Bulbasaur

Thanks for providing this much needed perspective on Bitcoin's intrinsic utility and the long-term potential of the protocol. I think videos like this are becoming increasingly important now that increased media attention has brought about a wave of hit pieces and uninformed pundits misrepresenting it to the masses.

Interesting... this one could become quite time consuming.

Very nice summary.

Excellent interview, the best I've seen on this topic. Thanks for sharing.

A lot of problems with that video, but foremost is the same abuse of the "observer effect" that plagues all these arguments. There's just no basis in quantum mechanics that existence requires conscious perception. This only arises from misunderstanding the theory or lying about it. I imagine a physicist who promotes these ideas can sell a lot of books, though.

This is a good question. There are an absurd number of functionally similar (if not identical) coins. There are a few reasons; the code is open source so it's not very difficult to make your own coin, and there are detailed guides telling you exactly what lines in the code you need to change. Some people may do it as an exercise in learning how to make a cryptocoin, others may do it hoping to create the early-bitcoin conditions when mining was easy, so that they can 'pump and dump' if they can actually find people willing to trade for them. But by now people are pretty cynical about new "shitcoins" (industry term) that don't bring anything new to the table. As to what makes bitcoin "worth" so much more than litecoin and the others, it's just supply and demand. Bitcoin is mature enough that the mining supply has dried up, whereas the demand continues to grow as it gains more media attention and more startups and businesses start getting involved with it. Public interest and consensus are important for a currency to be valuable, and Bitcoin has a big first-to-market advantage in that regard. Litecoin has basically second-to-market advantage over the rest. Higher market capitalization indicates more interest in the coin, which attracts more interest, and so creates a positive feedback. It's not necessarily true that litecoin price will approach 1/4 that of Bitcoin though, because price depends on demand as well as supply. Future demand for litecoin is pretty tough to predict at this point. There are other small differences besides the total number of coins which might influence this, for example I usually hear that litecoin has an advantage of faster transaction confirmations. The mining algorithm is also different, so mining of litecoins without special equipment is still viable. These aspects could influence how the demand for litecoin evolves, as well as whether businesses and startups get involved with litecoin. But it may never gain the kind of consensus and utility it needs to succeed (and the same could be said for bitcoin as well). There are some unique altcoins that might be worth looking into, and may still be viable for mining without special equipment (at least, if you're optimistic about eventual price gains on the order of what we've seen with bitcoin). Primecoin uses a proof-of-work that searches for new prime numbers. I suspect that won't be important enough for most people to matter much, though. Peercoin uses a proof-of-stake/proof-of-work hybrid system, which means the overall network is energy-efficient compared to the proof-of-work coins, and you get rewarded with new coins just for holding coins over time. Protoshares are weird and hard to explain, but they are related to projects involving "distributed autonomous corporations" such as a distributed decentralized bank (http://invictus-innovations.com/i-dac/ for more on that). Namecoin is a project attempting to create an alternative distributed DNS system. These are the more interesting ones that I know of, and I think it's no coincidence that for the most part these have the largest market capitalizations (http://coinmarketcap.com/).

I would think something like "willful violation of ethics" should suffice. This would include violence, use of force, threat of force (coercion), theft, fraud... All the classics. Are you not familiar with the philosophy on which this board is based?

I don't understand. Are you accusing me of evil?

Tolerance and acceptance are seen as the answer to bigotry, but they also can pave the way to moral relativism. Evil should be no more tolerated or accepted than bigotry, and without a foundation of rational ethics, these ideas tend to end up serving the needs of those who wish to perpetuate predatory behaviors but avoid social ostracism. I would expect more harm than good to come from this.

Fair enough, but I'm still not convinced that in principle such a secondary non-money use is at all necessary. I can see how it might enable a monetary system to evolve from a barter society, but once the concept of money is well understood by almost everyone, I think it outgrows any need for an extraneous use. If a monetary system works really well as a monetary system (which involves many specific non-arbitrary criteria), a lack of other unrelated utility is an irrational reason to reject it. Nonetheless, it has become something of a superstition now. To me it seems similar to the idea that the prospect of objective morality collapses if a God is not overseeing it.

