Topic: Bitcoin Welfare System - page 2. (Read 5284 times)

Homeless people are stinky, and people don't like to see them. So, could people from around the country just donate to a single place like SeansOutpost, so that there will be free food in that area, and all homeless will just move there? It will keep the homeless out of areas where people don't want to see them, and the homeless will get food. Kind of like a homeless preserve (like for nature and endangered species). Win-win, right?

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Could I load up my gruel with Denatonium and preservatives so my grocery store would save a lot of money? I'll assume that I can't add Chantix to help them quit smoking.

absolutely. fortunately there is a rather simple and elegant solution to this problem. the soup kitchens could provide nutritionally well balanced and healthy food that tastes like shit. think of the white gruel that the crew of the nebakanezer eats every day for breakfast lunch and dinner in the matrix reloaded.

this way people have a social safety net that they can use to get back on their feet if they fall on hard times through not fault of their own while still having good incentive to actually work to rebuild their lives.

Would it be possible to keep one's savings in a brain wallet, while walking around eating free food every day?

Bitcoin does this by the simple virtue of what it is, a non-inflating currency and frictionless payment system open to everyone equally.

Inflation is the most regressive type of tax there is.  Government money when inflated hurts the poor and disenfranchised the most of all.  Newly printed money starts within the government, so the government receives the benefit of the money before the inflation takes effect, because the first time it is spent, the inflation has not yet taken effect.
The second time it is spent, the effect of the new money on inflation has only had its effect on the first recipients, to everyone else it is the first exposure.  In this way inflation ripples out into an economic system from the central bank out to the edges.  
Those that have high wealth, and high credit can get giant loans, the money to pay those loans are inflated, which makes them easier to repay.  The hard assets that were bought with those loans go up in value.  The richest are not affected by the inflation and many of them benefit from it.

The poorest, the rent-payers, and the last to get the money spent into their pocket only see it after the effect of inflation has taken its full effect.

Bitcoin avoids this, and has the opposite effect.  The banks and the central bank and the government are outside the circle of new money creation.  Bitcoin is already doing a good job of helping the poor, just by virtue of what it is and how it works and what it does.

http://bitcoin100.org/

When you add on top of this the massive charitable giving that is occurring from the bitcoin community, the notion of intercepting that charity and philanthropy with an institutional welfare taxation that pays people to not work or pays them to be sick seems worse than redundant.  It seems like it breaks a good thing by removing the joy of the giving from the giver and replaces it with the resentment and broken institutions that it can otherwise replace.

If a grocery store used its security guards to physically remove someone from their store for attempting to eat an apple that he had no money to pay for, and that person subsequently died of starvation than his living heirs would be entitled to restitution for something very similar to murder if not murder explicitly. that's just my opinion of course but if society in general shared my opinion than it would be enshrined in common-law.

we have some precedent for this, i dont know if this is the case still today, but in japan it has been legal for very hungry people to take enough produce to feed themselves for 1 meal from a farmers crop with out compensating the farmer, assuming he had no means by which to compensate the farmer. there is some japanese word for this custom, i dont remember what it is, if someone else does i would be grateful to know.

so basically in effect this means that, inorder for a grocery store owner or farmer or restaurant owner ect... to be able to safely apprehend shoplifters free from fears of litigation, he would need to be able to claim that the shoplifter had some other means of avoiding imminent starvation. if no soup kitchen existed near by, than it would fall on him to provide one, else be at constant risk of litigation. of course there would be many food service businesses in any town and they could all share the burden of providing that soup kitchen.

ok so if you are wondering how we get from, "a bunch of judges are of the opinion that someone is due restitution" to actually enforcing that opinion with out involving a state, here is a video about historical precedent for non-state enforcement of common law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8oJsoliw0

That's the thing, I think proper charities etc. are fantastic ( when they aren't corrupt ), but even speaking from a fairly empathetic point of view I still think that saying threatening someone with jail if they don't give their money to someone else is a good thing makes you a self-righteous cunt, particularly when you don't consider that the person being forced into giving money has their own situations to deal with. They might be able to afford something like that for the first year or month but what if their business goes down the drain or they end up with less profits the next year? In the end you're going to be responsible for making them worse off than the person you forced them to help.

It's not generosity if a person is being forced, threatened or pressured into doing something on any side of the situation, in fact, I'd go so far as to say it's a form of blackmail and extortion though it's a very sophisticated form of it, the difference between a criminal and a politician is the politicians believe they are right to do what they do.

I am intrigued. Please explain.

They see it, they just won't take your money to fix it using threat of force and violence.

Many bitcoiners are generous.  Welfare and other institutional pay-people-to-not-work programs tend to be less effective than local efforts, or direct aid workers that can operate globally.

