You make a good point. I guess my question then is, why would anyone *want* to give something being used primarily as a currency some intrinsic value when the currency we've been using for decades (centuries?) has none, and probably works best that way? Isn't the whole point of a currency to represent a market value and nothing else?
Well, in the context of having something to "back the value" of a currency, that seems to be what's important because "the gold standard" is the gold standard of backing value, and I don't see how gold has any value that bitcoin doesn't in this regard. It's the limited quantity that gives it value (the ability to use something as a currency makes it valuable as a currency). The only thing that bitcoin is missing that gold has is the ability to melt it and wear it on your finger or neck. That might be the "value" of gold that bitcoin doesn't have. But when you look at all the gold sitting in Fort Knox, do you really think it (at one time) was functioning as a backing for currency because it was able to be turned into jewelry? I think it functions as a backing because of its scarcity, and its ability to be turned into coins (currency), not because of its intrinsic value as jewelry.
Bitcoin has more intrinsic value than stocks because because it's a limited resource whereas stocks can split and reverse split and are available at the whim of the company offering them. The Bitcoin supply is less volatile. The demand may be volatile, but the supply is quite predictable. Trying to back bitcoin with stocks and peg it to something sounds like nonsense to me. How do you peg something that's already pegged to a pre-determined supply. Bitcoin is every bit as "pegged" as gold as far as I can see.
That view is way oversimplified and completely ignores how our evolving society has changed the rules. If Internet and phones disappeared tomorrow, people would likely start dying in much greater numbers in the not-too-distant future. We now depend heavily on this sort of communication to know where food and water needs to be. People don't live near sources of food and water any more because they don't need to any more because other technologies have sprung up to make it possible to survive without doing so. If those go away, so do the people.
That's kind of what I was going for -- the weakest analogy that was still applicable just to demonstrate how widely applicable the point is about one merchant not being representative of the whole industry.
It's not over yet. I had bought a total of about 20 bitcoins for a total of about $600. After the price went up, I sold 2 of them and got all my money back (in my own bank). Now I may have lost 13 of them on MtGox, but that still leaves me with enough in my cold storage wallet and on my mobile device to get 2 to 3 gaming desktops from bitcoinshop.us at no out-of-pocket cost to me.
And who knows, if by some miracle MtGox doesn't simply lose everything they were holding for everyone, I might even still have enough to buy about 10... at no out-of-pocket cost to me. Doesn't sound like such a bad idea either way.
I can't quite tell if you're being ironic but I found your point confusing. I think we're both saying that bitcoins are worth more than monopoly money. But when you say that Monopoly money is worth more than diamonds I'm lost. You didn't spend Monopoly money, you spent bitcoins. I can't even tell if you're agreeing with me or not.
I could ask if you'd call dollars worthless when a US big bank fails. But we all know big US banks are too big to fail:).
Seriously, though, I didn't want to use a bank analogy because it was too obvious with too many parallels to be drawn. Usually that's a mark of a good analogy, but in this case I'm trying to avoid dragging in a multitude of parallel analogies. The point was to focus on a very simple and broad aspect of the suggestion: that one merchant represents the industry without specifically talking about currency or banking or exchanges. Regardless of whether you're talking about currency or any goods, why would one *generally* suggest that the value of a merchant's goods go to nothing universally when only a single merchant is failing? Just to point out how widely applicable (or ridiculous) the notion is, I chose something as different as possible.
The reason I *started* using Steam was because I bought a game in a store only to find when I got it home that it was pretty much a dummy disk that just made me install Steam and download the game in order to play it. The game was Civilization V. I don't get outraged by much, but come to think of it, that kind of is an outrage, but one just borderline enough that I was willing to accept it rather than not play the game. I don't/didn't know what else to do.
Just because so many people didn't know what astrology was doesn't change the fact that they believed "astrology" (whatever they thought it was) to be scientific.:)
Of course when reporting the results, then, you *should* put "astrology" in quotes.
I think you have to put this in context. Were you expecting to get any more money from the work you put into that product? I don't think it would be reasonable to expect that these games (or at least the vast majority of them) would ever make money again. (If you think otherwise, it sounds like you *have* legal recourse here because the games are not out of copyright.) If I were in your position, though (which I kind of have been a number of times now, except most of my games were non-commercial) I would just be glad that someone gave them new life for another generation. Otherwise it would have faded into obscurity, giving you even less than you have now.
Take a step back and see that they are not trying to insult the authors as you suggest, but benefit everyone and honor the authors by propagating the work that would otherwise have faded away. I suspect (just a guess) you might be surprised at how accommodating and respectful these folks would be toward original authors if you approach them as a friend. You see them as an enemy, but really I think they are just trying to save and re-popularize something worth saving and appreciating for a bit longer, and couldn't find a practical way to contact a zillion non-existent authors in the process.
Right, my comment was just concerning the summary's claim that Snapchat's popularity was due to NSA privacy concerns.
