passwordreset

That argument is backwards. If marijuana is illegal for the stated reason that it has negative health affects, then everything that has worse affects should also be illegal.

This is just a suggestion, but it might be useful to stop thinking about news reports as "the news report says X is real and true", because that's not what most news reports actually say. The text used usually reads like: "An unnamed source says blah blah", and "Joe Smith, a retied auto-worker, says blah blah blah", or "In response, a spokesman for Large Company, Inc. says blah blah blah blah", and so forth. Bloomberg (probably) isn't insisting that the story or the denial is true or false. They repeat the facts that other people have said. Often those facts are true; often those facts are false.

Thinking about it this way helps me make sense of the topic. Maybe I'm weird.

Why not combine the approach and run SELECT statements from the command line?

https://github.com/harelba/q

I'm sure there are issues with this, but it seems pretty sane. Your sample query would read _something_ like:

q 'SELECT * FROM FishSpecimenData.csv WHERE c33 > c31 AND c31 is not null AND c33 is not null'

FTA, first sentence: <quote>Rice University is "dramatically expanding" its financial aid offerings, promising full scholarships to undergrads whose families have incomes under $130,000.</quote>

A fact, iirc, is a statement made which is purported to be about the real world. Given this, both of the statements "the moon is made out of green cheese" and "the moon is made out of things other than green cheese" are both statements of fact, and that they are factual statements is indeed indisputable. That they are true or false is entirely disputable, as veracity exists on a different spectrum than facts.

It's important to be clear about this, because some people seem to think that "it's a fact, therefore it's true". Facts aren't indisputably true, they are indisputably facts. True and false is a different scale.

The monogamous pair bonds _are_ the coercive bullshit.

I think that's been greatly covered. Consensus.

I went through my message a few times just now, and for the life of me I can't find the place that ignited your vitriol. I was prepared to say "I apologize, I'm sorry I offended you," but in retrospect, I see now way which I could.

My post concerned a previous comnmenter's logical error. It explained the error as clearly as I could, although you seem to have missed that point. You do realize that you can change the word "value" in my post to "fundamental value" or "intrinsic value" or "donuts" and it will still exemplify the error, right? People who believe arguments presented in this form believe a clear falsehood. Let me be specific again, it's not the conclusion that's false, but the argument itself is flawed. If you believe a flawed argument, then you are being fooled.

Everything else that you posted comes from you. Every friggin thing, and that's hilarious, because it's so friggin irrelevant to my post. The argument is flawed, and you're having a tizzy for some unknown reason. That's fine, up to the point where you start trying to claim any kind of knowledge about me, at which point it becomes a straight-up lie.

So, apologize. You apologize to me. Apologize for believing that which is obviously flawed. Apologize for claiming that you know what I want, and then saying "nice projecting". Re-read your last three sentences. If you understand what either "projecting" and "straw man" are, then you will notice it in your own handiwork. How you saw it in mine is anyone's guess.

So, crystal clear, _you_ apologize to _me_ because _you_ are being an illogical _ass_.

Thanks for the response. If I understand the argument correctly, then the claim is that 1) a currency that fits the criteria - circulated by a strong entity who wants it returned - has value, 2) Bitcoin does not fit that criteria, therefore 3) Bitcoin has no value.

I don't know if you're supporting this argument or not, but it is flawed in a manner that is called "denying the antecedent". To borrow an example, the following argument is flawed: 1) If you're a logic instructor, then you have a job, 2) you are not a logic instructor, therefore 3) you do not have a job. This does not follow, and is not a valid argument. One can simply point out that there are other jobs than logic instructor.

This is the same form of argument as was made in your post. Surely, then I must be able to point to some other thing that has some value which is also not circulated by a strong entity. Rare-earth minerals come to mind. Sunken treasure. Works of art. Illegal drugs, certainly. Stolen goods, clearly, and I would think any illegal market has to be seen as coming from a weak actor. All these are examples of things that have value, but do not fit the given criteria.

It is unfortunate, but it appears that people who believe this argument are fooling themselves. I hope they do not fool others.

Could you please give me your reason for believing that there is no inherent value in Bitcoin?

Rule #2: stop bullshitting yourself, there are no rules.

