Topic: Overwhelmed by emotions shown here - page 3. (Read 3434 times)

Also, I am looking at the bigger picture. While astronomical rise would surely benefit those who have bitcoin, I am not sure if it would benefit the entire society and economy. So my desire is greater good for everyone, and not just owners of bitcoin. And that would be possible, in my opinion, by more gradual rise, and gradual adoption.

With lottery you have mathematically proven extremely small chance of winning (close to zero). So for people lottery is just a game. People buy it, and expect to lose money.

With bitcoin some people expect FOR SURE to increase their wealth 100 or 1000 times.
Exponential growth is quite dramatic thing, that can lead to disasters.
I am not wishing anyone ill, i am just frightened by such huge expected rises of value.
I think it should be a more gradual thing. And also I am a bit shocked by feelings of entitlement.
If I had a lot of money, I would maybe buy just one or two bitcoins, just in case they boom, that I am not the last one left behind.
But I would never put all of my money into it. I wouldn't even put most of my money into it. Probably just a small fraction.

When it comes to accepting large inheritance I am undecided about whether it's ethical or not. Maybe inheritance law could be modified if not abolished completely. However, it's normal and natural for parents to want to leave something for their children, so I don't think it's really wrong. And also they probably worked hard for years to earn that money, so they can decide what to do with  it as they please.

Edit for spelling mistakes.

Question:  Do you think it's ethical to buy a lottery ticket and hope that it pays off?  If it does, is it ethical to collect your winnings?

I know this is not exactly the same thing as Bitcoin, but I'd like to probe a little into the idea that it's wrong to increase ones wealth without being "productive".

Another:  Is it ethical to accept a large inheritance?  What about a small gift?

I could not disagree with you more. Why would you think that Bitcoin success would cause an economic collapse? Please explain. You're basically wishing ill upon people in this community. No mass adoption...no wealth...no Bitcoin. What's with the spite?        

Yeah that's the point. If you buy bitcoin with US$, you probably have worked already to obtain US$ in the first place. And you hand that fiat over to some miners thereby supporting their business.

ya.ya.yo!

Maybe. Supporting the technologies and companies that are connected to it is maybe the most appealing part of it for me.

You miss some crucial part, so all of your conclusions are wrong. To hold bitcoins, you must either a. mine them and support network operations or b. buy them and support businesses and tech developments with your money.  So no, it is not free, you support the project, its network, and its development *directly*. You put your trust and your money into it, risking it would all go to zero. If it succeeds, you are rewarded. But nothing is free. Risk is not free.

Thanks for your replies.

When i said you need to work hard to earn money, I didn't necessarily mean holding a standard 9 to 5 job and being exploited by a company.
But actually doing something, creating some value. Being active.
You can do this when you have your own company as well. But all the companies create some value, some product that some people will use.
With philosophy of holding bitcoins, you create nothing, and potentially earn enormous sum of money.
And of course there is a lot of risk involved in it. But a lot of people speak of logarithmic charts and long term trends, and take huge future increase for granted. For them it's not about if, but when. I don't understand this feeling of being entitled to increase your wealth by, say, 100 or 1000 times in few years, by doing nothing and just holding bitcoin.

If such an attitude becomes too widespread, I'm afraid it can affect economy negatively.

The essential word here is "if". It's not a sure thing. So people take a substantial risk when buying bitcoin. Other people do not want to take this risk. So I think it's well deserved wealth in case the bitcoin buyers are right with their assumptions.

Your deeply held belief that only hard work leads to wealth is also severely flawed. There are millions or even billions of people that work hard every day but will never be rich. The simple reason: They are slaves of economy and they prefer the illusion of acceptable economic security that their job seems to offer over taking a personal risk to fundamentally improve their situation (of cause this can be extremely hard in many cases).


ya.ya.yo!

Even if you earned $100 per hour tax free you'd have to work for nearly 5 years of 40-hour work weeks to gain even $1 million. Now, how many people even earn more than $25 per hour? And how much tax do they pay for that?

The problem with working hard is that the only one who truly benefits from your hard work is the CEO of the company you work hard for.

I rather work smart and cheat the system that tries to cheat me. And I'll make sure that once I am rich enough for my liking, the people i love and care about do not have to work (read: be enslaved) ever again. (In a legal way though).

