littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
That's not why they tend towards monopolies, though. In fact, governments will actively legislate to prevent monopolies. You're not up on your Adam Smith, I see.
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So ... if monopolies are bad, then surely communism is bad, because it discourages competition ... if there is no competition, there is
- A monopoly
- The product never made it to production because there's no innovation.
- Not enough demand for the product to be viable because most of its potential consumers have already starved to death, been murdered or are working in gulags.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The main problem of monopolies is one of exploitation rather than innovation, from my perspective at least.
Private monopolies entail maximum exploitation.
State-owned monopolies are not run for profit in the same way so don't suffer from that problem.
Your focus on competition isn't really borne out by real-world experiences. The neural networks that have turned into ChatGPT were originally developed as research projects run out of scientific curiosity. The WWW was invented at CERN, a multi-state-owned research organisation not run for profit. NASA is a not-for-profit organisation. They've been rather innovative over the years, I think we can safely say. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine not in the name of profit. Japan's amazing high-speed train network has been privatised, but it was built by a state-owned, not-for-profit entity. Lots of things have been achieved not in the name of capitalist profit.
Private monopolies entail maximum exploitation.
State-owned monopolies are not run for profit in the same way so don't suffer from that problem.
Your focus on competition isn't really borne out by real-world experiences. The neural networks that have turned into ChatGPT were originally developed as research projects run out of scientific curiosity. The WWW was invented at CERN, a multi-state-owned research organisation not run for profit. NASA is a not-for-profit organisation. They've been rather innovative over the years, I think we can safely say. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine not in the name of profit. Japan's amazing high-speed train network has been privatised, but it was built by a state-owned, not-for-profit entity. Lots of things have been achieved not in the name of capitalist profit.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Why would they attack when they can buy out? They've got loads more capital than the little guys. By submitting to market logic one plays to their advantages.
That's an interesting claim, since presumably such a "fair financial system" has yet to ever exist, given that people have been committing crimes and perpetrating politically motivated violence against each other since time immemorial until the present day. So how can you possibly know that?
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am angry at you, for some unfathomable reason. Why are you working yourself up like that?
Tbf I thought better of it and went back and edited the comment, but you obviously got to it before I edited it - my apologies.
I can't see how people would resort to the extreme violence of terrorism if they have everything to live for. Plenty of criminals simply never knew how to make large amounts of money without resorting to crime.
Please. If you think that the regulatory moat around banks has never been abused to protect the interests of those same banks then I despair. The same with big pharma or are you now of the view that anyone who critisizies big farmer and the way it's regulated in the United States, is just a right wing anti-vax nutter?
Attacks come from all directions for all sorts of reasons. My point that systems, DAOs and all sorts of smart contracts can be built without fear of them being torn down as part of an attack,
Immutable money and immutable free speech go hand in hand. It's the same thing.
We always come back to the cost of persecution / prosecution.
If it cost next to zero to shut up those that critisized vaccines for example, then the whole lot of them would have been simply switched off .... and anyone who critisized them being switched off would have also been switched off until the plebs understand, they aren't free.
In a free society we have free speech. Free speech of course isn't absolute ... there are consequences, but the consquence should never be that you lose your mouth.
In this day and age on the internet, you should always have your mouth unless you've lost your liberty and to lose your liberty it should cost society a lot of resources to do that, otherwise we could all lose our liberty over sweet F.A.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You do know that money isn't wealth in and of itself, yes? Wealth is real-world stuff. Money symbolically represents that stuff to allow exchange. Of course, massive systems have developed around that and those that control the symbolic system have immense power (and wealth), but that doesn't change what it is fundamentally.
Not sure what else to say. Most of what you write there is just incoherent garbage.
Not sure what else to say. Most of what you write there is just incoherent garbage.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
There’s GCSE economics students that can write more coherent arguments/analysis than this bollocks.
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
Except with voting for the government, apparently. That requires centralisation and permission from the state. You've shit your own bed
q_w_e_r_t_y
You see an investment scam and I see divinity
Not one to boast, but I actually have A level economics.
I went back to college in my 20s to do it, after a decade or so around the left and with a basic grounding in Marxist economics.
It was complete nonsense, designed to indoctrinate teenagers in to TINA attitudes.
Not everything taught in school is true, you know
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yes, in the case of economics, this is certainly true. Studying economic history in one form or another, which I did at college, is better. But even there, thinking back to that course, it still had a bunch of unexamined assumptions built into it regarding what success looks like, plus a definite teleological bias, which is really easy to fall into when you study history and read time backwards.
Regarding crypto, teleological thinking has certainly crept in among its evangelists. But a system such as bitcoin is amoral. Its mechanism doesn't have a purpose or goal or values other than, perhaps, an inbuilt bias towards inefficiency. The more successful it is, the more energy it wastes. In that sense, it is inherently immoral.
q_w_e_r_t_y
You see an investment scam and I see divinity
I'm not sure what you consider bitcoins' teleological thinking, beyond the idea that the world will move to a bitcoin standard.
