Topic: Is Bitcoin a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme & what are the ramifications? - page 3. (Read 10974 times)

I'd agree with this statement only because you have the word debt in it, as debt is fundamental to any reciprocity and division of labor which results in temporal displacement of an individuals production and consumption (like farming), individual must be able give and receive debt from the rest of society to make that work.

But Usury is separate from Debt, it is a parasitic layer placed on top of debt.  It is to Debt what co-dependency is to marriage.  I argue that Usury can be eliminated from Debt with Demurrage and this is the best strategy to adopt.

Outlawing debt and usury can't work.

Your statement on historical norms is incontrovertibly FALSE, an archaic hunter-gathering society is explicitly collectivist.  The collective is VERY SMALL, literately a band of 20-30 individuals but the reciprocal sharing of all the resources is the norm, usually with a close-kin social obligations over the whole thing which significantly constrain the individuals behavior....

The historic norm is a non-collectivist, self-sufficient life where the only thing that has any intrinsic value was drinking water, shelter, food and hunting tools. That's still the situation in territories, where the state is absent.

All other things later got their value by collectivism (labor division) beyond Dunbars Numbers. Your arguments are the arguments of a collectivist.

The minimization of division-of-labor is economic retardation.

The historic norm is a non-collectivist, self-sufficient life where the only thing that has any intrinsic value was drinking water, shelter, food and hunting tools. That's still the situation in territories, where the state is absent.

All other things later got their value by collectivism (labor division) beyond Dunbars Numbers. Your arguments are the arguments of a collectivist.

That is the case when the world sinks into a Madmax dark age. But that is not the norm.

That is the case when the world sinks into a Madmax dark age. But that is not the norm. Indeed only rice was money in Japan for 600 years, but God help us if we end up in that Madmax outcome.

Since when do gold, silver jewels etc have any intrinsic value?

The only thing that has any intrinsic value to me is drinking water, shelter, food and bullets.

28%. Wow we are making headway in the consciousness of the audience.

The key characteristics of anything that resembles a ponzi or pyramid scheme are:

1. No intrinsic value, it is all a willful delusion of the participants.

2. Viral adoption as deluded participants scurry to induce greater fools by word-of-mouth.

Physical gold investment most certainly has an intrinsic value and you will always have that rarity and tangible value (that you can hold in your hand) and thus it can't go to 0. Bitcoins are not rare, because anyone can create an altcoin, and the only thing holding people into Bitcoin is a) the poor quality of the competitors thus far, b) the delusion that Bitcoin is something that it isn't (it isn't a currency), c) the delusion that the limited network effects thus far are a barrier to a great altcoin, d) the delusion that Bitcoin doesn't have technological flaws which doom it, e.g. Transactions Withholding Attack and the Spiraling Transactions Fees.

Shares on major markets usually have intrinsic value and they almost never have the ability to sell like a virus, because most people are inherently skeptical of pink sheets shares because they have many examples of failure.

Whereas, "this is new, it has never happened before, this is the greatest new innovation" is what spreads like a virus.

I see so many of these schemes, such as "this health system will restore your vitality" pyramid schemes, and there is no intrinsic value. It is just herbs you could buy for 1/1000 the price in bulk.

If you want to defeat this logic of mine, your only chance is to argue that Bitcoin has an intrinsic value and justify your willful, collective (what I strongly believe to be) delusion.

Arguing for pedantic, narrow definitions of such schemes makes you look desperate. Actually argue the point.

You can try to argue against:


Read this entire thread:

Problem With Altcoins

hmmm give me 1 reason why this would be true. Like all other currencies you can only spend them once. Just because some ppl hold 10K+ BTC doesn't mean they will do that forever, they will spend them at some point, or sell them for dollars and this give the btc a new owner. Just because they don't spend now (because price is still going to get higher according to them) doesn't mean they will not spend them ever. Same as billionaires today hold a large chunk of all cash, there will be people who will hold a big bunch of btc, but like i said, they can only spend them once and when they do btc will be more deconcentrated and dispersed.

We completely disagree.

Women are women. And men are men.

Women are rational yes, but not strategically rational. They base their decisions more on emotions of the small group centered around home and family which is very rational in terms of their evolutionary strategy.

If you deny this, you deny nature. Which most westerners do now deny nature. But the payback is coming 2016ish. Western civilization will collapse.

Is this guy for real?

Sounds to me like he is tripping on Ritalin.

I can speculate on whether Branson as a member of the elite (Bilderberger, CFR member, etc) is playing ball as he has been perhaps told to. Or perhaps he really believes in Bitcoin. But he isn't here in these forums down in the trenches. And he doesn't see what I see technically.

So let him end up as another Bitcoin idiot. Fine with me. I'd love to slay his ass if he puts his net worth in Bitcoin. But of course he isn't that stupid and so isn't endorsing it for himself, rather encouraging the greater fools who I am about to teach a lesson in market dynamics.

The thread was closed because all the key arguments had been made and argued. I am one man against 100+ butt hurt Bitcoin zealots who are unable to read the thread before they post and were posting either redundant arguments or spamming the thread with "you are wrong, because you are wrong" 0-information non-arguments.

I will go post a link from that thread to this one, so all your posts are acknowledged.

Ain't No Future In Yo Frontin, "Shine it up good".

Right, I'm off now to cook up a nice humble pie and your going to eat in right in front of us. 

those at the top of pyramid schemes usually stay there. in bitcoin you can step down from the top in trade for fiat and someone else takes your place.