Topic: Does Bitcoin have real value? - page 2. (Read 1125 times)

If I didn't read what you wrote or ignored 90% of it, then how did I manage to describe what you mean by the subjective theory of value?


Subjectivity is only about behaviors. Objectivity is about behaviors AND facts. You value your life. That's why you acquire fiat currency to pay taxes (probably more than just that but let just stick with taxes for now) so that you can protect your life from government force. Now, are you doing it because of some delusional fear about the government coming after you if you don't pay taxes? If so, then that would make the value of fiat currency subjective. However, if it is factual that the government would come after you, then fiat currency has the objective utility value of keeping you out of jail or worse. You may not like it, but facts are not subject to your whims.


You forgot to include in the quote of my response my quote of what you wrote. This is what you wrote:

Humans
Arent
Fuckin
Rational

It was in camel case capitalization with each word on separate lines for emphasis. So yes, I read what you wrote and took it seriously.



We can make mistakes. We can also be defrauded. That's why objectivity requires that you verify your assumptions against facts using logic.

Similar to Fiat currency, Bitcoin (or most of the cryptocurrencies) is also not backed by any gold or silver hence does not have any intrinsic value. The value of any currency comes from the backing of the state and the trust that people have over the government

I'm sorry, but what's so hard to grasp about this? People gain benefits they can't otherwise have with bitcoin. Fiat currency definitely serves a purpose currently, but this doesn't make bitcoin valueless.

- You don't gain the benefit to send money across the world, via the internet in a censorship resistant fashion with fiat.
- You don't get to enjoy cheap transaction fees via the internet with fiat.
- You don't gain the benefit to have your transaction settled within a few minutes (or instantly) via the internet with fiat.
- You don't gain privacy via the internet with fiat.
- You're not collectively responsible for fiat's monetary policy.

You do gain these benefits with bitcoin. That's why it's so valuable.

Next time try reading what i wrote, because the subjective theory of value means exactly what you just described and i explained it like this. Maybe if you wouldnt ignore 90% of what people are saying your debate would even advance.

It is about behaviour, not just thinking it has no value. People are giving up what they value less for something they value more. People here are switching Fiat to Bitcoin, because they value it more. When i just needed fiat then i might exchange my Bitcoin for fiat, its an exchange where both sides benefit. That most people here hold way more Bitcoin than fiat, shows that they value Bitcoin more. It is not about absolutes. It is always subjective about what is being wanted or needed by the individual. Each good serves us a purpose with differing importance, there are many subjective and objective factors that can influence it and this can vary based on current needs and wants.

I can already deem fiat valueless in my mind, it can be almost valueless to me, i can prefer other things over it. No one here would refuse 500.000$ right now just because its fiat, because in reality they can still use it. And the same way you wouldnt refute 500.000$ in Bitcoin even tho its valueless to you. When people here say it has 0 value, they mean its purchasing power tending to go to 0 and that its not a sustainable form of money. And oftentimes people come here saying Bitcoin doesnt have value, and then coming up with the biggest bs to explain why fiat has value, but if we applied their logic to every kind of money, then nothing would have value. If you are so objective how didnt you notice it yet?

The subjective theory of value doesnt exclude: supply and demand, cost theory, objectivity, rationality. It just claims that value is something intrinsically human full of errors, uncertainty, learning, making choices, evaluating things individually. If value wasnt subjective it would just be a constant, but in reality were seeing how volatile everything is.

Can you read? I also never claimed humans are incapable of rationality, but oftentimes they try to rationalize their own subjectivity.


I have a better question for you, is any human capable of perfect rationality forever? If yes, why do we need peer review in academia, why do centralized systems keep failing and being destructive to many people? It’s a fact that no human is capable of perfect rationality in every single issue in the world forever. Otherwise we could just elect one leader and live in a kind of utopia forever, but reality just proves this wrong. Subjectivity will strike any human at some point, because it’s inherent to us.

A human that recognizes their own irrationality and stays humble will reach far higher levels of rationality, than someone who thinks they’re capable of perfect rationality, fight against this, create more and more complex theories, try as hard as you want, but reality will always prove this again and again. The first step is to be rational about your own being, and accepting that we’re subjective and evaluate things accordingly.

