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Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

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Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#291
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is a physical asset. People understand physical security. Gold can't be lost due to a hard drive crash, and it cannot be stolen over a network. More importantly, I believe a majority of people (myself among the number) do not understand bitcoins were stolen from mtgox.

Dollars (and Euros) stopped being a gold-based currency a long time ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money Besides, "understanding" is very slippery verb in this context, what do you understand about gold? You know where it all is? You know who is in charge of protecting it and who is the owner? You know its location? You know who is digging for it? You know where are they digging? I don't clearly see what "und…

There's a disconnect between what I think of as Gold investment and what you're talking about... Perhaps you're referring to Gold stocks, or notes or something?

What I'm talking about: In India, my family buys a small amount of Gold every 3 months or so. Gold coins, each a few grams in weight. I know exactly where they are -- I have a safe deposit locker at my bank, and some of them have been converted into jewelry for my wife.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#292
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold is a physical asset. People understand physical security. Gold can't be lost due to a hard drive crash, and it cannot be stolen over a network. More importantly, I believe a majority of people (myself among the number) do not understand bitcoins were stolen from mtgox.

Dollars (and Euros) stopped being a gold-based currency a long time ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money Besides, "understanding" is very slippery verb in this context, what do you understand about gold? You know where it all is? You know who is in charge of protecting it and who is the owner? You know its location? You know who is digging for it? You know where are they digging? I don't clearly see what "und…

[deleted]

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#293
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dollars (and Euros) stopped being a gold-based currency a long time ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money Besides, "understanding" is very slippery verb in this context, what do you understand about gold? You know where it all is? You know who is in charge of protecting it and who is the owner? You know its location? You know who is digging for it? You know where are they digging? I don't clearly see what "und…

There's a disconnect between what I think of as Gold investment and what you're talking about... Perhaps you're referring to Gold stocks, or notes or something? What I'm talking about: In India, my family buys a small amount of Gold every 3 months or so. Gold coins, each a few grams in weight. I know exactly where they are -- I have a safe deposit locker at my bank, and some of them have been converted into jewelry f…

Cool! Somebody like you was at work 160 years ago in California - recently 6 cans of gold were discovered buried under an ancient oak tree after a rain.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I still find it hypocritical in this case is that Bitcoin is currently approximately useless. People were using MtGox to essentially place bets on the future of Bitcoin. Some people surely didn't get as far as hypocrisy; having no clearly formed views on the purpose and future of financial infrastructure, they were just chasing tulip bulbs. But I think betting on a technology whose major feature is indepen…

Oh gee, that's really a lot of fallacies. Yes, people used the bank called MtGox in order to bet on the future of bitcoin, just as they use other banks in order to buy stocks of companies in order to bet on their future, often without having a clearly formed view on what the company will be doing in the future, and more often than not with the hope that some particular company will disrupt how a certain business is b…

If all of the people putting money into Bitcoin had put this much thought into their investment, there wouldn't be a problem.

The people I think are likely hypocrites are the group I think of "glibertarians". A fine example is Wall Street and its army of fluffers. They are deeply opposed to government intervention, except suddenly when government intervention is in their favor that's ok. It's not libertarianism; it's IGMFY wearing a bow tie.

Also, a writing protip: basing an argument on a dictionary definition is an almost universal sign of a weak argument. It means you've given up trying to engage with what other people are actually saying, and are just trying to "win".

And it's even worse when you're just wrong. If I type "hypocrisy" into Google, the first definition is "the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense." E.g., the advocacy of (or betting on) independence from or the obsolescence of existing regulatory structures and then turning around and asking for protection from those structures.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh gee, that's really a lot of fallacies. Yes, people used the bank called MtGox in order to bet on the future of bitcoin, just as they use other banks in order to buy stocks of companies in order to bet on their future, often without having a clearly formed view on what the company will be doing in the future, and more often than not with the hope that some particular company will disrupt how a certain business is b…

If all of the people putting money into Bitcoin had put this much thought into their investment, there wouldn't be a problem. The people I think are likely hypocrites are the group I think of "glibertarians". A fine example is Wall Street and its army of fluffers. They are deeply opposed to government intervention, except suddenly when government intervention is in their favor that's ok. It's not libertarianism; it's…

A writing protip for you: Trying to change the accepted definition of words is a universal sign of a weak argument. It means you have given up on actually defending your position, instead clinging to a word that has some connotation in your favour, and are just trying to "win".