Um, I don't mean to be rude here, but "victimless" usually means that there is no victim, and that's the point. To paraphrase your question, "In what way is there no victim?" seems a bit like trying to prove a negative, so let's look for the positive instead.

Let me try to identify the potential victims here: 1. The victim might be "the guy who bought the BCH that the employee was selling", seeing that he could have bought for a cheaper price had the employee not insider traded. 2. The victim(s) might be "all the other investors of BCH", with the thinking that the insider trades devalue BCH (somehow?). 3. the victim(s) might be "the customers of Coinbase", because ... I'm not sure, maybe jealousy?

I'm trying to be reasonable here, but everything I wrote up there seems outlandish or silly. (1) a person who enters into a buy for X agrees to buy for X, and calling somehow who willfully enters into a trade a "victim" is an incorrect use of the English language; in (2), nothing is devalued, the additional buy from the employee should actually increase the coins value, as it represents a higher demand; and (3), 'jealousy', seems like the only thing left. If you're upset that someone at Coinbase managed to earn $$$$ on their trades, but you only earned $$, then we call that emotion "jealousy", and that would be the harm. It would be a harm to your ego, and now you would think that you were a victim. It seems ludicrous to me to support the tearing apart of families (as was suggested earlier) simply because someone is jealous of money.

I can't come up with a reasonable definition of who the victim is, who was harmed, how they were harmed, etc. This isn't proof of the negative, "victimless", and certainly there could be other real victims here (maybe Coinbase itself is the victim? or the US Government? or "the whole of the American public"?); but, it should probably not be assumed to have a victim unless some real, actual harm can be identified. IOW, there is no victim without an identifiable harm.

It doesn't say this in TFA, but Fravor was one of the airmen who reported the incident to the NYT, hence the relevance. As he was allegedly denigrated by some as a nut, the 2nd sentence fragment is relevant as well. Neither correlation nor implication are needed to understand neurotech1's message; however, it does reference facts outside the article that one could gather from a quick google search, if desired. http://www.google.com/search?q=fravor+ufo

When we (biologists) study other species, we travel long distances to examine them in their habitat. We try to hide so we can see them in their natural state, without our interference. If one suggested that this were 'dumb' or 'grandiose', then they would be ridiculed, as they would have exposed their own ignorance through that comment. The thought that a species might travel far to investigate another species in situ while attempting to avoid contamination is reasonable to a non-zero number of biologists.

>Imagine if Wells Fargo closed an account without notice or explanation after a customer had a few normal deposits and withdrawals.

BB&T has done this to me in the past. The only recourse is taking your business elsewhere. Coinbase doesn't seem too different in that regard.

> Bitcoin inherently does not hold any value, it is a ledger.

I just want you to be aware that those 2 sentiments are directly contradictory. A ledger has value -- an online, world-wide, decentralized, distributed, peer-to-peer ledger moreso. Estimate the value of the ledger (this is a significantly different endeavour than estimating market cap), divide that value by the total number of BTC in circulation, and you have estimated the value of a BTC.

Would it not be the case that declaring "cryptocurrencies to be similar to hard drugs or something and follow the same playbook" is a recipe for disaster? None of the drugs laws have really worked out all that well, as they've led to mass incarceration which has a high social cost.

Many people seem to want drugs. Banning them often increases the price, due to the supply going down or being more costly to obtain versus a constant demand. To follow the same playbook, there seems to be a non-zero chance that Bitcoin would become rarer, and therefore more valuable, and therefore more attractive than fiat, increasing demand even more. I think it's a crap-shoot what role cryptocurrencies would play after a large-scale ban.

But, yeah, _if_ I wanted to do that, and I was a government, that would probably be the way I'd do it.

I'm sorry, but the statement "crypto is dangerous [...] because it's very, very easy to get a piece of it" is just batshit. I can very, very easily get many, many things, and most of those things aren't really dangerous. There is no correlation between how easy a thing is to get and how dangerous it is.

You're being tolerated because most of the people here seem very nice and they allow that sort of thing, but I felt spouting insanity like you do over and over, well, that sort of thing should be called out. Apologies to the offended.

