Quote from: AbraCadaver on June 20, 2012, 12:48 amAnd I thought that effect would wear off after I'd come to terms with some of the more revelatory aspects, but Satoshi and DPR have gone way too hard really. I'm constantly realizing the various ways in which Bitcoin will change our world, and I spend almost every waking minute in perpetual bliss. I've never been this content for so long. It is highly likely that Bitcoin and it's repercussions will be retrospectively seen as one of the most important events in world history, like the World Wars. Agreed on both counts. It sounds like hyperbole at first. But then you *actually* think about it... There are natural implications that unfold from using P2P systems and strong cryptography.Then you realize in 20 years time the world is going to be completely different, it's going to be the world for a younger generation born and bred on computer networks, using encryption systems like PGP and currency systems like Bitcoin in a fluent manner that took us years to achieve. The older generation, they are seriously in the cold as never before, ignorant in the same way that an illiterate, innumerate person today is considered.I don't think it's Bitcoin specifically in a way, but cryptographic anonymous currency as a concept, albeit there's a good chance it'll be the banner currency because the Black Market is in the vanguard, and I think the Pornography and Gambling Markets will likely follow due to various regulatory efforts at both sides of the Atlantic. Bitcoin is a Vice Currency, and will be for the foreseeable future. That's fine, those are the highest profit margin sources at this moment in time and scale.What I think has really happened, is that it is now possible, practical in many ways (still evolving) for a transnational currency to exist without government backing. Anonymity or not, that is huge. This is bigger than the Berlin Wall coming down and the subsequent Collapse of Communism. I mean, for just one thing, the vast majority of operations a Bank does today are completely surpassed by this P2P network. They are dinosaurs and will suffer the fate of dinosaurs unless they act nimbly enough.I think the future contains many competing currencies, but relatively few national currencies. Because we have ample computation, issues of standardization and exchange become a moot point. Some currencies will be anonymous like ours, others not.I don't think the government appreciates the implications. At. All. There are individuals who do, but the superstructure still thinks it's 'a geek thing'. The question is not whether the horse has bolted, but whether we can be sure the governments will not fly apart as vast swaths of capital flee the traditional regulated currency markets into this new territory, as a result of tax evasion, unrepresentative taxation is pissing off corporations and citizens alike. I mean, we can *obviously* expect much higher taxes and higher inflation into the middle future as a result of government policies in America and Europe.In our situation, we are backed by the Dopamine Standard. There is none higher. In a way SR could be completely destroyed, its participants executed and it wouldn't matter a jot. Once the idea is out, it is like a virus. Cryptographic currencies will become the defacto standard in the full meaning of that Latin word.Quote from: AbraCadaver on June 20, 2012, 04:49 pm750 billion European Central Bank bailout fund has today been pledged to help stave off the increasing yields on Spanish and Italian government bonds. They're going to use the bailout fund to buy the bonds that the markets themselves will not touch.Bitcoin price rise continues (marginally). I lolled. I hope everyone else did. This will likely have an unpleasant end if the markets still insist on high yields. It's not like the link between the yield rate and the amount of government bonds left unsold is set in stone; it's not. This is a very, very high risk strategy (the 750 billion part totally puts it in perspective, it basically amounts to an enormous bet that "everything will be alright, promise". If the markets don't agree with that sentiment, euro currency holders are pretty much screwed. "Minimum deposit guarantee" will become like a 21st century swear word)Yup. It was the first thing I thought of reading the headlines, I doubt we were the only ones. Markets, collectively, are the most intelligent sentient networks there are. It is the largest structure ever built in history, supercomputers and even the human brain itself don't touch it. Millions of human brains at work aided by computation at the speed of light, it's tendrils of influence manipulating and forming the actions of billions of intelligent self directed agents. The Market is the dominant economic paradigm for the last three or four centuries, and when her mood changes all previous assumptions about life are rendered invalid. The Communists were afraid of that power, the Capitalists stood in awe of it. Both sentiments are appropriate for this. The action of Democracy, although important, is a runt in comparison to the raw power of the Market.There is the sense everywhere, that this titanic entity is about to make up it's mind about something. I think it will be to tell the "3rd way" style of Western governments to go fuck itself. Neither the Socialists or Capitalists are remotely happy with this crappy centrism. It helps neither of us and pays no dividends.It's not a matter of Bitcoin being volatile, or even viable in the very long term (because it isn't, eventually all the bitcoins will get lost). It's a matter of whether you think a general (tightly regulated) market failure, hyperinflation and excessive taxation are going to devaluate your currency less than a currency which is much less connected to those problems thanks to the lack of government power over it.Look at it this way. Every natural catastrophic event also has a mass extinction event that claims its victims. In recessions, investors lose capital, companies die and people lose their jobs. In this 'Great Recession' the government tells us we're all out of (but nobody believes it), we have had victims, mostly the general public, but even they have been placated by welfare schemes. But I think they will not be the main causalities. I mean look at the financial sector. How many new banks can you count in America or Europe? Typically when a bank dies, you have a dozen smaller upstarts trying to claim its territory. This has NOT happened. The government has supported the banks, but I don't think they appreciate the Market is more powerful than they are, if the government supports the banks it is going to get sucked into a vortex.Cryptographic Currency is becoming a weapon for both left wing and right wing citizens to defect from the traditional political economy as it stands today. I spoke today with a very left wing young man, who is vehemently opposed to my Capitalist ideology, but we agreed *extremely* on the solution, which was completely opposed to literally everything the governments have done since 2007. You cannot not make this political, it just is. When right wingers and left wingers are actually agreeing with each other, you have a fairly fucking serious problem. I think it's time for this sleepy younger generation to wake up and give our System the finger. The dead hand of the State is forcing the younger generation to pay huge taxes to pay for the lifestyles of the older one in a manner so entirely disproportionate I cannot think it will end up in anything but revolution.