And a writing meta protip: Attacking the form of your opponent's argument instead of the content is a universal sign of a weak argument, too.

Also, you better should not confuse "basing an argument on a dictionary definition" with "pointing out that the conclusion of your argument only works because your definition is flawed". Your argument is based on the implicit premise that hypocrisy is generally considered bad. There are reasons why hypocrisy is generally considered bad. Those reasons depend on the common definition. Now, you are using a definition that differs from that common definition in a way which happens to invalidate the reasoning that leads to hypocrisy being considered bad. So, when I am pointing out that you are not using the commonly understood definition, I am doing that because it invalidates your implied conclusion that MtGox users asking for regulatory help are/would be behaving badly.

Advocating for something but doing something else is not hypocrisy (and in particular is not necessarily bad, which is why it is important to point out that it is not hypocrisy), not even by the definition you quoted.

You have to distinguish between someone suggesting to change some common behaviour because that would supposedly be beneficial and someone claiming that they have actually changed their behaviour. If someone just says that they think doing X would be good without claiming or implying to be doing X, there is no pretense. It is perfectly normal to consider some behaviour better than one's own and even advocating for it without it being one's moral standard, for all kinds of reasons, often having to do with the practical impossibility of (completely) changing one's own behaviour unless the suggested better behaviour reaches some critical mass of supporters.

For example, someone could be convinced that only traveling by train would be better than using a car (for whatever reasons). Now, in order to achieve that everyone travels only by train, he starts advocating for train travel. But unfortunately, the rail network is in bad shape and it really is currently impossible to travel by train only. That's why he still has a car and uses it where necessary. The point is that he advocates for train travel and against cars, but his moral standard is not that one only should be traveling by train right now - his moral standard is just that one should advocate for train travel in order to enable the transition away from cars to trains and that one should be using trains where it's easy enough to do so, and that is in complete agreement with what he actually does, he doesn't claim to only be traveling by train, he doesn't judge you for using your car, he only judges you by whether you advocate for trains and maybe whether you use trains where that is practicable. That's obviously the only way that could possibly lead to the idea gaining critical mass so that a better rail network could be built and thus it could become realistic for people to actually travel by train only - it's completely idiotic to expect this person to essentially stop travelling at all until a good rail network exists just because he suggests that that would be a better thing to do, or to suggest that he'd be hypocritical if he expected to be rescued if he had a car accident.

If your moral standard is that one should advocate for the use of bitcoins, and you state that one should advocate for the use of bitcoin, and you do indeed advocate for the use of bitcoins, then you do behave according to the moral standards you claim to have, that's why it's not hypocritical, no matter whether you also do use bitcoins or not.

Only if you claimed that your moral standard was that one should not be using any currencies besides bitcoin right now (so, you would judge people for using USD, for example) but were actually using USD, then that would be hypocrisy.

The reason why that distinction is important is that hypocrisy is considered to be bad because it is a form of deceit (and then there are deeper reasons why deceit is considered to be bad). But just saying that you would consider some behaviour to be better ("advocating for it") without claiming or implying to be behaving in that way is not deceitful, hence not hypocrisy, and hence not necessarily bad.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#296
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to this being the usual hindsight horseshit, it also displays startling ignorance of how markets work. If every time I want to buy a pack of gum I have to investigate every entity in the production and distribution chain, then I will never buy gum because the transaction cost is well above the value. This is why businesses, who have substantial lobbying power, are generally ok with government regulation a…

I'm not talking about checking every screw of the truck. I'm saying that an unmaintained truck with lots of valuables in it is suspicious, and you should tust it for what it is. I'll get negative poins again just because people don't like to be told what they should have known: Bitcoins smell like a Ponzi scheme and, until they have proven themselves opposite, you should remain very wary of the money you put in. Do y…

Personally, I think Bitcoin is currently a tulip bulb mania, not a Ponzi scheme. (It might one day also be an interesting payment mechanism, but that's not why most people at MtGox bought Bitcoin.)

