Topic: [Sci-fy topic] Searching bitcoin's intrinsic value... (Read 3460 times)

  Very nice article. And, who is this James Stephenson? I wonder if he is here on the forums and could chime in?

@DeathAndTaxes spot on man, how much bitcoins for that gold pressed latinum bar you're holding ?

edit; well written article over bitcoin in a post scarcity world, i think we're starting to see glimpse of the future here ppl

In a post nanotechnology world it would be.  No physical money could avoid counterfitting.  When you can analyze and assemble things at the atomic level couterfits would be absolutely identical to the original.  No existing physical currency could survive that.

That leaves 2 options for currency
1) Rare elements.  Using gold as a currency would still be valid as nanotechnology wouldn't allow you to make gold from non-gold.  There are other elements which have higher value than gold on a per ounce basis that would be useful as a currency.  It would also be possible to make currency from artificial isotopes to retain tighter control over money supply however I think that is dubious given the complexities.

2) Digital funds.  Bitcoin would have many advantages over centralized purely digital currencies because of its open, transparent, and decentralized nature.  A digital federal reserve with "digital cash" could work.  Hell it could work today however it would have all the disadvantages of centralized opaque control. 

oops i managed to derail the topic... sorry ppl, i was too tempted  

@DeathAndTaxes, maybe you're right or wrong, the correct answer lies within your words. I give can give you some hints if you like...
energy is lost or stored just like you say, efficiently or not based on the existent friction in a device, but for that to happen you have to get it from somewhere first. A good example is a squeaky swing loosing the energy through heat at it's hinges. What do you do ? "Instinctively" you put some grease at it and increase efficiency. After that you have to push little less and have it go higher and get rid of the annoying squeaking too. Friction is a natural effect of collisions between particles that have mass, and not only.
I would love to talk more on the subject but not in this thread though. Feel free to open another one and i will chime in

Back on topic:

Apart from us giving value to bitcoin by trading it, is true that "non-replication" could be it's base intrinsic value ?

You really don't know?

What stops the swing is friction.  The conversion of kinetic energy into thermal energy.  You could make the swing stop right where it started.  Simply design the swing so it is inefficient enough that it converts all of the kinetic energy into heat via friction and it will stop exactly where you started it.

If there was no friction (of any kind) the swing would never stop.  When you pushed it you converter mechanical energy (in your arm) into kinetic energy.  As long as that kinetic energy isn't reduced the swing would perputually oscilate back and forth forever.

That doesn't mean the swing has any magical "extra" energy.  It has exactly the amount of energy you put into it (minus any losses in conversion).  As it operates some of that kinetic energy is converted to heat via friction and that reduces the kinetic energy remaining in the swing and thus is slows down.

Yes because you to keep speed constant you just need to keeep the kinetic energy constant and that means merely replacing the energy converted to heat (by friction) on each pass.  With an efficient enough swing you could keep a aircraft carrier in motion with just your little finger.

This doesn't mean you did any extra work you merely are replacing energy "lost" (technically not lost just converted to heat) from the swing on each pass.


No it doesn't.  If you put extra energy in the swing you merely increase the rate that kinetic energy is converted into heat.  You didn't produce any energy you just increased the speed at which the conversion occurs (assumming the swing has a non-linear relationship between speed and friction as most do).

At present, from col. Bearden's words, we make our energy from turning with our bare hands a windmill that we closed up in a barn. We put energy into our generators to create it on the wires and then put some more to destroy it, opposing the nature in the process so we have to put up more to destroy than produce, thus COP<1.
You look at a swing in the park standing still, with no energy in it, in symmetry with it's medium. Now give it a hard push, it goes up a little and then start going back, but wait, the damn thing doesn't stop to where it started, wtf, noo it goes the other way little less than when we pushed it at first. Goes past original point again and again... until it stops.Hmmm, yes our physicists called that "inertia".
Can't find a reasonable explanation of what t is in any book i can get my hand on. So what it is ? Why the swing can't stop plain dead from where it started and continues to swing ?
What if... i give it a small push every time it gets past me and see what we have. I use a small amount of my energy and push the damn thing when it asks for it (resonance) for fun. HOLY SHH... ! I can even push a grownup person that stands on the swing with my little finger. Yeah, it rocks. My brain is used to this "swing" thing, from a life of experience, and calculates the frequencies by itself with the help of some feedback, my eyes.
But what if we manage to get all that cumulated energy in the "swing" (tank circuit) and use it to make some more swings or heat our homes ? Meh, it doesn't work, we break the resonance if we get greedy and tap it all at once. We will have to get the surplus and increase the efficiency of the thing.
In a few words, we disturb the medium with a little "push" and the nature makes and effort to reach equilibrium again but in the process "spills" lots more of it's energy. The "swing" is present all around us, you only have to pay attention. Even the internal combustion engine is a "free energy" device only it uses the wrong pushing energy. Yes you don't have to go to far to find those devices, we have them all around us, perverted in some way, or crippled, to act "normal"

