Modding something as "troll" does not change its truth. I'd be willing to bet, mystery modder, that you would not have done it had your name been visible for all to see.
"Again, you are wrong for all the reasons that have already been stated."
No, I am not wrong, and the reasons that have been stated are specious. They demonstrate ignorance of how a monetary standard is supposed to work.
"As we see from the actual definition, resources are expended in creating new Bitcoins, but you can't redeem a Bitcoin for the effort (or for that matter anything else!) that went into its creation. So no, value is not built into the definition of Bitcoins."
Here is the flaw in your argument:
There was a time in the U.S. when the dollar was still on a de facto gold standard... but a law was passed saying that Americans could no longer exchange dollars for gold.
Yet -- and here is the important part -- there was STILL a gold standard, and Americans could STILL exchange dollars for other things that STILL had a value as measured against gold. So the fact that there could be no direct exchange did not change the VALUE of the dollar. The gold standard was still in full effect.
Similarly, it is VERY clear that the Bitcoin value standard also has a value in dollars that is easy to calculate. Regardless of the fact that you can't easily and directly exchange computation time with somebody else, that doesn't mean that it has no value. You can still trade in other commodities that have the same VALUE. Therefore the standard is not affected.
You can't have it both ways. History gives us a perfect example of the same thing, in action, right here in the U.S.
"You need to stop using the word 'value' in place of 'cost'."
I don't "need" to do any such thing, because that's not what I'm doing. I know full well the difference between value and cost. YOU don't seem to know what a monetary standard is. It defines VALUE. It doesn't define cost.
Example: when the dollar was on the gold standard, it defined how much a dollar was WORTH (value), not how much a dollar COST to make. There is a very big difference.
What you do not seem to realize, and what I have had to keep repeating here, is that Bitcoin HAS AN OFFICIAL STANDARD. That standard defines its VALUE. In exactly the same way that gold used to define the VALUE of a dollar.
"You can't just say something has a value because that's what you want it to be."
Correct. And yet, that's what the MARKET is trying to do.
The Bitcoin standard isn't just some arbitrary figure that somebody pulled out of the air. It is what it is, because it was built directly into how Bitcoin works.
Similarly, when the dollar was on a gold standard, it wasn't that way because somebody just said so. It was built in to how our money system worked.
"I thought the "cost" was "how much you pay," in which case it would seem that it is the cost which is defined."
I will say this once again politely: look it up. The value standard was built in to how Bitcoin works. You can read all about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
Yes, it was. LOOK IT UP. That was the whole rationale behind Bitcoin in the first place.
"Bitcoins can't be exchanged for anything of value as part of the standard."
And after a certain date, Americans were no longer allowed to exchange their dollars for gold. But that, in itself, did not change the fact that the dollar was still on a gold standard.
Go back and read my original post. Bitcoins can be exchanged for dollars, and the Bitcoin value standard ALSO has an easily calculated dollar value. That was part of my point.
"Then answer me this: suppose I have a bitcoin. What can I do with it other than trade it to someone else in exchange for something? If the answer is nothing then a bitcoin has no intrinsic value."
Just like so many others here, all you are doing is demonstrating a lack of knowledge about how monetary standards work.
That was one of the major points of my original posts.
"The value of a bitcoin is not "pre-defined" by how much work was done to acquire it any more than the value of a dollar is determined by the resources used to print it."
You are merely demonstrating your ignorance about Bitcoin and monetary standards. You have accomplished nothing but proving the point I made in my first post.
A whole bunch of people here have argued with me about what the actual value of Bitcoins should be. The whole point here is that what they think it is worth is irrelevant. I did NOT state that Bitcoins were "worth" X computation time simply because that's what they cost. The reason I stated that they were worth X computation time, is because that is the DEFINED value of a Bitcoin. That is its value standard. And that standard was built in to the way Bitcoin works. I did not just make it up on the fly.
So please stop arguing with me about "cost" and "worth" and "value". The value of a Bitcoin is DEFINED by its STANDARD, which I spent a good bit of time attempting to explain above. And I did not create that standard. You can read about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
"That doesn't make sense; it only has a value if you can redeem the bitcoin for processing time. The cost to produce the currency is irrelevant."
And this is the last time I am going to repeat this here: I am not arbitrarily saying that a Bitcoin should be worth that much computation time. What I'm saying is that Bitcoin is DEFINED to have that value. It was both designed and defined to have that value. Look it up.
