Quote from: telemaco on June 05, 2013, 09:53:36 PM

What would happen on a war economy. We have been living a long period without wars but that won't continue for long (i hope that is not true). On a war economy and under war laws states could exert extreme violence to anyone using bitcoin or entire regions of countries could just shutdown the internet like north korea or lybia during revolts. What would happen?

What you don't seem to realize is that the world has lived under a "war economy" since WWII. Like president Eisenhower warned us, the Military Industrial Complex grew out of control and is not just an engine for US wars; but for worldwide wars, that will never be shut off again.

States already can and do confiscate anything they want. They don't need a backdrop of violence to steal your bitcoins; they have one already but never needed it in the first place.

What the states need to steal your coins is simply your lack of care. It's now a numbers game for them, and they're more likely to come after wallets by writing trojans and viruses like the theives that they are. So make a paper backup and use the long passcode on your main wallet... And certainly don't make any large buys from a place like Gox that has your ID on file.

Quote from: telemaco on June 05, 2013, 09:53:36 PM

What happens with bitcoin when there is no internet, when 3G lines are switched off and there are not even mobile lines for failing infrastructures or in zones with inhibitors? What would happen with Bitcoin?

We'll simply make our own internet. Meshnet isn't the only P2P internet replacement being built right now... I'm convinced well see the globe covered in many different flavors of wireless mesh in the next 10-15 years.

Quote from: telemaco on June 05, 2013, 10:25:10 PM

If you are on a civil war on Congo you probably would have problems using bitcoins.

Actually I believe that the Congo is one of the nations that falls within the 4 Billion cellphone users that now have the ability to use bitcoin but no ability to use internet currencies like paypal... So I'm actually expecting such places to outpace the USA in bitcoin adoption once they get started.

Quote from: telemaco on June 05, 2013, 10:36:28 PM

Now seriously on a war economy bitcoin wouldn't be allowed probably. There would be a fair suspicion of people using it to send anonimously funds to the other party. There would be barriers and firewalls bigger than those on china or north korea to block and filter internet connections. Only a few chosen could probably use internet during a serious war conflict (i mean an all out war effort, not just a war against a small country) Possible for them? maybe not but bitcoin would probably be a hidden economy (at national scale) then and there could be forks from parts of the world not connecting to the rest of the network?

Hopefully before anyone reading this gets in that kind of trouble, cryptocurrencies will have successfully starved the MIC engine of enough funding that the can no longer find such warfare profitable. (Because states can't gather enough tax money to pay for stealth bombers)

Quote from: cdog on June 06, 2013, 05:13:03 AM

If you want to know more about the IMF, this is an interesting read: http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

Quoted for Awesomeness. Economic Hitman is an absolute, world-changing classic that every bitcoiner should read. (I'd prefer if every HUMAN read it, but I guess we can start with just the coiners...)

Quote from: jjdub7 on June 06, 2013, 01:50:55 PM

And even if the IMF did manage to buy out the required 51%, what's to stop the BTC community from just re-creating BTC, switching to LTC, or switching to another altcoin, etc? As much as they hate to admit it, the IMF is pretty much up the creek without a paddle on this one...

Yeah, they're never going to win against cryptocurrencies taking any approach like that, and I'm sure they know this.

Sadly, nations and organizations like the UN or IMF don't play on your turf. They do really evil shit like turn the world's media against you and make people disappear without a trace. While I'm sure there is no one or even five people they could use the latter tactic on to hurt bitcoin, the former is still a good option for them, so I'd bet that is what they'll do.

Our challenge is now to get out ahead of them and introduce as many ppl to bitcoin as possible before they start that campaign.