A currency that would somehow allow the government to know every transaction would not give it too much control because of your states rights views?
That's an absurd answer.
Why? If the federal government is nothing more than the comptroller of the currency, and so could only audit interstate and international transfers or for exceptional criminal investigations. You can structure the payment methods a number of different ways.
I feel the State is just another defacto arm of oppression, and in no way truly creates fully functioning citizens to operate in Smith's "nation of shopkeepers", or Jefferson's 'self-sustaining farmers' (please don't start the slavery debate), and I feel a big part of this is the TREMENDOUS consolidation of power that has occurred, and the under representation per capita in Congress. I, also, feel the executive has had FAR too much power (I think Obama has been a good-decent president, I actually wish he would've had more chutzpah for pushing for hard left policy just to really put it to the test with his first term run of the government, and I don't understand why he didn't force single payer.)
The State is just another defacto arm of oppression. That's because anarchism is fucking stupid and unproductive and leads to an awful lot of awful things.
Jefferson's views of a perfect society developed before industrialization, and so resembles exactly no state on earth. His ideals died with the importation of the spinning jenny and some unnamed genius's idea to couple it to a waterwheel. Also, subsistence farming fucking sucks. If you disagree with that I would point you to large swathes of Africa.
I assume you're referring to consolidation of power in the federal government? Let me help you out: State government is without exception fucking terrible. It is vastly more feckless and corrupt than federal government because it doesn't have the same visibility. (What's the name of your state house rep? Did you know it before I asked? Odds are very low.)
Your conception of the Presidency is very odd. Obama has no way of "forcing" Congress to do anything at all that it doesn't want to save actually sitting in the chairs. Single-Payer was a nonstarter in the Senate; it simply wasn't going to happen with Lieberman needed to pass anything.
I didn't articulate my side well with some of the conclusions you reached, and I take full responsibility due to the fragmented nature of this thread, and how sporadic it's been. I should have kept it on topic strictly to the Peter Schweizer stuff, as the more we dilute the conversation, the harder it will be for me to make coherent arguments without spending exceptional amounts of time getting more citations, and doing the usual academic paper writing.
Well, you're in luck, since this part doesn't require cites.
I do not think the President can force the Congress to do anything, I think he can lead, and I think he could have gotten single payer if he wanted it bad enough with how he entered the presidency, but I still like the Affordable Care Act, and think it was long past due.
You're flatly wrong. He could not have gotten single payer. Lieberman didn't give a shit and he was already planning to retire so he didn't have to care what his constituents were saying.
I don't think people should be subsistence farmers, I think they should be free citizens, with a guaranteed welfare (akin to the amount it would cost to imprison them), and that each State should decide the type of economy it wants to run (which has been a very basic tenet of our government since the beginning.)
I don't know what this means (and I suspect you don't either) but I'm looking upon it with a baleful eye. It sounds suspiciously like you believe states should be able to opt out on, say, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, etc. To which I would point out that they can already opt out of Medicare and Medicaid, but don't, because getting a bunch of free federal money beats the shit out of having people die because you have a crappy public health system and fleeing your state in droves. (This is also typically an argument put forward to support institutionalized bigotry at the state level. I'm not saying you're advocating that, but you should be aware that it causes a lot of people to look upon "states get whatever economy they want" arguments dimly.)
If this is not what you meant then I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. States are already allowed to give tax incentives to spur whatever economic activity it finds desirable.
Okay, cryptocurrencies. Math, computers, programming and crypto. Back into my field
Let's start very simple: what are the properties of (a/your/any) cryptocurrency? What, if you took it away, would make it not a cryptocurrency
That would depend on what type of cryptograph you use. If the government issued it and had a finite amount of the currency, possessing the cipher to the transactions log for extraneous criminal situations doesn't mean the currency cryptography is insecure. Having complete control of the money supply is the major draw, with large swaths of metadata to better manage an economy, all would be facilitated by a digital currency.
Okay, cryptocurrencies. Math, computers, programming and crypto. Back into my field
Let's start very simple: what are the properties of (a/your/any) cryptocurrency? What, if you took it away, would make it not a cryptocurrency
That would depend on what type of cryptograph you use. If the government issued it and had a finite amount of the currency, possessing the cipher to the transactions log for extraneous criminal situations doesn't mean the currency cryptography is insecure. Having complete control of the money supply is the major draw, with large swaths of metadata to better manage an economy, all would be facilitated by a digital currency.
