Quote from: Coreadrin_47 on August 19, 2012, 11:39:54 PM

Quote from: misterbigg on August 19, 2012, 10:57:18 PM

Don't be so quick to dismiss gold and silver. They both have their place. If you flee to a lesser developed agrarian country (which is more resilient to a failure of fiat money), some precious metal coins can be very handy for acquiring goods and services. The advantage is that metals are widely accepted by street merchants (ironically, except in the G20 countries).

Some precious metals could be a good hold over until fiat has completely destroyed itself and the Bitcoin economy becomes pervasive.

I absolutely agree with this. PM's will get food to your mouth and a roof over your head while fiat is dying. My focus on bitcoin is philosophical, economic, and even a bit philanthropic. Bitcoin is international money. It can facilitate international trade across institutions while a central-depository PM currency will take days to do this on any transaction outside of its own institution. This is what makes it brilliant.

For philosophical and economic reasons, it is simply because bitcoin is a moral money, much like anything else the market voluntarily elects i.e. gold, silver, etc. It is because when the market (whenever I say "market" in any conversation I have on here, this is my condensed term for "all of the voluntarily interacting human beings making choices all of the time") chooses the money, the market flourishes.

What we have seen in the digital economy is growth that only existed in the physical economy for a short time - the Gilded Age, where true economic expansion in production under gold and silver increased at a rate beyond anything in the scarce realm before, or since. We are in the Gilded Age of the digital economy, and more and more scare resources are being brought into it for that reason. Already, millions upon millions of man-hours of former labour are now instantaneous and infinitely-replicatable in the digital realm, freeing up untold riches in human capital and that most precious commodity - time. It's the most beautiful thing for the human race that has happened in ages.

The philanthropic aspect is sort of a two-edged sword (and I'm holding the hilt!). On the one hand, I want to cut off the mechanism that allows states to hire people, ship them off to other countries, and pay them to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. War is not possible without currency monopoly, at least any war that violates the NAP is not (pre-emptive/aggressive). Can you possible imagine how it would work out if the US government had to actually extract every dollar it uses to pay the Offensive Military directly from the hands of taxpayers? There is no way. The "Great Society" would die on the vine as it should, because there is no way you could tax what has been monetized directly from the hands of productive people. They wouldn't stand for it. This is why no "true believer" progressive ever talks about abolishing central banking, only "reforming" it - they know their vision of every second of life being managed by "experts" and being "equal" for all, is absolutely impossible under market money.

What we have now is that people know something is wrong, in their gut, they are a bit resentful of how much is being stolen directly from them, and they instinctively have the impulse to speculate because their store of "value" buys less and less every year. Imagine if tax-by-central-bank became an actual attempt to tax! It would be the Whiskey Rebellion all over again (and damned straight!), with the good guys likely winning.

On the other hand, there is only one key to actually stopping men and women from signing up to head off and kill other people in other countries for the sins of their governments or tiny factions therein. That key is trade. People do not kill each other when they do business together and make money from each other. "when goods and services cross borders, soldiers won't". It is extremely hard to propagandize me that all Chinese are evil cannibals who want to murder me for being randomly born in an arbitrarily fined geographic region, when just last night I was on the phone with Wong and we worked out a very good deal to get some stuff shipped over for me. This is why you see economic sanctions, always, before you see military action - it is part of the "consensus" upon which our society has disgustingly set the foundation for its morality. Our latest example is Iran, and military action is sure to follow unless the bond market does what I am praying it should, and forces the US government to shrivel up and die (disclosure: I am fully leveraged short in long-term treasuries as of about 2 weeks ago, along with Japanese long bonds, German bunds, and France long term debt).

Bitcoin is something that can usher in world piece as a two edged sword - it removes the monetization possibility that enables war, and it keeps people in the rational world, where they do business together and benefit each other. Rational people are that much harder to propagandize, and would revolt if their economic success were cut off because of politicking. It really can be a tool that could re-shape so many paradigms of society.

Sorry for the rant. My fingers need a break. Once I get typing about this stuff it's hard to stop...

Although your ideas are possible on paper, I just don't see bitcoin becoming the saving grace that ends all wars. The powers that be will do whatever it takes to preserve that power. If they see bitcoin as a threat to their power then they will shut it down or demonize it. They already have a tight grip on your strings, I don't see them letting go anytime soon.