The current market is dumb because Bitcoin has a standard value, which just happens to also have a dollar value. It is built in to the DEFINITION of Bitcoin. People who are paying more than the DEFINED value of a Bitcoin are making a bad investment. Period. End of story.
Today's Bitcoin market is like people buying dollars for 100 nickels apiece. It just doesn't make any sense.
"I'm not sure I'd agree with that. The computing time that goes into a bitcon is more akin to having a fixed production cost not an intrinsic value (although "fixed" migth also not be entirely accurate as the power of computing hardware, cost of electiricy and oppurtunity cost of what else that hardware could be doing probably varies drastically over time, but that's neither here nor there)."
Sheesh. Look, this is what I'm trying to get through peoples' heads: you don't HAVE to agree with that. You have no say in the matter. Nor does the market. Bitcoin was DESIGNED to have a built-in value standard, and that is what its standard is. You can't change that, I can't change that, and the market can't change that.
The people who think they CAN are the ones who are going to lose a bunch of money.
The COST of a Bitcoin, today, is what the market is charging for it. (Cost is what you pay for something.)
The VALUE of a Bitcoin is what it is actually WORTH. That worth is PRE-DEFINED, and actually built in to Bitcoin.
Two very different things, and the opposite of how you describe it. In a rational market, cost and value are always approximately the same. But in this case they are not... which was my point. The Bitcoin market today is not rational.
It is quite possible to pay (cost) more than something's value. Which is what is occurring today. Once again: a Bitcoin's value is an explicit standard that was intentionally built-in to how Bitcoin works. You cannot change it via the market.
Dude: I did not make this up. Read about how Bitcoin works.
"The US dollar is backed up by an almost non-intuitive fact of modern society."
Yes, but that is not a standard. This whole discussion (although it was not stated in so many words) was about the difference between a currency that has a defined standard (Bitcoin) versus a currency that does not (the dollar, which is "fiat" money).
People investing in Bitcoin right now obviously do not understand this very big difference.
"If Bitcoin is a commodity, and behaves like a commodity, then, the value of Bitcoin can go way up, or crash - just like any other commodity. There should be no "cap" nor "floor" on the price of any said commodity - as the marketplace being the final decider"
That is only true if there is no standard. But in the case of Bitcoin, there IS a standard. It is strictly and explicitly defined. As I spent quite a bit of time to explain earlier.
This standard is part of the DEFINITION of Bitcoin. You can't take it away. Just as the dollar used to be fixed to a certain amount of gold, Bitcoin is fixed to a certain amount of computation time. That's the way it works. You can read about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
You missed my entire point. A currency with a standard does not (rationally) fluctuate in value at the whim of the market. That's not the way it works. And because it's not, that's why this is a "bubble", pretty much by definition.
Eventually, the market will come to realize the intrinsic value standard that is built into Bitcoin, and some people are going to lose a lot of money.
"Some of your argument is interesting, but the idea that something's value is equal to the effort that it takes to obtain/create the thing is certainly not the case. "
It is NORMALLY not the case. That is true. But in the specific case of Bitcoin, it is explicitly DEFINED to be that value. This was designed into Bitcoin, and you can read all about it in any good technical description of Bitcoin.
"If a judge gives permission, it is not illegal for law enforcement to steam open a sealed letter and read its contents. Society just does not see fit to extend this to email."
But that was my point. I was wondering when somebody would see it. Actually two points:
(1) This is not a technical issue. The line can be drawn wherever society decides to draw it.
(2) Society SHOULD decide to draw the line such that email is private.
"Wrong. The courts expect them to be private (**). People know better."
No, it's not wrong and you are (incorrectly) nitpicking. The courts have ruled that The People have "a reasonable expectation of privacy" in their phone calls.
"You're talking like a lawyer or civic rights advocate/idealist, and he's talking like a security-conscious person. You're saying there's no technical reason it's valid; he's saying there's no technical barrier which prevents it (unless you encrypted the body)."
Not really. What we were differing about is simply where to draw the line.
There is NO technical barrier to opening your physical mail. Yet society says it's illegal. Why?
If you can answer that, maybe you can answer why email should be any different.
"The reality of the situation is that any expectation of privacy is unreasonable unless your communication channel is encrypted end to end."
You are talking about something completely different. In this context, "expectation of privacy" is a legal phrase that has certain conditions attached to it.