That said, I don't think the average investor has the chops necessary to fully evaluate a bank, which is effectively what MtGox was. The information asymmetries are just too severe. In this case, depositors didn't lose money on Bitcoin itself, but in what was basically a bank collapse due to negligence or fraud. (Or both; we don't know yet.)

One solution is to always blame the victims. You can't go wrong there! But the solution that I prefer is to regulate banks, and forbid unregulated banks from operating in the regulators' jurisdictions. This oops-the-money-is-all-gone horseshit is exactly the kind of thing an auditor or a bank regulator would have spotted in their first week.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all of the people putting money into Bitcoin had put this much thought into their investment, there wouldn't be a problem. The people I think are likely hypocrites are the group I think of "glibertarians". A fine example is Wall Street and its army of fluffers. They are deeply opposed to government intervention, except suddenly when government intervention is in their favor that's ok. It's not libertarianism; it's…

A writing protip for you: Trying to change the accepted definition of words is a universal sign of a weak argument. It means you have given up on actually defending your position, instead clinging to a word that has some connotation in your favour, and are just trying to "win". And a writing meta protip: Attacking the form of your opponent's argument instead of the content is a universal sign of a weak argument, too.…

I agree with parts of what you say, but I don't see it as relevant to my point. It seems to be an energetic effort in missing the point that I'm making. Of course, it could merely be that I'm making the point poorly, but either way I don't think further long exchanges will get us closer to a mutual understanding. Either way, thanks for trying.

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a disconnect between what I think of as Gold investment and what you're talking about... Perhaps you're referring to Gold stocks, or notes or something? What I'm talking about: In India, my family buys a small amount of Gold every 3 months or so. Gold coins, each a few grams in weight. I know exactly where they are -- I have a safe deposit locker at my bank, and some of them have been converted into jewelry f…

Cool! Somebody like you was at work 160 years ago in California - recently 6 cans of gold were discovered buried under an ancient oak tree after a rain.

Buried treasure: the ONLY way to save ^_^ .

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! Somebody like you was at work 160 years ago in California - recently 6 cans of gold were discovered buried under an ancient oak tree after a rain.

Buried treasure: the ONLY way to save ^_^ .

Didn't work for that person; they died without ever recovering it. Some random couple got rich. Lesson: take more walks in the woods?

Re: Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy Protection

#300
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main feature of BTC is that it's unregulated, so indeed, if you don't provide the security usually enforced by governments, there isn't any. Usually, when using online services such as MtGox, you're secured by the fact that their reputation is worth more than what they can scam out of you. It's vital for eBay, AirBnB, the Silk Road etc. that you trust them, so they won't let an horror story unfold publicly just t…

> The main feature of BTC is that it's unregulated The main feature of BTC is that, independently of regulation by any other entity that may be applied to it, it is "regulated" by the design of the protocol, which, among other things, provides decentralized issuance and transaction verification, and predefined supply constraints. A popular myth about BTC is that it is unregulated (and, in some forms of the myth, impo…

Which is as close to "unregulated" as useful definitions go: once unleashed and bootstrapped, no human nor political organization can directly drive it. It's only self-regulated the way a free market is self-regulated, which is almost the exact opposite of what one has in mind when they talk about "regulations".

(Actually governments can influence its value significantly, by stating on its legality, and the legality/taxation of its conversion into state moneys / commodities).

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