Sorry for the long, off-topic post, promise to make them better in the future

True but population would need to be many thousands of times higher for land to have significant value. With nearly infinite available energy and energy -> matter conversion the globe could and would be organized more efficiently.

Large massive islands could be created, deserts could be modified to be as appealing as temperate areas.  There would be no need for mining, extraction, refining, timber production, etc.  Yield per acre of farmland would be many magnitudes higher (and that would be simply for people who don't want to eat synthesized food).  The ability to produce low cost, high strength materials (like carbon nanotubes) means that existing building limitations would become non-issues.  NY wouldn't have 200 story buildings it likely would have 5000 then 15,000, then 80,000 story buildings (if necessary).  Even the concept of "waste" (landfills, toxic waste, water treament) would radically change.  General purpose nano-dissasemblers could repurpose just about any matter into new productive forms.  All those changes would have a dramatic reduction in the "human footprint" (how much land you need to survive, not just your home but all the land to feed you, supply you clean water, and power, and all consumer goods).

It would take a very long time for the planet had sufficient population density for land to have significantly higher value than it does today.  There wouldn't be much need for interstellar "trade".  Simply put you could build whatever you want locally.  The only thing of meaningful trade would be ideas (entertainment, licensed designs, scientific breakthroughs, etc).  Without FTL there would be very little travel between worlds.  If FTL travel existed a single "info courier ship" making loop through human inhabited space could carry entire known sum of human knowledge for trade between worlds.  Once post-scarcity jump higher if an "ansible" was ever invented (instanteous communication regardless of distance) then the true scarcity (and likely basis for currency) would be FTL communication bandwidth.

TL/DR version:  OP scenario is sooooooooo post scarcity (beyond most other PS scenarios) that even physical location has very low (although I agree never 0) scarcity and thus value.

With UNLIMITED energy, I agree that the value of land would be low, but it might not be non-existing. Assuming no warp drive, physical proximity might be a big deal. Imagine your business competitors have a 20 minute head start as light travels from your space station back to Earth. Or you need to pay tolls to get your information through privately owned volumes of space.

Here's a recent article on the subject:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/10/the-future-of-cities.html

In case anyone wants to tip me, I'm still 13K6ukroqbAcajtNezR4G8w94DyX96kVMK

indeed, this is the second post that agrees somehow that bitcoin could fit in such a future, and i'm happy with it.
I will make sure i leave some bitcoins in the "cd-testament" to my family and every person i met, and remember, just in case it really gets adopted in more than 100 years 

Yes likely some form of digital currency would exist.  With nanotechnology most forms of physical currency could be instantly counterfitted.  With energy->matter conversion no form of physical currency would be viable.

Not sure if a Bitcoin type system would be viable.  The currency would be directly linked to a physical commodity which most likely would require banks/brokers to issue/destroy currency based on stored energy.  That would be difficult/impossible to accomplish in a no trusted third party environment.

  Assuming people arn't carting about battery sized canisters of megajoule capacity we could use Bitcoin to represent a specified amount of joules. So, 1BTC = 10^24 Joules or 1YJ?

Wait... you think that if
a) we had matter to energy conversion
AND
b) nearly infinite no cost energy

that land would be scarce?  Really? 
How about turning a whole bunch of energy into 5000km of land in the middle of the pacific ocean?
How about building a skyraker (15,000+ story skyscraper)
How about building orbital colonies?
How about taking all that energy and terraforming mars, massive orbital construction yards, and generational ships to get to the next star?

Land would be about as worthless as any other matter.

