If usury is the problem (and I agree that it is part of it), make usury illegal. There was a time when it was, you know. By the way, nothing about BitCoin precludes charging interest on loans, so I'm not sure where you're going there.
Debt slavery is usually a result of bad policy decisions and a lack of controls. A large percentage of personal debt is in student loans, and I think the solution there is to cap tuition rates (and make higher education less privatized). Payday loans are a big problem; they should have their interest rates capped to a reasonable amount. If this causes them to shut down, so be it. Mortgages are already pretty controlled; most of the problems are a lack of enforcement of the controls that are there. Wall Street is indirectly causing a lot of problems due to a practical complete lack of enforcement; the solution is, again, more regulations and competent enforcement, combined with anti-corruption legislation that prevents regulatory capture.
I don't think building a second shadow economy is the solution here, and that seems to be what you're going for here. BitCoin is just a protocol and a currency; it's not going to solve any of the economic problems you mentioned. The problem it does solve is a lack of anonymous internet money transfer, if you consider that an actual problem, and I'm not convinced it is.
This is why I never bought into BitCoin: It's a vastly overwrought solution to a small problem in a largely functional currency system. It's saying, because nobody has set up easy internet money transfers, let's dump the entire currency system and start a new one.
It's reinventing the wheel because a spoke is broken.
The whole point is that the advertiser pays Verizon, tells them what segments they want to target, and then Verizon mass pushes the ad to that segment. No specific data is transferred to the advertiser, but everybody's happy (except you the end user, but who gives a shit about you, right?)
I knew someone would bring up Ross Perot. That happened because the Commission was new at the time, and they knew that going against the public backlash that would ensue by preventing him from debating would have cost the main candidates votes. It's a completely different situation now; most Americans aren't even aware that there are third parties, or if they are, what those third parties stand for. They see them on the same level as, say, a Fascist party: Hooray for free speech, now let's ignore them like we're supposed to.
The Commission changed their rules in 2000 such that a third party candidate now needs 15% across five national polls to debate. Ignoring for a second that that's nigh impossible as most polls just lump third parties together as "third parties" or "independents", the Democrats and Republicans also control the media; a third party would never be able to get their word out because television and radio stations would refuse to air their ad (due to "prior commitments").
Can't do everything at once, unfortunately. I'd be happy with one or the other (since they'd likely lead to each other anyway). I like mixed-proportional voting.
Wow, awesome! When can I expect these checks to come in? Also, to which of my emails did I receive a letter from Karl Rove? I don't really like the guy but I didn't think I was on his radar!
Take off the tinfoil helmet and look at my posting history. You know, the >10 year long one. Where I'm a pretty far left liberal. From Canada. You paranoid fool.
Or maybe they replaced me with an EVIL REPUBLICAN CLONE! Boogy boogy boogy!
a.k.a. the Republican and Democratic parties. They will never allow a third party to debate; if they happen to meet the criteria, they'll simply increase the threshold(s).
This is one of the major issues preventing any real change from happening in the US federal government, simply because new ideas are being suppressed by the incumbents.
Hey, I didn't force you to block ads or anything. The discussion happened to be about ads, so I chimed in. View all the ads you want, as long as I can reasonably avoid them.
Gandi includes private whois with all registrations. There are a number of other registrars who will do it for a fee.
(Solely in my opinion) you should stay away from GoDaddy though. They charge $20 every time they discover that your whois information is fake, probably to get you to buy their private registration service. Instead, I transferred all my domains to Gandi. Everybody wins, right?
He said better than I could the reason why I have been avoiding ads as much as I can in my daily life. I pay for Pandora so I don't get inserted ads in my music. I use ad-blockers on websites, and pay for the ad-free version if offered. I record television and fast-forward through the ads. Once you're used to avoiding the ads, it's interesting how much clearer things become, and how annoying it is if they can't be avoided in some other medium.
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon, you know as well as we do that any of the non-enterprise web contact forms will only result in an automated stock reply message.
If they can get me an iPhone that lets me walk through walls, I might just reconsider my no-Apple policy.
If usury is the problem (and I agree that it is part of it), make usury illegal. There was a time when it was, you know. By the way, nothing about BitCoin precludes charging interest on loans, so I'm not sure where you're going there.
Debt slavery is usually a result of bad policy decisions and a lack of controls. A large percentage of personal debt is in student loans, and I think the solution there is to cap tuition rates (and make higher education less privatized). Payday loans are a big problem; they should have their interest rates capped to a reasonable amount. If this causes them to shut down, so be it. Mortgages are already pretty controlled; most of the problems are a lack of enforcement of the controls that are there. Wall Street is indirectly causing a lot of problems due to a practical complete lack of enforcement; the solution is, again, more regulations and competent enforcement, combined with anti-corruption legislation that prevents regulatory capture.