You don't want a finite supply of currency. It's deflationary and removes the most effective tool we have to manage the economy.
I also love how you are arguing against federal management of the economy, while arguing for a crypto currency that will let the federal government manage it better cause 'metadata', and see every single transaction ever.
what is the goal of switching to a crypto currency over the status quo?
Okay, cryptocurrencies. Math, computers, programming and crypto. Back into my field
Let's start very simple: what are the properties of (a/your/any) cryptocurrency? What, if you took it away, would make it not a cryptocurrency
That would depend on what type of cryptograph you use. If the government issued it and had a finite amount of the currency, possessing the cipher to the transactions log for extraneous criminal situations doesn't mean the currency cryptography is insecure. Having complete control of the money supply is the major draw, with large swaths of metadata to better manage an economy, all would be facilitated by a digital currency.
That is not an answer, it's not even approaching something like an answer
First of all, pretending to have a finite amount of currency is laughable, since there would be nothing stopping the government from issuing more
Second, is there a transaction log? Is it encrypted? Is it public? Is it needed at all?
I just read through eight pages of this thread. Fuck...I must hate myself to make myself do that. There aren't enough Awesomes / Agrees in the world to Ronya, who has a seemingly infinite amount of patience / masochism.
After eight pages, I'm still not sure what the point of MadCaddy's argument is, and fuck anyone who thinks I'm going to sit and watch a video because they are too lazy to make their god damn point. If you are too lazy / don't want to put the time into the OP to make your point (and a few half-assed edits when you're four pages into the thread don't count), don't create the thread. I can forgive the Dunning-Krueger ignorance and even a bit of intellectual laziness, but if you are too fucking lazy to define even what it is you want to talk about (are we talking about the economy? insider trading by Congress? your vision of a utopian government? fuck if I know) why should people even give you the time of day?
Now that I've gotten that out...because I can't help it...
I wish we could get a consistent description of what this government 'crypto-currency' even is. After eight pages, the only benefit I can see is a marginal benefit in the printing costs (likely dwarfed by the cost of installing and maintaining this centralized crypto-currency), and a lot of references to an unspecified 'shadow economy'.
How will this crypto-currency work? Give a detailed description, not a bunch of vague references that aren't internally consistent or even coherent. Other than being government provided, what is different between this crypto-currency and the debit card in my wallet with a Visa / Mastercard logo?
Most importantly - because totalitarianism is part of the premise of this argument...how - in any way - does having a centralized currency where every transaction is monitored and approved by the government REDUCE potential for totalitarianism? The prime benefits of cash are that it's use is effectively untraceable and anonymous, it's completely fungible, and can be held / stored independently of any centralized authority.
The problem with a crypto currency is that you're going to have to maintain some servers for it, and sometimes servers go down. I know that happens to credit card companies and stuff like WIC/EBT (which is all on cards in Michigan) so nobody can use those things while that is going on, although there is a less effecient way of calling and talking to people. Plus there are some businesses that are small and won't want to have to deal with installing machines to talk to a crypto currency server because taking cash is easier.
A: I didn't watch it because I am not American. That episode will not be shown for several months over here and I can't use the link to stream the episode. So there is no way to for me to know what the 60 minutes story said.
B: 60 Minutes is not an academic source. Its a news program. A respected highly valued news program, but not a peer reviewed academic source of information.
C: MAKE YOUR OWN FUCKING ARGUMENTS! Remember what we said about posting links and essentially saying "these guys make my argument for me, so if you want to debate read/watch every link I say and then respond to me". You are doing it again. It may only be 1 link and it may only be 60 minutes, but its still linkspamming instead of arguing.
If you can't be bothered/lack the ability to form your own argument in your own words, then you probably don't know enough about the issue to be worthwhile debating. Which is basically what we been telling you for the last 6 pages. Your lack the ability to even make us understand what you are arguing about, much less for.
This isn't academia, this is a debate and discussion forum. I'm not trying to write my manifesto, as I don't have a grant to do so. I was just looking to spark debate on the topic with people I respect, which is true for most of the folks around here. I just feel there's a blind spot here to honest graft, and the corruption of government, and I have cited several examples in the recent years, and historically to defend my side. I don't understand what sort of arguments you expect me to make if citing historical instances, convictions and investigative journalistic pieces on the matter that have already had an immediate impact the last time a similar episode aired (and let's not forget what 60 minutes did as far as the smoking tort, ala The Insider. Which is a damn fine movie.).
