves people rolling their eyes, you get cranks"
That would make Bitcoin a revolution.
"No, just you..."
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
please mod the parent comment up, it's just too perfect
did you imagine yourself as clint eastwood or arnold schwarzenegger when you wrote that? did you have a toothpick in your mouth and a gun in your hand and did the music swell in the background?
protip:
if i describe you as engaging in nothing but simpleminded cartoon buffoonery, it helps not to prove my point by embracing the behavior further. you actually need to engage the world with more than stereotypical action movie tropes and idioms
i'm not sure if you have the social toolset and/ or the psychological flexibility to appreciate the thought, but here goes anyway:
i want you to try to imagine a world where those who have a different opinion than you are not one dimensional bad guys in a bad movie you saw once. that what motivates their words might not automatically be the pit of all evil in a manichean black and white universe
you can't actually get anywhere in life by labeling all opposition to your opinion as fascist. in fact, the truth is, true fascism flows from thinking in the world in black and white ways that only you currently demonstrate in this conversation
if you find your way to understanding what i just wrote, you will find your social experience infinitely enriched
good luck kid
i hope my intellectual charity is not wasted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Having good government and having good currency do not require government to control currency.
correct
but i have to make sure that you aren't thinking of the concept in simplistic black and white terms
there is
1. complete control of currency (wrong, agreed)
2. currency controls. some bad, some good. but this concept does not represent complete control of the currency
what doesn't exist is no currency controls at all. simply because such a society does not function
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i welcome the judgment of history
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Heheh... intellectual? No... philosophically incoherent...as your sig says, right there, with a smidgen of projection
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And you have clearly never seen Airplane!. It's comedy gold. If you have never heard of this movie, watch it. Now. And get the uncensored version.
It's just not cool now that everyone likes it.
In my country US dollar is very nearly worthless.
I can't pay with it for my food, ...
I can't pay with it my rent,
I can't pay any monthly bill
I can't spend it at the local game store,
I can only buy or sell US dollar for my local money.
Exactly like BTC.
Napster was a wake-up call for the politicians, who acted quickly to squash piracy, thus our piracy-free Internet.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
apostrophe's what what?
The inflation of the 1970s is not the standard by which inflation is judged. 0% is.
If your computer makes mistakes 3% of the time that it adds numbers, do you accept the situation, saying, "at least it's not wrong 10% of the time"?
A mere 3% skim is the foundation of many successful paras^H^H^H^H^H businesses.
money is nothing but an abstract representation of the value of a society. without society, there is no money. any society that is going to have good currency is one that also has good governance therefore, the very idea of thinking about currency, divorced from good governance, is an absurdity
That's true for fractional reserve currencies. But all sorts of commodities (gold and silver most easily, of course) could be used as money completely divorced from governance - good, bad, or otherwise - because they have intrinsic value. Now, you can't use bitcoins to plate electrical connectors, it's true, but there's nothing inherently better about dollars as a form of currency. To be honest, I don't understand bitcoins well enough to actually change my dollars into bitcoins. But as a store of value dollars (and most other major currencies) are absolutely terrible.
to pursue currency without government is simply a symptom of bad social skills, horrible indoctrination/ terrible education, and or/ mental illness, something in the realm of paranoia
That's just stupid. The reason one would want a commodities backed currency precisely because it maintains its value "without government". The fact that you don't see that doesn't make other people crazy. It makes you shortsighted and historically ignorant.
Assets? What assets? All they have is (mostly government) bonds, and they can't sell those bonds. Because of the amount of government debt outstanding just a percentage point or two increase in what the government has to pay foreigners who buy bonds will trigger a solvency crisis. So they won't sell. They'll just keep printing money until the music stops.
so if i use bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, you would call me historically wise and longsighted?!
furthermore, if the major currencies of the world experience an extreme disruption, we are all fucked. no matter how much gold you did or did not hide under your mattress
a better hedge bet than gold in that scenario would be to invest in gang membership and heavy weaponry. then just go and take any fucking gold you want. because that's what happens when societies collapse on the order of extreme currency disruption: the rise of warlords
of course, mad max is not going to happen
(season my last statement with the current load of paranoia you carry around)
but let's go ahead and talk about mad max anyways: if society and its currencies destabilize on the order certain paranoid wackjobs constantly imagine it will, i am becoming a simple farmer. everyone needs potatoes. you can come give me krugerrands or point a gun at me (watch your back) for my potatoes, no problem. but i'm not going to horde gold up front, and therefore put a target on my head, and i'm not going to get a high power gun, and therefore die in some senseless firefight. i'm going to lay low, with a hoe, and a rake, and some seeds, and let mad max do what mad max will do in the next valley over
and that's a survival strategy friend. sorry it doesn't fit in with crackpot fantasy lives. too boring i guess
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
again, absurd. because bad governance means bad society. currency choice is some tangential pointless issue that solves none of your real problems in such a scenario
>>>so in practice the choice is between "bad government with bad currency" and "bad government with good currency"
if you believe that, and you live in a western democracy, you are a spastic hysterical twit who has no fucking clue how bad things can really get
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
currency choice is some tangential pointless issue
You're not thinking very hard about this, are you? Do you really think the quality of the coin of the realm isn't going to affect economic decision-making? Are you really trying to suggest that the quality of a nation's currency doesn't affect its political economy?
if you believe that, and you live in a western democracy, you are a spastic hysterical twit who has no fucking clue how bad things can really get
In a state of total anarchy, the ability to transfer value safely becomes an even bigger boon to survival: the worse things get, the more useful Bitcoin becomes.
