Bitcoin mining made easy

[NeonStorm]

!ban SkyNet :D

(info: SkyNet is the angle point of Terminator - the big AI behind the common enemy robots)

If the AI in Terminator would recognize that it loses it's purpose after destroying the last human beings, it would see that it destructs itself either way. Also many parts of the human culture are also some kind of "technology".
-> SkyNet is intelligent enough to be a serious enemy and too stupid to live peacefully (it could expand into space and leave humans behind instead of fighting them and destroying invaluable/unclear values).

The same thing apply to us humans.
We know the right way, but can't manage to go this way because of single peoples which got too rich by exponentially growth - and the lack of common knowledge in the topic of investment return.

[SinbadEV]

Reasonably Speaking I think SkyNet would likely move towards a Utopian Society or Matrix-like human care machine... the struggle we see in the Terminator movies is simply the quelling of a rebellious faction that SkyNet sees as harmful to the common good and a danger to it's own ability to care for humanity.

[NeonStorm]

> harmful to the common good and a danger to it's own ability to care for humanity.
Itself is also harmful, so should it kill itself? :)

So, how much more money/power/influence do you want to let other peoples with unclear (to you) intentions hoard by giving them the information they need to increase their money exponentially?

[SinbadEV]

I'm waiting for the point where rich people are so rich and everyone else is so poor that the "system" will no longer benefit the common man and laws and money will no longer be relevant... sadly I don't think there's a way to fix the mess that's been made without breaking it the rest of the way first.

As such, anything that horribly destabilizes the status quo (like BitCoin) can be seen as a net gain in the long term.

Of course I'm in a cynical mood these last few days... on good days I see communities bootstrapping themselves into self-governed self-sufficient (with trade) micro-nation-states and/or employee owned corporations.

[gajop]

As such, anything that horribly destabilizes the status quo (like BitCoin) can be seen as a net gain in the long term.

I think anonymous/opaque trading services like BitCoin would just make the matter worse.
Imagine if there was no way to track the (really rich) people's wealth, transactions, etc.? That could be abused to secretly fund so many illegal (tax evasion) and just evil things (corruption, media/people suppression), it would be worse for the rest of us.

Btw, I'd like to see the world change for the better as far as economical fairness goes without having to destroy it first.

[NeonStorm]

I think anonymous/opaque trading services like BitCoin would just make the matter worse.

Not trading services, but hidden properties / property storages.
(like a secret basement full of gold instead a bank account)

The rich ones don't need those services.

But +1 on everything else

[Neddie]

I'm waiting for the point where rich people are so rich and everyone else is so poor that the "system" will no longer benefit the common man...

Look no further than the past fifteen years. Sadly, awareness is low.

[SpliFF]

... though in a way the companies making these new and better BitMiners ARE contributing to the science of supercomputing... if we ever need to calculate something really really complex humanity will be glad we have way more processing power than we could ever reasonably need for anything practical...

Bitcoin mining is about generating hashes to solve an entirely artificial problem. If anything Bitcoin will contribute to the downfall of humanity as we wade through piles of discarded ASICs with the same utility as an AOL signup CD.

[zwzsg]

Bitcoin is, by design, a system where money gain value over time, which encourage hoarding, and is generally good for rich people and bad for poor people.

Anyone has experience with LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) (or SEL in French) ? From what I read it sounds like a much better way to help the common man against the sick financial system.

[SpliFF]

The BTC money does not 'gain value', it had none to begin with. It simply inflates/deflates at a given exchange. The only 'value' are the services being traded and every service provider or exchange can choose their own price. There are no subsidies, taxes, fines, official rates, trade barriers, duties, blacklists, FIDS, VATs, GSTs, interest rates, cartels, monopolies, patents, trade sanctions, transaction fees, exchange rates, wholesale price or any other such nonsense that can be forced on bitcoin users because:

a.) It's anonymous, at least it can be if you want.
- and -
b.) It's decentralised


All of these attempts to treat bitcoin as following the model of traditional currencies are utter nonsense. It isn't subject to their rules. It isn't subject to ANY rules except:

a.) You need a computer
- and -
b.) There's a limited supply of 'coins'
- and -
c.) The supplier of goods must accept bitcoin

There is no rule that requires a coin to have any particular 'value'.

