True, a patent won't necessarily stop anyone from copying the invention or working around it. I really have no idea if the oil companies are just trying to find alternative products, or stifle independent research. I think both make sense.
Any company which had monopoly rights (through patent) to some revolutionary energy source would MARKET IT. Burying the patent would be throwing away something worth hundreds of billions to them. They could ALWAYS make more from the revolutionary patent than they could from selling gasoline because they don't have a monopoly on gasoline.
Unfortunately, this is not always true. Companies frequently have huge amounts of capital invested in infrastructure, like factories, boats, pipelines, staff, and so on. Switching to a new product will force them to build up an entirely new infrastructure, which has to be weighed against any potential profits of the new invention.
Also remember that patents give a monopoly for 17 years, but oil has provided the world's seven large oil companies with an oligopoly for half a century. The price on oil has been artificially driven up by the oil-producing countries in OPEC by agreeing how much oil should be produced and at what price, creating a bigger profit margin for the oil companies. It's a system that has worked very well for them for almost 50 years. (This would have qualified as a conspiracy, if not for the fact that they don't even bother to hide it.)
If the oil companies switch to a new, revolutionary energy source they have a patent on, there are a number of things which can go wrong, including:
* The patent doesn't hold up in court. * Once it's clear the invention works, competitors finds an alternative technique which achieves the same results without infringing the patent. * Some states may simply ignore the patent, for example, China, or decide to expropriate it.
As long as the oil companies can stick to producing oil, they have physical control over the supply. If the world switches to a renewable energy source, anyone or any nation can build it, and the oil companies have to rely on the courts in each and every nation (until the patent expires).
Comic book readers have above average education. Reading at all, whether it be novels, comic books, magazine articles or computer manuals, is an indication of above average intellect.
The average comic book has a far more complex story and requires more effort from the reader than the average film. Even popular, mass-produced entertainment like the X-Men have very complex storylines stretching over multiple issues and referencing events years or decades back in publication history, and a huge number of characters to keep track of. The quality of the storyline, characterisation and descriptions may be inconsistent in many comics, but they're definitely not dumbed-down.
In Inception, the dreams-within-dreams were part of the storyline. In Watchmen, the comic-within-a-comic wasn't part of the storyline, it just added foreshadowing and depth to the fictional world.
If you need to take something out, taking out Tales of The Black Freighter makes most sense.
Ozymandias believed he could destroy Dr. Manhattan (using the device at his arctic fortress). He doesn't find out that is not the case until Dr. Manhattan simply reconsitutes himself (in both the movie and the comic book version).
Well, the book doesn't contain any details on what happened in Helm's Deep. So the characters make a diversion to Helm's Deep in both the book and the film, but the story only makes a diversion to Helm's Deep in the film, not the book.
...which must be why Alan Moore, the guy who wrote the comic, refused to allow his name to be associated with the movie, yes?
Alan Moore didn't care about making a movie out of Watchmen to begin with. He thought it was pointless, since what made the comic good would be lost in the translation process.
The main reason he eventually removed his name from the project was his long-standing conflict with DC Comics, which is owned by Warner Brothers, the producers of the film. It dates back to the 1980's, when DC promised Alan Moore the rights to Watchmen would return to him when it went out of print, which has yet to happen, since DC never intended to let it go out of print. Moore didn't want to be involved in Watchmen's (the movie) marketing efforts, and when a Warner Brothers representative claimed Alan Moore was "excited" about the project, Moore ordered his name to be removed.
Ok, the bank can be controlled even without control of the actual currency, but how do you say the government can alter the money supply by issuing loans in BTC? In BTC you can't give out (we are talking about lending, but lending isn't explicitly supported, just giving) a coin you don't own. Unlike most currencies, where two bills of the same value are perfectly interchangeable, two bitcoins are not the same, they are unique.
A simple example:
A deposits 10 000 BitCoins at the bank. The bank lends out 9 000 of them to B, and keeps 1 000 in their reserve. B buys good or services for 9 000 BitCoins from C. C deposits the BitCoins at the bank. The bank lends out 8100 BitCoins to D, and keeps 900 in their reserve. D buys goods and services for 8100 BitCoins from E, who deposits them in his bank account, and so on.
So if the bank is required to keep a reserve of 10%, the same 10 000 BitCoins can be used to generate loans for 9000 + 8100 + 7290 +... = 90 000 BitCoins.
In your example, the people who provided services to X and Y now own 30 000 BitCoins. They might be willing to sell them to the bank for US$, or may already have deposited them in a savings accounts at the bank. If so, the bank has enough BitCoins when A, B and C want to withdraw their money. If not, the bank may get away with paying A, B and C the equivalent amount in US$. If the bank can't pay A, B and C at all, it may go bust, but more likely, it will receive monetary aid from the government.