The Labour Theory of value had been criticized simply because no two human laborers are equally productive.

In a digital economy where the labor is a machine doing a specific job ( a specialized labor) the labour theory starts to make sense. For example, a  mining machine would use x Joules of energy to produce y terrahashes. This diminishes variances between the skills of a machine and another if they are identical.

However; because economic markets are driven by competing forces, this competition shifts from finding the most skillful laborer, to finding the most cost-efficient factors of production such as lower cost/kwh, lower land rents for big mining operations, or even factors that optimize the efficiency of machines, such as cooling setups.

The shift of competition from labor skills to cost efficient factors of production results in a value derived from the  "total cost of production" , aka the natural price.

It is the limited amount of bitcoin availability that gives bitcoin its value. Many investors also relate bitcoin to digital gold. As the number of bitcoins will decrease the bitcoin will be referred to as a scarce asset and the prices will increase significantly.

How could it not have real value if it has, can, and will continued to be used to obtain objects, things of value?  Of course it has value and it value has and will continue to go up in time, HODL!

You don't have to agree with me. If you hold the subjective theory of value as being legitimate, then you are wrong for claiming that fiat has no value since you are going against the fact that most people (including you if you're still working and paying taxes) are treating fiat as if it has value. Your own use of fiat as if it has value refutes your claim that it has no value.


Humans has the capacity to be rational. It's a choice in terms of whether they want to be or not.

However, if you take the metaphysical position that human can't be rational, then I can see why you reject the epistemological concept of objectivity and its ethical derivative of objective values.

People are saying that the price and the value are different things, that's the issue. I mean I think they are the same thing and if people think it is not then it's their problem. But, what you are talking about is the price, so when they come here again, they will say that 20k is the price, and not the value.

I believe if we were to say the value is different, I would put the value a lot higher, in my mind bitcoin WILL be 100k+ for sure and there is no doubt about that at all. This is why we should try to focus on what we can do and not what we can't control and since I know it will go up, I just buy as much as I can and patiently wait for it to go up.

If you're asking this question in 2022, then it means that you haven't researched about Bitcoin at all.

It’s funny that you talk about things needing facts too, but then keep bending concepts however they fit your narrative.

Now im thinking that you’re not even looking at concepts but brainstorming bs to fit ur bias.

The subjective theory of value means that, the value of something lies in how much an individual values and desires it himself, this is subjective and can change. This can include facts, but it’s decided on an individual basis. And like we’re seeing your interpretation of facts can be different from anyone else, so this can be subjective again. Humans are highly subjective beings, there’s people who think the earth is flat and everyone around them is dumb, they think it’s facts too. No matter if you present actual facts or not.

Its not so much the inherent properties of things themselves, even tho this can influence it. We even see that information(„facts“) is valued differently on an individual basis. It would just be foolish to deny that you prefer other things than me. The concept of demand was derived from this, do you deny this one too?

Your viewpoint is also human centric its foolish for any human to claim superior objectivity, give a dog a gold coin and see how much he values it. To us gold might seem valuable, but if an alien watched us from above he would probably think wtf is going on here. Were letting kids/ poor people extract it for us in poor countries and they get nothing from it, were destroying entire liveable habitats for this thing and were even killing/ starting wars with other humans for some metal or paper that has no significant inherent value, all of this might not indicate that this species needs objectivity for anything.

Humans
Arent
Fuckin
Rational
(You’re a good example, because you think force gave fiat it’s value and a voluntarily adopted currency like Bitcoin is worthless) Your whole thought process is shouting subjectivity.

If they want something they’ll do it, they can value something even in absence of facts or benefit. The tobacco industry is making 1 trillion every year without helping anyone, people know it’s bad for them, there’s literally pictures of sick people on the cover, and despite the presence of facts, people spend more on a pack of cigarettes than on a pack of water. How can you explain it, without needing subjectivity? Subjectivity doesn’t exclude objectivity, but this choice lies in the individual, they choose and desire however the f they want.

