Did you say something about a "brain stem" ?

"Unregulated fractional reserves" will happen with any money system, any culture, any technology, any market.

There's nothing to stop me advertising my car and sending 5 people a "promise" to deliver it in exchange for something of value to me. Thats an "unregulated fractional reserve".

The criticisms you cite are straw men. They are not the real problems with the blockchain. In fact, blockchain transactions are about 300 times faster than present day bank transfers. 10 minutes vs 1-3 days. Furthermore, bank transfers are no more reversible than blockchain transfers and you DO NOT want reversibility in the blockchain.

The point of sale issues (speed, refunds, discounts, store cards, insurance, payment protection, monetary media) are not the domain of a money system. They are the domain of particular payment processors. (If they want to operate a fractional reserve system like MT Gox, so be it - that's one of the hazards of payment processors but again - it has nothing to do with Bitcoin the same way as Gox didn't have anything to do with Bitcoin).

Bitcoin is not a fractional reserve money system - it is a full reserve, unlevered form of base money. It's exactly the opposite of what all the anti-NWO'rs (of which I suppose I am one) are paranoid about when they talk about "electronic money". It's just that most of them are clueless about the mechanics of money anyway and so just stick with "anything electronic" as their definition.