The regulation of banks works without regulating the currency. If a conventional bank started dealing in BitCoins, it would still be required to keep a certain percentage of deposited money as a reserve. Not being able to control the currency itself would make no difference.
In fact, if a government wanted to, they could increase the money supply by issuing loans in BitCoins, and decrease it again by cashing in the loans. The cash supply (number of actual BitCoins) would stay the same, but the money supply (amount of money available for loaning) changes with the banks' or governments' willingness to lend them out, and is not limited by the number of actual BitCoins.
BitCoins don't prevent governments or banks from controlling it - it merely removes the need for governments or banks to control it.
Conventional banks dealing in conventional currencies can't lend out the same coin twice until they get it back either. It's all about fractional reserves.
100 grams of gold has value with or without... the minimum purity
Here I would have to disagree. I would not give nearly as much for 100 grams of "gold" which is actually mostly lead. I may not demand.9999 purity, but for any given price there is a minimum standard which must be met.
Of course the piece needs to cointain 100 grams of gold, but it doesn't make much difference for the value if that gold is diluted with 1 gram of lead or 100 grams of lead. The value hinges on the amount of gold, not the adherence to conventions.
As you pointed out, some of the traditional properties of a gold currency are optional, like assayer's marks; they increase the value somewhat, but you can do without them. Other conventions, however—such as demanding that units of the currency possess the physical and chemical properties of gold—are more essential.
I don't consider those to be conventions. They're social phenomena, but they're not agreed-upon.
Imagine, for a moment, that every single person in the world agreed to reduce their price on gold by a factor of ten for a whole month. That would be a convention in the true sense. When the month ended, the gold price would automatically go back to close what it was before the agreed-upon price change, since the price is determined by supply and demand. If the value of gold was determined by a convention, there would be no reason for it to return to that particular price level.
Now imagine that every single person in the world agreed to stop using gold as an exchange medium for a whole month and instead use clam shells. When the month ended, the clam shells would quickly lose their value and people would start trading in gold again, because the usefulness of gold as an exchange medium hinges mostly on its physical properties, not conventions.
Also consider the Ruble in the Soviet Union. The Soviet government decided on a fixed exchange rate between Rubles and US$, and this was a convention in the true sense. If the values of currencies were directly determined by convention, people would have been perfectly happy to keep trading Rubles and US$ at the government's exchange rate. But people considered the US$ to be much more valuable, since they could be used to purchase foreign goods on the black market, and they were sold for far more Rubles than the official exchange rate.
The value of BitCoins are not directly determined by conventions either. The only difference is that the properties of BitCoins which make them useful as an exchange medium are determined by convention, while the properties of gold which makes it useful as an exchange medium are given beforehand.
Perhaps we are talking past each other. I agree that both gold and BitCoins derive most of their value from their usefulness as mediums of exchange. And I was probably wrong in calling the BitCoin definition a "fiat". But I still think there is one significant difference between BitCoins and gold, as per below.
It is exactly the same as the way a gold-based currency gains its value. In the beginning someone has to start accepting gold in trade for other goods. They specify, "by decree" if you wish, what forms will be acceptable: minimum purity, assayers marks, bars or coins, denominations, etc. If others wish to trade in this budding currency they must follow to these "arbitrary" definitions and protocols.
But there is an actual difference there. 100 grams of gold has value with or without the official stamp, with or without the minimum purity, with or without the agreed-upon shape, etc. People are only prepared to pay a little, little bit more for 100 grams of gold which follows the conventions, because most of its value hinges on the fact that it is 100 grams of gold.
Historically, people never needed to form an agreement to start trading in gold, because gold was valued in itself for its beauty. True enough, once people started trading in it, it acquired an additional value as a medium of exchange, but people never needed to meet and agree on conventions for that to happen.
BitCoins, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on conventions for its usefulness as a medium of exchange, and has no value if the conventions are broken.
Probably true, but that's not a huge problem. The only thing that will happen is that BitCoins will gradually suffer from worse and worse deflation, and we will have to come up with another virtual currency. If BitCoins are used up until then, they will have fulfilled their purpose of facilitating trade.
Because that is the purpose of any currency: to facilitate trade. If bad comes to worse, some people may lose money when a currency is abandoned, but the amount lost will be far, far oustripped by the amounts of money the currency has helped change hands through trade.
