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Re: Bitcoin is only good as digital gold and black-market currency.
In its current form, Bitcoin is only practical as a store-of-value and for use in markets that require anonymity such as online black markets like SilkRoad, or organizations that official power structures that control the flow of currency want to starve and strangle. If you're betting on it being the general currency of the future, you have little ground to stand on.
I am working on a solution as we speak. See Codename: EasyCoin. Otherwise, don't hold your breath.
I'm done here.
I am working on a solution as we speak. See Codename: EasyCoin. Otherwise, don't hold your breath.
I'm done here.
Fixed that for you.
They all basically seem to be the same. Someone comes up with some completely unsubstantiated reason why MTGOX is going to take their money and run for the hills and then is countered by someone else's completely unsubstantiated claim that MTGOX has no money whatsoever and then he's countered by someone else's completely unsubstantiated claim that everything will work OK, then someone comes in and threatens a class action lawsuit because MTGOX isn't spending all their time on these forums quelling all this speculation. I was happy to derail this thread. This whole forum has been a fascinating window into the extreme frailty of people's reasoning power. BRB I'm going to go sacrifice one of my testicles so that MTGOX will come back on in 11 hrs and 7 minutes because, you know, the whole world might come crashing down if he doesn't come back on then. Oh, and Bitcoins are going to become the global currency replacing the US dollar, no, wait, they're a massive bubble that will implode and have 0 value.
It's hard to justify a page for a persistent nym we don't even know is a real person.
Satoshi could be Tim May with Alzheimer's.
Satoshi could be Tim May with Alzheimer's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_%28nom_de_plume%29
Why not give them to Bruce Wagner's "bitcoin firehydrant"? At least we'd get a nice publicity event that might be pro bitcoin for a change when a million people queue up for free bitcoins in NYC.
I think a lot of people who donated to a non-profit will object to the difference with what Bruce is doing. Holding on to the coins until the EFF comes off the fence would be best I think.
In the future it is likely there will be significant legal contention concerning Bitcoin. At this point the EFF is one of the first organisations which comes to mind which might choose to defend Bitcoin. Their position would be weakened if they held a large sum of Bitcoins themselves.
Very high level of signal to noise ratio in this thread, lots of thoughtful posts, how refreshing 
Yes, how odd. I didn't like the trolls but now that they're absent I find myself missing them.
Exactly. Also, how would defending the existence/legality of a currency they've received a large number of donations in effect their nonprofit status? I honestly don't know but I could see how accepting this could be perceived as a big conflict of interest and weaken their ability to help Bitcoin in its inevitable hour of legal need. Any sort of donating the Bitcoins to something EFF believes in/backs/is ideologically related to could be perceived as the same thing as them accepting the Bitcoins I'd assume so they really need to either return them, which seems difficult, or let them trickle back into the network in such a way that doesn't benefit them or anything that's perceived to be related to them.
So I think the EFF's totally right in doing this. However they probably should've thought of this before they decided to accept Bitcoin donations in the first place.
Where is the 'buy tons of coins' option?
Or sit in the sidelines and watch option?
My CSA and one a natural food store down the street from me, and if it's 1 am and I'm hungry and lazy, Safeway. I assume it'd be way illegal to purchase a bunch of visa/mastercard gift cards and resell them for bitcoins so that it doesn't restrict choice.
Re: Bitcoin will be on the Peter Schiff Show 2011-06-20 at 10AM EDT
I reckon I'm going to be asleep but I'd love to hear this one. if anyone records it would they mind posting a link to it on this forum?
Many advanced thanks.
Many advanced thanks.
If you go to http://www.schiffradio.com you'll see that you can download, for example, Friday's show. Tomorrow's show airs from 10AM to noon, so you should be able to get the MP3 for the download sometime after that, usually within a few hours. You'll have between 24 and 48 hours to download it before falls behind the pay wall. Although it isn't a very strong pay wall, there is a way around it.
Thanks for that! I'll definitely download it.
Seriously. What shape should a distributed exchange take? How can it be funded? I was thinking why not get a bunch of people together to pledge some bitcoin [full disclosure I only have 2 and am waiting to get more when the exchanges open up again] to invest in an exchange and charge a percentage of the exchanged money that gets split evenly between all the investors?