Gold doesn't have intrinsic value. Where do you people come up with this crap?
thank you for identifying yourself as a crackpot
that your mind worries about an implausible scenario (and then, still, solves the implausible problem badly) is why i call you this
choosing your personal currency policy because anarchy might happen is like packing for disney world with the consideration a zombie outbreak will occur
"going to enchanted kingdom, yeah! let's see... signal flares, tourniquet, rpg, broad spectrum antibiotics..."
if the major currencies of the world experience an extreme disruption, we are all fucked. no matter how much gold you did or did not hide under your mattress. a better hedge bet than gold in that scenario would be to invest in gang membership and heavy weaponry. then just go and take any fucking gold you want. because that's what happens when societies collapse on the order of anarchy: the rise of warlords
and bitcoin in anarchy? are you out of your fucking mind? dude, in real anarchy THE INTERNET ISN'T WORKING ANYMORE
please stop reading bad science fiction fantasy and pay more attention to reality
thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I would strongly advise against putting anything with that many germs on it into any body orifice, even that one. One little scratch anywhere, and you're going to get a nasty infection.
You are demonstrating "simplistic black and white" thinking. You claim there can either be a "controlled" _currency_ with functioning society, or "uncontrolled" _currency_ with non-functioning society. What if instead there were _currencies_ (not just one)?
Do you realize that any entity that controls over 50% of the hashrate of the Bitcoin network controls the entire thing?
Have you seen the hashrate of the new, high-end ASIC rigs? How much would it cost to buy 100% equivalent of the current network hashrate in brand new ASIC rigs? A few million dollars? 10 million dollars?
Do you think that's a significant amount to "suits"?
Actually anarchy just means "no rulers". For whatever reason the narrative held by many people is that our societal origins lay in anarchy and we have been striving to get away from these roots via development of nation-states. This is wrong, in the past there has always been local warlords/gangs who would rule over their territory.
Anarchy is instead something that we should strive for, reducing the role that violence plays in our lives is a good thing. Anarchy is basically the successful endgame for humankind. Anarchy won't result from a failed state, it can only grow piece by piece from a successful stable state.
the point is you need controls, whether you have one currency or 1000
without controls, entitites speculate/ horde/ flood for profit and it destabilizes the currency(ies)
the problem is you imagine that without a government manipulating the currency, that no one will manipulate the currency
but in reality, remove government manipulation, and you still get manipulation. the only difference being, the government is accountable to the people, or at least accountable to the concept of stability. while manipulation by nongovernmental actors is self-serving, be damned the health of the currency and the society. in fact, in their schemes, their profit is often a direct consequence of instability, such that they actively seek instability
this is all basic stuff. why do people comment on and have opinions on subject matter they do not completely understand?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd rather expect attempts to delegalize Bitcoin under some murky pretext that it is somehow used for some (more or less unspecified) illegal activities. Our corporate overlords are using US dollar and forcing everyone else to use it. It's their grip on us and they won't surrender it so easily. Quite a few countries have been invaded and destroyed to make sure US dollar is King after all ...
okay, thanks for your speech before the intergalactic congress in the year 4013 AD
in the meantime, could we focus on the here and now of the reality we live in for the next few centuries?
you can't base your opinions on MNLOP when we live in the reality of ABCDE
thanks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, I don't imagine that without governments there will be no currency manipulation. That is your strawman. In fact I am pretty certain that bitcoin is the most heavily manipulated market out there, the price is being manipulated by major stakeholders to be more stable than it otherwise would be because they profit if the currency is perceived as healthy.
why is it that you retards never know how stupid you really are?
Anyway I doubt mad max will occur unless the nukes start getting flung around or solar flares or aliens or something. More likely, a collapse would resemble that of the USSR.
If it's the currency of resistance, it should be called the ohm. Pun managed.
oh i see
you trust random assholes who owe nothing to you to always sacrifice self-interest for the good of all
LOL
but government, which exists to serve the people in democracies, and at least to serve stability anywhere else, are horribly untrustworthy on the topic of currency integrity
wtf? O_o
i go on the internet, i meet deluded kooks with serious disorders in the realm of trust
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No, it is in the interest of anyone holding large amounts of a currency to stabilize the value. There is no self-sacrifice or trust neccesary.
There is a third option, government can control the bad things people sometimes do with currency. For instance, you can outlaw contract killing without actually controlling currency. You can outlaw fraud without direct control of currency.
There has to be control of currency for it to function but that control can come from an innate property of currency rather than government. For instance, control is needed to prevent counterfeiting. Bitcoin needs no government, or since this mechanism is peer to peer you could say it is performed by a direct democracy the supersedes national governments. Similarly, a set of rules that dictate the nature of exchanges is needed. Again, Bitcoin provides a reasonable set of rules consistent with a right to property.
What Bitcoin cannot do is provide rules for behaviors that might involve currency. That is where government is needed. But policing requires controlling people, not currency.
The big difference between a government controlled currency and bitcoin in the end is that no government controlled currency can ever be suitable for inter-government exchange and interaction or even international exchange. The reason is that governments can manipulate to their advantage. For instance look at the trade advantage china gives itself by under-valuing it's currency relative to the dollar. Look at the way Japan manipulated their currency to increase in value after fukishima. Or the way the US creates billions of dollars worth of inflation in secret bank loans each year that aren't visible even to congress let alone the people or other nations. A currency like Bitcoin is suitable in this sort of global arena.
If Bitcoin survives long enough I expect we will see that government control takes the form of nations mining and protecting the network to prevent anyone, including one another, from reaching >51% control.
