Public consensus is in the form of the block-chain, and is verifiably accurate, whether or not you are able to snoop into everyone's balance
You've kind of made my case for me simply by using that phrase "everyone's balance". A commonly used term of cryptonote promoters than implies the projection of a fiat style bank account onto a blockchain.
A blockchain is not a record of people's finances. It is a manifestation of un-counterfeitable electronic tokens, none of which are assigned to an "owner" nor any legal entity in the way that bank money is.
....again, the blockchain is verifiable.
An individual address is privately verifiable but the entire blockchain is not publicly verifiable. You can peek through a hole and inspect what the system asserts is at a specific address, but you cannot achieve a public consensus of that balance. Thats what makes the difference between a monetary token that, over time, accedes to a high level of security, adoption and monetary value, and one that doesn't.
Direct me to the part of your definition where it says "monetary obscurity can not be substituted for fungibility." Or that monetary obscurity does not qualify as fungibility...
Fungible is defined in Merriam-Webster as "capable of being substituted in place of one another". If everything is obscured then clearly everything is fungible by that definition, but it's about as useful a form of fungibility as the emperors clothes. Thats why I say that "monetary obscurity can not be substituted for fungibility".
What i said was that I have a background in economics / finance, and it has provided me with the tools to decipher that you are a charlatan spouting self-serving non-sense.
Good for you. I could do with some "deciphering tools" myself at times. I usually have to sit and think about things. May your hidden money bags and "deciphering tools" bring you riches. Meantime, I'm off to bed as it's that time in my part of the world
This has been a tremendously entertaining and interesting exchange Toknormal and g4q34g4qg47ww.
One of my pet hates is when people refer to their "expertise" (or suggested expertise) because of some level of academic achievement when they're in a forum that's attempting to solve problems that have been facilitated and catered for by some of the world's "top experts" in the field we're discussing; people who potentially have hung their entire careers off of the very same academic achievement.
What i said was that I have a background in economics / finance, and it has provided me with the tools to decipher that you are a charlatan spouting self-serving non-sense.
What I mean g4q34g4qg47ww is that Bitcoin and crypto in general (amongst other goals) is attempting to address the utter debt fueled/highly manipulated currency mess and resulting economic fiasco that our fiat-based central banking charlatans have created. And much of this realm has been catered to and provided for by top notch 'economists' who've used their 'background in economics / finance' to take the world to even greater levels of unsustainability and madness. I bet many dozens, if not hundreds (or thousand even) work at the Fed and the ECB. It's these people and their "thinking" on what money is and how it works that's done such irreparable damage.
So when you talk about your background in economics/finance giving you the tools to decipher that Toknormal is a charlatan spouting self-serving non-sense, I perceive that you're likely to be from a background that's part of the problem not the solution. Frankly if you now told us you have a PhD in Economics from Harvard you would go down in my estimation even more. It's Harvard, Wall Street, the Fed and all those greedy up-themselves individuals that are very much responsible for the drama we're experiencing and the travesty/tragedy yet to happen. What's needed are people with fresh thinking, a diverse and out-of-the-box education and an ability to think logically without constant need of validation by traditional schools-of-thought.
Unless you can come up with very specific, succinct and logical rebuttals to Toknormal's views (i.e. why the hidden balances on Monero's blockchain that Tok's pointing out is such a flawed approach in attempting to create a store of value that's 'money' is in fact NOT the problem he's saying it is), in my mind you're the one with the dubious claims. Just stating over and over again that
This nonsense you spout about applying privacy to the monetary media is garbage... and I challenge you to provide a single source for a definition of money from a respected source that includes it.
is pointless because all those 'sources' are often part of the problem as I've indicated. Toknormal is offering points of view on 'money' that you (and Monero people in general) don't like because it doesn't fit with your narrative of how a crypto should work (read: it doesn't fit with your narrative of how Monero works). That doesn't mean he's wrong and it certainly doesn't mean he's wrong if he doesn't provide you with a 'source' of someone defining money this way. But if you believe him to be as wrong as you're suggesting, state for us why he's wrong in as logical and fundamental fashion as Toknormal does when he's articulating his views on how this stuff works.
In other words, use logic and reason to demonstrate why hidden balances on a block chain are indeed NOT a problem in terms of Monero being 'money'. I understand this is no easy task but you've called Toknormal a charlatan for expressing these views and you've suggested they're easily negated by anyone that knows about economics and finance so you need to back-up what you're saying with something substantial.
Okay....I'm looking forward to your detailed explanation (i.e. put up or shut up).