As for the shape of a distributed exchange, I'm not so sure about that. Ideas?
As for the shape of a distributed exchange, I'm not so sure about that. Ideas?
None of us mortals can answer those questions.
LoL
Satoshi where are you when we need you?? You solved the Byzantine generals problem and invented distributed currency, okay. Now it's time to invent distributed exchange.
How much do you want from one person? Geez!
Why don't you ask him to bring on the second coming?
Maybe he can stop the nuclear crisis in Fukushima while he is at it?
Seriously. What shape should a distributed exchange take? How can it be funded? I was thinking why not get a bunch of people together to pledge some bitcoin [full disclosure I only have 2 and am waiting to get more when the exchanges open up again] to invest in an exchange and charge a percentage of the exchanged money that gets split evenly between all the investors?
As for the shape of a distributed exchange, I'm not so sure about that. Ideas?
I guess one of my points is that both the lovers and the haters of Bitcoin are appealing to logic to support their positions. And both sides have proponents who reason impeccably... and those who reason horribly so it's best to look deeper and broader to examine what it is we're doing.
all any of us can do by surrounding ourselves in this is sharpen out minds.
Absolutely, this is one of the more fascinating inventions I've ever seen. Also maybe we can find in it something we believe in and put that in our arsenal of things we are actively attempting to will into existence to make the world better/more beautiful/more fair/more fitting with some preconceived notion of the way the world works/whatever...
It's funny, Bitcoin seems to be (or is definitely about to be) one side of what I assume will be an epic battle but in itself it's a huge battleground with so many sides laying claim to it for so many different reasons.
What "logic" does it fly in the face of? I think that there are a million different sets of axioms flying around here and people are using them to derive logics of all sorts which are all necessarily based on faith (including yours and mine)
Insofar that none of the logic is based on anything quantitative, I agree with you. Even if we call it faith, this forum seems to be trouncing one faith in favour of another when there is no reason to do so.
People here have got to see the other side of the coin (no pun intended). If they just want to deny the obvious then that is more likely to lead to this currency's oblivion than anything else.
This forum is starting to sound like the Iraqi Information Minister. In the eyes of the world = laughable.
How far back does this faith go? did satoshi use faith or logic to create something that has allready impacted the entire world so greatly? Faith is what people use when logic looks like to much work for them, this is why you often see faith and hate so often on the same side of an argument.
No, faith is what defines the axioms and logic is how they derive a workable system from their axioms. My guess is Satoshi created the seed of his idea with faith (epiphany?) and used what seems to be an amazing gift of logic to flesh it out into a system that (my faith tells me) will basically blow up the authority structures defined by the previous faith based monetary system. How are faith and logic antitheses to one another? My view is that they are different dimensions of a powerful system (which Satoshi has created).
An axiom is something that is considered obvious, yet is unproven. I don't think that it is evident that at any point there was an aspect of his work that was unproven to him, if he could envision the entire project and then set about to create it, then faith was never involved any more then i have faith that when i combine the ingredients of a cake and stick it in an oven that it will become a cake. I think that by calling part of what he did faith it gives one an excuse to not be able to create something just as amazing oneself, as if he was 'given' something instead of him 'earning' it through sheer hard work. As if he got lucky that his faith was correct and someone else could work just as hard and merely not be lucky because they had 'faith' in the wrong thing. Faith is a roll of the dice, logic creates weighted dice that land the way the creator of the dice wishes. Bitcoin is to wonderful for me to be able to chock it up to luck or chance, it is a carefully planned piece of art work, a machine.
An axiom is what you base your logic on. How far down does logic go? Is it turtles all the way down? Each step being preceded by a perfectly logical step before it, preceded by a perfectly logical step before it etc.
First, we're arguing about what went on inside another person's mind who we have never met before, which is necessarily an argument based on faith.
Second, the turtles all the way down argument: his logic had to have been based on something right? And that something couldn't really be based on logic or else that wouldn't be what the logic was based on but a step in the logical system he created.
Third, why is faith a weakness? He had an idea, however it came to him, he had that idea and then (I assume) he decided it was the right idea and an extremely powerful idea and he didn't doubt himself, or at least he didn't doubt himself to a point that kept him from seeing his idea through to its manifestation in the real world. That takes a huge amount of faith. That is not a crutch but a massively important virtue. Faith and Will are intertwined and without them all the logic in the world won't get you out of bed.