Although there are conflicting claims about whether the NSA listens to phone calls, as outlined on the Wikipedia page covering the NSA's Utah Data Center), I suspect the truth is that they maybe collect recordings of most of the activity taking place on the internet and phone networks (the haystack), but never have to search for a needle because they don't look through it unless they have a specific target (a specific phone number or email/IP address). If they don't actually listen to that content without a warrant, then their statement that they don't "listen in on phone calls" could be true even though they are collecting them all. They have the storage space for it there, so it's not out of the question, and what else could they use it for? And according to a Wired Magazine article from March, they are wired into the phone network. (Note the article is 5 pages long; the talk about wiring into telecom is on the top of page 3).
The article is older than all the recent concern over privacy from the NSA, and I suppose it's possible that all this has turned around since then as a result of the outcry. But who knows?
How is the content exchanged on Snapchat any more ephemeral ("vaporized") than a phone call? Or isn't it? Just because it's "vaporized" from your perspective doesn't mean it wasn't captured *somewhere*.
Fine, I'll go about this the long way. The definition of anonymity is "not identified by a name." Bitcoin transactions don't have a name directly associated with them, therefore they are technically anonymous by definition. And although in many cases you may be able to link a name to a transaction indirectly if the person performing the transaction has somehow linked themselves to their bitcoin transactions, that link is not a required part of participating in bitcoin transactions as much as it is often a part of participating in other kinds of transactions such as Paypal and credit card transactions. As for Bitcoin not being "designed" for anonymity versus "used" anonymously, I don't think that's a hair you intended to split here because the comment you responded to did not talk about the intentions of Bitcoin's designers. In fact I don't even detect a suggestion that the poster thought that Bitcoin transactions were anonymous, so if you're trying to get a point across, it may require more than just re-reading the same things I've already read.
What makes socialism such a beast? Aren't we more productive as a collaborative community than individuals? Don't you think that bitcoin will gain much more acceptance if the government promotes it rather than fighting it? Did you notice how much more popular bitcoin got a few days ago when the government finally talked about it (and in a positive light!)? The value doubled in a day if I recall correctly.
Slashdot Mirror
You make a good point. I guess my question then is, why would anyone *want* to give something being used primarily as a currency some intrinsic value when the currency we've been using for decades (centuries?) has none, and probably works best that way? Isn't the whole point of a currency to represent a market value and nothing else?
Well, in the context of having something to "back the value" of a currency, that seems to be what's important because "the gold standard" is the gold standard of backing value, and I don't see how gold has any value that bitcoin doesn't in this regard. It's the limited quantity that gives it value (the ability to use something as a currency makes it valuable as a currency). The only thing that bitcoin is missing that gold has is the ability to melt it and wear it on your finger or neck. That might be the "value" of gold that bitcoin doesn't have. But when you look at all the gold sitting in Fort Knox, do you really think it (at one time) was functioning as a backing for currency because it was able to be turned into jewelry? I think it functions as a backing because of its scarcity, and its ability to be turned into coins (currency), not because of its intrinsic value as jewelry.
Bitcoin has more intrinsic value than stocks because because it's a limited resource whereas stocks can split and reverse split and are available at the whim of the company offering them. The Bitcoin supply is less volatile. The demand may be volatile, but the supply is quite predictable. Trying to back bitcoin with stocks and peg it to something sounds like nonsense to me. How do you peg something that's already pegged to a pre-determined supply. Bitcoin is every bit as "pegged" as gold as far as I can see.
That view is way oversimplified and completely ignores how our evolving society has changed the rules. If Internet and phones disappeared tomorrow, people would likely start dying in much greater numbers in the not-too-distant future. We now depend heavily on this sort of communication to know where food and water needs to be. People don't live near sources of food and water any more because they don't need to any more because other technologies have sprung up to make it possible to survive without doing so. If those go away, so do the people.
A good read, despite confusing hacker and hacker a bit
I can sure see the confusion. I can't see any difference between "hacker" and "hacker" myself. What am I missing?
That's kind of what I was going for -- the weakest analogy that was still applicable just to demonstrate how widely applicable the point is about one merchant not being representative of the whole industry.
And who knows, if by some miracle MtGox doesn't simply lose everything they were holding for everyone, I might even still have enough to buy about 10... at no out-of-pocket cost to me. Doesn't sound like such a bad idea either way.
I didn't say debeers group, I said the neighborhood jewelry store.
I can't quite tell if you're being ironic but I found your point confusing. I think we're both saying that bitcoins are worth more than monopoly money. But when you say that Monopoly money is worth more than diamonds I'm lost. You didn't spend Monopoly money, you spent bitcoins. I can't even tell if you're agreeing with me or not.
I could ask if you'd call dollars worthless when a US big bank fails. But we all know big US banks are too big to fail :).