(smacks forehead)
please, just stop. you know not a fucking thing about currency exchange. just stop. educate yourself. then form opinions
thank you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, your arguments aren't very convincing is all I can say. We will see what happens.
Who gives a shit? The most used platform for it is a www 3.0 to slip under the radar of what the popularity of the normal web wouldn't allow. That's just the nature of things in a worldwide environment where a good idea is all it takes to get things going. One thing gets too popular to be useful for a specific function and people create the successor which will be strange and scary to whatever generation is two jumps up from it.
Everything will be taken away from you.
You could pay for all of that. It'd just take a step or two more than with whatever the preferred method is. You're blaming the currency for your own ignorance. It's like a 90 year old man ranting about how he can't pay for something with a bit of plastic. The fact that you're even talking about used game stores shows your age. Have fun at the retirement home grandpa.
No, in USA it's not accountable. Again, you can't manpulate bitcoin. Simply, it was designed that way. If you can't print new bitcoin - you can't manipulate it. Especially if its accepted by hide amount of people.
it does have traditional value. and civilizations have independently come to value gold. there's something psychological about the substance
but it is pretty useless for what these people want to use it for: a hedge against the end of civilization
because you're right, it has no intrinsic value. what can you do with gold? you can't eat it. and in anarchy, someone is more likely to shoot you for it than trade for it
if civilization is going to end, invest in gang membership and heavy weaponry. there's intrinsic value. then go kill the guy with gold if you really want the stuff so bad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
are you really saying the us govt has no assets?
(facepalm)
why do people talk about and form opinions about subject matter they don't understand?
it's embarrassing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/03/22/153226/bitcoin-to-be-regulated-under-us-money-laundering-laws
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i'm not entirely sure when faced with the same mental vomit over and over again why it is my responsibility to find a new creative path to sanity for the crackpot. it is the crackpot's responsibility to make fucking sense
Not going to lie, I like this guy. I have seen most bitcoin arguments. They do not answer the questions of "how is this better than current currency" often enough. Yet it has been on slashdot's homepage for a while now.
I also support abolishing IP in favour of more humanistic property laws as is (kind of) mentioned in this guy's sig. I do not support bitcoin.Maybe we should mate or something?
i generally like the news that slashdot posts, but over my vacation over the last week or so I have engaged in many debates on this website with people I can only best define as crackpots.
I am not suggesting that there are no legitimate aspects to the bitcoin currency theory, nor that everyone that uses bitcoin is a crackpot, just that I can totally understand why someone on this site would just resort to trolling something like bitcoin after all the crackpots have exhausted the legitimate angles of their argumentative stance.
Not enough people that use and defend bitcoin know enough about currency and why we have evolved to the current money system over a long ass process of time, testing, and failures.Maybe if there were more knowledgable people in the field of monetary economics that used bitcoin and could help explain to people like me how this is an improvement, I might be willing to help other people adopt this standard.
Man this is some good entertainment, I wouldn't stop letting these people have it. For whatever reason I still hold onto tact on this website, but find your posturing quite entertaining.
Your description that people on this site often view things as cartoonish extremes is quite apt, especially considering how intelligent and knowledgable they think they are. /P
Do you? It sure would be nice to have a currency that couldn't be stripped of it's value at the whim of a government.
You do realize that empirical evidence shows that the government has maintained a quite stable money system for a long time, yes? Volatility is one of the major concerns with bitcoin, and having a community based decentralized "central" bank in the first place. We are quite good at mitigating volatility in faith at this point in time.
I also support abolishing IP in favour of more humanistic property laws as is (kind of) mentioned in this guy's sig. I do not support bitcoin.Maybe we should mate or something?
A/S/L?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
currency choice is some tangential pointless issue
You're not thinking very hard about this, are you? Do you really think the quality of the coin of the realm isn't going to affect economic decision-making? Are you really trying to suggest that the quality of a nation's currency doesn't affect its political economy?
He said nothing about the quality of the currency. He has specifically stated that the quality of the currency is dependent on the quality of the society and the government, as a theoretical endpoint.
He clearly stated here "choice" of currency. People can choose to use bitcoin, government backed currency, or cigarettes.The choice is already yours.
There is nothing that society ever needs to fix about currency itself, as it always has and always will exist. Problems exist with laws that govern currency, bitcoin is likely not The Answer to those problems and doesn't really seem to offer a better alternative to the many problems already present with currency.
if you believe that, and you live in a western democracy, you are a spastic hysterical twit who has no fucking clue how bad things can really get
In a state of total anarchy, the ability to transfer value safely becomes an even bigger boon to survival: the worse things get, the more useful Bitcoin becomes.
This will be hard to do with no computers/internet in your hypothetical situation. I'll hold on to my AK and cigarrettes in this unlikely scenario and trade them for food/security.
i do have a problem where i derive some sort of perverse delight raining simple points of logic and reason on the obviously insane
i am still not sure if this makes me bad, like a bully, or good, like a bringer of light to a dark corner
but certain wackjobs of a certain mental posture make me itch in a part of my brain, and i have this compulsion to mercilessly torment them with simple obvious points which easily explode their bizarre blind spots and fragile castles in the sky
they don't often notice while they continue to vomit their WHARGARBBBLLLLL. but everyone else, like you, does. so it's entertaining at least
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually anarchy just means "no rulers".
One of the earliest anarchy writers described anarchy as being a system with universal suffrage under one nation, so technically you are wrong with how absolute your definition is for anarchy.
