Josh F

If you divided $142,837 by the amount of hours you worked, trained, and lived in the military it would be at best a couple dollars an hour. There is no contradiction between taking state money and being against the state, both are based on the principles of self-interest. If you feel guilty, put the money to good use by inventing something which helps people circumvent the state's monopoly. Also you're not stealing from a thief, you sold your services to a thief and now you're collecting your promised payment. In fact not taking the bill really is letting the state steal more from you Oh and the more people exploit the system, the sooner it crashes, right?

I agree and I told the guy the same thing, he didn't care. Good point

Alright, then you're arguing that bitcoin is an information storage and transfer service, and that the coins in some way represent services provided or granted. But this is not the case. First, because each individual coin can be broken intro a quadrillion coins, and as I understand it, the same amount of secret, valuable (outside of bitcoin) information can be carried by a quadrillionth of a coin as can be by a whole coin. No this is not my argument, my argument was the really clear and coherent thing that I wrote. Secondly, as I understand it, the vast majority of the resources invested to run the network have nothing to do with transferring or storing personal information that the users added to coins or whatever. It's about solving mathematical algorithms that simply serve to grant the miner with a coin block. So you have a ton of waste here. What's more, because with every new transaction, every previous transaction must also be verified, the amount of resources needed to verify each subsequent transaction increase (again, as I understand it, I could be wrong here as with all things related to bitcoin's specifics, as I'm not an expert on bitcoin, I'm an expert on monetary theory). You're not addressing my argument: which is that Bitcoin is one type of cryptographic currency, and encryption in general has market value outside of its use as money, satisfying Mises's argument. Without getting into the argument of roman coins: No, you can melt down a silver coin and get the silver. You can't melt down a bitcoin and get the encryption, or the computing power, or any of that. Let me repeat the argument again so you can understand it clearly: Roman Coin is to silver as Bitcoin is to Encryption. Roman Coins are made of silver and originally relied on the value of silver. Bitcoin is comprised of encyrption, and originally relied on encryption for the value of its coin. I can not show you Bitcoin being used as something other than a currency, nor can I show you Roman Coins which were not currency I didn't say it's not money, I said it's not sound money. US Dollars are money too, and they will still be confetti in 50 years. And so will bitcoin. (well, electronic confetti anyway) You've made the argument that, according to someone else, sound money is comprised of things which have a market value outside of their use as currency. Bitcoin satisfied that criteria as I explained above. Look, I know bitcoin is confusing and computers are confusing for a lot of people, but you really need to do your homework because how little you understand about it, is reflected in these arguments. Take Wesley's points to heart, he is right that you don't understand bitcoin.

Non-lethal weapons are a category of import products, and on a side now how much pepper spray would it take to kill someone? lol The arrangement is only as enforceable as their contract, but without third parties, the buyer would simply cut that manufacturer out of the market. The manufacturer stands to lose a lot of money if they don't maintain their relationship with the buyer. Worse yet, with any significant market share he can out-compete anyone on prices, temporarily enough to squash their business. This is still a common and profitable tactic, Walmart recently did it to Toys R Us, who secured the cheapest price on their Playstation 3s, and Walmart dropped their prices so low they were losing money on each sale just to eat up Toys R Us's market-share on Christmas. Well if I go to the government and bribe the right people to make a law for me, there is no force involved in getting the law made, just in enforcing it later. Similarly it is not the initiation of force that gets me those deals with the manufacturer's, but the result is that I made myself more competitive by limiting my competitor's market access. There is no law stopping him from importing a product, but agreements between me and these manufacturers prevent him from doing so nonetheless. Standard Oil was famous for one strategy using pipelines, prior to which oil was being moved around by Trains. Their control of the pipelines made gas cheaper for the consumer, but gave them a strong competitive edge over the other companies. Most people who found oil had to eventually pay to link up with his pipelines. I do tend to agree with a lot of your points though, especially thinking that in order to gain that monopoly first you have to significantly increase the quality of the market, by introducing new manufacturers and variations on the product. Like without this pepper spray guy, there was hardly pepper spray to be found at all, and now there are several companies and a larger market. So a monopoly in the free market, in any large industry at least, is just the best man standing? I can see that

I'm realizing this kid has a great point. I have decided to just let all of you guys pay for my life. Thanks, I guess.... even though you're all dirty evil capitalist. If you don't send me money, I'll burn my computer!

I recently met a man who was a non-lethal weapons importer. He was the largest importer in central America and he explained to me that he was the only person able to import pepper spray into a particular country. He said he had signed exclusive deals with all the pepper spray distributors, telling them he would only buy their products if they refused to sell those products to other clients. He created an effectual monopoly on pepper spray. I have the potential to do the same thing, I am importing products into a new market which does not yet have these cheaper and better quality products. In exchange for introducing the manufacturer to the market, it wouldn't be hard to secure a similar deal. Is this ethical? Is it good business practice? Is it assholey? To take the metaphor further, imagine if this guy cornered the pepper spray market by buying up all the retail operations. Suddenly only retail options he owns would get access to the best and cheapest products, preventing other companies from competing. Is this a free market?

I don't really understand how that pertains to my argument. Additionally, my understanding is that every hash is an encryption puzzle being solved, every wallet includes a public key encryption, and the entire thing is called cryptocurrency, the word crypto coming from encryption. The entire bitcoin system is predicated on encrypted data, and the blockchain itself is not read-protected but a write-protected encryption system, where people can't change the previous blocks even if they can see them.

The blockchain is an encrypted database or ledger shared by all the nodes in the bitcoin network. I don't know exactly what your point is, to be honest.