The Internet has proven exceptionally hard to shut down. Mubarak tried to shut down the Internet during the recent uprising, but had to turn it on again, because the country's economy took too great a hit. And he never managed to isolate the country; people could still upload their pictures to the outside world with the help of telephone lines and old-fashioned modems.
Personally, I believe the Internet will outlive any single nation on Earth. Even if one country (or an entire continent) collapses, the networks in other parts of the world can easily be reconfigured to continue to function. Barring some sort of massive nuclear holocaust, it's unlikely that it will ever be shut down over the whole world at the same time.
The 1% who doesn't fall for it would very quickly alert the rest, and I believe most of the 99% would be outraged or worried about the attempt to manipulate the system.
It's not as simple as that, since heat needs to be circulated properly to be effective. Heat sources, like radiators, should always be placed directly below a window, so the hot air will rise upwards and replace the cool air in front of the window. This creates an airflow which circulates the air up past the window, along the ceiling towards the interior of the house, down, and then back along the floor to the exterior walls.
If a heat source is placed far from any windows, chances are it will distribute the heat unevenly, creating an uncomfortable heat environment, and that it will mostly heat the surrounding walls and floor, which transfer the heat out of the house through conduction.
The network only learns which BitCoin addresses are involved in a transaction, and has no idea who the addresses belong to. You can also switch BitCoin addresses as often as you like.
Why would you want to trade one Fiat Currency for another Fiat Currency?
http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/
Simple: because when one currency fails, you want to fall back on the other. Also because BitCoins provide anonymous transactions, and is so cheap and easy it can be used for micro-transactions.
Or do you mean why the government would want to trade one fiat currency for another? They wouldn't. BitCoins will be used by people at the grassroots level, and will likely be excessively hard for governments to tax or regulate.
Actually, a business would *want* to create a new key (BitCoin address) for every purchase, to keep track of which customers have paid.
E.g, a business owner opens his mail and sees orders from Alice, Bob and Carl. He creates a BitCoin address for each one of them, and sends each of them a message saying, "Please send your payment to this Bitcoin address". When a payment arrives at one of the BitCoin addresses, the business owner knows which customer has paid, and can dispatch the goods.
Slashdot Mirror
True, a patent won't necessarily stop anyone from copying the invention or working around it. I really have no idea if the oil companies are just trying to find alternative products, or stifle independent research. I think both make sense.
Any company which had monopoly rights (through patent) to some revolutionary energy source would MARKET IT. Burying the patent would be throwing away something worth hundreds of billions to them. They could ALWAYS make more from the revolutionary patent than they could from selling gasoline because they don't have a monopoly on gasoline.
Unfortunately, this is not always true. Companies frequently have huge amounts of capital invested in infrastructure, like factories, boats, pipelines, staff, and so on. Switching to a new product will force them to build up an entirely new infrastructure, which has to be weighed against any potential profits of the new invention.
Also remember that patents give a monopoly for 17 years, but oil has provided the world's seven large oil companies with an oligopoly for half a century. The price on oil has been artificially driven up by the oil-producing countries in OPEC by agreeing how much oil should be produced and at what price, creating a bigger profit margin for the oil companies. It's a system that has worked very well for them for almost 50 years. (This would have qualified as a conspiracy, if not for the fact that they don't even bother to hide it.)
If the oil companies switch to a new, revolutionary energy source they have a patent on, there are a number of things which can go wrong, including:
* The patent doesn't hold up in court.
* Once it's clear the invention works, competitors finds an alternative technique which achieves the same results without infringing the patent.
* Some states may simply ignore the patent, for example, China, or decide to expropriate it.
As long as the oil companies can stick to producing oil, they have physical control over the supply. If the world switches to a renewable energy source, anyone or any nation can build it, and the oil companies have to rely on the courts in each and every nation (until the patent expires).
That must be it... I confused what the places were called.
Comic book readers have above average education. Reading at all, whether it be novels, comic books, magazine articles or computer manuals, is an indication of above average intellect.
The average comic book has a far more complex story and requires more effort from the reader than the average film. Even popular, mass-produced entertainment like the X-Men have very complex storylines stretching over multiple issues and referencing events years or decades back in publication history, and a huge number of characters to keep track of. The quality of the storyline, characterisation and descriptions may be inconsistent in many comics, but they're definitely not dumbed-down.
Why would he care what an Anonymous Coward thinks?
Have you seen any statement from Moore indicating the story changes were the problem?
In Inception, the dreams-within-dreams were part of the storyline. In Watchmen, the comic-within-a-comic wasn't part of the storyline, it just added foreshadowing and depth to the fictional world.
If you need to take something out, taking out Tales of The Black Freighter makes most sense.