To me it seems like youre not even choosing reality as any reference point to check ur ideas, you just have this idea that everyone around you is wrong about Bitcoin and you gotta prove it, instead of maybe trying to understand it.

Please don’t take my lack of comment on your other points as agreement, but I only want to respond to this point because it is so much more important than the other points. This is because a) I think it’s the primary reason why people believe Bitcoin has value (Smack That Ace’s post right above this post is an example of this theory in action) and b) the validity of the subjective theory of value affects more things than just Bitcoin.

To answer your question of, “What value would any good have if we didn’t exist?” The answer is: No value.

I wrote in a response to another person that value requires the existence of a value. More specifically, a thing is a value when it supports that person’s life, and a thing is a disvalue if it harms that person’s life.

Now you’re probably thinking, so doesn’t this prove that value are subjective in that it is dependent on the subject? For example, a large piece of cheesecake may be a value to a healthy 20 years old subject, but a disvalue to a 60 years old with diabetes subject.

I say no because this is not what the term subjective means when use in conjunction with the term objective. Subjective means independent of facts (i.e., to go by feelings) and objective means dependent on facts.

Now, if you were to ask, “So who, other than the subject determines whether something is an value to that subject or not?” I would respond with, anybody with access to the facts could make that determination. For example, it’s not hard for me to draw the conclusion that the crack Mr. X is taking is a disvalue to him even if Mr. X disagrees and feels like it is a value because it serves the purpose of helping him evade some sort of psychological pain. If I were to use a more ambiguous example of marijuana, I would say that it’s harder for me to draw this conclusion about Mr. Y usage of it since I don’t know if he’s using it to evade some sort of psychological pain (which would make it a disvalue since it delays the requirement for him to address that pain) or if he’s using it to numb physical pain to which he has no other way to deal with.

So as you can see, I agree with you that value requires a valuer; but to be objective it also requires facts too.

---

First, I want to distinguish concepts from words. Concept are the ideas in your head. Words are the perceptual reference to those concepts. Words are like pointers to concepts.

As you’ve observed, different culture uses different languages which have different words pointing to the same concept. So the concept of “spoon” may have different words in German vs. English but they both refer to the same concept. That is, similar objects (but not identical) arises in the recipient’s mind when you say the word “spoon” or its equivalent in German (to a German language person).

Now I agree with you that it doesn’t matter what the words are. That is, it doesn’t matter if the English person calls the concept of spoon “spoon” or “price” or “glast” unless they want to communicate with another English speaker. At that point, it does matter that there is agreement between the two individual that the word “spoon” refers to the same concept.

Now, that may mean that the words, for the purposes of communication, are necessarily subjective; but it doesn’t mean that the concepts themselves are.

For example, I may “feel” like the concept of “glast” should refer to both things that can be used to scoop soup as well as things that can be used to cut meat. But that would be an invalid concept because it is tying things together by their non-essential. That is, spoons are used for specific type of tasks. Even if no two spoons are identical, they all can be used for the same tasks. Knives, however, are used for very different tasks. To combine these two category of things together under the same concept would make the concept useless and therefore invalid.

Now, some person may claim that, based on their feelings, the term “glast” should refer to both spoon-objects and knives-objects. And they would suffer the consequences for creating and using invalid concepts by ignoring the fact of reality that these are two very different objects.

Demand is the source of value, so as long as demand is there, any good or asset will have value, as long as it is in demand. Whether an item has a low or high value depends on its quality and scarcity. Bitcoin is currently priced at about 20k $ and that is the real value at the moment, as long as you sell it, there will be buyers right away. Bitcoin assets are highly volatile as people tend to speculate in search of profits and its value is highly volatile.

From the standpoint of market value, Bitcoin has a real value since the market value is based on supply and demand. 
If someone is willing to pay for Bitcoin then we can say that there is a market value for Bitcoin.

From an economic standpoint, I also think that Bitcoin has real value.
Bitcoin can be used as a money transfer from one point of the globe to another point of the globe without the hassle of a third-party finance system. 


How about Bitcoins intrinsic value?   