But the thing about anarchy is there really is no definition, ironically so, mostly because all the early writers had different theories under the same name.
It really is just a word that can fit most contexts you want to use it in. Like 'fuck'.
No, it is in the interest of anyone holding large amounts of a currency to stabilize the value. There is no self-sacrifice or trust neccesary.
Wow. You definitely need to stop and take an entry level monetary economics (300 level undergrad) course.
bitcoin is the crank's currency. cranks don't do legitimacy
so bitcoin will lose its lustre with those who launched it onto slashdot's front page for the past few years
I wonder how long would bitcoin need to stay around for some people to accept its legitimate reason for existence.
When bitcoin started four years ago, people like you posted almost constantly that it is scam, pyramid, ponzi scheme and will not survive too long.
Now bitcoin is around for years and is stronger then ever. I wonder, if bitcoin would be around in another 10 years and it would trade for $5000 yeach, would you still insist it's crang money? Probably yes, but i hope you can see how this statement is becoming more and more funny in the face of reality.
Gold doesn't have intrinsic value. Where do you people come up with this crap?
I'm no scientist, but...... ??????????
"where they have a legitimate gripe that resonates across the masses, you get revolutions. where they have loony complaints that leaves people rolling their eyes, you get cranks"
That would make Bitcoin a revolution.
Although you know you missed the point, Bitcoin simply does not present a better alternative over the perceived complaints with current currency. What problems do you have with current currency?
Featuring some UI, while the OS is unstable (relative) & power consuming (relative). JOKE !
Well, it's shiny, pleasantly heavy and doesn't rust. I'm sure there are alloys with similar properties.
It's also used in some industries, like electronics, but it was highly valued long before even term "electronics" itself appeared. I also don't see Qualcomm, Intel, AMD, Foxconn etc. setting exchange rates for gold.
We were talking about the fed, not the government. And yeah, the fed has no assets. But even beyond that, the idea the federal government is going to sell off physical assets to deal with a solvency crisis is just daft. You keep spraying ignorant stuff on my screen and then accuse other people of ignorance. I would laugh if I didn't realize you're probably allowed to vote.
Yes, actually gold has intrinsic value. It has some nice physical properties that make it useful for electronics and corrosion resistance.
there's so many levels of abject stupidity in your statement. yes, the fed has no assets. LIKE THAT IS A FUCKING FUNCTION OF THE FED
it's a policy making body of a larger entity that is what really matters here. and no, you are right, they are not going to sell off PHYSICAL assets
(pounds head on table)
do you have any idea how fucking embarrassing you sound?
please. PLEASE. educate yourself. then form an opinion and speak on a subject
(sigh)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
so if i use bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, you would call me historically wise and longsighted?!
Way to read what you think I wrote instead of what I wrote.
a better hedge bet than gold in that scenario would be to invest in gang membership and heavy weaponry. then just go and take any fucking gold you want. because that's what happens when societies collapse on the order of extreme currency disruption: the rise of warlords
Like I said. Historically ignorant.
Are you drunk?
it will probably be around for decades
there are still ham radio operators in the world too
there many people who have fringe esoteric hobbies they are enthusiastic about
lucky for them, the ham radio operators have a little more realism and modesty about their role in the world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you want to put us on nichrome standard? Or, may be, germanium standard?
(Hint: gold's high prices has nothing to do with "corrosion". And I doubt it could valued so high for "useful for electronics" all these centuries until late 1900's.)
The whole concept is stupid. The earlier you get in to "mining" the more money you make so the ppl who made this up already have a huge stash. A bug/hardware failure could wipe your cash... nice. And most of all; you have to spend money and resources in an artificial lottery to mine (buy) the bit coins! Great job in making up a new "virtual" currency that manages to fuck mother nature!
Even if you accept that it's representative data, there has still been persistent inflation. Even if it's only 2-3 percent/year, it adds up. One dollar today is worth 79 cents in 2003.
Call that an incentive for you to get your money working for you (i.e., to invest in something) instead of leaving it under the bed.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
I've read a lot of what you've written this morning. You're aware that you can horde goal AND get an AK/gang membership all at the same time, right? It isn't an either/or situation. Your entire premise seems to be one of black and white in that it disallows both commodities hoarding and defensive/offensive strategies which, frankly, is absurd. I haven't any use for bitcoins or the likes and I don't hoard gold as I think an apocalypse is nearly impossible in my physical location within my lifetime so I only post to point out that you appear to have some illogical thinking going on.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What is your point? That the intrinsic value isn't the same as its market value? I don't think anybody claimed that it was. Gold has properties that make it valuable. I'm not advocating the gold standard or the likes, I'm just curious as to why you'd try to claim some sort of victory in an argument when you skip the point entirely. It is like saying that the sky is blue therefore your preferred system of government is the most logical choice. You may be correct, it may be the logical choice, but the color of the sky in no way supports your argument. That gold has an intrinsic value shouldn't be upsetting to you. Being overly attached to an incorrect belief may be the cause of that. (Hint: Most everything has an intrinsic value. This is, by its nature, different than its market value.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
What. Just what.
Original point was "All sorts of commodities (gold and silver most easily, of course) could be used as money completely divorced from governance because they have intrinsic value", but you seem to be advocating the point "meh, it's good it has intrinsic value, but all we care about is subjective value anyways".
If you don't care about your money's intrinsic value, the fuck do you care whether it's gold, nichrome, bottle caps or greenish pieces of paper, and the fuck's intrinsic value has to do with this discussion, then?