Ozymandias believed he could destroy Dr. Manhattan (using the device at his arctic fortress). He doesn't find out that is not the case until Dr. Manhattan simply reconsitutes himself (in both the movie and the comic book version).
Well, the book doesn't contain any details on what happened in Helm's Deep. So the characters make a diversion to Helm's Deep in both the book and the film, but the story only makes a diversion to Helm's Deep in the film, not the book.
...which must be why Alan Moore, the guy who wrote the comic, refused to allow his name to be associated with the movie, yes?
Alan Moore didn't care about making a movie out of Watchmen to begin with. He thought it was pointless, since what made the comic good would be lost in the translation process.
The main reason he eventually removed his name from the project was his long-standing conflict with DC Comics, which is owned by Warner Brothers, the producers of the film. It dates back to the 1980's, when DC promised Alan Moore the rights to Watchmen would return to him when it went out of print, which has yet to happen, since DC never intended to let it go out of print. Moore didn't want to be involved in Watchmen's (the movie) marketing efforts, and when a Warner Brothers representative claimed Alan Moore was "excited" about the project, Moore ordered his name to be removed.
Ok, the bank can be controlled even without control of the actual currency, but how do you say the government can alter the money supply by issuing loans in BTC? In BTC you can't give out (we are talking about lending, but lending isn't explicitly supported, just giving) a coin you don't own. Unlike most currencies, where two bills of the same value are perfectly interchangeable, two bitcoins are not the same, they are unique.
A simple example:
A deposits 10 000 BitCoins at the bank. The bank lends out 9 000 of them to B, and keeps 1 000 in their reserve. B buys good or services for 9 000 BitCoins from C. C deposits the BitCoins at the bank. The bank lends out 8100 BitCoins to D, and keeps 900 in their reserve. D buys goods and services for 8100 BitCoins from E, who deposits them in his bank account, and so on.
So if the bank is required to keep a reserve of 10%, the same 10 000 BitCoins can be used to generate loans for 9000 + 8100 + 7290 + ... = 90 000 BitCoins.
In your example, the people who provided services to X and Y now own 30 000 BitCoins. They might be willing to sell them to the bank for US$, or may already have deposited them in a savings accounts at the bank. If so, the bank has enough BitCoins when A, B and C want to withdraw their money. If not, the bank may get away with paying A, B and C the equivalent amount in US$. If the bank can't pay A, B and C at all, it may go bust, but more likely, it will receive monetary aid from the government.
The regulation of banks works without regulating the currency. If a conventional bank started dealing in BitCoins, it would still be required to keep a certain percentage of deposited money as a reserve. Not being able to control the currency itself would make no difference.
In fact, if a government wanted to, they could increase the money supply by issuing loans in BitCoins, and decrease it again by cashing in the loans. The cash supply (number of actual BitCoins) would stay the same, but the money supply (amount of money available for loaning) changes with the banks' or governments' willingness to lend them out, and is not limited by the number of actual BitCoins.
BitCoins don't prevent governments or banks from controlling it - it merely removes the need for governments or banks to control it.
Conventional banks dealing in conventional currencies can't lend out the same coin twice until they get it back either. It's all about fractional reserves.
Good point.
100 grams of gold has value with or without ... the minimum purity
Here I would have to disagree. I would not give nearly as much for 100 grams of "gold" which is actually mostly lead. I may not demand .9999 purity, but for any given price there is a minimum standard which must be met.
Of course the piece needs to cointain 100 grams of gold, but it doesn't make much difference for the value if that gold is diluted with 1 gram of lead or 100 grams of lead. The value hinges on the amount of gold, not the adherence to conventions.
As you pointed out, some of the traditional properties of a gold currency are optional, like assayer's marks; they increase the value somewhat, but you can do without them. Other conventions, however—such as demanding that units of the currency possess the physical and chemical properties of gold—are more essential.
I don't consider those to be conventions. They're social phenomena, but they're not agreed-upon.
Imagine, for a moment, that every single person in the world agreed to reduce their price on gold by a factor of ten for a whole month. That would be a convention in the true sense. When the month ended, the gold price would automatically go back to close what it was before the agreed-upon price change, since the price is determined by supply and demand. If the value of gold was determined by a convention, there would be no reason for it to return to that particular price level.
Now imagine that every single person in the world agreed to stop using gold as an exchange medium for a whole month and instead use clam shells. When the month ended, the clam shells would quickly lose their value and people would start trading in gold again, because the usefulness of gold as an exchange medium hinges mostly on its physical properties, not conventions.
