Topic: Scaling bitcoin to world economy is unrealistic. - page 3. (Read 10167 times)

+1

This is so bang on. Things are changing we don't have to do much to make it happen Ben my boy, is doing it for all of us.
I predict even the concept of land ownership will change.

Surely so. But even now, the internet is only used by about a third of humanity. That number will rise as time progresses, but there will always be a segment of humanity that won't have any meaningful connection to the network.

It will be a long time, if at all, before the old infrastructures are completely gone.

For that most part that will only be true until the last generation that grew up without the Internet dies.

I expect Bitcoin to do to currency what Bittorrent did to old media, what websites did to the newspaper industry, what VoIP did to landline phones and what email did to the postal service.
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I'm right there with you. But we still have newspapers, old media, landlines and postal mail.

I take exception to using the metric of domination as the measure of success. Bitcoin has already succeeded. Now it just has to mature.

I expect Bitcoin to do to currency what Bittorrent did to old media, what websites did to the newspaper industry, what VoIP did to landline phones and what email did to the postal service.

You can do better than that..
Here it is free of charge :

http://www.fee.org/library/books/economics-in-one-lesson/

great book.. a must read !

That's a poor metric to use for any tool's value. The rial doesn't rule the world but is still reliably used by tens of millions of people and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't think anyone rational expects bitcoin to take over the world. It's a new tool in the toolbox, and a damn good one.

Yes, i agree.
If the world will adopt a form of cryptocurrency it will not be bitcoin but some institutionalised state regulated form of crytocurrency.
That is how things stand at the moment and i dont see this changed without a complete world revolution that destroys most of todays economic value.

No, but unfortunately that is not how most people think.
And it doesn't take a lot of people to screw up a system that is based on ideals.
It has been a problem throughout human history.
While i think it is important to have ideals, it is also unrealistic to think these ideals can be applied to the current situation, however good you think these ideals are.
So thinking about bitcoin developing along the lines of an ideal will not match reality and it is important to think in what ways reality will be different from the ideal.

People in history used to invest, but not nearly as much as now.
200 years ago you would not be able to go to a bank and ask for a loan to buy a house.
Now it is standard practice and embedded in our society.

So only 'someone' investing will not be enough to keep the economy spinning.

Most of the people who are now involved in bitcoin see it as play money.
They try out lots of things with big amounts of their stash.
When bitcoin rises further in value they will naturally become much more conservative.
Also, a lot of the people involved in bitcoin are young inexperienced people so their behaviour tends to be more reckless.
The first thing that will happen to bitcoin if it starts being accepted is that the general user demographic will include much more conservative people then it does now.
And conservative people will not be as reckless as the wild bunch here.
You cannot judge bitcoins future performance by it's pre-puberal frenzy.

What?
You've got to be kidding me.
So monkeys, of which we know they conduct wars, evolved into this peacefull little race called humans which lived a happy little life untill they became even less monkey and started to assert themselfs just like monkeys do?
Did not occur in reality.

I never said i dont like the word socialism, or anarchism.
I'm just strongly stating that that is not how monkeys (of any kind) organise socially.
The whole of the past 10000 years was devoted to a struggle of humanity to free itself from these local tyranies by increasingly abstracting them away from their environment.
It was less than 500 years ago that most peoples ass was owned by their landlord.
These social changes happen slowly as they require genetic change.
Selection works over generation and that is the level at which humanity needs to change to make all these ideals come true.
Untill then you can count on greed and power to rule the world.

I know this.

And I can't really think of a better form of money. I also can't deny that a fixed monetary supply is not without its own issues.

Wow! There's a whole lot of economic ignorance in this thread. Please people, do yourselves a favor...

http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Henry-Hazlitt/dp/B001G8NW6Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1347814115&sr=8-2&keywords=economics+in+one+lesson

It's not a bug. It's a feature.

Wait, i never said ANYTHING against buggy-whips.  

Also, i don't see how this applies to the fact that humanity is developing technology that makes it feasable to read someones memories.
Bitcoin is not nearly the size to 'conquer the world'.
Meanwhile technology marches on.
Before bitcoin is large enough to be a viable world currency it will, just like buggy-whips, already be put into the niche economy of 10-year old pony cuddlers and SM-dungeon owners.

The OP question is indeed very important. I have some doubts, too.

Either the time will prove the Bitcoin idea as wrong and noone will care (and current early adopters will loose).
Or it will prove as fundamental and great idea - but then it will be STOLEN.

You may ask how one could stole Bitcoin. Simply. Setup alternative currency and offer you multi-million user base (Apple users, US tax payers, etc.) an easy way how to cooperate in new virtual currency based on similar ideas, but INCOMPATIBLE with current Bitcoin.

Check the IQ distribution curve. There is not enough geek to fight with average Joe.

Well, that would be true if it were not for the fact that by the time bitcoin is heavily used worldwide it would value at some incredible amount.
With my current humble bitcoin wallet i could then live off of, say, 0.0001 percent of my bitcoins for the rest of my life. I would have to put insignificant amounts of it into the economy to sustain myself.
So maybe you're right that there is an equalizing force that will affect bitcoin, but such a process would be slooow.
Meanwhile there are other forces that are much stronger than that that will move coins towards the 'collectors'. A lot of it will be in the form of:"You want to lend money? Sure, it'll be 20% per week. You no like it? Tough luck buster, there are no regulations to protect you and I have the moneys."

Sure, if you keep assuming that government induced inflation is the only way to reduce general wealth.


It's a pretty big and fundamentally ideological assumption that everyone has the same goal that you have in mind.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
It is not how humans work and bitcoin will not change that.
You think noone will feel greedy in a bitcoin society?
You think noone will try to make a quick buck on somebody elses account?
You think whishes for you to live in a free society?
Think again.

Most of the problems concerning money are social problems, not monetary problems.
It's just that the social problems tend to express themselfs as monetary problems.
But fixing it from the monetary perspective is like applying adhesive bandage to a broken bone.
...

mobodick, I haven't read this entire thread.

But as far as your OP goes: you point out the one problem I have with bitcoin. It may be more or less of a problem than I realize, but it is a problem.

:shrug: what you said is open to interpretation, what I said was open to interpretation ("heavily")


I don't think bitcoin is ponzi. I think bitcoin has brought a lot of good things into the world. But the pyramid structure of the currency is not one of them.


When people foam at the mouth to obvious concerns like the OP and are incapable of rationally discussing that hey, maybe there IS something wrong with this scenario, then yes, I find it hard to believe. Because if you were generally interested in the well being of people, you would be able to rationally discuss these issues.


Proving that increasing the money supply increases the money supply does not prove either:

1) That inflating the money supply is bad (there are many better arguments)
or
2) That a fixed currency is good

Haven't we gone over some basic logic syllogisms before?


Why must you resort to a strawman? I have a link for a freakin alternative cryptocurrency in my sig, how could I possibly disbelieve in cryptocurrency?

I meant that as early in a 50-100 years time-frame. I am by no means an early adopter sitting on 400.000 btc like some are.

If Bitcoin is a ponzi, or whatever you believe, I would loose a lot and talking Bitcoin up on a forum would do diddly for me.

I am a blood donor too, is it really so hard to believe that I actually care about other people and genuinely think BTC would help them out?

Dude: (1.02^1+1.02^2+....+1.02^10)/10 IS, by the laws of mathematics, 1.117 or 11.7% more value to a college fund.

But I guess not believing in math and the positivist principle (our other debate) fits perfectly with disbelief in cryptocurrency.

Thanks