"We really need a corollary for Godwin's Law adapted specifically to Bitcoin discussions: as soon as you say, "The US dollar doesn't have any intrinsic value either!", you lose."
Not really. They are correct about the dollar, but people who say Bitcoin has no "intrinsic value" are just wrong. They don't understand Bitcoin.
(Demonstrably, neither do most people who have been trading in it. I'll get to that in a moment.)
Bitcoin does have an intrinsic value: the computing time it takes to mine a bitcoin. This is a real, tangible, and strictly-defined value that can be quantified. This value is FIXED. That is to say, it is fixed today. It can vary with time, as Bitcoins are designed to gradually become more valuable per hour of computing time, but that subject can wait for another day.
For the sake of argument, for the rest of this post, let's say a bitcoin is worth 10 hours of (the right kind of) computation time. We will call that value "X". 1 bitcoin is worth X. My numbers are arbitrary for the sake of example but this is easily quantifiable if you want to look up the actual numbers.
So here's the important thing: this value standard, that is to say X, is also quantifiable in dollars, not just Bitcoin. After all, a fixed amount of the right kind of computation time also has a very definite value in $$. So 1 Bitcoin is worth X which is worth Y dollars. This is a solidly pre-defined amount. It is not "floating".
Therefore -- and this is the heart of the matter -- Bitcoin should not fluctuate at all in DOLLAR value, except to the extent that computation time fluctuates in dollar value. And since computation time has not fluctuated much in value, then Bitcoin should also NOT have changed in $$ value.
The upshot of this is: the Bitcoin market has been an utterly irrational "bubble", with the market valuing Bitcoins far higher than their actual intrinsic worth!
And the result is: lots and lots of people taken for a ride, many of whom will eventually lose buckets of money.
It is almost as if, with the gold standard having been gone for decades now, people have somehow forgotten how standards are supposed to work. While I LIKE Bitcoin, I would not touch today's Bitcoin market with a 10-foot pole. If I'd had a warehouse full of money to invest in it 2-3 months ago, though, I would have. Even today, with the market having fallen 40%, Bitcoin is selling for somewhere around 5 times what it is actually worth in dollars. It was (but perhaps is no longer) a good candidate for pump-and-dump. Which just illustrates how stupid the market is today.
Having said all that: the dollar, in contrast, really does have no practical intrinsic value. Ever since 1971, when Nixon threw the last vestiges of any standard away. (And defaulted on U.S. debt in the process, by the way. People who said the "fiscal cliff" would be the first time the U.S. ever defaulted on debt simply don't know their history.)
"I agree there is a legal expectation of privacy. I know that there is not practical expectation of privacy. That is why you should encrypt email if you care about privacy."
In that case I agree too, except that I have some problems with the "practical expectation of privacy" choice of words.
It takes MORE work for an ISP to find and view an email of yours on disk, than it does for a postal employee to open an envelope. Yet when people send physical mail, they have a "practical expectation of privacy".
I assert that the "practical expectation" comes from what should be a social and legal barrier to opening and reading the file, just as there is currently a social and legal barrier to opening the envelope. After all... there is absolutely nothing else stopping anyone from doing it.
Having said that, of course the only way to be sure is to encrypt your email... but the exact same is true of regular mail a well.
"With electronic communication that envelope is called encryption."
Definitely not.
For all practical purposes, that envelope is called SMTP.
Let's get this perfectly straight: there is NO reason that any intermediate relay OR your ISP should have default access to your email. In order to do so, they have to take positive action to access it... akin to opening an envelope.
Taking the concept of "envelope" as far as encryption is just wrong. SMTP and secure storage should be your envelope. Encryption is more like transporting your papers in a portable safe. Not the same thing at all.
"The fact that something can be accessed with a court order does not make it public. Your personal papers are free from search and seizure. The fact that it's easy enough for a burglar to steal doesn't alter their private nature or your rights."
The EFF is arguing in the courts that today, email definitely qualifies as someone's "papers and effects", and therefore is Constitutionally protected from seizure or intrusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Further notice to readers:
Modding something as "troll" does not change its truth. I'd be willing to bet, mystery modder, that you would not have done it had your name been visible for all to see.
"Again, you are wrong for all the reasons that have already been stated."
No, I am not wrong, and the reasons that have been stated are specious. They demonstrate ignorance of how a monetary standard is supposed to work.