I don't give a fuck. Much like Kipling I don't live in the US so can't watch your show. If it's so important to whatever you want to argue then either post a transcript or sum up the point in your own words. (preferably the latter)
Your source is not a source I have access to. That is not my fault, it's yours. Find a better one.
Well, you could have a decentralized crypto-currency.
It runs into big problems with scaling, in that every transaction needs to propagate throughout every node in the entire network. Bitcoins are slow (how long do you want to wait for your transaction to process through the network?) and wouldn't scale to something like a national / global currency, but that could possibly be overcome with a better designed currency.
It also runs into the problems when wallets / accounts are persistent. The nature of bitcoins don't make this a particularly major issue, but if accounts are persistent (something that you arguably need for this to be workable outside of the bitcoin 'drug and child porn' niche) every transaction is shared through the network. It becomes a simple matter to see that the wallet belonging to your neighbor also made a $39.99 purchase at 'Don's Dildos and Sex Toy Emporium'.
Probably the best solution is something similar to today's centralized clearinghouses that route debit transactions to the appropriate banks. They work on a routing / account number lookup + pin system. Realistically, if we really wanted to, we could effectively eliminate physical cash as many people use a combination of direct deposit, online banking / bill pay, and debit cards instead of using physical cash. The only big difference between that and a workable centralized electronic currency is the public vs. private aspect.
But anyway, this may be a better topic for the 'bitcoin' thread.
This isn't academia, this is a debate and discussion forum.
This is immaterial.
If you want to make a claim, prove it. Which means with your actual words. Don't tell everyone to go watch a TV show and hope that does the job. In fact you were explicitly told to not do that.
Yeah, like its our fault that you picked a source we can't verify.
I don't give a shit if 60 Minutes is the gold standard of journalism. Its Journalism, not Academics and as such falls far short of the standards of scientific rigor. That's just the way it is. If you don't like it tough shit.
And did I see you trying to build up the credentials of 60 Minutes by mentioning The Insider?
The Insider a movie about how 60 Minutes quashed a scientifically proven story based on commercial pressure and the fallout from that decision. That makes the complete opposite claim in terms of academic and scientific credibility you are trying to make MadCaddy! WTF?!
God, this giving me so much deja vu to the conspiracy threads of PA yore.
MadCaddy seems to be utterly convinced that he is making perfectly sensible argument in a logical and straightforward fashion. He seems to be missing the fact that the last 8 pages have been the rest of us going: "What are you saying" or "That does not mean what you think it means" AND "You don't even seem to know what you are talking about". We are not having a debate or discourse, we are trying to get bust through the Dunning-Kruger bias.
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
The fact that people outside the US can't see the video is beside the point. Expecting people to go and watch a video because you're too lazy to make your own point or arguments is just not acting in good faith. Especially when you've been called out on it, and keep telling people 'well, if you watched the video...'
No, as a poster it's your job to be able to make a coherent point, and elaborate why / what you think supports your position. What is important, what does it tell you, and why does it lead you to the points you are making. That way, if your point isn't coherent or disagrees with the source material, there is at least a starting point for a discussion.
Even if the video is source material or central to the topic at hand - like a video of police brutality that spurred the thread, you still should be explaining what you took away from the video, and why you arrived at your conclusions.
I was actually thinking how comparable this thread was to the Mad_Morlock threads of yore.
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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okay; i'm putting this poor thread out of its misery. it's been about eight pages of "guess what i'm thinking?"
what lessons can we learn from it?
1) if you want to talk about a policy proposal, try to be explicit about the thing that you're presenting. in this case, if you want to talk about your idea for a great new crypto-currency, try to be explicit about what exactly you're talking about, and try to present the benefits and drawbacks directly.
2) socratic redirection is terrible. terrible. don't do it unless you're talking to a five year old. if an adult asks you a legit question about the topic you want to discuss, redirecting a question to them is not okay - especially when it's only tangentially related.
3) don't expect people to watch longish videos in order to understand your point or participate in your thread. don't do this ever.
