Quote from: Lethn on June 02, 2013, 07:22:03 AM

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The key problem is that it does not address the distribution and accumulation of wealth. In fact the current mining system promotes this. People mine, collect coins, re-invest. Those with more coins can invest more and make more and over time the distribution of coins is unequal with a small percentage of people holding a majority of the coins.

There is nothing wrong with saving, in fact, production and savings is what allows an economy to grow and a currency to gain strength, the reason I bring this up is because you sound like these people who more openly whine about people 'hoarding' Bitcoins. What Bitcoin addresses is the problems of central banks and government regulation, the problems that occur in the current economy happen precisely because people are trying to artificially engineer the distribution of wealth. You need to accept the fact that there will always be rich and poor and there will always be problems an economy, the best thing we can do is make it so its easy to get out of the situation yourself or make being poor fairly comfortable.

If you want to stay an economy where two different groups are conspiring to steal everyone's wealth and redistribute it at will ( usually for corrupt individuals ) to get people re-elected and gain more personal wealth and to force you to work for much longer hours and for less pay be my guest, no ones stopping you, I don't understand why people so rabidly attack Bitcoin sometimes.

I don't think I attacked Bitcoin at all. In fact if you read my OP it praises the technological advances it brings to currency. And I'm certainly not whining about hoarders of Bitcoin! Good for them? Us?

Who knows how many bitcoins I have or you have?

My post was a response to seeing dozens of ill informed posts about how the government is attacking Bitcoin. My question then was 'Do governments really have something worry about if Bitcoin is adopted? i.e. is Bitcoin Revolutionary?'. The thread was meant simply to flush out this idea and get people thinking about how a Bitcoin economy would be different from our existing economy. My thinking led me to believe that there would be little difference in the underlying distribution of wealth.

I'm not sure I or any of us have to accept your assumption that there will always be rich and poor. Economies are artificially constructed though rules, laws and regulation, like you mention. For example capitalism simply could not exist without law enforcing the idea of ownership (property or otherwise). There is nothing which prevents us in constructing it in such a way that wealth is distributed equally.

I also believe it's naive to think that governments will not play a role in regulating Bitcoin. If you make income mining Bitcoin do you believe you government has no right to tax this income? Alternatively if you purchase goods with Bitcoins that you mined aren't you in affect earning income and spending?

In any case I don't want to steer to far away from the topic. The question is simply if Bitcoin were adopted today would this cause a revolution in the current economic system or would the people who hold on to power now simply swap their FIAT for Bitcoins and continue in the same way.