Topic: I just don't get it... (Read 1316 times)

That sentence stuck with me. Nice read.

Trading a smile (and if you believe in it, trading sun and clouds is good enough for me) tastes like some preferred unit of trade growing into 'gestalt'. Talking about rallies on exchanges, adoring scam like projects, having a waiting list for gox, living it up hoping to get rich, it all tastes like some boys sneaking in trough the fire exit of a cinema. The owner(s) probably know this and most certainly know how to play the game.

well, someone traded for a pizza, and I'm sure they were thinking in the back of their heads "that pizza is worth $15"

can't help but thing of fiat money

it will take years before people think "that's worth XXX bitcoins"

ASICs, quantum compute, doesn't matter. Same as when GPGPU compute arrived. The difficulty adapts at the next checkpoint, which if you assume ASICs add an order of magnitude to the hashing, will occur in about a day and a half. So 2160 BTC enter the market in a day instead of a week or so. There are approaching 11 million BTC in circulation. Amazing how many on this forum have never even read the original white paper, which is only a few pages long actually.

My observation and knowledge of neurological processes says, primarily, they will not change. Unless they've been literally in a coma their entire lives, they've experienced enough data points to reach that epiphany, but their chemistry prevents it. Fix the chemistry, hormone and neurotransmitter imbalances, etc, and you fix the problem.

An example is hormonal modification of child rapists. (Which it seems, works on a lot more than rapists.) Administration of dosages in the range of 1.0 mg/kg/day of clomifene agonizes receptors designed for E2 feedback on a part of the hypothalamus, mimicking the effects of high estradiol without the other biological side effects of in-vivo E2 administration, and induces intense feelings of empathy and emotional sensitivity. Think Bob from Fight Club, but without the "bitch tits".

I say we are chemicals, or at least so predominantly chemicals that for most things any spirituality can't move the needle.

Money is a medium for determining value. Bitcoins are money to the extent that people are willing to trade x for bitcoins. What no one knows at this point is how to accurately determine the value of a bitcoin. Some have purchased sportscars with bitcoins, but the transaction was probably based on the current exchange rate of bitcoins to USD. Many people think that they will get rich quick by buying an ASIC and mining enough bitcoins to buy a Porsche. But the value of a Porsche is widely assessed in terms of USD, Euros, or other currencies.

When the floodgates open and all the new ASICs are cranking out bitcoins many of the newcomers will be quickly turnaround and sell. That sell-off will, of course, be the bursting of the current bubble. The question at that point will be where is the next advancement in mining technology. If it is not on the horizon, institutional investors may be more likely to bring in some big bucks at low prices. This will act to stabilize the bitcoin market. In turn, that will help bitcoin-based companies to more accurately price their products. Only when bitcoins are worth something other than a quick profit will the currency be established. Until then, it is a questionable scheme.

Me too.


It would be easy to evaluate bitcoins using some commonly used world wide commodity, like electricity, but how would you distribute them in this case? Pay miners electric bill in exchange for bitcoins?

Are you implying that only capitalism can have currency?

...And everyone has to eat.  The world leaves us with very little choice in the matter.

I agree. If the only thing you can do with it is cashout to cash, then it's not really a currency. I'm judging it based on how many business' adapt it, instead of its value.

I don't get how you can be interested in bitcoin and at the same time spit on capitalism system ! Bitcoin is a curency. mine it, trade it, invest it like all curency. Why would we be interested in a hippy currency to buy sun smiles and cloud ?

I suppose that was what I was getting at.

I recently learned that there was a study done at Cambridge university, where several neuro-scientists successfully *according to their research* proved that human and non-human animals have a consciousness.

I suppose that would fit into the *something more* category.  Because if we are just a bag of bio-degradable chemicals, then it would call into question, just how we know that we exist.  Or rather, where does our sense of self come from?

We are influenced by our chemistry, true.  But are we our chemistry, or are we the drivers of a biological machine?
Mystics over the years have referred to us as spiritual beings.

...And quantum physics/ metaphysics references various states of ourselves co-existing simultaneously on different frequencies.  Should that be the case, then is spirit really just energy condensed into a slow vibration? Or are we simply much more then we can ever comprehend?

I do know that we as a species have empathy. *It's not an original trait, since it's been proven that many animal species have it too*

So it raises a question, that if a person we consider greedy, *or even psychotic* were shown 48 hours worth of footage of other people around the world living, and the problems they deal with.
*How would that person be affected?* Would they change?

To make it easier to be traced later on :-)

Ehh... It would be very easy to "prove" scientifically that babies display behavior we label as greedy, and zero behavior that is not just deterministic random noise that would qualify as selfless. I think your real question is, is it greed before they have the chance to know any better? And then we would indeed get into a debate about whether *anyone* who hasn't realized it has had the right stimuli to teach them. (Are we a bag of chemistry, or something more? If the first, then nothing is really our choice no matter how much it may feel like it is.)

I think that that is again, debatable.  Nature vs Nurture.

I think that it's unwise to point to solely either one.
If people are indeed born with their own individual personalities, then it's possible that a few corrupted souls could come into existence.  However it still depends on the nature of the environment you stuff them in.

For instance, if a child isn't humored growing up, but treated like a person.  Educated properly rather then shoved in front of a TV.  There is a great deal to be hopeful about.

Children actually have an incredible learning capacity at the earliest years.  There's even been reading programs sold, that target children of two years or younger...

If a child begins reading at the age of two, I don't see how they could be unaware of their place in the world.  It really depends on how much a child's mind is nurtured.

A child without a thought, will act thoughtlessly.

