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Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

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Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#171

Post by agotterer »

elliekelly wrote: post #114
agotterer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find it strange. The same thing could be said of airplanes, slow cookers, and propane tanks.

There are harmful, fringe, uses of those items but the vast majority of the use-cases fit a slow cooker aren’t harmful. The same cannot be said of bitcoin, where the primary use-case is facilitating nefarious business.

For better it worse, the primary use case of Bitcoin is as a store of value. I find it misleading to tell people that the “primary use-case is facilitating nefarious business”. Do you have some data to back up a statement which says that the vast majority of Bitcoin is used in that way? I’m not suggesting there aren’t bad actors out there. But there are plenty of bad actors who deal in fiat as well. But this was the point I was trying to make. The nefarious actors are an edge case.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#172

Post by chii »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #32
zpeti wrote: post #6

In other news, the Bloomberg Agriculture Index (price of food) is hockey-sticking: https://twitter.com/KarelMercx/status/1387108408139161600 At the least, bitcoin is a possible way to protect against this, if you think it's a risk.

How do you deal with deflation?

They don't see deflation as a problem - bitcoin is designed to deflate.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#173

Post by dcolkitt »

stepanhruda wrote: post #150
dcolkitt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary use case of Bitcoin is to evade governments control over capital. Sometimes that’s good (governments disgorging kidnappers of their ransom). Sometimes that’s bad (Nazis seizing wealth of targeted groups). Sometimes it depends on your perspective (governments preventing the trade in illicit drugs). Overall how you feel about this in aggregate will depend on how comfortable you are with government power. Le…

You… really think a tyrant would fail because of a bunch of armed general population? The make or break is having public support, a bunch of people armed with guns don’t make a difference - maybe they would when the amendment was written, but the efficiency gap between a person with a gun vs US military has increased 1000x.

This logic only holds if you assume that the US military are merciless killing machines that unquestioningly follow orders. There are plenty of examples of much weaker revolutionary forces prevailing over modern well-funded militaries.[1] Heck, there are many examples of civilian areas that are so persistently violent that the state simply refuses to enforce laws there.[2]

No leader has unilateral control to unleash the full force of the military on their own citizenry. Imagine what would happen if POTUS tried to order a nuclear strike, or even aerial bombing, on an American city? The Joint Chiefs would almost certainly arrest him immediately. Ordering soldiers to fire on their fellow citizens drastically raises the probability of outright mutiny. This is true even in the most oppressive regimes. Even the Nazis were genuinely scared of average German citizens turning on them for perceived abuses.[3]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revolution_of_2011 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Netherlands#The_...

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#174

Post by ragnese »

alkonaut wrote: post #101
ragnese wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much disagree. How many people with 401ks and/or other retirement vehicles actually know what companies they "own"? How many of them vote? How many of them actually have enough of the right kinds of shares to vote? To say that stocks are about owning a company in practice is the same as saying bitcoin is just money like the dollar. It's true in theory, but it's not the practical reality of this moment in histo…

If they bought the stock they are helping fund the business. The shareholders are keeping the stock because it represents their stake but the actual money paid can be used by the company selling its stock and that’s the primary purpose. Whether the buyer/investor votes, or knows what they bought, doesn’t change anything in that respect.

Well, of course there are other subtleties involved, but even the money that I pay for a given stock doesn't just go to the company unless it's an IPO. It might indirectly benefit the company because I'm adding to the demand and driving the stock price up, which helps all holders of the stock, including the company that issued the stock originally.

However, my point is that people are not buying stocks to own OR to benefit the company. They're buying stock so that a "bigger sucker" will come around later and buy it from them and they can make a profit.

So I guess it depends on who we're talking about when we say "primary purpose", but for anyone who is purchasing stocks, the primary purpose is NOT to be an owner of a company. The primary purpose is to speculate.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#175

Post by dcolkitt »

maxqin1 wrote: post #156
dcolkitt wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the democratic world fell under fascist and/or Marxist-Leninist totalitarian regimes within living memory. There’s only four independent democracies uninterrupted over the past century. Two have widespread civilian firearm ownership.

Based on your numbers, owning guns has no affect or even a negative affect.

