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The fatalism in this comment disgusting. But more importantly, it is wrong.

I haven't been here long, but I remember hearing about the inevitability of SOPA and PIPA and CISPA and every other misguided attempt at regulation. The "inevitability" was a lie then, and its a lie now. Its a lie perpetrated by people would rather believe they are persecuted than accept the burden of trying to make a difference. They cry "The world is bogus! I give up!" and retreat because it is easy, because it is safe.

This quote is important:

“Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.”

Your cynicism is a giant middle finger to anyone who has ever fought for anything and won. Read a history textbook and you'll find every page has the name of someone who took on forces greater than themselves and won. Do you think they were so different? Do you think they had some divine authority? Do you think they were successful because they won a lottery?

There were people who fought for things when it meant death, when speaking your mind meant being killed. But I can go anywhere in the world and say "Barrack Obama is a piece of shit" and sign my name to it. The most powerful man on the planet is, in many ways, no more powerful than me.

Your understanding of humanity is fundamentally flawed because it assumes the past is our destiny. If you believe that, you don't have a single thing to offer the world.

Eloquent. Punchy. Awesome.

thank you.

This forum has some of the brightest people in the world visiting it... not to mention the richest.

If cynicism takes root here, where else is there to turn?

I'll reply to the only part of this comment that barely interested me, and probably the only part that even deserves a response:

> Do you think they were successful because they won a lottery?

Yes.

He wasn't talking about Zuckerberg. What lottery did MLK win?

The lottery of being born in the right place at the right time. Same goes for any historical figure; transplant any of them out of their historical context and they disappear.

You live in an interesting reality where any single person's success can be attributed to their circumstance.

It was a fantastic comment, it is a real shame you are not giving it more credit. Extremely arrogant.

Arrogance is understating it. He talks about a single sentence being "barely interesting" to him. I wonder who the hell he thinks he is.

Just wanted to add that the cynicism quote is by Stephen Colbert; one of my favorite quotes: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/95264-remember-you-cannot-be...

> “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.”

Source for the quote below, I have to say that the longer version is equally, if not more, powerful.

    https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert

>But I can go anywhere in the world and say "Barrack Obama is a piece of shit" and sign my name to it.

Not if you don't want to get audited by the IRS.

1) Barrack Obama is not Johnny Bravo. 2) There's no way the IRS could audit everyone who said that.

Now organizations using the words 'tea party' in their name, on the other hand ...

It wasn't just Tea Party groups. It was anybody on Obama's enemies list, including journalists who asked questions he didn't like. All that's going to come out in the hearings.

I haven't really been following the story closely so I will wait and see. But to be honest, I don't really buy that.

Cynicism is just a mask of rationalization to be a critical bystander from the sidelines rather than seize the moment.

You can achieve almost anything in this world if you're willing to trade your life. However, the original comment seems to have the assumption that the cause in question is not worth dying for. The set of things that governments will kill to protect is larger than the one that people will die defending.

Thinking that this empty rhetoric could convince any rational person of anything makes you far more cynical than the comment you're replying to.

edit: just looked at the replies. Your comment is not only far more cynical than the comment responded to, but an accurate assessment of enough people here to worry me.

P.S. Please don't waste time calling me disgusting or arrogant for not being bullish on X.

What makes BitCoin a far greater risk than state based fiat currency is that it is based on a floating index. There is nothing at all keeping it tethered or supported. All the ragers can go on all they want, but ultimately the value of the, e.g., dollar, lies in the confidence of and in the economy, government, and its people. That is the fundament of state based / backed fiat currency. If you want to hand over your money to hackers, financial hucksters, and frauds; go right ahead, but don't be disappointed that you get robbed when you go to play poker in a back alley.

The very foundation and beginnings and underlying mechanics of growth are all wrong with bitcoin.

>If I were to shut down every bitcoin exchange (either through extreme legal, violent or economic means), I'd easily kill bitcoin overnight, mostly through destroying trust and inciting fear in adopters than from actually stopping exchange.

Like the RIAA, MPAA and US government did to bittorrent?

Yes, such an event would impact the exchange rate and perhaps even the liquidity of bitcoin to some degree, but it is not possible to destroy its utility.

I am the guy with the nuke. As a citizen of a representative democracy I would vote against any politician who favored the abolition of useful technology. Even if I disagree with the politics of that technology.

> I am the guy with the nuke. As a citizen of a representative democracy I would vote against any politician who favored the abolition of useful technology. Even if I disagree with the politics of that technology.

You don't have as much power as you think you do.

He may actually have a nuke. They are not that hard to make - the hard part is surviving the process :P

Even if all the online exchanges close down, there will always be people willing to exchange Bitcoins for cash with their friends and family.

