The resulting findings have shown that even allowing for the effects of cyclical patterns and single occurance events the anthropogenic impact has been the dominate contributor over the last half century.
Really? There is work showing CO2 emissions are necessary and sufficient to cause the observed warming?
No, over the last 100 years the temp record shows a steady increase when averaged globally. There is a strong correlation between CO2 emissions and global mean temperature. There is a mechanism of action to support the idea that CO2 emissions are causing the warming. There is no other real explanation available for the warming (other than "it is natural"). This makes CO2 emissions the best candidate for a cause, but proves nothing.
Well, at what point does it become "science" rather than a group of scientists. I would say there are a lot of false positives out there in the published literature.
Science-informed policy is fine. As long as we can all remember that scientific consensus has often been wrong in the past. The cost-benefit needs to be done with this probability in mind. Really, if you haven't yet read some macro-economics and it will terrify you when you realize what an immature "science" it is. I have been completely convinced that the government should not be in the business of monetary policy, they are making it up as they go along.
Anyway I don't think there is ever true ethics-based or science-based policy. The nature of the system makes it so that leaders will only act on the subset of "the facts" that are consistent with retaining power. If they didn't, they would lose power and be replaced by someone who did.
Well nothing is perfect, and usually nothing is the best option for everyone all the time. With that in mind, can you outline how your idea of an ideal digital currency would function? Include practical issues of how to get people to use it, prevent double spends, retaining value, etc.
The "coins" themselves don't have hash's, but there is ledger that keeps track of all transactions. It is possible for everyone (or some subset of people) to agree not to verify transactions originating from "tainted" wallets. Unless everyone does this it is very difficult to track though (coins can be split up into 100,000 wallets, etc)
However, the decentralized nature makes this politically impractical.
Also most think this will hurt honest people more than thieves, so this is politically undesirable. It is better to investigate the crime (unauthorized access to a computer) to seek out and track down the thief as well as develop better security practices, rather than treat the money as tainted.
If you want chargebacks and tracking then use credit cards. It will cost you more to do business but it is easier to deal with theft.
If a large percentage of the miners decide that someone is acting too unfairly they will just fork the blockchain. People will then choose which bitcoin they wish to use: The old one being gamed, or the new one with some new rule to prevent this particular "gaming" of the system (but may open up new methods).
It is so funny because it is so damn easy to get money for them once you know how. You just have no idea at all what you are talking about.
There used to be a majority of people here shitting on this idea but most have eventually learned about it and decided whether they think the project will either fail or not. It seems like only the lazy/ignorant remain spouting this pointless "its not real money, it's worthless" argument. Yea we all get it, all money is worthless unless someone else will accept it. People will accept different things as currency, or in trade, depending on personal needs/wants/opinion.
Apparently one reason YOU would not accept bitcoins because in your mind a currency cannot be niche. In that case:
How many people must use a currency before it is non-niche? If this number of people started trading comic books for money, would it make comic books a currency?
You are so dumb. Really, what are you going on about? People can "fuck you over" with or without regulation and often there is no restitution, all you can do is mitigate the chances of this. This is such basic information it doesn't even have anything to do with libertarianism vs statism (or whatever), you are just acting like an idiot.
If you want to argue that government licensing, regulation, etc is the mitigation strategy that provides the best value for the money. Then ok.
Right, backing up "your wallet" is good practice in case one copy gets deleted. However, if someone else gains access to one of your "wallet's" and transfers the bitcoins elsewhere, this transfer will be verified by the bitcoin network and any other copies of the wallet become worthless. This is not a quirk, it is a clever way to prevent double-spending (counterfeiting).
There are fool-proof methods that, if followed, allow you to keep your bitcoins safe from any hack. However, those methods are not usable when bitcoins need to be immediately accessible. This theft was actually only the "petty cash" of a major margin trading site as well as that of a mining pool.
There are no chargebacks with bitcoins, so you need to do research on the rep of various sellers and merchants. You save money on fees you would otherwise pay to cover chargebacks, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? There is work showing CO2 emissions are necessary and sufficient to cause the observed warming?
No, over the last 100 years the temp record shows a steady increase when averaged globally. There is a strong correlation between CO2 emissions and global mean temperature. There is a mechanism of action to support the idea that CO2 emissions are causing the warming. There is no other real explanation available for the warming (other than "it is natural"). This makes CO2 emissions the best candidate for a cause, but proves nothing.
Well, at what point does it become "science" rather than a group of scientists. I would say there are a lot of false positives out there in the published literature.