Interesting. The value judgement of morality, here seems to be predicated on its use of energy, which you describe as a "waste"...which I guess for no-coiners is true, they obtain no value from the bitcoin network... like blind people may see the film industry as a waste of energy.
But for those of us who have bitcoin, the energy usage is distinctly not a waste, it secures the network, and we rely on that network security.
"Wasted energy" is an interesting concept, for example massive amounts of solar energy falls on the sahara desert...all wasted. Harnessing "waste energy", that is - energy that is undirected - is a key objective for bitcoin miners, volcanos and methane flairing are examples of some of the undirected energy that the bitcoin network captures.
So if your morality rests on whether energy is utilised, then bitcoin is morally good as it increases the amount of energy that is harnessed and directed
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Of all the things you say on this matter, this is the worst, but you seem stuck on it. That energy is not in any sense stored in or by the system. It is gone (as useful energy, that is) - heat disappearing into the atmosphere. This is just basic physics.
The system is set up such that, as the value of bitcoin goes up, so the incentive to spend money on mining goes up, so the energy/resources dedicated to mining goes up. The bitcoin network isn't more secure now because 0.5% of the world's entire electricity supply is dedicated to mining bitcoin rather than, say, 0.00000000001%.
But you're right about one thing. I don't give a flying fuck if the bitcoin network is secure or not.
Eta: This last bit isn't quite true. I would love it if someone found a way to hack into bitcoin and it collapsed overnight.
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Energy is “wasted” if we have used resources to transform it into a useful form, and that form has been expended on something useless. Like, oh for example, a colossal pointless pyramid scheme.
The sun falling on the Sahara is not wasted energy. Burning gas to make electricity which is then spent on running a lightbulb in the Sahara during the same period is wasted energy.
The sun falling on the Sahara is not wasted energy. Burning gas to make electricity which is then spent on running a lightbulb in the Sahara during the same period is wasted energy.
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I would expect a 10-year-old to be able to grasp this.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
“No-coiners”
q_w_e_r_t_y
You see an investment scam and I see divinity
I think it was the conjunction of pyramid scheme and sahara that put me in mind of this, but I started wondering if there was a Kabbes of Giza (cira 3BC) that went around complaining of all the wasted energy that was going into this pyramid scheme.
Anyways...."energy is wasted if we have used resources to transform it into a useful form, then expended it on something useless"
So...it starts as useless, someone wishes it to be directed in some way and has provided resources to enable that, you however do not value the direction that they have given it, and resent them spending resources directing it in this way, but who are you to determine what is a good or bad direction. I dont go around outside the houses of people with Xmas lights and shake my fist at them.
Now of course huge amounts of resources go into bombs that release enormous amounts of energy, which is far more hungry and destructive than the bitcoin network, so I do accept that there are negative uses of energy, but what you seem to be objecting to is not that its harmful, just that it exists.
Not if its at night.
I’m objecting to the fact that Bitcoin wastes vast amounts of energy. That energy is in a useful form that the world can make use of, and it is used to run a pyramid scheme that benefits no one and nothing. Climate change is a thing, you know. A really important thing. Wasting 1% of the world’s electricity on this white elephant is criminal. That electricity could be used in other ways and the result would reduce the amount that is needed to be generated by 1%.
the sun doesn’t tend to fall on the Sahara at night, qwerty.
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NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
But but but... whatabout the Christmas lights and the military-industrial complex? Surely if I point to other arguable wastes of energy, you will forget that I failed to justify wasting energy in the name of a digital speculative asset?! Whaddya mean, that's not how it works?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is a terrible argument.
A person fills their garden with fan heaters and runs them all year, summer and winter, day and night, wasting energy by throwing heat into the atmosphere. Scale that up about a million times and you get bitcoin mining, solving a mathematical puzzle whose sole purpose is to unlock a new level on a computer game.
We all have a stake in the decisions about which purposes our limited resources should be used for. And nobody should have an unfettered right to waste energy in any way they please.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
But… “I can do what I want” because “freedom”
I have a preference for voter ID for as long as voting for a centralised authority actually matters ... and over time, it will matter less. Nothing hypocritical about that position.Except with voting for the government, apparently. That requires centralisation and permission from the state. You've shit your own bed
Can't see their quotes. He/She/They/Ze can't be civilised or reasonable, so on ignore.
It's a fucking bargain!
Oh I'm sure it will all be "bitcoins fault" as the USD, GBP and the EURO implode.
Don't worry my friend. When the USD, Euro and GBP tank, those rich people you love will be quite protected.
And those scummy bitcointers and other altcoin scum who caused the financial should be hunted down and have their ill-gotten gains confiscated!
Now, where can we buy our carbon credits?
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Why would they do that? Crypto believers have been predicting this kind of thing happening since the beginning, but their prognostications have consistently failed to materialise. All of those currencies you mention have been through multiple financial crises, yet still see widespread use.
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
You're very civilised and reasonable
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
If all the major currencies collapse, it will be because there is a major planetwide shock. With global warming being the most likely. At that time holding crypto will be as worthless as anything else. When we or more likely our children or grandchildren are waiting in the queue for bread, holding crypto isn't going to get to the front of the line.
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