One of the biggest problems right now in our world I think is that people have an unquestioning and unanalyzed religious sense of Logic and Rationality and Science that makes us attribute all sorts of completely unreasonable things to them and to think that important dimensions like morality can be emergent traits of systems as long as these systems follow logical paths.
I guess one of my points is that both the lovers and the haters of Bitcoin are appealing to logic to support their positions. And both sides have proponents who reason impeccably... and those who reason horribly so it's best to look deeper and broader to examine what it is we're doing.
What "logic" does it fly in the face of? I think that there are a million different sets of axioms flying around here and people are using them to derive logics of all sorts which are all necessarily based on faith (including yours and mine)
Insofar that none of the logic is based on anything quantitative, I agree with you. Even if we call it faith, this forum seems to be trouncing one faith in favour of another when there is no reason to do so.
People here have got to see the other side of the coin (no pun intended). If they just want to deny the obvious then that is more likely to lead to this currency's oblivion than anything else.
This forum is starting to sound like the Iraqi Information Minister. In the eyes of the world = laughable.
How far back does this faith go? did satoshi use faith or logic to create something that has allready impacted the entire world so greatly? Faith is what people use when logic looks like to much work for them, this is why you often see faith and hate so often on the same side of an argument.
No, faith is what defines the axioms and logic is how they derive a workable system from their axioms. My guess is Satoshi created the seed of his idea with faith (epiphany?) and used what seems to be an amazing gift of logic to flesh it out into a system that (my faith tells me) will basically blow up the authority structures defined by the previous faith based monetary system. How are faith and logic antitheses to one another? My view is that they are different dimensions of a powerful system (which Satoshi has created).
What "logic" does it fly in the face of? I think that there are a million different sets of axioms flying around here and people are using them to derive logics of all sorts which are all necessarily based on faith (including yours and mine)
Insofar that none of the logic is based on anything quantitative, I agree with you. Even if we call it faith, this forum seems to be trouncing one faith in favour of another when there is no reason to do so.
People here have got to see the other side of the coin (no pun intended). If they just want to deny the obvious then that is more likely to lead to this currency's oblivion than anything else.
This forum is starting to sound like the Iraqi Information Minister. In the eyes of the world = laughable.
I hate to be an asshole but you claim to level the playing field by saying none of the logic is based on anything quantitative but then say that people who are not agreeing with you are denying the obvious so, I guess my next question is what is "the obvious" you speak of and how does this escape/transcend the mutually agreed upon conclusion that none of the logic you (and I) are using is anything but faith based?
I'm amazed at the vitriol at those who aren't bulls. Since when does it make someone a troll to be a bear on a currency?
This place does not exist solely for supporters of the currency. If you want to look like grown-ups, you should allow fair debate on it instead of trying to run anyone over who dares speak against bitcoins.
Honestly, the love affair for bitcoin in the face of all logic is starting to look ridiculous. Those proponents who come out of this best are the ones who admit that the "project" actually has a few flaws and weaknesses. It's the ones who invent an answer that suits their own position for every single probing question that look like idiots. It's as if you have your own FAQ in your head just to make you feel happier about your huge position.
This is typical layman's method of trading or investing and often fails. Why do you think rich people entrust others to trade for them? Because they know that it is only too human to get caught up with your emotions and fail to be logical.
This place does not exist solely for supporters of the currency. If you want to look like grown-ups, you should allow fair debate on it instead of trying to run anyone over who dares speak against bitcoins.
Honestly, the love affair for bitcoin in the face of all logic is starting to look ridiculous. Those proponents who come out of this best are the ones who admit that the "project" actually has a few flaws and weaknesses. It's the ones who invent an answer that suits their own position for every single probing question that look like idiots. It's as if you have your own FAQ in your head just to make you feel happier about your huge position.
This is typical layman's method of trading or investing and often fails. Why do you think rich people entrust others to trade for them? Because they know that it is only too human to get caught up with your emotions and fail to be logical.
What "logic" does it fly in the face of? I think that there are a million different sets of axioms flying around here and people are using them to derive logics of all sorts which are all necessarily based on faith (including yours and mine)