Time would be the only metric of value.  Labor and for most people the value of their time/labor would be so insignificant that it wouldn't even be worth accumulating.  Only people with a truly valuable gift would have time valued at anything of consequence.

Of course a & b are a very unlikely scenario.  More likely you have a but not b in which case energy is the scarcity.  You could do anything within imagination limited only by the amount of energy you had.  Thus easily accessible, stored energy becomes your money. 

  
  I would like to send some BTC your way as well, Explodicle.  You raise some good points about emergent monopolies and of human effort still being required in at least some part of replication.

  It can be agreed that emergent monopolies would be SoL. But, could it be possible for already existing ones to have enough control as to limit the individuals access to energy?

  Sorry if I mislead you with my ramblings about "Water World". The land thing made me think about the money aspects of it more so than the physical dirt I used as my opening point of reference. You bring up a very valid point in that people could just pick up and move on. I could imagine the next Sci-Fi step would be for the powers that be to find a way to manipulate the energy in a given space enough to prevent such things. Though, I invision similar to you in our ability to move freely. I would like to see it almost like EVE Online, circa 2005-06. Lots and lots of free, unclaimed space and massive opportunity for individuals to be as close or as far from any would be monopolies. I don't believe your second point would work if the people have the capability to move at will. Why pay anyone rent if we can be any where?

  I read through the "Race to the bottom" wiki and found it very enlightening. I especially enjoyed this section here; Political theory  "Races to the bottom can be described in 'game theory' by the prisoner's dilemma game. This is an exercise where the optimal outcome for the entire group of participants results from cooperation of the participants, but is put in danger by the fact that the optimal outcome for each individual is to not cooperate while the others do cooperate." If I recall correctly, and it is just as likely I do not, we had some lecture and practice on it in Political Science class my first year of college. Not sure I have the mental juice to go into it much so I wont drag us OT with it. ;p


  I agree 100% that human time and labor should still hold some value if only for the sole purpose of humans desiring to labor for whatever reasons. Will we even be required to design or program anything, assuming machines at such a point would quite likely be far superior to us in intelligence and ability?

  I have spent a small amount of time researching free energy as well. We will one day unlock access to the energy that makes up matter I am sure. Its amazing how far things have come just since I was in school even. I can remember our physics teacher 'quietly' mentioning the existence of three little flavors of quarks, while at the time the text books made only a very vague reference to a paper written in "64" that proposed such a thing and cautioning that it may not be proven yet since none of them had actually been 'observed'. And then, only a few years later scientests now propose that there are, what, 16 something of these elementary particles and that each of those may be a direct result of energy itself and not of smaller particles or outside source. I subscribe to the idea that the energy is from a 'dimension' that we are incapable of observing directly from any frame of reference that we are capable of.

  I have to wonder though, when we are able to harness such energy sources, what will the limitations be? Will we find that any given point in time and space is only capable of transfering a finite amount of energy? Could it be that in harnessing such energy, massive gravitational 'holes' could be created at the point where so much energy would converge in our space time?  What if said hole warped all the Qubits my wallet was stored on, destroying it?    Think I'll leave it at that. Hope to see some more input from the Borg here.

@Explodicle i appreciate the effort you put into explaining your points and, yes, i got your "land" example from the start, i was trying to make it resemble a "coin" type of money with the properties they must have (Portability, Divisibility, Durability, Sufficiently rare, Fungible, Un-consumable). Not even one entity will be able to have a monopoly on any resource, anything could be "replicated" even land. With the right tools on spaceships you could build entire planets out of nothing. All contemporary researchers agree on this point with E = m * C2 (matter is compressed energy).
I know the "free energy" concept is hard to grasp, it cost me few years of my life, but it's real and possible. We're floating in it, planets are suspended in it, scientists are actively looking for this elementary particle that makes the field we all live in, ring a bell ?