I'm glad this was helpful, and I am a big fan of self-teaching. I can see your dilemma though, as I would imagine self-teaching in blacksmithing must require a substantial investment in equipment. Perhaps rather than a true mentorship with an expert, you could try to build friendships with other beginners who are trying to self-teach and then try to set up some kind of cooperative arrangement where you move into proximity with each other and share equipment, resources and expenses while helping each other learn. I assume anyone getting into armorsmithing these days is driven mostly by passion, so if you got enough people interested, you might even be able to grow a little community around this and eventually expand into more entrepreneurial things. For example, there's a glassblowing studio in my neighborhood, and they do workshops where people with a casual interest can pay some money to get a hands-on learning experience. Once you free yourself from societal expectations, all sorts of new possibilities open up.

So far I have 8/10 then. Not looking forward to 0 0 0... edit: I thought I had the solution using lots of "i", although I wasn't sure if that counted as a number or a symbol. They should probably specify that you can only use operations. Seeing the answer, theirs is certainly cleaner. I did solve 8s differently though.

I think this is a good way to look at it. Reality 'is what it is,' and we simply try our best to describe it. We had nice models for particle behavior and nice models for wave behavior, so our instinct is to describe these quantum observations of "wave-particle duality" as something paradoxical, but I think a better view is that they are different manifestations of some unified process which just happens to be less intuitive.

That sounds like a very difficult situation. I'm sorry your parents are so unsupportive of your emotional needs. Your aversion toward job applications is totally understandable. The job options available to you are surely pretty unappealing. The way I see it, there are basically two routes in life. Society encourages this assembly line model based on meeting standards, satisfying gatekeepers, and obtaining credentials. This is the top-down, central planned, 'just do what you're told and you'll be taken care of' model of the state. You can see this in how politicians talk about 'jobs' numbers like some abstract commodity that needs to be produced, and people tend to think about jobs as something someone has to give you. This begins with schooling at a very young age, so getting away from it requires swimming against the current, so to speak. It's generally encouraged as the 'safe' route, but becomes less and less safe as the state becomes increasingly dysfunctional. Formal education is only relevant if you want to participate in this system, and since you don't, there's no need to dwell on only having a GED. Self-motivated learning will always be more effective than top-down curricula, provided that you can gain access to resources and experienced people some other way. The internet makes this increasingly possible. But outside the system, you need to return to basic free market economics and find some way to create enough value for enough people that you can support yourself through doing business with them. Blacksmithing is an unusual thing these days, but niche markets are often the easiest ways for entrepreneurs and small businesses to get started since obscure needs are usually not met by big industries. It's also a skilled trade, which means you could potentially become well-known within that niche and command high prices if you become very good at it and develop a unique style. If this is your passion, by all means pursue it, but to venture outside the 'safe' system requires that you set all the wheels in motion yourself. Parents have a duty to teach their children these things, but most cede it to the school system and put their faith in the state model. Perhaps they abuse you now because your presence is a reminder that they themselves fell short in their parenting, like a splinter in their ego. This seems like more evidence that there were serious problems with the way you were parented. I think it's an important step that you've recognized this and attempted to discuss it with them, but their resistance is pretty typical. To be honest, it sounds like your family doesn't support you at all. Maybe they feel obligated to assist you financially, but it sounds like living with them comes at a great cost, both to your emotional state and to your development of independent initiative and self confidence. And since you don't have any supportive friends around you, all of your interactions are basically reinforcing all the negativity you feel. I don't know anything about what it takes to get into blacksmithing, so I'll trust that you've investigated it yourself, but it seems to me like you'd be better off getting away from your family and finding an experienced blacksmith to apprentice you, even if it means making some financial sacrifices. Would one of those menial jobs seem as bad if it allowed you to get away from your family, to put down the mental burden of being reliant on abusers and pursue your passion? I'm so sorry that you've been treated like this. To me this is irredeemable behavior, and I would think deeply about whether you want to work on fixing your relationship. It seems like you already believe that such an effort would be hopeless, and it might be in your best interests to cut ties with these people as soon as you can. You didn't choose them as parents, you were effectively a prisoner in a world that they created for you; and as such, whether they've financially supported you or not, you don't owe them anything. But even if you do want to try to reconcile things with them, it will be difficult to do while you're still dependent on them because they have this leverage over you. This is a lot like how the welfare state ensnares people into a self-destructive dependency. Personally, I would suggest that you get out of that environment as soon as you safely can. This means taking advantage of their tainted money for the time being, but putting those wheels in motion. Being unemployed gives you an abundance of time to put toward changing your situation, and you could use it to start reaching out to the communities involved with blacksmithing (I imagine there must be some online), trying to find a mentor, trying to find a cheap apartment and a part-time job you can tolerate for the sake of furthering your goals and getting away from the vampires in your life who are draining you of your potential. I find that just making a decision to begin working towards a goal and breaking that initial inertia can be a huge relief in itself. Of course, I'm just a random person with limited knowledge and no direct experience of your situation, so you should think carefully about your own feelings and goals and decide for yourself if you think these ideas would be helpful for you.