I will add though, it is a very positive thing that the organization with some of the most intrenched history of child abuse is being forced to acknowledge and confront it by a dwindling population of Catholics.

I'll be there for the next one!!

I am extremely sincere, the arguments you've received counter to your points number in the dozens and are categorically dismissed and then this topic is introduce into another bitcoin thread for the whole thing to repeat itself. This topic would be great to discuss with someone who gave the slightest consideration towards counter arguments. The Mises Regression Theorem explains that the expected future purchasing power of a currency informs its current value. This theory seemed to imply that the value of a currency was determined by a historical use of the currency for exchange. That is to say, the value of a currency comes from its previous successful use as a currency. This provoked another important question Mises attempted to solve: what is the origin point of this infinite cycle? He said if you go back far enough you will discover the currency being exchanged exclusively as a commodity. So for example, the history of the value of gold traces back to a point when it was being used exclusively as a commodity (say for jewelry) and not at all as a currency. The value of the gold at this point is said to be its "intrinsic value" by some though that term is a bit faulty and often criticized. Bitcoin is the name of an encryption based network being used as a currency now. In order to understand its evolution into currency using Mises's argument we need to go back to a time when encrypted networking was not being used as a currency. Here we can see the intrinsic value of encrypted networks in the modern market, most of which is used to keep personal, business, and government information secret and private at the lowest competitive cost. Gold was perfect for jewelry, because of its malleability and other qualities (for example, unlike Bronze and Silver, Gold doesn't pantine in oxygen and instead remains shiny over time). Similarly, encryption based networks have proven the fastest, cheapest, and most reliable way to protect information. Their utility began in SSL, banking websites, email and other applications and have since moved on to currency. The value of bitcoin is like the value of a Roman Coin. The Roman Coin might have contained extra value because of the strength of its network, much like bitcoin, but is still based on the market value of the metal used to make the coin. So like a Roman Coin made out of Silver, Bitcoin is a brand name for a currency made out of something called encryption. Hopefully that helps everyone reconcile the Mises theory and the empirical fact that bitcoin is money.

good, hopefully this sparks more push back.

how can someone argue the world's largest decentralized encryption and fastest and lowest cost currency transfer system has no "intrinsic value"? There is a clear difference between bitcoin and me just writing down the word bitcoin on a piece of paper, and in that difference, with a lot more technical understanding, you can see all of the market functions bitcoin has beyond use as a currency (this fitting very well into Mises's Regression theorum) "What Jones says is irrelevant, he's just one person." "You said that the basis for gold's value when it was used as money, was not it's intrinsic* value, which is wrong. Not only is it wrong, it's strictly contradicted by Mises's monetary theory, which you brought up." That is an ironic contradiction. I actually agree though, no amount of saying it isn't money will ever stop people from using it as money and what one person says is irrelevent. I sincerely wish people spent their time providing better alternatives when they see a problem. Hunting down new bitcoin topics to spam the same tired and overly discussed argument I find personally annoying. Can you just make the Mises Regression theorum topic and keep all the spam in one place?

Decades? Try centuries.

lol that concrete bag house is so ugly! The cheapest houses for poor people are basic wood frames, in countries without a lot of environmental regulations you can get lumber inexpensively, pay someone about $1 an hour to work on your home, and you've got a house for well under $5,000. Not particularly good for cold weather, but it will keep the rain off Adobe and other earth based brink homes are even cheaper, but they take a lot of time to make.

yeah thats kind of a good point

Replacing the word murder with pointing a flash light in your face is not very helpful, considering the definition of murder is unwanted, but the definition of a flashlight in your face is not. I don't find it to be a useful comparison, did you?

So what word do you recommend?

I actually know a guy who lives entirely off the land and avoids all technology, his facebook page has a bunch of great pictures. =)

I knew a clear cut sociopath in high school, and found that he responded strongly when I would say "no one is liking you right now." For me personally if someone said that at the time I would have said "good fuck em", and even now my response would only be somewhat mroe polite, but in this guy's brain I hit on something really terrible. It literally stopped him in his tracks. Now I think of propaganda as a sociopathic function of the state, designed to confuse manipulate and control people. I wonder to what degree, however, propaganda could work against a sociopath. Signs all over downtown saying "No one likes a sociopath." I am being a bit tongue in cheek but there could be something there.

Same for all labels, just because an asshole is an atheist doesn't mean I should stop calling myself an atheist. The label isnt too important to me though, I think its just about applied values.

can you imagine the $3 billion dollar mess they would create with their dumb ideas? Then who cleans up that failed social experiment?

I love it, it has really kept unwanted people away. I've been downvoted for things, too, but when you're not a constant "antagonist" it balances out and then some.

I read this a little while back. It is a little extra frustrating having launched a kickstarter which didn't get support, knowing I would have fulfilled all my obligations. Some o the backers were almost equally as ridiculous, though many were angry. Frankly, the homeless future this guy is preparing himself for will be punishment enough. Some idiot backers: "I consider this to be a very large and elaborate art installation about the evils of the capitalist architecture of the the internet." "Dude-- That was a lengthy, thought-provoking email! Art is messy and in the best of circumstances, dreamy and even magical. Waiting for a book is dreamlike too, so it's all cool." "Thanks for making me think John. Having followed your work for quite some time I often find myself asking ethical questions. I hope you find some form of peace or happiness." Gives me douche chills.

I think your avatar should be a man beating a dead horse. I just checked into this topic to see if you had replied to my comments directed at you. Instead you focused on another abusive person in this conversation and tried to engage them. I am sincerely recommending you spend some time thinking about this behavior, but its your choice. Do you tolerate a lot of abusive people in your life?