Just say it - "value is defined by market, not by properties" means gold standard is no different from any fiat currency system and talks about "but oooh, we can use it to gold-plate contacts!" is just offtopic.
You commented so many times on this thread that you actually replied to yourself here. I'm not even sure what you're arguing, except "everyone else is wrong." Since you're on Slashdot, I think you must be arguing that libertarian absolutes are just as wrong as fascist absolutes and socialist absolutes. Do you know what threatens the bitcoin? So far, from my understanding, 51% attack. That and advanced, persistent violent oppression-types.
What threatens the legitimacy of US Dollars and other government-printed dollars? It's probably a shorter list, right. Just like there are more Linux and Mac OS viruses, because the attack surface is larger. Am I right?
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
I know I'll be modded down for this, but from the outside, it most certainly does look like a kind of scam. Bitcoin appears to be, essentially, a money laundering service, albeit set up by idealist people who have no idea what currency is or what it's trying to achieve who think that fiat money terrible (because GOVERNMENT) who thought they were replacing banks, not setting up a money laundering service. The two major players appear to be said idealists, and money launderers, with the occasional sucker brought in temporarily because they want to buy something that's also priced in bitcoins.
Suppose though that the outside view is wrong: It still makes no sense whatsoever. Money is created at a rate based upon energy prices and computer power, which means it'll never keep up with the demands of a modern economy. We abandoned gold, a similarly stupid system, for much the same reason.
I'd have more sympathy if I felt the major advertised problem Bitcoins were trying to address were legitimate. But for the most part, it's the misguided belief that the gold standard was a great thing, and that consistently small and positive inflation is terrible.
Is it successful right now? Bitcoin enthusiasts seem rather excited that the last few years have shown the currency to be getting more stable. At the same time, well, it would, wouldn't it? With austerity in most countries, including hidden austerity in the US (yes, Fed spending went up, but not enough to counter spending cuts in local and state governments), virtually the entire western world has seen their economies slow to the point that the flaws in Bitcoin's growth model haven't come to the surface. But imagine economic growth in the modern world coming back, and a serious rise in energy prices as a result, and... well, I'm pretty sure the drastic swings in value as the currency alternates between hyperdeflation and hyperinflation will make most people continue to avoid the entire thing.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You can't read very well, can you? My ONLY point is that they claimed that gold had no intrinsic value which is false. Once again, it is as if you're being blinded by emotion and ignoring reality. It isn't off-topic, it's refuting the absurd claim that gold has no intrinsic value which is a false statement. You can't argue with lies. Hell, I even go so far as to point out that I'm not advocating a gold standard. You're just mentally handicapped. Or stupid.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Is this a joke? Even "low" inflation (what they call 2-3%) compounds over time, and if you understand finance you understand the power of compounding. If you are a saver, the bottom line is that you are getting ripped off. The first year you lose 2-3% of your principal to inflation (again, what government calls "normal"), the next year you lose 2-3% of the remaining principal, the following year you lose 2-3% of the remaining principal, and so on. After just 10 years you have taken a hit of 25%. After 20 years you have lost nearly half of your savings to government through the hidden tax of inflation.
This isn't rocket science, folks, and to claim that the dollar's purchasing power has "remained quite strong over the past few decades" is laughable. Losing half your purchasing power every two decades is NOT "moderate". That is a severe hit on the real value of your savings.
If anything good comes from bitcoin, it would be that this new state attack on it could be leveraged to educate, expose and destroy (like life in fucking prison) the banksters, their fiat printers, and their interest against our monetary system. More than a few oath breaking Senators also belong in that prison as they are required to regulate the monetary system like the fucking US Constitution says.
Nothing good will come with bitcoin in the state / bankster crosshair. Might as well use it's DEATH as a fucking turning point for the world.
Right, and it's going to be that much harder to get your money working for you when 1/3 of your yearly returns go straight to the hidden tax of inflation. (If your investments return 9% in nominal terms, your real return is only 6%, and you haven't even factored in the tangible costs yet (expense ratio, taxes, commissions). If you're stuck with a high-cost 401k like the vast majority of the country, you're lucky just to break even.
He who beats his sword into a plowshare usually ends up plowing for those who
kept their swords.
Why? This is the second poster making this claim in such a vague fashion, making me suspect whatever information it is based on involves all sorts of assumptions and nuances that don't apply to bitcoin.
The blockchain is already growing out of control. If you don't bribe miners, your transaction could sit for hours in limbo. To get the maximum benefit, you should hoard them, but without some movement, there is no 'economy'. And, the Bitcoin fan club is full to the brim with scammers, criminals, liars, and frauds salivating to cash out and leave everyone else holding the worthless bag.
Bitcoin is not a currency. It is not a good store of value. It is a proof-of-concept that has been ruined by its biggest fans. Bitcoins only have the worth that they have right now due to rampant speculation. Good luck with your digital Beanie-Babies. A handful of people will win, most will lose. Such is the way of all scams.
Linux is not a religion. It is a collection of logic. Stop being stupid.
He's a closeted (or not so much) fascist who is scared of anything that might risk his lifestyle, that's all. Every once and a while it's fun to jump on his bones about it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
No intrinsic value as money. Of course everything probably has some intrinsic value, even the paper that badly run fiat currency is printed on. However, that's nearly entirely irrelevant to the discussion about what to use for currency.
The fact that is has been valued by cultures from the the Lower Valley (Africa) to South America for several thousand years? Its true that gold has few utilitarian uses but for some reason humans are memorized by it. I can't think of a single culture that has ever considered it to be undesirable.