Are square roots allowed? You can draw the symbol without drawing a number, so I think this technically is within the rules (you can't "draw a number"), but the symbol is really shorthand for a power of 1/2, so it seems a bit like cheating when powers of other numbers are disallowed.

He's correct that the price is still mostly driven by speculation so far, but the intrinsic value argument is nonsense. For one thing it's an oxymoron, because value is a subjective assessment (evaluation) which can't be intrinsic. What's intrinsic is utility, and bitcoin has intrinsic utility in a number of ways, including its ability to make and receive direct transfers without intermediaries; its decentralized nature insulating it from government interference; its finite supply protecting it from inflationary attrition; its potential for anonymity; its ability to circumvent the government barriers put up around international transfers of funds; and so on. If it has no "intrinsic value," how would it attract any speculators to begin with? People are recognizing its intrinsic utility and speculating on its practical utility, which is a function intrinsic utility, infrastructure, and consensus. Intrinsic utility is the seed which attracts the beginnings of consensus (speculation), which drives development of infrastructure, which itself drives further consensus, and this feedback continues until its practical utility is realized. The more practical it becomes to use bitcoin for everyday purposes, the more valuable it becomes. Keep in mind that gold's main utility for most people is its ability to hold value against the dollar. Gold doesn't have much utility when it comes to digital transfers, and in a digital economy bitcoin has much more utility than gold while also retaining most of the same qualities that make gold appealing as an investment. Of course bitcoin is still high risk since there's no telling how long this process will take, whether or not something novel and better will replace it, whether government actions somehow derail it, etc. He has it backwards. Speculation and hoarding just drive up its price relative to the dollar. This is perfectly fine; they're taking on the burden of high risk for the chance of a large profit, and in the process increasing the incentive for entrepreneurs to enter the market, developing the requisite infrastructure which will make it more useful. This will progressively reduce volatility and strengthen its consensus value. Also, I may just by cynical, but I feel that someone like Peter Schiff should understand how specious the 'intrinsic value' argument is, and the advertisement for precious metals behind him suggests that he's not exactly impartial (bitcoin does, after all, pose a direct threat to the price of gold and silver as well as fiat).

The idea of a 'computer afterlife' is really intriguing, and raises a lot of interesting philosophical implications. This would be something like the intellectual property debate but applied to sentient moral agents. What would it mean to "transfer" one's mind to a computer? I can only imagine it would involve making a digital copy of some sort, but then there's a continuity problem. if you copy something, the original doesn't then become the copy, even if they function identically. If my brain was destroyed in the process, it would seem to the digital me (and any observers) that I had simply been transferred into the VR. But my own individual experience would still cease, and a potentially immortal digital clone would simply replace me. I suppose this could be seen as immortality being impossible for us fleshies, but possible for our digital 'offspring.' Even if these digital people aren't the same individuals as their biological templates, if they were cognitively identical they would still be legitimate moral agents with all the ethical implications that carries. Then we would have to address the ethics of making or destroying copies of oneself or others. I suppose these would be parallel if not equivalent to the existing ethics around childbearing, but it might not be as obvious to people that destroying a copy is equivalent to killing a person. It's sort of like the idea of male disposability, but taken to an extreme. The movie Oblivion gives a pretty unsettling view of how bizarre this rabbithole goes.

A bitcoin-based card that would work with current hardware at checkouts would be pretty big, but I heard that it's mainly regulatory rather than technical obstacles that have prevented this from happening already. As far as ease of buying into bitcoin for regular people, Coinbase seems to be a great option for people in the US. Generally these things seem to start very technical and gradually become more approachable as people see the opportunity in expanding the userbase, so I think it will happen sooner or later as long as government intervention doesn't prevent it. Regarding anonymity, I still have mixed feelings. I see the appeal in having the option for private, anonymous transactions (a coin called Zerocoin is aiming for this I think), but reputation is also an extremely useful way to reduce risk and reward virtue. A good reputation is a valuable thing, so when honest trades are rewarded with reputation gains, everyone wins. When reputation is squandered, the consequences could be devastating; this is the basis of a lot of 'practical anarchy' solutions for retaining order, and the option of anonymity is really in direct opposition to this. You can see how anonymity brings out the worst in people in pretty much any set of youtube comments. But it seems like it should be possible to make the transactions private while keeping the public reputations visible, so that might be the best of both worlds. There's some interesting ideas from a company called Invictus around extending the bitcoin concept to other applications, including how we approach the idea of online identity (http://letstalkbitcoin.com/own-your-identity-with-bitshares/#.Uo4ICMQ_utZ). I just started reading about it so I haven't really formed an opinion, but I do very much like that they're thinking about how to extend this idea of decentralized networks to solving other problems besides sending payments.