100% of democracies with widespread civilian firearm ownership remained democracies during the entirety of the past century. Less than one in ten democracies without widespread firearm ownership did. How is that a negative effect?

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#176

Post by scoopertrooper »

dcolkitt wrote: post #148
scoopertrooper wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the same reason I support the Second Amendment [...] would make things a hell of a lot harder for any would be tyrants. Yet, somehow the rest of the democratic world spins around just fine without millions of semi-automatic weapons sloshing about.

Most of the democratic world fell under fascist and/or Marxist-Leninist totalitarian regimes within living memory. There’s only four independent democracies uninterrupted over the past century. Two have widespread civilian firearm ownership.

> Most of the democratic world fell under fascist and/or Marxist-Leninist totalitarian regimes within living memory.

Are you suggesting that a few extra light weapons floating around in the 1930s would have stopped the Nazis and Soviets steam rolling across the Europe?

Are you suggesting civilian firearm ownership somehow prevented the Nazis from skipping over the Atlantic and taking over America? Why did America waste all that money on submarines and aircraft carriers, when they had such deep reserves of plucky gun enthusiasts at the ready?

I'm so confused by your comment.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#177

Post by bronzeage »

gruez wrote: post #142
bronzeage wrote: post #75

The real issue with Bitcoin is tether. Tether printing is practically responsible for almost all the gains in Bitcoin. Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. When you can print make belief dollars, in volumes that were never proven to exist, and pretend trading them for Bitcoin is the same as trading dollars, then of course Bi…

>Just look at Tether volume versus Bitcoin volume and tell me you trust bitcoins valuation when it's backed by make belief tethers. That's consistent with tether being "printed" (ie. issued without dollars backing them), but it's also consistent with dollar inflows to bitcoin exchanges that use tether. Without further evidence that's not indicative of anything.

Financial exchanges need to prove to you that trades really do happen with real money at the prices they say it happens, and that the order book isn't cooked. If I were to open an exchange for shitcoin, and show you pretty graphs and fake orders to buy shitcoin, would you believe me when I tell you that's what shitcoin is worth? no. Trades with tether are exactly that: trades with make belief dollars. Bitfinex prints tethers and shows you orders for trades in tether, while most of these trades are probably bitfinex trading it's make belief currency with itself. You should be the one requiring evidence that the trades are real.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#178

Post by maxqin1 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #175
maxqin1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your numbers, owning guns has no affect or even a negative affect.

100% of democracies with widespread civilian firearm ownership remained democracies during the entirety of the past century. Less than one in ten democracies without widespread firearm ownership did. How is that a negative effect?

Where are you getting your numbers from, the NRA?

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#179

Post by tromp »

alkonaut wrote: post #101
ragnese wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much disagree. How many people with 401ks and/or other retirement vehicles actually know what companies they "own"? How many of them vote? How many of them actually have enough of the right kinds of shares to vote? To say that stocks are about owning a company in practice is the same as saying bitcoin is just money like the dollar. It's true in theory, but it's not the practical reality of this moment in histo…

If they bought the stock they are helping fund the business. The shareholders are keeping the stock because it represents their stake but the actual money paid can be used by the company selling its stock and that’s the primary purpose. Whether the buyer/investor votes, or knows what they bought, doesn’t change anything in that respect.

If you buy into an IPO you're helping the business raise funds. If you buy stock from other stock owners it doesn't help the business.

Re: Berkshire: Bitcoin is ‘contrary to the interest of civilization.’

#180

Post by maxqin1 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #173
stepanhruda wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You… really think a tyrant would fail because of a bunch of armed general population? The make or break is having public support, a bunch of people armed with guns don’t make a difference - maybe they would when the amendment was written, but the efficiency gap between a person with a gun vs US military has increased 1000x.

This logic only holds if you assume that the US military are merciless killing machines that unquestioningly follow orders. There are plenty of examples of much weaker revolutionary forces prevailing over modern well-funded militaries.[1] Heck, there are many examples of civilian areas that are so persistently violent that the state simply refuses to enforce laws there.[2] No leader has unilateral control to unleash…

But the joint chiefs are OK with tear gassing protesters for a photo-op. I wish I had your blind faith.
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