And one final point, before rewarding you the "Second ad-hoc prize" (0.10 btc), would be that in some distant future machines will do the hard physical work spending the energy (energy * work) in a determined amount of time. So if you'd have unlimited free energy and machines made to last you will be able to make "money" without limits. Of course that is relative too, the machines would require people design them, do maintenance, program them and operators that will have to make all the thinking (energy * intellect) for them. We people spend energy to think, allot sometimes. Machines or their parts will be "replicated" off course  

(pls pm me with your btc address Explodicle)

If an entity controlled most of the land and demanded rents higher than the value of their land, people might just teleport (break down and re-replicate) their buildings to somewhere with lower rents. The oppressive entity would starve itself - a sustained effort would prove very expensive, especially once foreign powers see the opportunity to attack. IMHO the whole matter = energy thing makes emergent monopolies of force less likely and would probably be smaller too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom

I'd also like to point out that in economics, land refers to the location, not the topsoil. You wouldn't trade a handful of dirt; you would perhaps trade shares of a corporation which rents out surface area and spends some of the proceeds to defend it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_(economics)

While mind uploading is not yet possible, human time and labor will remain scarce too. Just because one has a replicator doesn't mean he wants to operate it himself. Perhaps a day of labor might earn you a year of relaxation!

very kind of you, i'm sure a few more "deep thinkers" lurk around these forums too
btw, "Water World" was one of the movies a really liked, you don't get to see movies like that in present days though

I really think we will always have some kind of "coin" to exchange between us and use it as measurement for something we agree upon, basically because our lives are finite and all our thinking goes around that...

  Much appreciated.

  I am hopeful that their are many forward looking thinkers amongst all the big brains here on the forums. And, many more out there. Sadly, some of the 'thinkers' suffer a similar fate as the 'doers'. That is, more thinking than doing or more doing than thinking. It's a difficult task to balance the two, one I find that I am quite poor at.

  On topic, I will be more than happy to relinquish said 1 Bitcoin or to atleast share it with anyone else that would endeavour to further ponder a distant future with Bitcoin and share it here.

  I am still stuck with the concept of 'land' being traded largely as an item of value. It certainly fits the criteria of being scarce and having some level of value intrinsic in its benefits to survival. I think one of the things that gives land its value would also prove its inability to be widely useful. And, that is its scarcity. It is too finite. And while it would not be an inbuilt henderance to Bitcoin, it has potential to also affect it. Due to the finite nature of land it will become solely property of those that can successfully control it. Bitcoin or any other medium of exchange that has any semblance of physical association could potentially be controlled by those able to acquire a majority of it. I.e., ruling body sanctions >50% of the land by force or buys up >50% of a digital currency, allowing them to control the price by force.  Edit; Pretty much what is being done to cash. It is harder to see since they keep making more, that each recirculation of it sends less and less back through the 'pipe'.

  The handful of dirt in one's pocket reminds me of 'Water World'. Dirt was not necessarily the most important aspect though it did prove to be quite valuable, even more so than its weight in water. The strange thing was, that even in this world with very little more than the most basic of things needed for survival they still had a currency. I believe it was 'chits', or some such. It was a small metal coin. It was not traded in volumes that could be useful as a building material, and you certainly couldn't drink it or grow food from it. Yet, the people happily accepted it in trade for commodities. In other words, it was the mere fact that they knew they could exchange it for essentials that gave it value.  Why would anyone do that, especially in such a desperate state? I think the basic human answer is that they were receiving something tangible, something that was 'real'. Because they could sense it like any other thing, it made the very dangerous concept of accepting it in return for commodities that much easier.

  I agree that in the future it may not be required to use a 'store of value' medium in exchange for the things we can replicate but I have a hard time visializing humans without one. We will, as was suggested earlier, have a desire to peg the value of Bitcoin to something. I can see where Energy will be the absolute needed variable in that equation. Maybe, (Energy*Mental Quotient)/(Energy*Time) = Bitcoin Value?  Like I said, not my area by any stretch. ;p

  Anyone curious about the Philosophy of 'Intrinsic Value' might find this a good read, and probably familiar if you've taken a Phil course or 2;  http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-intrinsic-extrinsic/
  
  I will keep following in hope that some more ideas will be shared here.

  Cheers,
     Derek

a Thank You will do... ? 

OK, so your not a 7B denier. I do love your writing style. I didn't even have to catch my breath when reading the last sentence. I wish I was that good (not a jab, though by 7B post was in jest).

Now on to the winner:


What do I get for editing his post? (or is the cake a lie?)

Good job, sadpandatech. Very nice post.

Bruno

the small bitcoin prize is won by "sadpandatech",
I surely hope this issue gets some attention in the next years before some individual or organization manages to exploit human race with their technology