We seem to be thinking along the same line of reasoning. The current dollar value of bitcoins just reflects the current limited demand. Right now dollars still have a lot more utility than bitcoins for most of the purchases we make, because dollar-as-currency has such an established infrastructure. If bitcoin did become widely accepted, its dollar price would have to reflect what amounts to a very large increase in demand, while its supply remains inherently restricted. And the more useful bitcoin becomes for normal purchases, the less attractive dollars would become since they would be hemorrhaging value through both overprinting and reduced demand relative to bitcoin. Regarding the comparison with gold, I would argue bitcoin will be worth much more than even that projection IF (big if) it becomes a standard, widely accepted and convenient currency. As you point out, bitcoin competes with gold. To plagiarize myself from another thread, I think the biggest things needed now are for innovative people to find ways to make bitcoins easier for regular people to buy and use, and to continue to create and promote businesses that sell everyday goods and services and accept payment in bitcoin. It can only evolve into a dominant currency if people can use it for the same things they use dollars for now.

I don't think we're really even disagreeing at this point, as far as the issues with the current state of research. It seems to be heavily influenced by powerful special interests and relies heavily on government funding. It's interesting to think about how it might be different in a true free market, because big companies would still want to fund research that would show favorable results. But if there were consumer-funded organizations doing research in competition with industry-funded research, people could decide for themselves who had the better credibility.

Just my amateur opinion, so of course I encourage everyone to investigate for themselves and come to their own conclusions.

I agree with Wesley. There will always be short-term fluctuations as traders try to make the most of the volatility, but the important question is whether or not you think it will become widely accepted in the long term. I think currently it's held up mainly by speculators, opportunists, ideologues, linux users, and people trying to trade in controlled substances. In the last couple weeks it's been getting some 'mainstream' attention which seems to have pulled in a few more people who were on the fence, as well as a lot of attention from China. The Chinese government basically endorsed it on state TV, and the US senate seems to be on board although they'll probably start regulating and taxing bitcoin-accepting businesses. But the important thing is they won't be able to create bitcoins, so they'll hold their value as all the fiat currencies spiral. So the stage is set for a long-term migration to bitcoin. The big group that's missing from its current capitalization is 'regular people,' particularly older people. It still seems like a scam to people like my parents, and the prospect of sending an international bank transfer to a foreign exchange to buy them or setting up an in-person meeting with a local seller probably doesn't help with that. People without much technical background struggle to see the value in it, or why it's any different from Zynga dollars or Paypal. To use a computer analogy, right now bitcoin is still on a linux-level, and a lot of people aren't going to mess with it until they can get a Mac or Windows version. Its public perception also has to gain more legitimacy, but we can see that it's moving in this direction. What I expect is some combination of the following: (1) Chinese investments accelerate as more and more see the opportunity and are willing to take the risk (2) Entrepreneurs and startups like Coinbase make buying bitcoins increasingly easy and less intimidating (3) A major online retailer like Amazon begins the trend of accepting bitcoins as payment (4) EU/Euro begins to fall apart, and European interest spikes I think (1) would keep the bottom from falling out if there's another crash, and (2) would progressively reduce the entry barrier for the less adventurous, while (3) would establish mainstream legitimacy and (4) would be the tipping-point. But if it were to gain mainstream acceptance, the price would necessarily be driven much, much higher. People compare the amount of bitcoin to the amount of gold and try to extrapolate the eventual stable price to be several thousand times the current price, but keep in mind that price is a function of both supply and demand. Demand for gold is dominated by commercial use (electronics/jewelry) and as an investment vehicle, not as a currency. If bitcoin becomes a standard in the way that the dollar is currently, there will be a lot more demand for bitcoin than for gold. The convenience of instant electronic payments with negligible fees makes bitcoin a lot more potentially useful than gold for most people, and since it can't be printed at the whim of the Fed, there won't be much point to hedging your bitcoin holdings by investing in gold. Again, all this depends on whether it eventually gains widespread acceptance. But as long as it progresses toward that, the demand for bitcoin will continue to grow, while the supply remains limited by the system itself and the increasing cost of mining, and the price will trend upward.

