What are your thoughts on BitCoin?

[hobbsyoyo]

He often literally replies to people's post with nothing but 'hahahahahahaha'. I've seen it many times. I wouldn't tell him 'excellent point' because he probably doesn't realize you're being sarcastic.

Says the guy who walked out of a serious debate with

/unsubscribe

I would ask if you realize you are being hypocritical, but the whole debate in that other thread proves you don't.

 

[Leoreth]

He often literally replies to people's post with nothing but 'hahahahahahaha'. I've seen it many times. I wouldn't tell him 'excellent point' because he probably doesn't realize you're being sarcastic.

For someone who made a great show out of speaking out against ad hominem posts you sure are fast to do the same thing yourself.

Edit: missed the new page.

 

[Cutlass]

What do you mean by "disrupts the economy"? I'm still not seeing how this leads to real problems. Just let P fluctuate as needed - the general economy, and pricing of goods and services in USD doesn't depend on bitcoins, so P for bitcoins can go up arbitrarily.

What happens when the amount of money available to the economy is not equal to the need? It forces prices to change. And when the money is fixed, it forces prices to go down. That is deflation. Now no one accepts deflation without a fight. And that causes disruptions. But it is worse than that, because debts are denominated in constant units. So if a business is forced to take a lower price, that means that they have to pass on that lower price to everyone else. Except that they cannot. So labor is forced to earn less. Now both the company and all the labor have less ability to pay their debts. And that means defaults. Too many defaults, and the banks fail and the companies go out of business. Mass layoffs follow. Then mass bank failures. Which causes more businesses to go out of business and lay off more labor which causes more banks to go out of business.

Depressions follow.

 

[Leoreth]

Zelig isn't arguing like the libertarians who'd like their pet currency to replace the Dollar. He only wants to keep it as a currency for limited purposes such as untraceable transactions.

 

[Crezth]

And he is wasting his time. Nobody here is advocating for bitcoins to be erased or illegalized and nobody is saying bitcoins aren't useful if you want to break commercial law. We're just saying it's stupid, and investing in bitcoins is stupid. This is true insofar as it applies to people who aren't con-men or drug dealers. If you're either of those, go crazy. If you want to use bitcoins to buy some weed, whatever man. But saying stuff like "I don't see the problem with volatility" shows your ignorance and rather blatantly demonstrates how one's true intentions vis a vis white-knighting bitcoins.

 

[Zelig]

And he is wasting his time. Nobody here is advocating for bitcoins to be erased or illegalized and nobody is saying bitcoins aren't useful if you want to break commercial law. We're just saying it's stupid, and investing in bitcoins is stupid. This is true insofar as it applies to people who aren't con-men or drug dealers. If you're either of those, go crazy. If you want to use bitcoins to buy some weed, whatever man. But saying stuff like "I don't see the problem with volatility" shows your ignorance and rather blatantly demonstrates how one's true intentions vis a vis white-knighting bitcoins.

I've specifically said that they're not appropriate as investments, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Crezth]

Your disingenuousity disgusts me.

How are bitcoins not useful? I really don't get the irrational hate for them, every other post in this thread is filled with it, without a single actual argument against them.

It's like someone walking into a Nazi thread, saying "why is Hitler evil? I don't get the irrational hate in here" and deflecting insinuations that they might be a nazi-sympathizer. You're a bitcoin sympathizer! Admit it, you turkey!

 

[ParkCungHee]

And he is wasting his time. Nobody here is advocating for bitcoins to be erased or illegalized and nobody is saying bitcoins aren't useful if you want to break commercial law. We're just saying it's stupid, and investing in bitcoins is stupid. This is true insofar as it applies to people who aren't con-men or drug dealers. If you're either of those, go crazy. If you want to use bitcoins to buy some weed, whatever man. But saying stuff like "I don't see the problem with volatility" shows your ignorance and rather blatantly demonstrates how one's true intentions vis a vis white-knighting bitcoins.

What about novelty?

They got physical bitcoins now, I bet they're worth something to a collector.

 

[Nick Carpathia]

Hahaha, apparently the people using bitcoin just forked the blockchain. What this effectively means is that there are two "versions" of bitcoins that dispute one another's transactions.

Using bitcoin to buy weed on the internet is a perfectly fine idea. Just don't expect it to be a useful day-to-day currency. From my understanding, it takes about 10 minutes for a transaction to propagate through the internet. Ten. Minutes. Jesus, can you imagine someone standing in front of you at the checkout for Ten. Minutes?

 

[shadowplay]

There appears to be another use for bitcoins - causing aneurysms.

 

[Mise]

As someone who doesn't really give a crap about bitcoins, I have to say that the arguments against bitcoins have been rather uninspiring. Yeah, I'm sure bitcoins can't replace USD, but so what? Lost of currencies can't replace the USD. Lots of currencies are volatile. Lots of currencies have deflation problems, or are poorly administered, or have massive fraud, or are terrible investments. In any currency, you can only buy stuff from other people who will accept that currency. If I have Jamaican Dollars, I can only use it to buy stuff from within the Jamaican economy. Nobody would criticise Jamaican Dollars because they have to convert from J$ to US$ if I want to buy something "in the real world" (i.e. in the USA, which for many Americans is the only thing that ever counts as "the real world"). But for people who live in Jamaica, and who accept and pay for things in Jamaican Dollars, it works fine. So where's the problem? Nobody calls Jamaican Dollars "bluntcoins" or something. Nobody says "I don't think the Jamaican Dollar should be illegal, or that it isn't useful if you want to buy things in Jamaica. I'm just saying that the Jamaican Dollar is stupid".