[gajop]

Once you get out of the philosophical debate about what value is, you will realize that it can be exchanged for other currencies and eventually for goods that matter.

It's also simplistic to think that all those things you mentioned are bad for the economy. Some of them are probably crucial in order not to have monopolies, and other economical power plays.

[SpliFF]

It's not a philosophical debate about value. It's a simple fact. Bitcoin is only as valuable as the buyer and seller decide. If somebody wants to offer a service for more or less BTC they can. If you want to buy and/or hoard BTC you're gambling on its future utility and in that respect you might as well bet on horses.

As far as I know there is no existing decentralised currency. That gives BTC properties that make it ineligable for analysis using existing economic forecasting tools. The things I listed above are only 'bad' in the sense they can force a minimum price on goods. BTC does NOT force a minimum price so it has no forced effect on 'value'. Maybe it has a perceived one but perceptions can easily change.

I don't see why you consider that a philosphy when it is so clearly a fact. The only alternative to 'BTC has no value' is 'Everybody using BTC will collude on prices' and that's clearly impossible unless there are only a limited number of sellers of that good.

Governments can always crack down on sellers but one nice thing about BTC is it makes that harder. I think that's a good thing but your mileage may vary.

A curious thing about all this is that some sellers may choose to sell below 'cost'. Spring itself is an example of this (altruism). BTC could actually become popular with altruists and that would basically make it the currency of donations and open-source (making it basically worthless to monopolists). Interesting thought wouldn't you agree?

[zwzsg]

What I meant by "gain" value was that, since there is a fixed amount of bitcoin, and assuming it gets used more, there will be less bitcoin per user. Also, on average for the last centuries, human societies are getting richer, in terms of goods. So you've got more people, more goods, but not more bitcoin. So they become more valuable.

Yes, there are no central authority setting the value of bitcoin. But, hey, neither for dollars and euros anyway! It's always the market that decide on how to price things.

The difference is that for euros, dollars, etc... you got governement that can print money, and the more money in circulation, the less each bill is worth.

But it's still an indirect way, and, be it either euros or bitcoins, nobody is assigning exact value for coin. It just tends to depends roughly on the inverse of the number of coin in circulation.

[gajop]

@SpliFF
You can say this just as well:

If somebody wants to offer a service for more or less dollars they can.

.
Having a maximum(can't exploit monopoly to earn obscene amounts of money)/minimum(can't undercut competition to destroy them) price of goods is a good thing as it fights monopoly.

I'm not an anarchist. I want a government which mandates rules that make the whole economy game a bit more fair. It's also obvious to me that it's not fair enough currently, but it would only be less so with BTC.

Also I think it's wrong to confuse donations with buying stuff cheaply.

[zwzsg]

It's not a philosophical debate about value.

It is a philosophical debate about what's good for human society. You hold the rightish view that society would be better of if governement would stop meddling with money. You believe free (as in freedom), anymous, decentralised money will bring good things. I am not sure of that. Because when there is no law, then it's the law of the strongest.

A curious thing about all this is that some sellers may choose to sell below 'cost'. Spring itself is an example of this (altruism). BTC could actually become popular with altruists and that would basically make it the currency of donations and open-source (making it basically worthless to monopolists). Interesting thought wouldn't you agree?

Or sellers could choose to sell above 'cost'. And it could become popular with wrong-doers and become the currency of theft, offence and crimes. Scary thought wouldn't you agree?

So, do you have any argument suggesting it will lean toward your forecast rather than mine?