I don't think building a second shadow economy is the solution here, and that seems to be what you're going for here. BitCoin is just a protocol and a currency; it's not going to solve any of the economic problems you mentioned. The problem it does solve is a lack of anonymous internet money transfer, if you consider that an actual problem, and I'm not convinced it is.
I thought the CIA had a cover company for those purposes.
I take pride on disagreeing with the majority on a regular basis.
This is why I never bought into BitCoin: It's a vastly overwrought solution to a small problem in a largely functional currency system. It's saying, because nobody has set up easy internet money transfers, let's dump the entire currency system and start a new one.
It's reinventing the wheel because a spoke is broken.
The whole point is that the advertiser pays Verizon, tells them what segments they want to target, and then Verizon mass pushes the ad to that segment. No specific data is transferred to the advertiser, but everybody's happy (except you the end user, but who gives a shit about you, right?)
Guaranteed it's based on the city. Google aren't stupid.
You try to set up Slashcode in any reasonable way and get back to me. You know it hasn't been touched in like two years, right?
I'm betting this turns into a blackmail database available to the highest bidding politician soon enough.
It would have been $50, but the kickback money had to come from somewhere!
I remember when they tried to legislate copy protection into VHS. How did that work out again?
I was really hoping Biden would use the words "separation of church and state" in his argument but it seems that's political suicide now. :^(
I knew someone would bring up Ross Perot. That happened because the Commission was new at the time, and they knew that going against the public backlash that would ensue by preventing him from debating would have cost the main candidates votes. It's a completely different situation now; most Americans aren't even aware that there are third parties, or if they are, what those third parties stand for. They see them on the same level as, say, a Fascist party: Hooray for free speech, now let's ignore them like we're supposed to.
The Commission changed their rules in 2000 such that a third party candidate now needs 15% across five national polls to debate. Ignoring for a second that that's nigh impossible as most polls just lump third parties together as "third parties" or "independents", the Democrats and Republicans also control the media; a third party would never be able to get their word out because television and radio stations would refuse to air their ad (due to "prior commitments").
It's a different environment than it was in 1992.
Can't do everything at once, unfortunately. I'd be happy with one or the other (since they'd likely lead to each other anyway). I like mixed-proportional voting.
Wow, awesome! When can I expect these checks to come in? Also, to which of my emails did I receive a letter from Karl Rove? I don't really like the guy but I didn't think I was on his radar!
Take off the tinfoil helmet and look at my posting history. You know, the >10 year long one. Where I'm a pretty far left liberal. From Canada. You paranoid fool.
Or maybe they replaced me with an EVIL REPUBLICAN CLONE! Boogy boogy boogy!
Commission on Presidential Debates
a.k.a. the Republican and Democratic parties. They will never allow a third party to debate; if they happen to meet the criteria, they'll simply increase the threshold(s).
This is one of the major issues preventing any real change from happening in the US federal government, simply because new ideas are being suppressed by the incumbents.
Software development is like a Microsoft progress bar. It jumps from 0% to 90% instantly, stays there a while, jumps to 99%, and then freezes.
Hey, I didn't force you to block ads or anything. The discussion happened to be about ads, so I chimed in. View all the ads you want, as long as I can reasonably avoid them.
Gandi includes private whois with all registrations. There are a number of other registrars who will do it for a fee.
(Solely in my opinion) you should stay away from GoDaddy though. They charge $20 every time they discover that your whois information is fake, probably to get you to buy their private registration service. Instead, I transferred all my domains to Gandi. Everybody wins, right?
I'd do this but also install a real, camouflaged camera elsewhere. Let them think they destroyed the real one.
He said better than I could the reason why I have been avoiding ads as much as I can in my daily life. I pay for Pandora so I don't get inserted ads in my music. I use ad-blockers on websites, and pay for the ad-free version if offered. I record television and fast-forward through the ads. Once you're used to avoiding the ads, it's interesting how much clearer things become, and how annoying it is if they can't be avoided in some other medium.
Advertisers can't control my eyeballs or ears.
C'mon, it's Halliburton. They're charging law enforcement for the privilege of helping them.
Could we please have a discussion on here that doesn't turn into atheist loudmouths v. everyone who isn't them?
In the context of this article, it should be obvious that I meant Mars, the planet, not Mars, the town. If not, well, you're dumb. :^P