4) we have a smart crew here on this forum. no matter what the topic, odds are immense that you will find someone smarter or better educated about the topic than you are. try not to get offended by this - try to actually learn from what they know and you don't instead of getting your back up.
5) ronya is a really patient boxer but even he seems to have his limits
madcaddy: i read this thread and still don't have any idea what you like about cryptocurrencies or even what your actual proposal was for them. the really terrible thing about bitcoins that libertarian types like about them - that their supply is essentially algorithmically assigned - is something that you don't seem to care about. the fact that histories of transactions are directly observable - something that civil libertarians hate - is something you seem to like, even though you also get on tangents about how the government already has too much power.
Posts
Why? If the federal government is nothing more than the comptroller of the currency, and so could only audit interstate and international transfers or for exceptional criminal investigations. You can structure the payment methods a number of different ways.
Let's start very simple: what are the properties of (a/your/any) cryptocurrency? What, if you took it away, would make it not a cryptocurrency
Well, you're in luck, since this part doesn't require cites.
You're flatly wrong. He could not have gotten single payer. Lieberman didn't give a shit and he was already planning to retire so he didn't have to care what his constituents were saying.
I don't know what this means (and I suspect you don't either) but I'm looking upon it with a baleful eye. It sounds suspiciously like you believe states should be able to opt out on, say, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, etc. To which I would point out that they can already opt out of Medicare and Medicaid, but don't, because getting a bunch of free federal money beats the shit out of having people die because you have a crappy public health system and fleeing your state in droves. (This is also typically an argument put forward to support institutionalized bigotry at the state level. I'm not saying you're advocating that, but you should be aware that it causes a lot of people to look upon "states get whatever economy they want" arguments dimly.)
If this is not what you meant then I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. States are already allowed to give tax incentives to spur whatever economic activity it finds desirable.
That would depend on what type of cryptograph you use. If the government issued it and had a finite amount of the currency, possessing the cipher to the transactions log for extraneous criminal situations doesn't mean the currency cryptography is insecure. Having complete control of the money supply is the major draw, with large swaths of metadata to better manage an economy, all would be facilitated by a digital currency.
You don't want a finite supply of currency. It's deflationary and removes the most effective tool we have to manage the economy.
I also love how you are arguing against federal management of the economy, while arguing for a crypto currency that will let the federal government manage it better cause 'metadata', and see every single transaction ever.
what is the goal of switching to a crypto currency over the status quo?
That is not an answer, it's not even approaching something like an answer
First of all, pretending to have a finite amount of currency is laughable, since there would be nothing stopping the government from issuing more
Second, is there a transaction log? Is it encrypted? Is it public? Is it needed at all?
After eight pages, I'm still not sure what the point of MadCaddy's argument is, and fuck anyone who thinks I'm going to sit and watch a video because they are too lazy to make their god damn point. If you are too lazy / don't want to put the time into the OP to make your point (and a few half-assed edits when you're four pages into the thread don't count), don't create the thread. I can forgive the Dunning-Krueger ignorance and even a bit of intellectual laziness, but if you are too fucking lazy to define even what it is you want to talk about (are we talking about the economy? insider trading by Congress? your vision of a utopian government? fuck if I know) why should people even give you the time of day?
Now that I've gotten that out...because I can't help it...
I wish we could get a consistent description of what this government 'crypto-currency' even is. After eight pages, the only benefit I can see is a marginal benefit in the printing costs (likely dwarfed by the cost of installing and maintaining this centralized crypto-currency), and a lot of references to an unspecified 'shadow economy'.
How will this crypto-currency work? Give a detailed description, not a bunch of vague references that aren't internally consistent or even coherent. Other than being government provided, what is different between this crypto-currency and the debit card in my wallet with a Visa / Mastercard logo?
Most importantly - because totalitarianism is part of the premise of this argument...how - in any way - does having a centralized currency where every transaction is monitored and approved by the government REDUCE potential for totalitarianism? The prime benefits of cash are that it's use is effectively untraceable and anonymous, it's completely fungible, and can be held / stored independently of any centralized authority.
{Twitter, Everybody's doing it. }{Writing and Story Blog}
I don't give a fuck. Much like Kipling I don't live in the US so can't watch your show. If it's so important to whatever you want to argue then either post a transcript or sum up the point in your own words. (preferably the latter)
Your source is not a source I have access to. That is not my fault, it's yours. Find a better one.