Science-informed policy is fine. As long as we can all remember that scientific consensus has often been wrong in the past. The cost-benefit needs to be done with this probability in mind. Really, if you haven't yet read some macro-economics and it will terrify you when you realize what an immature "science" it is. I have been completely convinced that the government should not be in the business of monetary policy, they are making it up as they go along.
Anyway I don't think there is ever true ethics-based or science-based policy. The nature of the system makes it so that leaders will only act on the subset of "the facts" that are consistent with retaining power. If they didn't, they would lose power and be replaced by someone who did.
Wow, you don't even know what a fact is...
I dunno, once you start thinking about how economists and sociologists are experimenting on you it is kind of creepy.
I think the important thing is to educate people so they stop treating science the same way as a religion.
+5 insightful? This is the worst possible argument:
"My team is right more than your team, na-na"
Even if you insist on this team thing, you are not doing your team a favor with these idiotic appeals to authority.
Are you describing Ripple?
Well nothing is perfect, and usually nothing is the best option for everyone all the time. With that in mind, can you outline how your idea of an ideal digital currency would function? Include practical issues of how to get people to use it, prevent double spends, retaining value, etc.
You should compare a bitcoin to cash in your wallet, not credit cards. It was designed this way on purpose. See my responses to your other post.
The "coins" themselves don't have hash's, but there is ledger that keeps track of all transactions. It is possible for everyone (or some subset of people) to agree not to verify transactions originating from "tainted" wallets. Unless everyone does this it is very difficult to track though (coins can be split up into 100,000 wallets, etc)
However, the decentralized nature makes this politically impractical.
Also most think this will hurt honest people more than thieves, so this is politically undesirable. It is better to investigate the crime (unauthorized access to a computer) to seek out and track down the thief as well as develop better security practices, rather than treat the money as tainted.
If you want chargebacks and tracking then use credit cards. It will cost you more to do business but it is easier to deal with theft.
Yes there is, it is called democracy.
If a large percentage of the miners decide that someone is acting too unfairly they will just fork the blockchain. People will then choose which bitcoin they wish to use: The old one being gamed, or the new one with some new rule to prevent this particular "gaming" of the system (but may open up new methods).
Why would you believe anything coin exchanger says?
Haha, this has to be the laziest post ever. The irony is that probably wasn't worth the effort of typing out.
It is so funny because it is so damn easy to get money for them once you know how. You just have no idea at all what you are talking about.
There used to be a majority of people here shitting on this idea but most have eventually learned about it and decided whether they think the project will either fail or not. It seems like only the lazy/ignorant remain spouting this pointless "its not real money, it's worthless" argument. Yea we all get it, all money is worthless unless someone else will accept it. People will accept different things as currency, or in trade, depending on personal needs/wants/opinion.
Apparently one reason YOU would not accept bitcoins because in your mind a currency cannot be niche. In that case:
How many people must use a currency before it is non-niche? If this number of people started trading comic books for money, would it make comic books a currency?
You are so dumb. Really, what are you going on about? People can "fuck you over" with or without regulation and often there is no restitution, all you can do is mitigate the chances of this. This is such basic information it doesn't even have anything to do with libertarianism vs statism (or whatever), you are just acting like an idiot.
If you want to argue that government licensing, regulation, etc is the mitigation strategy that provides the best value for the money. Then ok.
I have no idea, thats why I said to research the merchant. I never tried to buy videogames with bitcoins...
Huh? What does "it" refer to in your last sentence?
Right, backing up "your wallet" is good practice in case one copy gets deleted. However, if someone else gains access to one of your "wallet's" and transfers the bitcoins elsewhere, this transfer will be verified by the bitcoin network and any other copies of the wallet become worthless. This is not a quirk, it is a clever way to prevent double-spending (counterfeiting).
Yea I know, isn't it so quirky that you can't just copy a $20 bill...
On the other hand, agreed that keeping unencrypted wallets on Linode's servers was dumb (which is what you were trying to describe).
There are fool-proof methods that, if followed, allow you to keep your bitcoins safe from any hack. However, those methods are not usable when bitcoins need to be immediately accessible. This theft was actually only the "petty cash" of a major margin trading site as well as that of a mining pool.
Here is a place that accepts bitcoins for videogames:
http://gamerkeys.net/
Here is an ebay-like auction site:
http://bitmit.net/en/shop/c/13-pc-and-video-games/2-pc-games
There are no chargebacks with bitcoins, so you need to do research on the rep of various sellers and merchants. You save money on fees you would otherwise pay to cover chargebacks, etc.
Hmm, sometimes I forget I get all my mainstream news from talk radio that usually avoids sports.
Sorry, at least 5k.
haha someone just dumped to 5k 4.65. Not sure what the volume was.
So I am assuming you keep all your wealth in a savings account then? No stocks, commodities, property, etc?