Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#71

Post by Weltan » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:29 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #68

Weltan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the strange views of Libertarians, but I'd never heard a currency itself marked as coercive! I agree: It's a strange view of coercion where getting fired and ending up on the street provided you're fired by a private employer is less a coercive act than having to pay a percentage of your income for social benefit, or, worse yet it seems, having to use a 'coercive currency'.

Protection from being fired comes with a cost. Less people are willing to open companies and easily hire people to do job if they are afraid that they wouldn't be able to fire inefficient workers. All "unemployment" is government creation due to either "free" stuff like unemployment benefits or to regulations that prohibit some employers from hiring you.

Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.)

On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#72

Post by oleganza » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:34 PM UTC

Weltan wrote: post #71

oleganza wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protection from being fired comes with a cost. Less people are willing to open companies and easily hire people to do job if they are afraid that they wouldn't be able to fire inefficient workers. All "unemployment" is government creation due to either "free" stuff like unemployment benefits or to regulations that prohibit some employers from hiring you.

Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.) On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?

Unemployment will always be voluntary. I'm not employed on Sundays, Saturdays and during vacations absolutely voluntarily. I'm employed 16 hours in a row some days absolutely voluntarily. Unemployment is involuntary when there are people who are willing to pay for some work and people who are willing to earn that for that work, but they can't meet together because: 1) wage is below government-approved limit or 2) this type of job is forbidden, or 3) employer cannot fire the person when the job is done or 4) it's damn too expensive to even start filing all papers to hire someone.

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#73

Post by oleganza » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

Weltan wrote: post #71

oleganza wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protection from being fired comes with a cost. Less people are willing to open companies and easily hire people to do job if they are afraid that they wouldn't be able to fire inefficient workers. All "unemployment" is government creation due to either "free" stuff like unemployment benefits or to regulations that prohibit some employers from hiring you.

Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.) On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?

Talking about cost. We can only evaluate things when we are free from coercion to run experiments and measure the results independently. If there is a huge federal government monopoly on economic policy, there's no way we can find out if it's efficient or good enough. The only way to find out - remove the government coercion and then see how each family decides on their own: on which money to use, where to invest, what medicine to take etc.

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#74

Post by oleganza » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:44 PM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #69

oleganza wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Politicians can't change the rules of the protocol. 2. Politicians can't print more bitcoin as they like. Only according to the protocol and in competition with others. 3. It's virtually impossible to censor Bitcoin transactions (unless you shut down the whole internet in the country).

1. So what? Politicians also cannot change the laws of physics that govern paper money transactions, yet paper money is regulated. 2. That is not an issue of regulation. 3. The same applies to paper money, and again, paper money is regulated.

I was just listing aspects of Bitcoin that are "unregulatable".

Regulation = laws = rules = instructions to cops when to apply rubber hose.

1. Cash transactions require meeting in person. This makes people more vulnerable to meeting with rubber hose.

2. The value of your paper cash is diluted when owners of rubber hose print more of it.

Bitcoin reduces these threats by more than 90%.

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#75

Post by Weltan » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:45 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #72

Weltan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.) On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?

Unemployment will always be voluntary. I'm not employed on Sundays, Saturdays and during vacations absolutely voluntarily. I'm employed 16 hours in a row some days absolutely voluntarily. Unemployment is involuntary when there are people who are willing to pay for some work and people who are willing to earn that for that work, but they can't meet together because: 1) wage is below government-approved limit or 2) thi…

So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well.

What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decision?

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#76

Post by userulluipeste » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #13

betterunix wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think Bitcoin is unregulatable?

1. Politicians can't change the rules of the protocol. 2. Politicians can't print more bitcoin as they like. Only according to the protocol and in competition with others. 3. It's virtually impossible to censor Bitcoin transactions (unless you shut down the whole internet in the country).

I am sorry to break it to you, but:

1. Politicians make the rules, and the rules can dictate the seizure of the places that offer the government-free version of Bitcoin. (Well, for now the governments may not agree to cooperate on this, but the scenario has realistic prospects.) In this way the governments gets access to Bitcoin's evolution. After this, they can in time change it in wherever way they want and make it at some point incompatible with government-free versions. Mind you, that the bulk of the Bitcoin users will update their version from the most seemingly trusting source, which may be government's.