It runs into big problems with scaling, in that every transaction needs to propagate throughout every node in the entire network. Bitcoins are slow (how long do you want to wait for your transaction to process through the network?) and wouldn't scale to something like a national / global currency, but that could possibly be overcome with a better designed currency.
It also runs into the problems when wallets / accounts are persistent. The nature of bitcoins don't make this a particularly major issue, but if accounts are persistent (something that you arguably need for this to be workable outside of the bitcoin 'drug and child porn' niche) every transaction is shared through the network. It becomes a simple matter to see that the wallet belonging to your neighbor also made a $39.99 purchase at 'Don's Dildos and Sex Toy Emporium'.
Probably the best solution is something similar to today's centralized clearinghouses that route debit transactions to the appropriate banks. They work on a routing / account number lookup + pin system. Realistically, if we really wanted to, we could effectively eliminate physical cash as many people use a combination of direct deposit, online banking / bill pay, and debit cards instead of using physical cash. The only big difference between that and a workable centralized electronic currency is the public vs. private aspect.
But anyway, this may be a better topic for the 'bitcoin' thread.
This is immaterial.
If you want to make a claim, prove it. Which means with your actual words. Don't tell everyone to go watch a TV show and hope that does the job. In fact you were explicitly told to not do that.
I don't give a shit if 60 Minutes is the gold standard of journalism. Its Journalism, not Academics and as such falls far short of the standards of scientific rigor. That's just the way it is. If you don't like it tough shit.
And did I see you trying to build up the credentials of 60 Minutes by mentioning The Insider?
The Insider a movie about how 60 Minutes quashed a scientifically proven story based on commercial pressure and the fallout from that decision. That makes the complete opposite claim in terms of academic and scientific credibility you are trying to make MadCaddy! WTF?!
God, this giving me so much deja vu to the conspiracy threads of PA yore.
MadCaddy seems to be utterly convinced that he is making perfectly sensible argument in a logical and straightforward fashion. He seems to be missing the fact that the last 8 pages have been the rest of us going: "What are you saying" or "That does not mean what you think it means" AND "You don't even seem to know what you are talking about". We are not having a debate or discourse, we are trying to get bust through the Dunning-Kruger bias.
No, as a poster it's your job to be able to make a coherent point, and elaborate why / what you think supports your position. What is important, what does it tell you, and why does it lead you to the points you are making. That way, if your point isn't coherent or disagrees with the source material, there is at least a starting point for a discussion.
Even if the video is source material or central to the topic at hand - like a video of police brutality that spurred the thread, you still should be explaining what you took away from the video, and why you arrived at your conclusions.
@ronya
Why do you think I didn't engage with him?
Edit: it's like talking with a free energy nut.
MadCaddy: hey guys we can have perpetual motion because coal is dirty
People: what? No. See the second law of thermodynamics
MadCaddy: 1851 is an old cite. There are plenty of physicists today who think coal is dirty
People: :psyduck:
Aside didn't we once have a Psyduck smiley? Or am I thinking of a different forum
what lessons can we learn from it?
1) if you want to talk about a policy proposal, try to be explicit about the thing that you're presenting. in this case, if you want to talk about your idea for a great new crypto-currency, try to be explicit about what exactly you're talking about, and try to present the benefits and drawbacks directly.
2) socratic redirection is terrible. terrible. don't do it unless you're talking to a five year old. if an adult asks you a legit question about the topic you want to discuss, redirecting a question to them is not okay - especially when it's only tangentially related.
3) don't expect people to watch longish videos in order to understand your point or participate in your thread. don't do this ever.
4) we have a smart crew here on this forum. no matter what the topic, odds are immense that you will find someone smarter or better educated about the topic than you are. try not to get offended by this - try to actually learn from what they know and you don't instead of getting your back up.
5) ronya is a really patient boxer but even he seems to have his limits
madcaddy: i read this thread and still don't have any idea what you like about cryptocurrencies or even what your actual proposal was for them. the really terrible thing about bitcoins that libertarian types like about them - that their supply is essentially algorithmically assigned - is something that you don't seem to care about. the fact that histories of transactions are directly observable - something that civil libertarians hate - is something you seem to like, even though you also get on tangents about how the government already has too much power.
i dunno. it's an unfocused tedious mess.