Bitcoin100 actively seeks charities to accept bitcoin payments:
http://bitcoin100.org/charities/

Bitpay charges no fees to charities
https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-for-charities

You can mine directly for charity
http://bitcoinsforcharity.org/

There is a list of charitable organizations for bitcoiners maintained on the wiki:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Donation-accepting_organizations_and_projects

As well as many other projects that go unsung due to random acts of anonymous kindness.

Yea i can only assume that I'm probably not right about the specifics, though its fun to try to figure it out. I really dont know how insurance companies would reconcile their differences, i only know that fighting is REALLY expensive so they would almost certainly find a way, and that if the basic principal of market discovery holds true in this market just like it does every other, than what ever their solutions are, they would probably become more efficient with time.

Heh, it's rather ironic, sometimes, hearing these politics and economics discussion on this particular forum, where it's as if people forget where exactly it is they are arguing their positions. That sentence above really reminded me of how Bitcoin was about 20 years ago. In short, compared to today, it was godawful in every respect. Like the quote by a certain person who's name escapes me, "Bitcoin is an idea that doesn't work in theory, only in practice." That probably applies to all these other ancap ideas we keep tossing around, too 

Fine, looks like we have found a point. But I am sure, we would find details to argue, for sure.

But let's not talk to much of the state, let's talk more about Bitcoin ... How do you think Satoshi Dice would serve as a welfare system? In abstract it does the same, as a welfare sate: It takes money from the one and gives it to some other. Redistribution by random.

The Satoshi Dice Tax' for income - the onliest tax you have the chance to get rich by paying it 

you make some very good points. admittedly i mistook your meaning. i agree that there is no black and white line where a person is doing everything in his power or is not. there are 1000 shades of grey between. the idea has to be to determine the trade off.

in order to abstract out the principal its best not to think of these things on the scale of societies, think about when its ok for you personally to take your neighbors vegetables out of his garden with out his permission, in order to remove pesky variables assume he did 100% of the work himself. i think we can agree that if you just wandered out of a desert where you have been lost for a month that its ok. i think we can agree that if you spend 8 hours a day watching tv and then suddenly realize that you have no money for food than it isn't. the trick is drawing that line in the right place. we would likely disagree on exactly where that line should be drawn but on the basic principal we are in agreement.

so then the question becomes how do we draw it efficiently? neither your opinion nor mine would be more valid than each others, they would just be our opinions. this is where the an-cap idea of a market in law comes in. basically judges would be tasked with determining the right trade off, every ruling that a judge made would offend someone but his job is to come up with rulings that cause the least offense on net. judges who did this poorly would soon find themselves out of work, and those who did it well would find themselves wealthier for it. thus we can apply the basic principal of market discovery, that works so at improving the speed of computers every year, to the discovery of the best trade offs in rights. markets dont reveal the right answer as soon as you implement them. in fact they can give rather bad and arbitrary solutions early on, but they discover better and better solutions as time progresses. compare this with the state which becomes less and less efficient as time progresses.


than i say fuck them sure you would still have that problem we previously discussed, food would be cheaper in Eichstätter, but lets see how much the people of Eichstätter like life with out cheap labor.

here we meet


Here we don't.  If I were a leftist I would prefere to collectivate all Industrie, transform them to non-innovative, non-profitable stateown industrie and force everyone, regardless what he did before, to work in it, even if his workforce isn't needed. But I don't mind sharing some ideas with leftists, e. g. that a society has to be measured what she does for her weekest members, or, that if we have the ability we should offer the highest possible number of people the best possible living


Yea! I do! We talked about trafficking: Some of our first real liberal party in germany, the "Alternative", asked some time ago: Why don't they sell a kidney, if they have no money? I heard about some russian homeless, which where casted for porno-movies, in which girls hit them bloody. Just for example. Would you say to a girl: go, prostitute yourself, if you are out of money, or play in hardcore-pornogafy?


Incentives depend on the degree. Surely you can't just say: If you think this job is against your dignity, you don't have to do it. But I think there are a lot of incentives to work instead of receiving the minimal living fee: more money, the chance, to get even more money, social contacts, the self-conficence to earn your own money and so on.