"As we see from the actual definition, resources are expended in creating new Bitcoins, but you can't redeem a Bitcoin for the effort (or for that matter anything else!) that went into its creation. So no, value is not built into the definition of Bitcoins."
Here is the flaw in your argument:
There was a time in the U.S. when the dollar was still on a de facto gold standard... but a law was passed saying that Americans could no longer exchange dollars for gold.
Yet -- and here is the important part -- there was STILL a gold standard, and Americans could STILL exchange dollars for other things that STILL had a value as measured against gold. So the fact that there could be no direct exchange did not change the VALUE of the dollar. The gold standard was still in full effect.
Similarly, it is VERY clear that the Bitcoin value standard also has a value in dollars that is easy to calculate. Regardless of the fact that you can't easily and directly exchange computation time with somebody else, that doesn't mean that it has no value. You can still trade in other commodities that have the same VALUE. Therefore the standard is not affected.
You can't have it both ways. History gives us a perfect example of the same thing, in action, right here in the U.S.
"You need to stop using the word 'value' in place of 'cost'."
I don't "need" to do any such thing, because that's not what I'm doing. I know full well the difference between value and cost. YOU don't seem to know what a monetary standard is. It defines VALUE. It doesn't define cost.
Example: when the dollar was on the gold standard, it defined how much a dollar was WORTH (value), not how much a dollar COST to make. There is a very big difference.
What you do not seem to realize, and what I have had to keep repeating here, is that Bitcoin HAS AN OFFICIAL STANDARD. That standard defines its VALUE. In exactly the same way that gold used to define the VALUE of a dollar.
"You can't just say something has a value because that's what you want it to be."
Correct. And yet, that's what the MARKET is trying to do.
The Bitcoin standard isn't just some arbitrary figure that somebody pulled out of the air. It is what it is, because it was built directly into how Bitcoin works.
Similarly, when the dollar was on a gold standard, it wasn't that way because somebody just said so. It was built in to how our money system worked.
"I thought the "cost" was "how much you pay," in which case it would seem that it is the cost which is defined."
I will say this once again politely: look it up. The value standard was built in to how Bitcoin works. You can read all about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
"Nope, it wasn't."
Yes, it was. LOOK IT UP. That was the whole rationale behind Bitcoin in the first place.
"Bitcoins can't be exchanged for anything of value as part of the standard."
And after a certain date, Americans were no longer allowed to exchange their dollars for gold. But that, in itself, did not change the fact that the dollar was still on a gold standard.
Go back and read my original post. Bitcoins can be exchanged for dollars, and the Bitcoin value standard ALSO has an easily calculated dollar value. That was part of my point.
"Then answer me this: suppose I have a bitcoin. What can I do with it other than trade it to someone else in exchange for something? If the answer is nothing then a bitcoin has no intrinsic value."
Just like so many others here, all you are doing is demonstrating a lack of knowledge about how monetary standards work.
That was one of the major points of my original posts.
"The value of a bitcoin is not "pre-defined" by how much work was done to acquire it any more than the value of a dollar is determined by the resources used to print it."
You are merely demonstrating your ignorance about Bitcoin and monetary standards. You have accomplished nothing but proving the point I made in my first post.
LOOK IT UP.
"Nope. Value is a perception or expectation of what you or others think they can get with a Bitcoin."
Repeat: that is ONLY true if there is no standard. Do you even know what a monetary standard is? Or how it is supposed to work?
NOTICE TO READERS:
A whole bunch of people here have argued with me about what the actual value of Bitcoins should be. The whole point here is that what they think it is worth is irrelevant. I did NOT state that Bitcoins were "worth" X computation time simply because that's what they cost. The reason I stated that they were worth X computation time, is because that is the DEFINED value of a Bitcoin. That is its value standard. And that standard was built in to the way Bitcoin works. I did not just make it up on the fly.
So please stop arguing with me about "cost" and "worth" and "value". The value of a Bitcoin is DEFINED by its STANDARD, which I spent a good bit of time attempting to explain above. And I did not create that standard. You can read about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
"That doesn't make sense; it only has a value if you can redeem the bitcoin for processing time. The cost to produce the currency is irrelevant."
And this is the last time I am going to repeat this here: I am not arbitrarily saying that a Bitcoin should be worth that much computation time. What I'm saying is that Bitcoin is DEFINED to have that value. It was both designed and defined to have that value. Look it up.