This currency's entire purpose for existance is to facilitate money laundering. Any legitimate service that accepts bitcoin as payment has proven to be the exception, not the rule.
Tell me, do you dress up the black boots and the little mustache when you spew that shit?
You are aware that you don't actually have to compare someone directly to Hitler for it to count as a Godwin? It's too easy to get round otherwise.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist is a fascist thing to do.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
gold has had value for thousands of years. paper money's value goes to zero after four or less centuries.
Just because its slower does not mean its not happening. But its happening continuously so you don't notice it. There is a reason why it takes almost $4 to purchase what cost $1 ONLY 30 YEARS AGO.
Given your post above about anarchy you then go on to choose the definition of "chaos and lawlessness". What writer on anarchy has used this term?
I like the comparison because it needs fewer words to spell out what everybody has a little of inside them. And the OP wants to make political correctness into law because of a perceived 'threat' to his lifestyle which depends on the total compliance of those who supply his provisions. In other words, he's a firm believer in 'don't rock the boat', leaving himself open to greatly deserved ridicule.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
First of all, many civilizations have used all sorts of commodities as currency, from conch shells to salt, to silver and gold. Secondly, most civilizations and economies fail after a few centuries (if they are lucky), so your statistic doesn't mean much. Thirdly, most civilizations haven't existed in modern capitalist economies with the sort of political and economic stability we've seen in the post-war years. Comparing, say, Rome during its crises to the US now shows only naivete. It is not a valid comparison. And finally, correlation is not causation, and the fact that some countries have had problems with fiat currency does not mean that fiat currency is bad. It has some slightly different properties from currency backed by metals, which do make a difference, but I've seen no evidence that there's anything inherently wrong with fiat currency, or that, at the end of the day, it's really any different from non-fiat currency. Finally finally, the goldbugs seem to forget that in the past 60 years, we've had recessions, some of them bad, but nothing like the panics and depressions we had in the 19th and early 20th century when we were on...wait for it...the gold standard. That's not to say that the gold standard *caused* those, but rather that the gold standard doesn't magically make an economy stable (some would argue, in fact, that it does the opposite, since the money supply can't grow with the economy and you get deflation and hoarding).
It can do optimization type problems but it's not an actual quantum computer. It's not actually good at solving "millions of problems" it's just good at solving a couple of problems "millions of times" faster.
Bitcoin is a distributed multiuser ledger system. It allows people to send IOUs to each other without involving third parties. It has utility, regardless of whether it has lustre.
look out for the rise of the new utopian idealization project:
I think that would be "Bitcoin over Freenet", since any "crank" users are probably already using both, and it would be a pretty simple project - just post the transactions and solved blocks into a Frost board and accept that you'll have a lot of temporary forks. Or maybe "Bitcoin over Tor" - the point remains that hiding you're running a node would be a natural evolution for the paranoid.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The way these algorithms work are entirely different from conventional algorithms. They are not only faster but more elegant and simple too. Beautiful algorithms but the problem is no quantum computer currently exists which can take advantage.
The problem is that this volatility mitigation basically requires the general population to be ignorant about how money works. This is likely to become less successful as internet usage grows.
Even if the exchanges cave to every government demand, and the chain forks into "lawful BTC" and "real BTC", we will have created a simple and easy way to irreversibly transfer value into the free system. A PayPal with no shenanigans would be a boon to real BTC exchange. So by all means, go ahead and regulate Bitcoin, so that Bitcoin 2 will be even better.
His mission is âEmpowering people and the commonwealth with modern monetary theory and practiceâ(TM).
http://local-currency.eu/
Casteism
You do realize that every crank has proclaimed that his or her particular brand of crankery is a revolution, right?
The jury's still out. We'll let reality make its own pronouncement.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Irrelevant to speak of fiat currency *partially backed* by a "gold standard". I'm speak of gold, not promises of gold nor paper that claims to be equal to gold.
Fact is $20.61 in 1929 would is like $273.01 of now, use a CPI calculator. But that $20.61 would buy an ounce of gold. Here in 2013, let's just say we're in bubble so we'll only take a THIRD of that ounce of gold's value, which would be $500+. Yes, we clearly have a "barbarous relic" alright. it's of the banking cabal and known as "paper fiat money".
history in industrialized age proves you wrong, paper currencies quickly inflate and go to zero in value while gold at least performs as holding store of value Gold continues to be valuable for millennia while paper and the countries and empires that made them rise and fall. Here in the USA gold held for a hundred years would outdo inflation adjusted dollars, but that's just a bad statement of our banking system's ability to even manage fiat currency, as they are thieves of wealth.
Why does it matter that a dollar in 1929 doesn't equal a dollar now? All you are doing is ranting semi-coherently without making an actual argument for anything.
In any case, gold isn't magical. It's shiny and it's not particularly useful for anything besides decoration and some electronics applications, and it is rare, but not too rare. It's a convenient currency when you can't do anything better. It is not immune to inflation or deflation, nor does it magically stabilize society. What keeps things stable is an economy that works and produces real wealth, be it measured in ounces of gold or fiat currency.
"history in industrialized age proves you wrong, paper currencies quickly inflate and go to zero in value while gold at least performs as holding store of value"
What are you comparing here? Are you looking at all the factors, or just taking a random sampling of countries with fiat currency and those without, ignoring all other conditions, and trying to make a blanket statement? Sure, Zimbabwe inflated into nothing, but the country is not run well at all. The people wouldn't have gold there either.