It seem to me that whole deal about anymous, free of governement and offical controls, makes bitcoin very attractive to unlawful activities. Whereas for donation, I don't see which advantage bitcoin offer over regular money. To the contrary, since donation to charities are often tax-deductible, and some donators are proud to donate, using regular money is preferable.

[knorke]

I want to buy this nice vintage russian picture.
It costs 0,199 BTC (= 35,84 EUR) but I do not have so many BTC.
So I exchange EUR for BTC and buy the picture. But is that not the same as if I had paid with EUR in the first place, especially should the seller exchange his BTC for EUR again.
How much impact on peoples everyday money handling will these very small scaled transcation really have?

[SpliFF]

@zwzsg: I know what you meant, I just dispute it. BTC might 'run out' but it isn't gold - it only has value as a means of exchange. It's only slightly better than an IOU. If whole coins become 'too valuable' then people will trade in partial coins (if technically feasible) and if not feasible it's entirely probable other BTC currencies will emerge to meet the demand.

To answer your second concern there is almost no proof that decentralisation makes a society "worse". On the other hand history is more or less full of evil dictatorships, even the so-called "benign" ones. The strong eating the weak is alive and well in so-called "lawful" countries but the strong are in fact even stronger.

To answer your third point it's basically the same as the second. I'm more afraid of centralised evil than decentralised evil. Your decentralised criminal is your pot dealer, lone-wolf gunman and "crime-of-passion" murderer. Your centralised criminal is your Mafias and Triads, Pol Pots, Nazis, Al-Quadeas, Kim-Jongs and Neo-cons. Your centralised criminal can already launder money, BTC just helps the little guy (from what I hear a LOT of pot is being traded in BTC).

@gajop: Dollars are not just set by markets but by central banks and governments as well. What you're missing here is that people are essentially forced to use dollars whereas bitcoin is an optional alternative currency. That removes the government/bank monopoly on setting values.

Keep in mind that the value of the US dollar is entirely artificial and has little to do with markets or the economy but is almost entirely based on the fact that the U.S. requires foreign countries to trade oil in USD. Without that monopoly the USD is basically worthless since the U.S. economy makes a net loss every year and has absolutely no chance of recovering since the GFC. Only a centrally managed currency is susceptible to that sort of crap.

All I'm hearing from you guys is the kind of "wisdom" that keeps economists employed. You still can't make an argument on the pros/cons of BTC without mentioning other currencies and that's where you fail. Bitcoin is not "another currency" any more than free open-source software is "another product".

[malric]

It seem to me that whole deal about anonymous, free of government and official controls, makes bitcoin very attractive to unlawful activities.

Your perspective (and I do not disagree with it necessarily, just want to give another point of view) is that government and official control is not "unlawful activity". If you consider corruption/stupidity/etc. the society might not have any reasonable choice to avoid bad decisions, because everything is controlled centrally.

Regarding Knorke's example, if tomorrow the ECB (European Central Bank) decides to print twice the amount of EUR that there are in circulation, your 35 eur will devalue to (lets say) half, and you have no way to stop it. It's the government that controls the value of the money.

Now, I have no clue which model is better, or how to improve it, so this is still an interesting discussion .

[knorke]

All I'm hearing from you guys is the kind of "wisdom" that keeps economists employed. You still can't make an argument on the pros/cons of BTC without mentioning other currencies and that's where you fail.

But how else can average Joe be part of BTC system?
He gets paid in dollar,euros, etc so HAS exchange them for BTC if he wants to buy anything with BTC. Atm you can not buy much with BTC anyway, so there will often be need to exchange BTC for dollars...

[SpliFF]

If enough average Joes find the cost of entry to BTC too high then sooner or later an alternative BTC system will arise. That's what I keep trying to say. There is nothing forcing you to use BTC so if the holders of BTC price their "stock" too high they'll probably lose it all. BTC as an implementation can be copied so society on the whole will lose nothing. Only BTC speculators and hoarders really stand to lose.

It makes you wonder why nearly every Government insists on a single currency. It might be about making life simpler but it might also be about control.