Coinbase seems to be the most painless option if you live in the US, but I'm not sure if this would work in Canada. I was able to link my bank account and buy directly from that, whereas other options all seem to require international bank transfer or some kind of third party like OKPay. Localbitcoins would probably be another good choice if you like a craigslist approach. The downside of coinbase is they have some kind of overall daily trading limit such that you may not be able to buy on demand when demand starts to rise. Instead they'll offer you a put option where you schedule a buy possibly days later at whatever the market rate is at that time (but you can cancel up until the trade is processed). Basically, you may have to take your place in line.

Scientists are definitely fallible and just as prone to bias and prejudice as anyone else. But this is why science as a whole tries to self-correct through an emphasis on reproducibility and peer-review, although peer review certainly has its issues and can end up perpetuating biases as seems to be the case with quasicrystals. A single paper shouldn't be considered proof of anything outside the realms of formal logic and mathematics, but yes, it does seem that in this case critics were rejecting the claims out of bias rather than rigorous inquiry. It is certainly difficult to comprehend what you wrote. I never used the word 'invented.'

I find the intersection of ethics and evolution to be a very interesting topic, so I'll take a stab at it. I suppose 'best allocation of resources' could be considered synonymous with 'productivity,' which I think does correlate with evolutionary fitness. Evolutionary processes are very much 'ends justify the means,' so in principle the use of force would only matter to the extent that it was effective or ineffective at increasing fitness, no different than any other attribute. However, I think it's worth considering whether the use of force is inherently detrimental to the fitness of a group. Evolution may not 'care' about ethics, but ethics (by its very nature as a system of objective 'ought') may have universal implications for maximizing group fitness. In a closed system, it's easy to see how this might be the case. Honest voluntary interactions tend to be win-win and create net value, whereas forceful involuntary interactions tend to be win-lose and destroy net value (e.g. theft is a break-even transfer of value often combined with property or bodily damage and disruption of productivity). This is why a fully free society based on voluntary capitalism should in principle maximize net productivity and fitness. Conversely, productivity should be progressively suppressed as the degree of force, fraud, and theft in a society increases. This seems to be supported empirically through the inverse relationship between economic growth and government growth. I specify 'closed system' because conquest has obviously been a profitable application of force throughout history which should be addressed. The use of force by one group against another group could certainly increase the fitness of that group enough to more than compensate for any loss of fitness incurred by the use of force within the group. Thus a force-using group could increase their fitness through use of force, but only at the expense of another group. In a more global view, the interaction is still win-lose and a net loss, and the situation of force between groups is analogous to the situation of force between individuals. That said, any universal objective ethics must apply equally to all moral agents, so it's necessary to consider humankind as a single closed moral system (and if other moral agents are ever encountered, they must also be included). I imagine something like an entropy law could be developed, e.g. In other words, deviations from ethics may cause a local gain in productivity (or perhaps fitness or some other metric would be more suitable), but always create a net global loss. If this is true, then the most successful groups should be those which allow people the most freedom. Practically all successful groups throughout history do seem to have engaged in substantial use of force, but I don't think that disproves the claim. While it seems to be true that organization into authoritarian hierarchies like tribes and governments had an evolutionary advantage, I think it's likely that this is only true when coming from a more unethical state of total disorganization, which would be expected of a lawless population with no technology or understanding of ethics. We can see a general progression of increasing freedom throughout history, from direct human slavery to serfdom to the indirect tax slavery we have now. If it is the case that alignment with ethics correlates proportionally with productivity and fitness, then societal evolution should naturally progress toward a more ethical state (even if we never explicitly discovered ethics). However, in much the same way that our discovery of the scientific method dramatically accelerated our productivity, our capacity for philosophy could likewise fast-track our progress in outgrowing governments, if people can be convinced of its value. Certainly predators (e.g. sociopaths) do better individually in a less ethical society, because they can thrive at the expense of others. However, this is detrimental to the group as a whole, since it's fundamentally parasitical. But sociopathy appears to be largely a consequence of ethical failures perpetrated on one as a child, so this would be more of an epigenetic phenomenon if anything. As far as accepting a government, people do seem predisposed to accept domination as preferable to death which obviously would confer an evolutionary advantage. We're also susceptible to social programming, but there are probably good evolutionary reasons for this besides its usefulness as a control mechanism.