This has never happened. You are describing events that take place entirely in your imagination.
there are malcontents in every era of man
where they have a legitimate gripe that resonates across the masses, you get revolutions. where they have loony complaints that leaves people rolling their eyes, you get cranks
What a disturbingly stupid, romaticized view of history some morons manage to obtain...
There is only a revolution when the gripe is 'legitimate'?! I'm sure you've worked out some twisted way of making sure that only the items you think are legit are 'real revolutions' as well.
Revolutions are revolutions - reasons are reasons - some burn bright and achieve something (sometimes bad, sometimes good, mostly neither), some never get off the ground - there is no right or wrong to any of the situations - there is only reality.
Idiots like this one just lend more credit to the theory that the US revolution was the worst thing to happen in the last few centuries - aside from the shit that the US has gone on to cause, it's given a whole new generation of twats some magical idea that their revolution was 'right' and only 'right' ones can succeed (in the long run of course - statistical justification of 'success' or 'failure' will be required to make your rationalization work in most cases).
Not entirely. Gold's intrinsic value means even if it lost its premium as a medium of exchange, it's still worth something in the same way a potato or a barrel of oil is worth something. With fiat currencies the currency itself is completely worthless, so you can get situations like Hungary after WW II or Zimbabwe more recently, where the value drops to zero, in essence.
I also support abolishing IP in favour of more humanistic property laws as is (kind of) mentioned in this guy's sig. I do not support bitcoin.Maybe we should mate or something?
A/S/L?
11/T/192.168.1.1.
+5, interesting?? This is a blatant lie, plain and simple.
"Money is created at a rate based upon energy prices and computer power"
This is false. The difficulty of generating scales with the computing power thrown at it to result in a roughly constant rate between each block reward halving. Bitcoin 101.
If you're saving your money in your mattress under your bed, perhaps.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I can plaster them dollars over the cracks in the walls and windowsills, I can write on'em, I can make a kite or paper plane, depending on paper and ink, I might extract some nutritional value out of them if I boil them down.
Lots of intrinsic value there! And coins have even more.
Do tell what would be happening right now in Zimbabwe if they were on gold standard, though. I think they'd be shifting to potato standard and ammo standard seeing how there'd be not enough gold for most to have even a gram worth of currency, what's your analysis?
There's already a documented way to coalesce arbitrarily many bitcoin micropayments to a single party into exactly two blockchain transactions without involving a trusted third party. It bears a striking similarity to the two-transaction authorize-capture flow used by VISA and friends, but with the added bonus that the payee isn't trusted to capture for the correct amount.
This (like all smart contracts) is a fairly advanced use-case that basic wallet software isn't capable of, but can readily be built as an add-on that operates as a client of bitcoind.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
1- The percentage of the budget that services the debt is very low.
2- Quantitative easing. They own tons of non governmental bonds that they are sitting on.
3.14159/A/127.0.0.1
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is it just me or is my laptop hot?
He's a closeted (or not so much) fascist ......... BLAH BLAH BLAH
I'm a closeted fascist as well: An omnipotent, omniscient singular leader would likely be the best and most effecient form of government for all.
Unfortunately no such person/hero/god has or ever will exist.
All my friend (singular......tear) always state that half my humour is pointing out the obvious.
When it comes to websites like these, and seeing general stupidity in public, I have typically made it my goal to at least share my knowledge with these people. At the bare minimum I want them to question their own belief system, much like people make me do every day. It's not easy telling other young people that the money systems we use today are actually kind of okay overall. Logic and empirical evidence, along with the scientific method are typically used to back my argumentative standpoints.
Sometimes I do get a joy out of it, almost like a bully, but I don't find a consistent need to do it. It really is that certain kind of intelligent (or well trained) wackjob (seemingly found in abundance on this website) that is knowingly blind and knowingly paints the world as a set of "cartoonish" extremes rather than a spectrum of solutions and possibilities (this could even be a function of this website having started out appealing to those that write binary computer code). I do not feel like a bully when facing these people, as they are bullies themselves. Bad, poor, and mis-information must be stamped out. Much like your sig, it is human duty to do so. The blind may not lead the blind. /high-horse
All this is why I am even willing to entertain the notion of bitcoin in the first place: I am willing to entertain the notion of the spectrum of solutions, alternative currencies, and that the bitcoin technology might have some validity which can help make government currency have more checks, balances, accountability, and transparency. But to suggest that bitcoin will supplant all government currencies? The notion is fallacious as you say, and totally misses the point of the current currency system. If any one singular group of people had the ability to supplant government currencies in one fell swoop such that the majority of people actually had faith in said currency, it would be some conglomerate of banks, much like it was before gold standard and fiat currencies.
People have always wanted to store shit, and banks have always been there to store said shit. Currency is just a different pile of said shit, in representative form.
I remember living in America, in a relatively small town, needing to use E-Gold in order to buy stuff online. Bitcoin is fundamentally different, yes, but alternative currencies have and always will exist. Don't like the currency you are using? Fortunately most of us commenting on these forums live in a country that provides the opportunity to use a different currency.
Congratulations for coming out... I would encourage the same for my little friend there
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
enjoy yourself
i unfortunately must labor under the reality that the chances of meeting a female on slashdot are far lower than the chances of meeting a suitably motivated troll
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You do realize that every crank has proclaimed that his or her particular brand of crankery is a revolution, right?
Well, yes. You turn the crank once and it makes one revolution. Turn it again, two revolutions, etc.
The closet has its advantages, but I prefer to wear the clothing it holds in daylight.
Some say there is life beyond slashdot, others have attempted the venture in vain.
Everything is worth what it's bought and sold for, so nothing has intrinsic (economic) value.
