Topic: Blockchain = Powerful Tool for Keynesian Monetary Policy - page 5. (Read 11489 times)

Yes, I admit that economics can be counterintuitive. It helps clarify things when you consider specific alternative options.

(i.e. in order to avoid being taxed, I will ... )
Then check if your strategy involves spending. If it does, the government has gotten its wish.

Yes. To stimulate spending, you must increase the cost of spending money. GENIUS!

You are the one suggesting that the government will abstain from using a database to pursue taxation goals.

I am the one who is retarded or stoned.

Are you retarded, or just stoned?

Yes, libertarian heads are made of gelatin and I am always trying to nail them to trees.

Ever try to nail gelatin to a tree?

Doesn't matter: If I see a 51% attack and set my client to only trust the mtgox IP for instance then you can fake coming from all the IPs you want using TOR, but that will never get your block on my client.

It's funny I am called the pig here when other posters are displaying such immense ignorance of basic TOR/IP/internet function.

lol... this thread was dead at the first reply.

It will not be instantly worthless. As I keep saying, it will be exactly like the centralized currency of a Federal Reserve, and thus a currency in decline. The driving incentive will be to squeeze and steal as much value out of an economy using your 51% controlling stake, until something comes along to replace you. You can make way more by controlling the currency and squeezing the remaining 49% out of the economy, than by selling 2% of it. And if you don't do it, someone else will. That's the endgame in that system.

Of course, everything has a price.

Moreover, I thought the currency was worthless as long as it was under 51% control. You are always saying that. If so, why do we have this guy clinging to worthless crap that becomes valuable again if he just sells half of it. It makes no sense at all.

Would you willingly give up complete control of a currency? (Especially in exchange for currency you already control anyway) Would any rational sane person?
(I'm assuming by "enough money" you mean some other commodity, since you giving me 100PoScoins for 100 of my PoScoins is a wash)

Your pigs are flying again. Why does it seem unspendable to you? Surely if you offer me enough money, I would sell you back your currency. That is a lot more productive an exchange than 'firing up GPUs' to take it back.

You should realize that your knife cuts both ways. If enough honest guys hold coins and refuse to sell, then the PoS currency is unassailable.

I wouldn't use a system that is under 51% attack regardless of whether it's PoS or PoW. As I said earlier, such a system would be no different than the current fiat system, where the Federal Reserve has the biggest stake, and most control.
I see where your issue is. You believe that holding 51% of all the currency in a PoS system will somehow incentivize the stakeholder to protect the value of that 51%. There are two issues with that belief.

First, that 51% is unspendable, since spending any of it would mean you lose your 51% control. Thus, it's worthless as actual money, and is only worth anything as a single "key" to control the currency. As such, you can't value it as "I own $11mil coins." You can only value it as "I own a single bundle that let's me control the economy." The value of that bundle is thus completely different from the value of the coins it contains, and thus may not be affected by the overall economy the way you'd expect.

The second issue stems from the first, which is that, since your controlling stake has a wholly separate value from the rest of the coins you use, a controlling entity is really not restricted to trying to grow the value of its stake the way we would hope or expect. As long as they control their 51%, they are free to manipulate the currency, and implement any rules they want, even if the result is short term profits at the expense of the value of the entire currency falling. E.g. they could increase their non-controlling portion of coin ownership from 50 coins to 100 coins, while decreasing the value of the whole economy to 75%, and still make a 50% profit (50*2*75%), since, again, their 51% controlling bundle is not spendable, and thus does not care what each coin is worth. In short, they can keep deflating the value of the currency, as long as they concentrate more and more remaining wealth in their own hands, without worrying about their 51% stake.

Those two issues are much bigger problems for PoS than PoW, because of what I said earlier: if someone gets 51% in a PoS, everyone is hosed. If someone gets 51% in a PoW, everyone can fire up their GPUs and buy more hardware, and at least have a chance of stopping the problem.

Nah, knowledge is useful for pigs as well. You get to watch them ignore it all the way to the slaughterhouse and then laugh uproariously. It is my only pleasure.

The important differences are

a) PoS monopoly is an order of magnitude more difficult to obtain (perhaps two orders of magnitude if bitcoin is widely used as a store of value rather than just for payments).
b) Acquisition of PoS monopoly requires buying out a majority of the existing user base. PoS attack makes the average user better off rather than worse off. A PoS attack is best described as a lucky windfall. Have you ever had a stock you owned bought out? I'm sure you were really sad to be paid a premium for your shares.
c) PoS monopolists are very heavily invested in the existing system. Charging large fees does not make sense as a PoS monopolist. Such a monopolist cares a lot about losing market share and eroding the value of his holdings. Primarily, he cares about maximizing bitcoin's market capitalization. A PoW monopolist cares about milking bitcoin for fees during the working life of his hardware. He gives nothing to the user base and takes as much as possible.

You mention a small, insignificant difference. I admit it exists. You are saying that once someone has achieved 51% control, then it is more or less permanent with PoS. Sure. But this is completely irrelevant.

If someone has 51% of PoW, you will not be able to generate blocks. Are you really going to invest heavily in worthless hardware to try and save the blockchain? If you fail the entire investment is a loss. What is to stop your opponent from doing the same? If bitcoin is still worth something, then they will have a lot of money to fend you off. Much more than you could get from mining in the normal way (e.g. monopoly fee imposition). If bitcoin is not worth anything, then what is the point of trying to recapture it. For all intents and purposes, 51% control of PoW is also permanent.

How does cognitive dissonance apply to a distributed computing project? Better yet, how is a distributed computer incompetent? I think you're missapplying that favorite insult of yours to an inanimate system.

Not exactly. POWork control is externalized, POStake is internalized. If you have a majority of currency in POStake, no one can do anything unless you sell them some of your currency. If you have a majority in POWork, anyone can buy hardware to try to take some of your power away. It's the difference between the Federal Reserve being the only one who can coin money (POStake), and anyone with enough resources being able to buy their own money printing presses (POWork).
You know what, never mind. I doubt the subtlety is evident to you.

Be careful - don't naively underestimate your opponents' skills.

tor

Krugman is a clown.  The purpose of savings is to spend.  Savings encourages spending.  A rising bitcoin encourages spending and bitcoin business creation.  Deflation stimulates the economy.

I'm still confused again. Can we rewrite it this way?


Ah it makes more sense now. It is just about who controls the most resources.