2. Don't underestimate people in this overly-motivating subject. And the motivated people can become very ingenious.

3. I am not sure if there can be a reason for censorship (a powerful actor can act in other ways against the undesired Bitcoin users), but what it is possible is to learn to filter out Bitcoin activity in particular or everything unknown in general. What is this binary stream? Encryption? Want privacy? Here's the government-provided solution that assures you (government-surveyed) privacy! ;)

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#77

Post by oleganza » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:48 PM UTC

Weltan wrote: post #75

oleganza wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment will always be voluntary. I'm not employed on Sundays, Saturdays and during vacations absolutely voluntarily. I'm employed 16 hours in a row some days absolutely voluntarily. Unemployment is involuntary when there are people who are willing to pay for some work and people who are willing to earn that for that work, but they can't meet together because: 1) wage is below government-approved limit or 2) thi…

So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well. What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decis…

Say, I would like to be an astronaut. I'm thus unemployed because no one will voluntarily take me to an orbit just because I want that. Is it bad for society? Well, who knows? But I sure can find million other jobs to work at until we hit real resource limits and 100 trillion head count on this planet.

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#78

Post by oleganza » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

Weltan wrote: post #75

oleganza wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment will always be voluntary. I'm not employed on Sundays, Saturdays and during vacations absolutely voluntarily. I'm employed 16 hours in a row some days absolutely voluntarily. Unemployment is involuntary when there are people who are willing to pay for some work and people who are willing to earn that for that work, but they can't meet together because: 1) wage is below government-approved limit or 2) thi…

So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well. What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decis…

It's very good that you ask this question. There was always and always will be scarcity in the world. Everyone wants more than it's available right now. To avoid poverty we need ways to save, build capital and insure ourselves against rainy days. This won't eliminate poverty, but nor rape and murder will help removing it.

The only way to know how to rationally use resources is to do so without acts of violence. Then we can talk about how to make sure that most people have something useful to do and have enough money to feed themselves.

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#79

Post by Weltan » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

oleganza wrote: post #73

Weltan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that in a society without a government there would be no unemployment? (To clarify, unemployment is the opposite of employment. Unemployment is 'not working'.) On your first point, it's not whether or not it comes with a cost that is the relevant question. The relevant question is: If it does come with a cost, does the cost justify the benefits and/or are we willing to pay the cost?

Talking about cost. We can only evaluate things when we are free from coercion to run experiments and measure the results independently. If there is a huge federal government monopoly on economic policy, there's no way we can find out if it's efficient or good enough. The only way to find out - remove the government coercion and then see how each family decides on their own: on which money to use, where to invest, wh…

I didn't say we have to evaluate the cost in any sort of vacuum of political power, the tools are here and the tools are perfectly capable of taking into account government. In fact, the tools necessitate a governmental economic policy at this point. Government measurements often are independent measurements insofar as they are measurements done by an entity that has more neutral stake in the economic function of a nation than any constituent citizen, company or body corporate. Who is the neutral arbiter in a society without government? Added: Who else can require corporations/individuals to release correct/non-fraudulent financial data, and who else can hold them to account if they don't do so?

Re: Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

#80

Post by snitko » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

Weltan wrote: post #75

oleganza wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment will always be voluntary. I'm not employed on Sundays, Saturdays and during vacations absolutely voluntarily. I'm employed 16 hours in a row some days absolutely voluntarily. Unemployment is involuntary when there are people who are willing to pay for some work and people who are willing to earn that for that work, but they can't meet together because: 1) wage is below government-approved limit or 2) thi…

So there's no room in this case where and individual would be unable to find work? Somehow, everyone will have a skill-set and the personal capability (even quadriplegic people?) at any given time to find work on demand and to change their work on demand as well. What is your definition of voluntary, by the way? Is a person taking a job they don't want to do, but have to in order to feed themselves, a voluntary decis…

I think what oleganza is trying to say here is that while unemployment may indeed exist under any system, what we have to understand is that by creating laws and regulations to fight it, we really are doing it at someone else's expense.

For instance, if an automobile factory produces cars and people don't really need so many cars, then this factory fires workers. If it's impossible or difficult to fire them, then this means the cost goes on to consumers and prices of cars go up.

The reason unemployment exists is not because there's not enough jobs. There are plenty of job positions that can't be filled because there are no people willing and/or skillful enough to fill them. The reason unemployment exists in the wild (with no regulation) is because the market needs to readjust itself to produce something people want in the quantities people want. When government interferes into this process, it only delays this adjustment.