That's not to say I will not work and do not want my friends and family to work. It's just that we will choose when and what we do, rather than have a 'boss' decide. We're human people, we don't have bosses, we're not dogs.

By the way the problems you describe are actually a result of the greed based capitalist system and well happen with any currency, arguably even moreso with fiat. Because the richest people in this world do not really work. They have their money work for them or they have people work for them or both. Mostly banks and super corporations.

With a gold or silver or bitcoin based system, once you spent your bitcoins you can not magically create new ones (you could mine them, but that's not the same thing, mining takes effort and costs money as well). With fiat some people can just print more money or 'type it into existence' by making a loan. This creates a massive unbalance in the world.

If for example person A has 100 bitcoins and person B has 1 bitcoin and person C has 0 bitcoin but has an apple garden. He'd just sell some apples for bitcoin and person A and B will lose bitcoins because they want apples.

Now eventually because C has a constant supply of apples, he'll get a steady income in bitcoin and if A and B do nothing to gain more bitcoins, they'll eventually have none left and person C would now have 101 bitcoins and all of the apples.

So, sitting on your bud doing nothing will eventually make you poor in a world were bitcoin is common.

Of course when you buy bitcoin now before they are expensive you could have a stash big enough to last you a lifetime. If we assume they'll become globally accepted currency someday.

To clarify, I am not one of those "who want so much that it goes to the moon", I am more curious about the "Game Theory" aspects of cryptocurriencies



Why would that be a bad thing? Considering that our current economic activity isn't really sustainable.


You seem to think that people are only working to get money, which I think is not the truth. People often have to choose a work which pays more but isn't exactly what they would like to do. Wouldn't it be nice if you could purse your passion and do something that is of value to society instead of working for minimum wage just to survive? The reward would be first and foremost on an emotional level which (imho) is a much more important factor for health and happiness than money could ever be.


Maybe the factors that influence the decision to invest into a company will change. For example, a company that is focused on making life on earth more sustainable could be a great investment. On the contrary, parasitically companies who are just focused on profits may get less investment funds.


Maybe, maybe not. What makes you think that our current economy isn't heading for collapse anyway?


If Bitcoin is truly deflationary, late adopters may join at a time in Bitcoins history where growth will happen in a very slow manner, which is what you seem to suggest should be happening right now.

There is nothing immoral about wanting to make money.

Many people here are not simply investing in Bitcoin because they want to make a quick-buck like penny stocks.  Rather, Bitcoin investors help support their investments by building businesses around Bitcoin and raising awareness. 

If you think these forums are bad, don't watch the Wolf of Wall Street.

You have hit the nail on the head.

Lust for personal gain is very quick to dilute any altruistic or higher libertarian values that might have swayed the very earliest of adopters into investing a bit of money into Bitcoin.

As for Bitcoin destabilising the economy. It is a too small. It is a flea on a donkeys back. However, it can and it will be used in the future as a means of capital flight, so it will help destabilise someone's economy, and the parasites crawling over the flea on the donkeys back might reap massive profits if they are riding Bitcoin at the right time and know when to jump off.

Hey, it wasn't meant as an attack on you. If I had bitcoin, i would also want it to rise. It's natural.
I wanted to buy it at some point.
But maybe I would have second thoughts and also feel a bit bad about it.
I am just afraid if bitcoin can really destabilize economy?

I don't really understand you folks. Why you want so much that it goes to the moon? If I had bitcoins I wouldn't feel this way. If the value of my assets increased that much as you all want and expect, I wouldn't feel good about it. It would feel to me like an undeserved reward. My deeply held belief is that you have to work hard to become rich, and not just sit down and watch your wealth increase.

I think potential big increase in value of bitcoin is not good for anyone.
It's not good for economy, because people would spend less, hoping their bitcoins would become even more valuable.
Less spending = less economic activity.
People would also work less. Why work, if you can just do nothing and watch your bitcoins become more valuable.
Less work = less economic activity.
People would also invest less in real companies. Why invest in something that grows slow, when you can invest in bitcoin which grows fast?
Less investments = less economic activity.

I hope bitcoin will never go mainstream and rise so fast in value. It could cause total economic collapse.
And also early adopters would get too rich, while all the later adopters would be in very bad position.

I really desire, if it ever becomes mainstream, that it grows VERY SLOWLY.