Topic: Should we be trying harder to stop the BTC black market? - page 3. (Read 14845 times)

The truth is that bitcoin would never have been as popular as it is today if the black market, specifically silk road, didn't kickstart it's awareness. I actually believe it still is the main recruiting factor.

For the sake of everyone reading this thread, I hope this poster keeps his word.

You sure love to ASSume a fuck-ton from pithy replies and go TL;DR...


This. /endthread /unwatchthread

What black market?  All I see are individuals freely trading goods and services without interference.   

My feelings exactly. The idea that western colleges are propaganda factories is totally off base. Very few places in society encourage such individualism and freedom of thought... certainly not the corporate structure. Certainly not any religious institution. Those are the systems controlling us with propaganda and dogma, not institutions of higher education. Education, self awareness, understanding of history and economics, these are things that liberate populations. Most of the world votes against their own financial interests happily because they don't know any better.



hehe well that is not saying a whole lot.

Again, maybe I'm biased because my school was good, or because my parents were good, or because I just have a different level of curiosity, but thinking is exactly what we were taught to do. Yes, we had to read and memorize a lot, but it was all in order for us to answer questions that both the teachers and the students thought to be important. In my experience, I was taught why things happen, what kinds of choices are available for those things, what kinds of choices others have made, and what were the consequences of those choices. This applied to sciences, history, literature, and even computer programming. Learning this gave me a base upon which to make my own more educated choices, even if part of that education involved learning how to regurgitate information about those choices and their various outcomes.
In the end, after going to a good (well funded) public school, then a public community college, and then two public universities, I have come out of it with a very good understanding of social structures, politics, business, and economics, all of which have put me strongly into the libertarian/ anarcho-capitalist group. So, I myself am proof that public education =/= socialist indoctrination. If you want to argue that, you'll have to at least try to explain to me why your theory doesn't apply to me.
(P.S. my first four years of public education was in USSR, which had way more propaganda than schools in Americas)

+1. Schools are there to produce compliant little worker drones.

Maybe so. But there's been a bit of thread drift in this derailment. Looking back at the original point, it was that no/low taxes would mean no one would get educated and there would be no computers. It's a far cry from being against a centrally controlled compulsorily funded behemoth of an education system to not believing that opportunities should exist for those who would otherwise achieve if not held back by circumstances.

Except, they don't teach you how to think.  They don't teach you to ask why, they teach you to regurgitate information.  They don't teach you freedom of choice, no, and they don't teach you how to be happy.  That's all that really matters in life, right?  Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum.

lmfao

What a crazy, off-topic subject to bring up in this thread!

Surely we should be calling it the African-American market?

Sounds as easy as stopping BTC. Any suggestions as to how?

Also, should we be trying harder to stop the BTC black market?

Regardless of the quality of your public school education, the one thing they do teach is how to study and learn; skills you later use if you decide to go to a university.
My personal opinion on public schools is biased, because the one I went to used to be one of the top 10 in the country (don't know what it is now). But regardless, the one thing that still keeps me conflicted between free-market anarcho-capitalism and centralized public schooling is fairness from lack of choice. Specifically, while adults can make their own choices (go to university or not) and live with the consequences thereof (be wealthy or poor), children are at the mercy of their parents, and have no say in what education they are able to get. In a system without public schooling, some kids (especially those from poorer, or more lunatic families) will not get any education. And sure, eventually those areas will become too dumb and unproductive, and the free market will punish them severely, but looking at history (and places like Alabama and Mississippi), the lessons learned from that punishment will not be "hey, we need education," but rather "I hate those elitists who think they know everything, and we should go kill them." More importantly, regarding children and lack of choice in education, I think that everyone should at least start on equal footing (or a reasonably similar footing) when they reach a point at which they are capable of making decisions as to whether to f*ck up their lives or not.

The educational system now bears little resemblance to that of a hundred years ago. Perhaps we need to define what kind of system we are discussing since it covers quite a range of options and I'm certainly not saying there should be no organized options at all.

You're right, we don't live in pre-industrial times which makes your statement "Look at how things were before we had an educational system and look at countries where the educational system is not effective." somewhat meaningless. Universities have existed for a long time (Oxford, founded somewhere around the end of the first millenium) for trades, guilds and vocational training were the norm. It's an untestable assertion that things would not have progressed as well or better than they have in a post-industrial world without a top-heavy compulsory educational system. Certainly my own experience is that the state schools system server high academic achievers and low academic achievers equally poorly and the skills I learned which I use in my current occupation were learned alongside my university teaching (and where the two coincided, the self-taught far surpassed the taught).

Jesus f h christ, education is much more than litteracy alone. We don't live in pre-industrial times.
And in any case, by 1870 the educational system was already growing for 100 years.
So in those days about half of that 90% of yours was provided by the educational system.

 In The Transofmration of the American Economy, Robert Higgs touches upon the subject,

In 1870 about 90 percent of adult white Americans could read and write; by 1910, 95 percent possessed these basic skills.  For obvious reasons, literacy was much less prevalent among the nonwhite population - predominately blacks - but improvement was rapid.  In 1870 only about 20 percent of the adult nonwhite population was literate; by 1910 the proportion had increased to 70 percent. (p. 34.)

No offense but clearly you aren't basing these opinions of Ron Paul on his own words.  He certainly does not want to give total immunity to corporations, but rather make them not immune but vulnerable to market forces instead of having properly connected politicians bail them out with public funds.  He speaks of ending the forcing of externalities onto the public.  As I'm NOT sure you know he is a doctor himself and certainly does not want no health care or pensions but the freedom to choose what health care and pensions you would like.  

Obviously you never saw him speak on abortion because he would never consider a ban on abortion and consistently says the federal govt. has no authority in that arena.  And where did you get that bit about a federal officer supervising every time a vagina is examined?  Humorously wrong because he IS a gynecologist.  

As for Rand I have no idea because I haven't heard him talk much or checked his voting record (see how that works?), but I have a hunch you are right.    

Sweet. Your demonstration of complete ignorance of the subject means I can feel free to disregard any more you have to say on the matter.

Never apologize for your opinions.


Not sure what you mean by "education system".  When the pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower there was an education system.  It was called a "one-room schoolhouse" or even "homeschooling".  Either one is completely legitimate.