Not getting your ideas from Marx does not mean your ideas are not Marxist! Marx's true ideas are more radical than anything ever implemented. And that's always the thing... how to implement something beautiful without people screwing it up? (That is one way of thinking about Bitcoin and money, btw. An experiment at an incorruptible currency.) I'm not saying don't dream it. Just be careful about how many chess moves you take into account before you do anything. Our recent economic meddlings have been maybe one or two moves in thought.

To be a pain, I will say that babies are absolutely born greedy. This is seldom-argued psychology here. Until the baby gains a sense of "self" and then further makes the monumental leap to projecting that onto the other characters in its world -- "omg, they too are sentient, feeling things just like me, the same as me!" -- there is only greed and self. Some adults never make this leap fully. They are aware of the notion, that it is empirically true that they are not the center of the universe, but they never act like it, because they never genuinely feel it and believe it.

Which is why true capitalism can't exist either.  It's too perfect.  You'll always wind up with monopoly and corporatism when there aren't restrictions on how competition is allowed to thrive.  Take mergers and buyouts for instance,  and how far that's led us astray.  Too big too fail is an understatement.

When greed is publicly encouraged, you also get mass suffering.  So just because people are flawed to a degree, should that be used as an excuse, why we can't imagine greater?

To a degree, all people are a product of their environment.  *That leads into a debate on nature vs nurture* which hopefully can be slightly avoided.  And since we are assaulted constantly, since childhood by messages of materialism and greed, rather then being taught to appreciate each other, and the planet we live on, *that has an impact on young minds*
To an extent, we are what we know.  no baby is born greedy.  *It's a learned behavior*

The fact that some people would sacrifice clean air, and clean water for a bit of green paper, signifies that there is something deficient in our societal wisdom.

Before we can begin to change the world, we have to change those aspects of ourselves.

I think that showing actual truth about what's happening in the world to everyone, and having people learn about other cultures and ways of life could greatly decrease the ignorance and materialism latent in our society.

Perhaps that's why television doesn't usually show what's actually happening.

I'm not a Marxist.  You assumed I was.  

I've actually never read Marx.  I've been saying things like this my entire life, and people assume I read Marx.
I'd like to think that my views are far more radical then anything Marx could cook up.
...But I'm not interested in having such a discussion right now.

I'm going to single this out. You seem smart enough to be idealistic, but (if I may make a broad generalization) you are either [1] not smart enough to realize what you are saying, or [2] you are just still very young, 18 - 22 probably. This is not bad -- but it is dangerous. I thought the same thoughts very few years ago. The issue I've discovered is, upholding a utopia requires that all the people governing it be just as smart and idealistic. This is where most Marxist ideals go bad. They sound wonderful, so why don't they work?

...People screw up. People, or some of them, are not so good. So, most utopian ideals break with just a few knotheads; and when they break, they collapse into a twisted mess completely devoid of any ideals. Think USSR values vs. "true" communism. Capitalism sounds greedy, and it is! But it is openly so. Thus, while broken from the beginning, it's a rickety but functional bridge.

Your economic thoughts are very Keynesian, and I'd recommend you read up on where those ideas have gotten us and what they are now doing to Japan. A currency that is forced (okay, highly encouraged) to be spent, and prevented (okay, highly penalized) being hoarded is exactly what we have right now in our major fiat currencies. Bitcoin is by definition deflationary; deflationary currencies reward thrift and saving (also demonized as hoarding). If you are completely lost as to how you are describing Qualitative Easing and the methods of Bernanke and the Fed as your ideal monetary system, I beg you to read, A LOT. Like, everything you can find. Look at alot of old threads in the general and economics forums here. It's been covered a million times over, much better than I can.

War would probably not exist if more people could imagine themselves in someone else's position and understand their 'war-starting actions'. I've deflected many foetal wars by thinking myself into the opponent's position.


So true... It's probably impossible to detach power from currency but it's worth a shot.

Hoarding to persue that leveraged power is what must be stopped. I again agree with you but with a twist; we need a currency that can't be 'greeded'(or whatever it is called) but hoarding can be ok. I'm working quite hard at this time in life and hoarding like a madman. I will redeem those IOUs later when i have grey hair. Does that make me evil, ie break the economy?

I don't question people anymore, I accept them as they are.
There's far less stress to be had in the world, that way.


Ah, math,  My old arch nemesis. *

I wouldn't try to fit human behavior to a series of number.  The reason why is because no math can compensate for the variables of individuality.

You cannot understand life by lumping whole species into a single category.  Every person is unique to a tee.
...And no one person sees the world exactly the same way.

We'd make far more progress by simply getting to know people and hearing their stories.  *That's what would end wars and conflict.  The realization that we might be able to relate to each other*

However that's just radical new-age hooey, right?

Regardless, I think that if we truly wish to evolve further as a species, then we need to stop valuing things because they're shiny.
In the process of mining gold, people die.  And territorial conflicts ensue...etc;

Same thing goes for any mineral, alloy...etc;



The pursuit of ever more, rocks *essentially* we are devaluing the preciousness of life.  

...And what becomes of all that gold? It rots in a vault somewhere.  It's never used, nor circulated.  But rather used as a leverage of power.  *Giving some people a feeling of superiority because they have tons of a yellow rock, wasting away in their safe*

I believe that an indirect result of trading with currency is hoarding.  And only when we've made a currency that can't be hoarded and that forces you to have to spend it, will economies be unbreakable.

...Because right now, people care too much about the currencies themselves.  They forget that they don't cease to be a human being just because they have nothing.  So they shouldn't let an object define them, nor depend on it.


I don't mine bitcoins.  I actually work for them, so for me it's convenient and sort of a necessity.

btw why are so many people here posting a bitcoin address in their sig