The current market is dumb because Bitcoin has a standard value, which just happens to also have a dollar value. It is built in to the DEFINITION of Bitcoin. People who are paying more than the DEFINED value of a Bitcoin are making a bad investment. Period. End of story.
Today's Bitcoin market is like people buying dollars for 100 nickels apiece. It just doesn't make any sense.
"I'm not sure I'd agree with that. The computing time that goes into a bitcon is more akin to having a fixed production cost not an intrinsic value (although "fixed" migth also not be entirely accurate as the power of computing hardware, cost of electiricy and oppurtunity cost of what else that hardware could be doing probably varies drastically over time, but that's neither here nor there)."
Sheesh. Look, this is what I'm trying to get through peoples' heads: you don't HAVE to agree with that. You have no say in the matter. Nor does the market. Bitcoin was DESIGNED to have a built-in value standard, and that is what its standard is. You can't change that, I can't change that, and the market can't change that.
The people who think they CAN are the ones who are going to lose a bunch of money.
"Or, in short, "people who say the US dollar isn't backed up by anything don't know what they're talking about.""
But that is not something I ever stated. The US dollar *IS* backed up... by the faith of its investors. And that's all well and good.
But that is a very far cry from a value standard. They are not the same things, and they do not work the same way. That is my entire point here.
If you don't understand this, I warn you: do not go investing in the money market.
"Stop. Bitcoins have an intrinsic COST. "
You have it exactly backward.
The COST of a Bitcoin, today, is what the market is charging for it. (Cost is what you pay for something.)
The VALUE of a Bitcoin is what it is actually WORTH. That worth is PRE-DEFINED, and actually built in to Bitcoin.
Two very different things, and the opposite of how you describe it. In a rational market, cost and value are always approximately the same. But in this case they are not... which was my point. The Bitcoin market today is not rational.
It is quite possible to pay (cost) more than something's value. Which is what is occurring today. Once again: a Bitcoin's value is an explicit standard that was intentionally built-in to how Bitcoin works. You cannot change it via the market.
Dude: I did not make this up. Read about how Bitcoin works.
"The US dollar is backed up by an almost non-intuitive fact of modern society."
Yes, but that is not a standard. This whole discussion (although it was not stated in so many words) was about the difference between a currency that has a defined standard (Bitcoin) versus a currency that does not (the dollar, which is "fiat" money).
People investing in Bitcoin right now obviously do not understand this very big difference.
"If Bitcoin is a commodity, and behaves like a commodity, then, the value of Bitcoin can go way up, or crash - just like any other commodity. There should be no "cap" nor "floor" on the price of any said commodity - as the marketplace being the final decider"
That is only true if there is no standard. But in the case of Bitcoin, there IS a standard. It is strictly and explicitly defined. As I spent quite a bit of time to explain earlier.
This standard is part of the DEFINITION of Bitcoin. You can't take it away. Just as the dollar used to be fixed to a certain amount of gold, Bitcoin is fixed to a certain amount of computation time. That's the way it works. You can read about it anywhere you find a good technical description of Bitcoin.
You missed my entire point. A currency with a standard does not (rationally) fluctuate in value at the whim of the market. That's not the way it works. And because it's not, that's why this is a "bubble", pretty much by definition.
Eventually, the market will come to realize the intrinsic value standard that is built into Bitcoin, and some people are going to lose a lot of money.
"Some of your argument is interesting, but the idea that something's value is equal to the effort that it takes to obtain/create the thing is certainly not the case. "
It is NORMALLY not the case. That is true. But in the specific case of Bitcoin, it is explicitly DEFINED to be that value. This was designed into Bitcoin, and you can read all about it in any good technical description of Bitcoin.
"If a judge gives permission, it is not illegal for law enforcement to steam open a sealed letter and read its contents. Society just does not see fit to extend this to email."
But that was my point. I was wondering when somebody would see it. Actually two points:
(1) This is not a technical issue. The line can be drawn wherever society decides to draw it.
(2) Society SHOULD decide to draw the line such that email is private.
"Wrong. The courts expect them to be private (**). People know better."
No, it's not wrong and you are (incorrectly) nitpicking. The courts have ruled that The People have "a reasonable expectation of privacy" in their phone calls.
"You're talking like a lawyer or civic rights advocate/idealist, and he's talking like a security-conscious person. You're saying there's no technical reason it's valid; he's saying there's no technical barrier which prevents it (unless you encrypted the body)."
Not really. What we were differing about is simply where to draw the line.