Also consider the Ruble in the Soviet Union. The Soviet government decided on a fixed exchange rate between Rubles and US$, and this was a convention in the true sense. If the values of currencies were directly determined by convention, people would have been perfectly happy to keep trading Rubles and US$ at the government's exchange rate. But people considered the US$ to be much more valuable, since they could be used to purchase foreign goods on the black market, and they were sold for far more Rubles than the official exchange rate.
The value of BitCoins are not directly determined by conventions either. The only difference is that the properties of BitCoins which make them useful as an exchange medium are determined by convention, while the properties of gold which makes it useful as an exchange medium are given beforehand.
You can reduce the risk of the banks going belly-up by requiring them to keep a larger percentage of people's savings as a reserve.
Thanks!
Perhaps we are talking past each other. I agree that both gold and BitCoins derive most of their value from their usefulness as mediums of exchange. And I was probably wrong in calling the BitCoin definition a "fiat". But I still think there is one significant difference between BitCoins and gold, as per below.
It is exactly the same as the way a gold-based currency gains its value. In the beginning someone has to start accepting gold in trade for other goods. They specify, "by decree" if you wish, what forms will be acceptable: minimum purity, assayers marks, bars or coins, denominations, etc. If others wish to trade in this budding currency they must follow to these "arbitrary" definitions and protocols.
But there is an actual difference there. 100 grams of gold has value with or without the official stamp, with or without the minimum purity, with or without the agreed-upon shape, etc. People are only prepared to pay a little, little bit more for 100 grams of gold which follows the conventions, because most of its value hinges on the fact that it is 100 grams of gold.
Historically, people never needed to form an agreement to start trading in gold, because gold was valued in itself for its beauty. True enough, once people started trading in it, it acquired an additional value as a medium of exchange, but people never needed to meet and agree on conventions for that to happen.
BitCoins, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on conventions for its usefulness as a medium of exchange, and has no value if the conventions are broken.
Probably true, but that's not a huge problem. The only thing that will happen is that BitCoins will gradually suffer from worse and worse deflation, and we will have to come up with another virtual currency. If BitCoins are used up until then, they will have fulfilled their purpose of facilitating trade.
Because that is the purpose of any currency: to facilitate trade. If bad comes to worse, some people may lose money when a currency is abandoned, but the amount lost will be far, far oustripped by the amounts of money the currency has helped change hands through trade.
The Internet has proven exceptionally hard to shut down. Mubarak tried to shut down the Internet during the recent uprising, but had to turn it on again, because the country's economy took too great a hit. And he never managed to isolate the country; people could still upload their pictures to the outside world with the help of telephone lines and old-fashioned modems.
Personally, I believe the Internet will outlive any single nation on Earth. Even if one country (or an entire continent) collapses, the networks in other parts of the world can easily be reconfigured to continue to function. Barring some sort of massive nuclear holocaust, it's unlikely that it will ever be shut down over the whole world at the same time.
The 1% who doesn't fall for it would very quickly alert the rest, and I believe most of the 99% would be outraged or worried about the attempt to manipulate the system.
It's not as simple as that, since heat needs to be circulated properly to be effective. Heat sources, like radiators, should always be placed directly below a window, so the hot air will rise upwards and replace the cool air in front of the window. This creates an airflow which circulates the air up past the window, along the ceiling towards the interior of the house, down, and then back along the floor to the exterior walls.
If a heat source is placed far from any windows, chances are it will distribute the heat unevenly, creating an uncomfortable heat environment, and that it will mostly heat the surrounding walls and floor, which transfer the heat out of the house through conduction.
The network only learns which BitCoin addresses are involved in a transaction, and has no idea who the addresses belong to. You can also switch BitCoin addresses as often as you like.
Why would you want to trade one Fiat Currency for another Fiat Currency?
http://dailyreckoning.com/fiat-currency/
Simple: because when one currency fails, you want to fall back on the other. Also because BitCoins provide anonymous transactions, and is so cheap and easy it can be used for micro-transactions.
Or do you mean why the government would want to trade one fiat currency for another? They wouldn't. BitCoins will be used by people at the grassroots level, and will likely be excessively hard for governments to tax or regulate.
True. Hopefully, BitCoins won't become so popular so fast that this will be a huge problem.
Actually, a business would *want* to create a new key (BitCoin address) for every purchase, to keep track of which customers have paid.
E.g, a business owner opens his mail and sees orders from Alice, Bob and Carl. He creates a BitCoin address for each one of them, and sends each of them a message saying, "Please send your payment to this Bitcoin address". When a payment arrives at one of the BitCoin addresses, the business owner knows which customer has paid, and can dispatch the goods.