Gold has some intrinsic properties that might be valuable to some, but that is extrinsic value, deriving and dependent from their value judgement.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
uh, I don't think it matters if your economy is $1,500 or $15,000,000, if it inflartes at 3% per year your $1 is still worth $0.79 cents
Those properties are what gives it its intrinsic value.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Depends on what you mean by "stable". The government has maintained a money system that slowly bleeds savers for about a hundred years now. That's not the kind of stability I'm interested in.
Well, in theory by creating money and using it to buy government debt the money they've injected into the system will be destroyed as the government pays off those debt obligations. I think we've passed the point where that could actually happen, though. The government can only pay off old debt obligations only by issuing new debt, so there's no way to get the money back out of the economy.
Right, which is why I was surprised when, in response to a discussion about the fed, you chimed in about the government selling off nonexistent assets. Try to read what people write and not what the little man in your head thinks they wrote. It's pretty obvious that of all the commenters on this thread you probably know the least, which is why you keep calling people stupid when they point it out. What else can you say?
Okay, then what "assets" are they going to sell? You don't have any idea how this stuff works, do you?
Well, sure. That's what QE is all about. The fed prints money and uses it to simulate demand for bonds, which drives down interest rates.
Those aren't assets. The Fed can't sell more than a token amount of those bonds, because of #1. Selling the bonds would drive up interest rates, bankrupting the government almost immediately. And the government can't actually pay those bonds back without issuing new debt. And the new debt will be bought, in larger and larger amounts as time goes by, by the Fed. So how valuable is a loan you can't sell that will never be paid back? QE was just a sneaky way for the government to print trillions of dollars while at the same time pretending it wasn't doing any such thing.
Well, in theory by creating money and using it to buy government debt the money they've injected into the system will be destroyed as the government pays off those debt obligations.
That's the kool-aid. This is actually slightly worse than printing money, intending to later tax it back out of the money supply. (Keeping a negative balance on the sheets is one thing, but debt has interest.) Sometimes in politics, reframing a bad idea in slightly more complex terms makes it more palatable.
I think we've passed the point where that could actually happen, though. The government can only pay off old debt obligations only by issuing new debt, so there's no way to get the money back out of the economy.
That's the real pitfall with any kind of compounding interest. The point of no return sneaks up on you, and is painful (costly) to back away from.
I hope we're not too far gone, but we certainly look like that way. I'm beginning to think that the sooner the US defaults and causes a real depression, the sooner we'll recover. (Also assuming the State of California doesn't default and cause a panic that triggers the US and other states defaulting. If you think the federal government has budget problems, CA is possibly worse.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
NON governmental bonds. Mortgages and corporate bonds. The point is to flood the market with money when deflation is imminent, and vacuum up money when inflation is imminent. Selling the assets slowly, or simply letting the issuers pay them back as they mature over time, slowly removes the excess money from the economy as the economy picks up and starts creating money it on its own. The point is that a stagnant economy shrinks, or at least generates deflationary pressure, because there isn't enough capital to go around and interest rates naturally want to go up, compounding the issue and making things worse. Whereas an overheated economy creates more money than it needs, and this naturally drives down interest rates because there is excess capital looking for investment, which causes bubbles. The Fed's job is to counteract this process by adding or removing money from the economy at large.
As for the Treasury's problem with debt, this will be made largely irrelevant because a hot economy generates excess tax revenue. The Treasury can keep the costs of borrowing flat, at least, because they won't need to borrow so much.
As I understand it most of the money from QE has been going into government bonds. Mortgages and corporate bonds were only added at all in the more recent iterations.
The amount of debt and obligations (primarily medical care and ACA) will swamp any possible effects of a hot economy, even assuming structural problems won't prevent the economy from more than an anemic recovery. IMO what's most likley going forward is a few decades of low to zero growth like we've seen in Japan. There will be three options: devalue the currency, raise taxes significantly, or cut services. I don't think the last two are politically palatable.
Depends on what you mean by "stable".
I meant whatever the previous commenter meant, to which the user provided no sources nor definitions. How would you like to define stability? If you would like to argue this point, feel free to provide definitions and sources. I am not the one trying to supplant the system in favour of the bitcoin system. Keep in mind I will make no claims for the stability of one particular government currency without considering the global context. I'm not going to sit here and defend Zimbabwe's currency management, nor am I going to suggest that the value of the US dollar has not been stable over the last few years (relative to the value of other global currencies).
The government has maintained a money system that slowly bleeds savers for about a hundred years now. That's not the kind of stability I'm interested in.
Which government do you belong to? Man that sucks! You should vote for a change in management. This is also not true of all government backed money systems, so I feel for you if you live in, say, the USA. Forced regional chartered membership ownership (which also gives special voting powers for that region's federal reserve bank) of each regional federal reserve bank is not necessarily a good thing, among other things that the USA system includes.
If it was much more simple and available to the public, say with the Canadian system, this would probably be a lot easier for the common American to understand.
I meant whatever the previous commenter meant, to which the user provided no sources nor definitions. How would you like to define stability?
Well, for starters I would define a stable currency as one that had an average CPI of 0% with extremes between -2% and 2% or so. I would like to be able to stuff my mattress with money and not have the purchasing power of that money go down as I sleep. I don't really care what exchange rates are directly, since if another country doubles its money supply I ought to be able to buy twice as many quatloos (or whatever) for a dollar.
Which government do you belong to?
I don't belong to any government :). But I live in the US. I'm curious what country has managed to keep a stable currency (by my definition above).