Yeah, sure, crazies go nuts over bitcoins and advocate them as the currency of the future. "Fine, whatever, man." Crazy people talk about the demise of the USD and the rise of the Rouble or the Yuan or whatever too. People stock up on gold and buy $3,000 worth of silver on ebay with their credit card because they think it will be the only form of currency after the inevitable USD collapse. Who cares? Crazies be cray cray. But in the case of Bitcoins, the hatred seems to have spilled over onto the thing itself, which is bizarre because the thing is just a thing. Nobody suggests that gold is stupid, or calls gold coins "cockcoins". I mean, gold as a currency really is stupid, but it's stupid for reasons that are independent of the people who buy gold because they think the world is going to end and the government is poisoning the water supply with flouride to prevent them from evolving. It's stupid for reasons Cutlass is talking about. But those are "weaker" arguments, because we've used gold as a currency for bloody ages and all it caused were a few depressions here and there. The fact that we can compare bitcoins to a currency that we've actually used, like, in real life, with real people and real countries basing their entire economies around them, to me tells me that bitcoins aren't quite as stupid as people are saying...

A lot of people here really do sound like massive pricks right now.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Do tell who are the biggest pricks so we can compare e-peens, please.

 

[useless]

Who actually uses bitcoins, in day to day transactions?

What companies accept them? At least other, official currencies are recognised.

Do tell who are the biggest pricks so we can compare e-peens, please.

Pointing out the absurdity of bitcoins = Being a prick apparently.

 

[amadeus]

HA HA LIBERTARDS THAT IS SO FUNNY AND ORIGINAL EVERYONE

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Touche?

 

[useless]

Yeah, it is pretty funny!

I'm literally loling right now (laughing out loud in internet speak)!

 

[Mise]

Sounding like a prick = sounding like a prick.

Y'all have this weird bee in your bonnet about bitcoins. Or should I say buttcoins hahahahahaha lol i'm 12

 

[Leoreth]

@Mise: Damn you for being a sensible person with differentiated opinions again

But I don't think your comparison to the Jamaican Dollar is very fair. The Jamaican dollar is just like the US dollar. Supported by central banking, under monetary control, traceable by Jamaican law enforcement agencies and so on. It serves the same purpose as the US dollar, only that it's the legal tender in another part of the world.

You're right that most of the criticism of BitCoin targets the BitCoin community, but most are aware of that. Dachs' post didn't make any secret of that, for example. It's just that at this point, the BitCoin community is really inseparable from the currency itself. And I think it's reasonable to assume that part of the design of them was specifically to attract this sort of people. I can only repeat what I said before: cryptographic currency and so on is interesting and useful beyond what organ traffickers are doing. But the people who created them inexplicably chose to combine this with the whole decentralized banking ideal and the mining process. There certainly is some kind of libertarian idealism inherent to the currency itself.

Getting back to your Jamaican dollar comparison, people who would claim that investing into Zimbabwe dollars is a legitimate source of income or a useful medium of exchange deserve to be mocked. And the only people using Zimbabwe dollars weren't Zimbabweans who are forced to do so by law / economic necessity, but "investors" doing so on their own volition, then the Zimbabwe dollar also deserves to be mocked. Especially if it was specifically designed with these people in mind.

Not to mention that the entire bitcoin "economy" currently experiences all the problems mainstream economists have predicted for decentralized currencies, even before it has even entered the real world economy. Now you can even see parts of the supposed idealists calling for some sort of third party oversight and so on. I for one can understand that people take satisfaction in telling them "We told you so".

 

[Crezth]

HA HA LIBERTARDS THAT IS SO FUNNY AND ORIGINAL EVERYONE

IS A MAN NOT ENTITLED TO THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW?



"NO" says the man in Washington, it belongs to the POOR



"NO" says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to GOD



"NO" says the man in Moscow, it belongs to EVERYONE



Well, I rejected those answer. I chose something different. I CHOSE THE IMPOSSIBLE. I CHOSE... BITCOIN



A currency that would not fear prosperity, a medium of exchange that would not be bound by petty convenience, WHERE THE GREAT WOULD NOT BE CONSTRAINED BY THE SMALL. And, with the sweat of your brow mining rig, bitcoins can become your fake money as well.

 

[Mise]

@Leoreth: Well I'm quite sympathetic to arguments that criticise things that are inherent or unique to Bitcoins. However, the point of the Jamaican Dollar analogy is that most of the criticisms are not inherent or unique to Bitcoins. I don't think investing in bitcoins is as stupid as investing in Zimbabwe dollars. Moreover, I don't think that Zimbabwe dollars are stupid. It's just a currency that has been poorly managed. I'm happy to agree that Bitcoins are as stupid as Zimbabwe Dollars -- as long as we agree that Zimbabwe Dollars are not stupid. And I'm happy to agree that investing in Bitcoins is as stupid as making any kind of speculative bet on a paper asset with no underlying worth -- that is, it's as stupid as investing in Gold, or betting on sports or a card game. Finally, I'm happy to agree that Bitcoins would make a terrible currency, or a terrible replacement for the dollar, as long as we agree that "terrible" is in the context of other options such as a return to the gold standard. That is, it's about as bad as the gold standard, which in the grand scheme of things isn't all that stupid at all.