What are your thoughts on BitCoin?
- Thread starter aimeeandbeatles
- Start date
They are not, but in this particular case I think the similarities are strong. Both have value that is largely based on their use an a medium of exchange rather than their intrinsic worth, and the mining of both have a non-trivial environmental impact.
That's a big call since gold is seldom used as a medium of exchange. I honestly couldn't tell you what a new laptop would be worth in gold; I'd have to convert the gold price into dollars and back again to figure it out. There's other problems like the fact that gold prices can vary considerably and that gold has clear industrial uses and is geologically quite rare. It's just not a good medium of exchange. It's not even a good store of value either.
As far as I can tell, we don't really use bitcoins as a medium of exchange either. You would convert them into a currency if you wanted to use their value store. And yeah, other than the fact that gold can be tranched, I'd say that the analogy with regards to mining is a reasonable one.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Meh. Gold has other uses. Insofar as Bitcoins are useful for managing intercontinental transactions, I don't see how that technology necessitates "mining" a "scarce" "resource." Like a better solution to the problem of international transaction fees couldn't be imagined.
It's mostly an argument against the technocrat-libertarians who say, for example, that Bitcoin is such a sleek, modern take on an old problem. Modern, yeah; sleek, arguably not. And using up so much of that processing power we "should" be using on finding ET or curing cancer or whatever.
Oh, I'll not deny gold has other uses, especially if you put 'beauty' into uses.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Very clever, but you'd be wrong by error of omission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Industry
So don't get bitcoins if they're not useful to you - just like any other currency.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
They're not that useful to anyone who wants to buy everyday things without having to fly halfway around the world unlelss you want to buy illegal stuff. You can't buy groceries, gas, or much else with Bitcoin that you need everyday. Each currency is useful in its home country to walk down the street and buy everyday things, BitCoin is not useful like there anywhere.
So just like any other currency in all but <1% of countries each?
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
As I said, each country has its home where its useful, that place is where people spend most of their lives. Bitcoin has that kind of usefulness absolutely nowhere. You can buy everyday needs with Bitcoin anywhere in the world. Its not accepted countrywide anywhere on earth.
It has some usefulness everywhere. Swaziland currency has no usefulness anywhere outside of Swaziland.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
That's not true. There are currency collectors and people who want to trade for Swaziland currency outside of Swaziland.
Archbob
Ancient CFC Guardian
It has very little usefulness anywhere. Swaziland currency has usefulness in Swaziland, there is no Bitcoinland. If you have Swaziland currency, your probably from Swaziland. It doesn't matter which country your from or spend most of your time in, because Bitcoin is going to be fairly useless in that country to buy everyday things, no matter where you are.
They can be approximated as not existing.
Bitcoin has more than 0.00014019346 x the utility of Lilangenis.
useless
Social Justice Rogue
Usefulness is being able to buy pizza from a different country (specifically netherlands) and being able to order drugs from websites now closely monitored (and probably run) by the fbi.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Bitcoins can be approximated as not existing. For example, if people stopped trading in Bitcoins, one pizza shop in the Netherlands would go out of business. If people stopped trading in Swazi currency, that's a whole country with no means to exchange debt.
Which isn't relevant at all to bitcoins being more useful than Lilangenis.
useless
Social Justice Rogue
Guys don't you know it's all about the Dogecoins now?
so wow
so wow
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
Well if we're going to start throwing wild unqualified approximations about, then who's to say?