Also, as today, I read a discussion about Hartz IV, and someone complaint, that the tipp, to trink water from the main instead of water from bottles violates his dignity. That's absurd (Our main water is better than most bottle-water).



you confused eichstätt and oberhausen in your second sentence. Eichstätt is rich, Oberhausen poor   But your thesis sounds logical. I would welcome it if the poor would settle down in the perfect world of Eichstätt. But the Eichstätter are not stupid - the homelords would never ever give some poor unemployed from Oberhausen a flat ...

is not at all the same thing as


I'm not claiming that it eliminates all employment for every person who has ever taken welfare, simply that it effects the decisions of people on the margin.


im all for creating some sort of system where those who are doing everything they can to make a living but are failing to make a living still have a way to eat and get shelter. i dont think someone should simply be left out in the cold to die because they were born with some form of mental retardation. BUT what you are saying here is radical even for a leftist. you are saying that its ok for someone who is not doing everything in their power to first help themselves to then entitle themselves to the fruits of other peoples labor. Ignore the morality of the situation just think about the consequences, think about the incentives that would create. it would be the aforementioned problem from the first quotation, except on crack.


but this is precisely the sort of problem that a market it tailor made to address. typically we talk about markets moving resources around to their highest value utility but it also moves people around (rather causes people to chose to move based on rational calculation). At first the prices would be higher in Eichstätt than in Oberhausen but people would see this as a signal, it would cause the poor to move there. not only the people who are using the soup kitchen but the poor who buy their own food. the people using the soup kitchens would move there because its simply a nicer environment. the poor who are not so poor as to need soup kitchens would move there for lower food prices. this migration would continue untill there was no longer any significant advantage to be gained from moving there, which would mean until food prices were no longer cheaper, and until Eichstätt was no longer a nicer place to live than Oberhausen. it would pull Oberhausen up and Eichstätt down. i for one say good, its about time the wealthy came face to face with the effects of the sorts of policies that granted them their wealth. its time for the king to come down from his castle and come face to face with the sort of shit and squalor he has wrought.  

Funny idea to make food-kitchens food less tasty ... as it is healthy I imagine the poor in the US would have better health than the less-poor

But to consider your first block: We are again in the conception of mankind. You think the poor wouldn't try to make their own income, if there's a welfare state. I dont think so. As I maybe said: The most unemployed want to work (exzept of the famous "Florida-Rolf" who caused an strom of outcry under german low-loan-worker), but, as official statistics tell, we have more applications than jobs and most companys have no use for longterm-unemployed. You can't tell the youth of spain, which suffers under an unemployment-rate from nearly 40 percent (it's not as easy to meassure than newspapers say), they don't try to earn their own money. They try. Go to some fish-market in Norway - most marketenders are from spain. They want to work. And work doesn't popp up cause the spain government cuts down welfare.

Also, back to my good old "Right of humanity" (which, as I know, has to been trafficked against other concepts of freedom, no way to avoid it): We are living in the 21th century, looking back on a long and successfull road to enhancen our livestyle. I don't think we need to make people to do everything they could do to make their living on their own feeds. I think this goes against freedom. Did I mention I am historian? As one, I consider it as a step backward if we recreate jobs we know from 19th century - very uncomfortable, maybe humiliating, very bad paid ... 


if we idealize both situations the effect is the same. the difference is the means. with the situation i described it would be difficult for the transfer mechanism to be used as a justification to collect revenue that will actually be used to build bombs to drop on brown people. This is what the state does: it says look we need you to chip in and help pay for this welfare. then when they get your money they say oops we mant to spend it on welfare but we accidentally spent it on bombs.... next time well get it right! then guess what happens next time.

in a couple of word the difference is one of a centralized redistribution mechanism vs a de-centralized redistribution mechanism.
[/quote]

  "Sorry, it happened we bought bombs and the fall down to some innocent afghans. But next time we'll use it to help some poor people." Hehe. Yep, point for you.

But the economical problem I rised would be harder to avoid if the welfare is decentraliced. For example in our rich cities (say: Eichstätt) there will be no need to install a soup-kittchen. So food-prices stay low. In our poor cities (say: Oberhausen) there will be a high interest in soup kitchens. So: food-prices rise. Welcome in a world, where the poor people have to pay more for tasty food than the rich people. I for myself have no interest that my food-prices will rise cause the unemployment in my city is too high.

Sorry for the last answer, hope, your are still on, Anon and Cameltoemcgee - I run out of time, and I need time, to answer, issue is interesting but complicated.

Short ... As I see, you're ok with welfare, but not with the state resp. the unfree way it's done. I think soon I will tell some arguments for this kind of organization of welfare, which imo are right at this time ... One question: do you comply the same way when taxes are used for building sreets, searching dark matter or educating people?

And I would like to continue op's issue: Bitcoin welfare system. Though I am not only a historian but also are holding a M.A. in sociology, I am qualified for it 

Bitcoin is a good way for charity. I take part of the offline welfare system, and I have no problem with it, but I don't want a welfare / tax system to rise in Bitcoin-World. But charity - great ... reason will come!


uuh, can't resist:

I don't understand. What is happening? That we give them everything for a comfortable life? Depends on definition. We here in germany as a highly competitive export nation have the problem, that actually many low-educated job are payed worse than the minimum welfare. But the problem are the deep loan, not the high welfare. I have friends (ye, everybody know someone who ...) which work - and want to work - but can't pay their rooms; other, well-educated and in Jobs, have problems to feed their cat. And so on. So - what was the reason the welfare increases the number of poor people?