Sure government wields tremendous power, but to shut down all exchanges would require an even greater amount of cooperation between governments which seems unlikely. Granted, they can make it illegal to use Bitcoin in your country which effectively renders it useless (or at least very risky) to you, but I don't think that necessarily kills Bitcoin.

> Do you honestly think governments around the world are just going to stand around while people start ditching their currency systems?

Obviously this isn't true of every government, but America is a representative democracy: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The interests of its government and the interests of its people are one and the same.

Yes, and in theory as well, communism was a good idea :-)

In practice, that's just advertisement, and Europe is no better. Governments are about power and coercing the people, but it takes skill - if they do that too visibly and they get a revolution, 1789 french guillotine style. They don't want that, because it means others would get the power.

EDIT: rayiner, there is no need for profanity in the reply. You can see the difference, but it doesn't mean it's not dysfunctional - only that there is more polish and you don't see it as clearly. It once shocked me too, but yes, politicians really act to maximize their self interest, in every country, and have done so for the longest time. See http://www.iep.utm.edu/polreal/. Voters can have an effect, I won't deny that- all I'm saying is that it is not as important in the real life as in theory. It's a quite interesting system, with politics as a market with known failures. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

> In practice, that's just advertisement,

As someone whose family is from a non-functional "democracy" and as someone who immigrated to the U.S. as a child, I say you're full of shit. Go ahead and tell me that the steak I'm eating is really dog food, as if I can't tell the difference.

I have an argument against the idea that a government (US) will shut it down. The Bitcoin market can reveal/signal information that is not available or it's difficult to get from other sources. Information that can be used in a positive way, like using web searches for economic predictions and alerts.

I don't understand intrinsic value. Copper can be used in useful things that improve our lives, which I claim is what gives it its "intrinsic" value. Bitcoin improves my life in ways that other currencies can't, so doesn't it also have intrinsic value?

Indeed the bitcoin system does. However, individual bitcoins (i.e. ledger entries) do not.

but copper doesn't have value until it is used. Copper wires aren't useful just sitting around being copper.

Copper just sitting around has the intrinsic value of being copper, ledger entries do not. This is the meaning of intrinsic value.

In other words if copper stops being used as money it still holds value as copper. You can melt down the coins and make it into wire or pots or waterer else people buy copper to make. Economists argue that these types of things don't make good currency because then the currency is effected by unrelated things like the copper industry. One would not want an entire national economy to fluctuate in value due to the ebb and flow of one industry.

Sorry, I don't get it. If there were an easier way to obtain copper, the value of copper would fall. Likewise if a superior metal was found, copper's value would drop. This value doesn't sound very intrinsic. And my initial claim was not about whether something makes a good currency or not. I was claiming that that which imbues copper with value is basically the same thing that imbues bitcoins with value. Namely, their utility to people and being noncounterfeitable.

The fact that the value of copper changes is not relevant to it's intrinsic value. An item either has an intrinsic value or not, the price of that value doesn't really enter into it. Think of a dollar bill, it has a monetary value $1, but the paper itself has no intrinsic value. If we used the same paper with the same security features, but printed something different on it, it would be worthless.

The issue with a copper currency is that any actual unit of copper has intrinsic value, maybe very small, but it has it. A coper coin has the value of copper in it in addition to it's monetary value unlike a dollar bill or a bitcoin. An individual bitcoin has absolutely zero intrinsic value because an individual bitcoin is just a ledger entry in the bitcoin system.

What you are referring to that has value with respect to bitcoin is the entire bitcoin system, not an individual unit of that system. If we remove the monetary value of individual bitcoins they would have no value at all, just like the dollar bill, but exactly unlike copper.

Does that help?

Look up money laundering in a dictionary. After that, watch Office Space. :)

Perhaps it's time to revisit what the definition of fiat is and how that contrasts with a cryptocurrency like bitcoin.

Definition of FIAT http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat

1: a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort

2: an authoritative determination : dictate <a fiat of conscience>

3: an authoritative or arbitrary order : decree <government by fiat>

This definition is not the definition of fiat money

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat%20money

"money (as paper currency) not convertible into coin or specie of equivalent value

Since Bitcoin is not intrinsically valuable (it's only usable as a speculation instrument, or medium of exchange), and since it is not backed by gold or other form of specie, in monetary economic terms it would be described as a fiat money

It has more in common structurally with metal-backed currencies in that there are strict limits imposed on how much currency can be in circulation at any given time.

This is one structural similarity, although metal backed currencies were often restamped or debased in order to increase/decrease the amount of money flowing through the economy.

The main structural difference between bitcoin and metal backed currencies is bitcoin's lack of intrinsic value. If I have gold coins, and inflation begins to set in or if the currency suddenly becomes worthless, I can still melt down my coins and sell the gold even if the face value of the coins is zero. If Bitcoin's use as a currency is diminished or restricted, the wallet sitting on my computer has no intrinsic value to support it.