Though many anti-Bitcoin believe that it has no intrinsic value,  many believe Bitcoin has because of these factors.
Utility
Scarcity
Marginal Cost of Production
you can read a detailed explanation here

A really interesting question about the value of Bitcoin, but in order to understand it, you need to understand what the value itself is. As for me, value is when a certain product or asset is in demand, that is, someone needs it and is at least willing to pay for it or exchange it for something else. If you put this on Bitcoin, it turns out that BTC still has value and it has its own value, which certain people are willing to pay. On the other hand, if BTC did not have all this, then the price of Bitcoin would probably be equal to zero. So in this case, we can say that Bitcoin has value and has a certain value, however, these two values ​​change periodically, which makes Bitcoin itself less predictable.

Of course it does.

1 Bitcoin is approximately worth 20 thousand US dollars which is enough to buy a decent used car everywhere in the world. Whether you say it has value or not has no meaning. The world isn't spinning around you. Maybe bitcoin is worthless to you, that's fine. Lots of other people think that way too but on the other hand, lots people people think its worth $20k right now.

The US dollar has value too. No matter how crappy it is getting, people still use it.

I wouldnt even buy into his argument here, because then the whole concept of investing can be classified as a betting instrument. Its ignoring that the whole system makes it necessary for people to invest at the moment, because there are no interest rates that are higher than inflation since a long time now. This is literally one of the goals of inflation, to make it impossible for people to "hoard"(was called saving once) money, so the economy can grow faster, which doesnt work forever as were seeing now. The attempt to criticize something without going into the causes is short sighted. People have to use an alternative Store of Value, because inflation makes this a necessity. Phrasing it like people are gambling because theyre choosing Bitcoin is pathetic. Most new forms of money, that have the perfect properties of a Store of Value, would be used for this purpose first. This doesnt make it a betting instrument and its not Bitcoins fault for rising/ decreasing in value, maybe read what a market is.

Currency is a generally accepted form of payment, usually regulated by governments. Fiat money, or normal currency, even has exchange markets and fluctuations relative to other currencies. It’s just paper.

When considering crypto currency ,there are multiple digital currencies and they fluctuate. So this is considered a market and valuable.

Bitcoin actually made the adoption rate faster. Meaning there are countries which have adopted bitcoin and are very open to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a digital asset and scarce as well, which makes it more valuable than other digital assets. With convenience and decentralised functionality Bitcoin eases international trades.

fiats utility(reasons to keep circulating and desire to pass hands) is in the laws of minimum wage and tax laws and having to price things on store shelves in the amount

the value of fiat is not backed by gold(not been case  for 50+ years)
its value derives from the minimum wage law where by an employers costs of labour is BEST case having to pay someone $7.50 for an hour of work..
they are not allowed to in that state pay their employee any less..
(ok pre-empting some rebuttals.. i know some US states have a $15 min wage and some have $10 and some have waitresses and interns at lower.. you find you lowest number and go with that number if it pleases you)


however from the employee/workers point of view of their 'cost of living' their value of the dollar is different. they want a 'living wage' value that is more like $15+ for an hour

but if you take the lowest figure. thats the underling fiat value.. (not the random numbers inbetween of variance state to state/person to person or different employee income and living costs) finding the lowest number is fiats value
(again pre-empting rebuttas, again i know individuals have different costs of living and incomes, but take the lowest number..(some use the social security/unemployment as the ultimate low))

That is dead wrong. I mean, it's correct for probably 80% of the people dealing with Bitcoin, unfortunately, but the point of buying Bitcoin should never be to get more shiat coins back. That is the mistake of high time preference people!

You are also assuming things on your own. See, many things end up getting value because more and more people end up agreeing with that idea. But that's what markets are made of.
I can give you an example that sometimes happens to me that makes me thinking just like that. Like "who decided that the word represents an object that allows you to take objects into your mouth?? Why not , or anything else"?? Note: those sets of chars are only that. Sets of chars that I put together randomly! No idea if there are words like that!

So, when you say that something has value, maybe it gets real value if more people agree with that! Someone decided, and others agreed that could be a set of chars to represent the object that allows you to carry objects into your mouth. I know that words has their own etymology, but I think you get the point.