Again, logic: you didn't made a claim, why the Sarrazin-Thesis is not opposed to the righ of some people to live. You just claimed that people do not have the right to steal. One failure legitimate another? And, let me assure you: Sarrazin is a hate-spreading, short-minded Racist. He has experienced  a part of the reality of the arabian immigrants in the most fucked up quarter of berlin - say: a very little part of arabian-immigration-reality in germany - and he uses this tiny peace of reality to cover the whole szene with a large prejudice against everything what is "muslim" ... also he propagates a concept of men which is bound to nothing than people's economical use, which is imo short-minded again. He discredits a whole ethnicity cause he thinks they don't participate enough in powering up our Champion-Economy ...

Ok, sorry, have to go, cu

To the OP, That sounds like you're talking about charity, and not welfare.  There is a key distinction.  One is funded voluntarily, the other through taxation.

I'll leave you with another quote from that book...

Another point that I would like to make up front is that there always seems to be a strange disconnect or isolation in people’s concerns about the helpless and dependent in society. For instance, whenever I talk about getting rid of public schools, the response inevitably comes
back – automatically, it would seem, just like any other good propaganda – that it would be terrible, because poor children would not be educated.

There is a strange kind of unthinking narcissism in this response, which always irritates me, much though I understand it. First of all, it is rather insulting to be told that you are trying to design a system which would deny education to poor children. To be placed into the general category of “yuppie capitalist scum” is never particularly ennobling. A person will raise this objection with an absolutely straight face, as if he is the only person in the world who cares about the education of poor children. I know that this is the result of pure indoctrination, because it is so illogical.

If we accept the premise that very few people care about the education of the poor, then we should be utterly opposed to majority-rule democracy, for the obvious reason that if only a tiny minority of people care about the education of the poor, then there will never be enough of them to influence a democracy, and thus the poor will never be educated.

However, those who approve of democracy and accept that democracy will provide the poor with education inevitably accept that a significant majority of people care enough about the poor to agitate for a political solution, and pay the taxes that fund public education.

Thus, any democrat who cares about the poor automatically accepts the reality that a significant majority of people are both willing and able to help and fund the education of the poor.

If people are willing to agitate for and pay the taxes to support a State-run solution to the problem of education, then the State solution is a mere reflection of their desires and willingness to sacrifice their own self-interest for the sake of educating the poor.

If I pay for a cure for an ailment that I have, and I find out that that cure actually makes me worse, do I give up on trying to find a cure? Of course not. It was my desire to find a cure that drove me to the false solution in the first place – when I accept that that solution is false, I am then free to pursue another solution. (In fact, until I accept that my first “cure” actually makes me worse, I will continue to waste my time and resources.)

The democratic “solution” to the problem of educating the poor is the existence of public schools – if we get rid of that solution, then the majority’s desire to help educate the poor will simply take on another form – and a far more effective form, that much is guaranteed.

“Ah,” say the democrats, “but without being forced to pay for public schools, no one will surrender the money to voluntarily fund the education of poor children.”

Well, this is only an admission that democracy is a complete and total lie – that public schools do not represent the will of the majority, but rather the whims of a violent minority. Thus votes do not matter at all, and are not counted, and do not influence public policy in the least, and thus we should get rid of this ridiculous overhead of democracy and get right back to a good old Platonic system of minority dictatorship.

This proposal, of course, is greeted with outright horror, and protestations that democracy must be kept because it is the best system, because public policy does reflect the will of the majority. In which case we need have no fear that the poor will not be educated in a free society, since the majority of people very much want that to happen anyway.

Exactly the same argument applies to a large number of other statist “solutions” to existing problems, such as:
• Old-age pensions;
• Unemployment insurance;
• Health care for the impoverished;
• Welfare, etc.
If these State programs represent the desires and will of the majority, then removing the government will not remove the reality of this kind of charity, since government policies reflect the majority’s existing desire to help these people.

If these programs do not represent the desires and will of the majority, then democracy is a complete lie, and we should stop interfering with our leader’s universal benevolence with our distracting and wasteful “voting.”

We will get into this in more detail as we go forward, but I wanted to put the argument out up front, just to address the ridiculous objection that removing a democratic State also removes the benevolence that drives its policies.

A fundamental anarchic argument is that a democratic State uses the genuine benevolence of the majority to expand its own power, and exacerbates poverty, ignorance and sickness in order to justify and continue the expansion of that power.

This is not the first time that the benevolence of good people has been used to control them. We only need to think of the example of organized religion to understand that…