Seriously, though, I didn't want to use a bank analogy because it was too obvious with too many parallels to be drawn. Usually that's a mark of a good analogy, but in this case I'm trying to avoid dragging in a multitude of parallel analogies. The point was to focus on a very simple and broad aspect of the suggestion: that one merchant represents the industry without specifically talking about currency or banking or exchanges. Regardless of whether you're talking about currency or any goods, why would one *generally* suggest that the value of a merchant's goods go to nothing universally when only a single merchant is failing? Just to point out how widely applicable (or ridiculous) the notion is, I chose something as different as possible.
Good luck paying for a $6,000 - $10,000 diamond in Monopoly money, though :)
Still, they're worth more than Monopoly money.
Would you similarly suggest that diamonds are worthless if your neighborhood jeweler got robbed?
less space than that is required to hold the entirety of Wikipedia.
less space than is required to hold the entirety of Wikipedia
I'd venture a guess that this is not unique and that every mathematical proof to date takes less space than Wikipedia. Did they mean more space?
The reason I *started* using Steam was because I bought a game in a store only to find when I got it home that it was pretty much a dummy disk that just made me install Steam and download the game in order to play it. The game was Civilization V. I don't get outraged by much, but come to think of it, that kind of is an outrage, but one just borderline enough that I was willing to accept it rather than not play the game. I don't/didn't know what else to do.
Just because so many people didn't know what astrology was doesn't change the fact that they believed "astrology" (whatever they thought it was) to be scientific. :)
Of course when reporting the results, then, you *should* put "astrology" in quotes.
I think you have to put this in context. Were you expecting to get any more money from the work you put into that product? I don't think it would be reasonable to expect that these games (or at least the vast majority of them) would ever make money again. (If you think otherwise, it sounds like you *have* legal recourse here because the games are not out of copyright.) If I were in your position, though (which I kind of have been a number of times now, except most of my games were non-commercial) I would just be glad that someone gave them new life for another generation. Otherwise it would have faded into obscurity, giving you even less than you have now.
Take a step back and see that they are not trying to insult the authors as you suggest, but benefit everyone and honor the authors by propagating the work that would otherwise have faded away. I suspect (just a guess) you might be surprised at how accommodating and respectful these folks would be toward original authors if you approach them as a friend. You see them as an enemy, but really I think they are just trying to save and re-popularize something worth saving and appreciating for a bit longer, and couldn't find a practical way to contact a zillion non-existent authors in the process.
Right, my comment was just concerning the summary's claim that Snapchat's popularity was due to NSA privacy concerns.
Although there are conflicting claims about whether the NSA listens to phone calls, as outlined on the Wikipedia page covering the NSA's Utah Data Center), I suspect the truth is that they maybe collect recordings of most of the activity taking place on the internet and phone networks (the haystack), but never have to search for a needle because they don't look through it unless they have a specific target (a specific phone number or email/IP address). If they don't actually listen to that content without a warrant, then their statement that they don't "listen in on phone calls" could be true even though they are collecting them all. They have the storage space for it there, so it's not out of the question, and what else could they use it for? And according to a Wired Magazine article from March, they are wired into the phone network. (Note the article is 5 pages long; the talk about wiring into telecom is on the top of page 3).
The article is older than all the recent concern over privacy from the NSA, and I suppose it's possible that all this has turned around since then as a result of the outcry. But who knows?
And the assumption is that the NSA can record text messages, but not phone calls?
How is the content exchanged on Snapchat any more ephemeral ("vaporized") than a phone call? Or isn't it? Just because it's "vaporized" from your perspective doesn't mean it wasn't captured *somewhere*.
Okay, maybe I was the one splitting hairs by distinguishing a pedantic definition of anonymity from a guaranteed of a lack of being identified.
Fine, I'll go about this the long way. The definition of anonymity is "not identified by a name." Bitcoin transactions don't have a name directly associated with them, therefore they are technically anonymous by definition. And although in many cases you may be able to link a name to a transaction indirectly if the person performing the transaction has somehow linked themselves to their bitcoin transactions, that link is not a required part of participating in bitcoin transactions as much as it is often a part of participating in other kinds of transactions such as Paypal and credit card transactions. As for Bitcoin not being "designed" for anonymity versus "used" anonymously, I don't think that's a hair you intended to split here because the comment you responded to did not talk about the intentions of Bitcoin's designers. In fact I don't even detect a suggestion that the poster thought that Bitcoin transactions were anonymous, so if you're trying to get a point across, it may require more than just re-reading the same things I've already read.
If it's not anonymous, should you be able to tell me what bitcoin addresses I own? Can you?
What makes socialism such a beast? Aren't we more productive as a collaborative community than individuals? Don't you think that bitcoin will gain much more acceptance if the government promotes it rather than fighting it? Did you notice how much more popular bitcoin got a few days ago when the government finally talked about it (and in a positive light!)? The value doubled in a day if I recall correctly.