Bitcoin has many problems. That it's somehow bad because "you can buy for just a dollar" is not even close.

The argument could be made to say that statement isn't even realistic. Why would someone pay $1 for Bitcoin and then $10-20 in transaction fees? Pragmatically, this would be an immediate, minimum 80% loss of value. One would think that to be enough of a disincentive to "buy for just a dollar", no?

I see you haven't answered giblaz's questions yet. Valid answers to his questions would clear up much of the confusion about your arguments. Please answer his questions, and continue. How would G10 nations kill the crypto bubble by banning Bitcoin business by banks? Why is this a better move for crypto's future?

The people of Zimbabwe and Venezuela appear to disagree with your sentiment that national currencies aren't risky.

Your notion that crypto fans can't separate economy from politics doesn't seem right. Re-read the Bitcoin genesis block. Bitcoin began because of bullshit by bankers and barristers. Politics is the reason for Bitcoins existence.

"bubble": stocks have been said to be in "bubbles". If a person claims "M-Pesa is [in] a bubble" he would be talking about the market cap of the company, in the same way that "Bitcoin is [in] a bubble" speaks to the market cap of Bitcoin on some exchanges. Quite meaningful, actually.

"environment": Proof of work systems ensure that the ledger is secure and worthy of trust. Proof of Authority systems require trust, where the ledger is secure "because we say so." Isn't this the major reason why people are fleeing from legal tender? People can't trust the issuers, the processors, or the banks because they're colluding with politicians who provide bailouts using taxpayer dollars?

"ICO scam": absolutely makes sense in a centralized system. Are you actually claiming that people don't create scam companies with centralized currencies? Because why? Even legitimate companies can be slandered for the same reasons that people call ICOs "scams". The Franklin Mint, for example, produces coins which are sold on late-night infomercials that have little-to-no intrinsic value, but people buy for speculative reasons. Are they a scam? The reasoning is identical.

"slow/expensive transactions": One of Bitcoins main value propositions is aiding in international transfers. The centralized systems were too slow and expensive, so a better alternative was developed. Saying that speed and expense aren't complaints that people have made about existing centralized systems is simply wrong.

And so on and so forth.

Can you ask him how a virtual currency can also be a security? Tulips could be a security, OK; but, didn't the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 exempt currencies from being considered a security?

"The Many Worlds Interpretation, for instance, has no Observer, and defines a measurement as any thermodynamicly non-reverseable process." I'm interested in this, as I previously thought that the actual word "measurement" was still a bit of a mish-mosh for most interpretations. Do you have a reference for this?

I think that the author had a good point, that while we're worried about "hate speech", the real first amendment is being attacked in many other ways. That right wing terrorists want to take away the freedom of speech for Jews immigrants, and protestors. That companies now want to remove the free speech rights for their own customers. That politicians want to get rid of any speech that maligns them. I agree wholeheartedly with the author when said that these are the real threats to the first amendment. "Hate speech" isn't the issue. The issue is the scumbags spouting the hate.

Hmmm. I wonder what that means for the "United" States.

Poor people? I don't think that demographic is being discussed. They're not poor, they're assholes. That's the common thread.

It is exceedingly hard understand their point of view, because their point of view is inconsistent and their beliefs are phantasmagoric. Derision against this kind of willful ignorance is the minimum.

The hell you do.

I just found 12 bricks.

Yes. A grocer with illicit intent can poison the food that they serve because some God told them to do it. We need to ensure that they both are sane and correctly motivated. This isn't simply about providing welfare for people; it also concerns the identification of malicious intent and the avoidance of harm. There may be a few professions where this doesn't matter, but by and large I'd say an individuals motivation for choosing a profession does really matter (especially with middlemen).

John Bogle is either clearly incorrect, or the quotation may be taken out of context and may be unrelated (I don't know); however, the price that the seller sells at is usually not the price that he originally bought at. This difference, specifically the change in dollar value for the same object being sold, is how capital enters and leaves that system. Note that this is specifically about money-capital, and not capital based on other resources -- so if Bogle was talking about some other kind of value, he could easily be correct; although from that quotation alone, it really looks like he's talking about stock-trading money, and even values the market at $24T, so... I'm guessing he just didn't think it all the way through.