There is NO technical barrier to opening your physical mail. Yet society says it's illegal. Why?
If you can answer that, maybe you can answer why email should be any different.
"The reality of the situation is that any expectation of privacy is unreasonable unless your communication channel is encrypted end to end."
You are talking about something completely different. In this context, "expectation of privacy" is a legal phrase that has certain conditions attached to it.
With or without your permission?
"We really need a corollary for Godwin's Law adapted specifically to Bitcoin discussions: as soon as you say, "The US dollar doesn't have any intrinsic value either!", you lose."
Not really. They are correct about the dollar, but people who say Bitcoin has no "intrinsic value" are just wrong. They don't understand Bitcoin. (Demonstrably, neither do most people who have been trading in it. I'll get to that in a moment.)
Bitcoin does have an intrinsic value: the computing time it takes to mine a bitcoin. This is a real, tangible, and strictly-defined value that can be quantified. This value is FIXED. That is to say, it is fixed today. It can vary with time, as Bitcoins are designed to gradually become more valuable per hour of computing time, but that subject can wait for another day.
For the sake of argument, for the rest of this post, let's say a bitcoin is worth 10 hours of (the right kind of) computation time. We will call that value "X". 1 bitcoin is worth X. My numbers are arbitrary for the sake of example but this is easily quantifiable if you want to look up the actual numbers.
So here's the important thing: this value standard, that is to say X, is also quantifiable in dollars, not just Bitcoin. After all, a fixed amount of the right kind of computation time also has a very definite value in $$. So 1 Bitcoin is worth X which is worth Y dollars. This is a solidly pre-defined amount. It is not "floating".
Therefore -- and this is the heart of the matter -- Bitcoin should not fluctuate at all in DOLLAR value, except to the extent that computation time fluctuates in dollar value. And since computation time has not fluctuated much in value, then Bitcoin should also NOT have changed in $$ value.
The upshot of this is: the Bitcoin market has been an utterly irrational "bubble", with the market valuing Bitcoins far higher than their actual intrinsic worth!
And the result is: lots and lots of people taken for a ride, many of whom will eventually lose buckets of money.
It is almost as if, with the gold standard having been gone for decades now, people have somehow forgotten how standards are supposed to work. While I LIKE Bitcoin, I would not touch today's Bitcoin market with a 10-foot pole. If I'd had a warehouse full of money to invest in it 2-3 months ago, though, I would have. Even today, with the market having fallen 40%, Bitcoin is selling for somewhere around 5 times what it is actually worth in dollars. It was (but perhaps is no longer) a good candidate for pump-and-dump. Which just illustrates how stupid the market is today.
Having said all that: the dollar, in contrast, really does have no practical intrinsic value. Ever since 1971, when Nixon threw the last vestiges of any standard away. (And defaulted on U.S. debt in the process, by the way. People who said the "fiscal cliff" would be the first time the U.S. ever defaulted on debt simply don't know their history.)
"I agree there is a legal expectation of privacy. I know that there is not practical expectation of privacy. That is why you should encrypt email if you care about privacy."
In that case I agree too, except that I have some problems with the "practical expectation of privacy" choice of words.
It takes MORE work for an ISP to find and view an email of yours on disk, than it does for a postal employee to open an envelope. Yet when people send physical mail, they have a "practical expectation of privacy".
I assert that the "practical expectation" comes from what should be a social and legal barrier to opening and reading the file, just as there is currently a social and legal barrier to opening the envelope. After all... there is absolutely nothing else stopping anyone from doing it.
Having said that, of course the only way to be sure is to encrypt your email... but the exact same is true of regular mail a well.
"With electronic communication that envelope is called encryption."
Definitely not.
For all practical purposes, that envelope is called SMTP.
Let's get this perfectly straight: there is NO reason that any intermediate relay OR your ISP should have default access to your email. In order to do so, they have to take positive action to access it... akin to opening an envelope.
Taking the concept of "envelope" as far as encryption is just wrong. SMTP and secure storage should be your envelope. Encryption is more like transporting your papers in a portable safe. Not the same thing at all.
"The fact that something can be accessed with a court order does not make it public. Your personal papers are free from search and seizure. The fact that it's easy enough for a burglar to steal doesn't alter their private nature or your rights."
The EFF is arguing in the courts that today, email definitely qualifies as someone's "papers and effects", and therefore is Constitutionally protected from seizure or intrusion.