COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[francesco.decaro]

Bingo.
If me and the lady down the street trade eggs for tomatoes the government made nothing off that transaction. When my grandad traded a truck and some shine for a tractor a couple years ago neither party reported anything to any bank or government institution. The trade was dutifully recorded by my grandmother on a grocery bag and both parties signed. At one time leaders were warriors who brought value. We might share our tomatoes or eggs but they led the hunt. We don't have leaders anymore, we have rulers and they all want a cut.

But extend that to the globalists. Microsoft and Amazon don't have a record of those purchases either. My grandad isn't getting ads for tractors from software that swore it wasn't tracking him. We're used to worrying about governments but I fear the new corporate sponsored government will be even more intense and devious about control. Marketing people study how to manipulate you on a level the CIA would find impressive. We've already seen payment services controlling who does business. Banks, too. What happens when Visa decides it doesn't want to compete and any storefront that takes Visa has to say no to Bitcoin or Visa won't process payments anymore?

What happens is that people stop using Visa and start using Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is permissionless, and Visa can't do a damn thing to stop it. It is basically like cash.
This is me being hopeful of course.
Looking at how things have gone in the past two years, my bet is still on people going along with whatever they're told as long as they can keep the illusion going. There are people who pay taxes for the bitcoins that they have, when there is absolutely no reason for them to do it if they learnt how to buy and secure them in the proper way.

He is young and passionate. Completely useless, as most young idealists are, but he will make a decent cynic once he learns some things.

I appreciate your words, although I don't consider myself an idealist. Like most people here, I just wish I could be left alone. I don't wish to change the whole world based on mine or someone else's personal view by any means necessary.

[Mark Rippetoe]

There are people who pay taxes for the bitcoins that they have, when there is absolutely no reason for them to do it if they learnt how to buy and secure them in the proper way.

With what did they buy the Bitcoin?

[francesco.decaro]

With what did they buy the Bitcoin?

Most of them with fiat money, some of them selling goods and services in exchange for it.
I get it Rip, the world is currently still running on fiat money, but this doesn't invalidate the argument in favor of Bitcoin. I remind you this technology is 13 years old and already improved a lot of people's lives, it's got a long way to go.

[Laramie Hartmann]

What a bizarre restriction. Why would it merely be based on industrial uses? Aesthetic uses are what give it most of its value. When all the cheaply made imitations become rusted and worthless, gold will still have its shine. This is an inherent value. It's coveted because of a property that is intrinsic to the gold. Intrinsic value is clearly not meaningless.

I was responding to Mark's point regarding industrial uses. Intrinsic traits and intrinsic values are two different things. It's practical use as money is what gives it value. There are other aesthetically pleasing metals that aren't valued nearly as much. Part of (most of) the aesthetic value of gold is a penumbral effect from it's value as money. People like to flaunt their wealth.

No one covets bitcoins because of something intrinsic to the bitcoin, except perhaps the fact that it is pure abstraction, but that is being too generous.

I disagree. The fact that Bitcoin has similar intrinsic traits to gold is exactly why people covet it.

[Laramie Hartmann]

One of the roles of government is to guarantee a stable currency. How does bitcoin address that?

Bitcoin is still in its nascent stage, and I would expect high volatility during early adoption. However, it's volatility is trending down.

Despite the government's role/fed's dual mandate, we're still experiencing price stability issues with the US dollar. The dollar's value has plummeted over the last 100 years, demonstrating it's failure as a store of value, and we've got at least a few years of brutal inflation ahead of us--if the government decides to curtail expansionary monetary policy.

[Shiva Kaul]

Jenni raises a good point: barter could conceivably be better than currency for a digital economy. Digital currency is an costly, complex abstraction, whereas the physical impracticalities of lugging around your sheep, lumber, etc. are not problems for digital goods and services. It's more of a hassle to sell to heterogeneous buyers, but not impossible. Imagine listing all the goods in the market as A, B, C, ... and then drawing arrows A -> B to indicate "someone is willing to trade their B in return for A." Well-known algorithms can compute the cheapest way to get what you want, even when there are billions of goods in the market.

Of course, there is no room for grifting and bogus financial speculation in this system, so it won’t appeal to the crypto crowd.

[CommanderFun]

That is the question on everyone's mind. Note how the Democrats always accuse their enemies of what they themselves have done.

This isn't even a remotely unfair generalization. Every last thing they screamed Trump was going to do, this administration has actually done. Stifling the first amendment, starting wars abroad due to idiotic belligerence, arresting dissidents and even political opponents, ridiculous economic chaos that only the wealthy seem able to benefit from...

I've been thinking...if they had started drone striking actual US civilian targets...would we necessarily even KNOW about it at this point?

[Mark Rippetoe]

This woman kills, on so many levels. Kari Lake mic drop… This is masterclass… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Such quick thinking in response to "journalism."

[Laramie Hartmann]

Imagine listing all the goods in the market as A, B, C, ... and then drawing arrows A -> B to indicate "someone is willing to trade their B in return for A." Well-known algorithms can compute the cheapest way to get what you want, even when there are billions of goods in the market.

Or you could just use gold.

Of course, there is no room for grifting and bogus financial speculation in this system, so it won’t appeal to the crypto crowd.

Please don't lump Bitcoin maximalists in with people buying digital art NFTs and gambling on alt/shitcoins. And for bogus financial speculation, we already have our current fiat system.

[Pierre-Henry F.]

We're used to worrying about governments but I fear the new corporate sponsored government will be even more intense and devious about control.

Bloomberg:

In Fink We Trust: BlackRock Is Now ‘Fourth Branch of Government’
...
“They are so intertwined in the market and government that it’s a really interesting tangle of conflicts,”
says Steele, who formerly worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
“In the advocacy community there’s an opinion that asset managers, and this one in particular, need greater oversight.”
Already there are growing worries about the power of BlackRock, Vanguard Group Inc.,
and State Street, often called the Big Three because they hold about 80% of all indexed money.
...

There is probably an interesting discussion to have about what is a Government and what it is supposed to do.
It would help clarify what we are dealing with here.
Is a Government just a bunch of people trying to have power over others?
Or something else?
Of course Hobbes comes to mind, yet something is different today.
We have reached a concentration of power that is unheard of.
Where are the matching control mechanisms?
It seems that, at the time, the Founding Fathers thought about a control mechanism such as:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Maybe do we need an update.