Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[IstvanZoltan]

All commodities - liquid, illiquid, mobile or immobile ones - are valued in money, which is DEBT. Gold got its value by the 'ability' to pay your debt (tribute/tax) to TPTB (church and state), which is the first debt and the foundation of the so called economy, which has been invented by organized violence of the Organized Violence (sick people who became priests and war lords to build the church mafia/military mafia, aka the state). People became epidemically sick when they began to hold cattle within concentration camps. Now it's a globalized pandemic, still waiting to be defeated.

Gerhard Bott: 'The invention of the Gods'
http://gerhardbott.de/das-buch/summary-in-english.html

Charles Tilly: War Making and State Making as Organized Crime
https://de.scribd.com/doc/2846173/Tilly-War-Making-and-State-Making-as-Organized-Crime

Capitalism is not Barterism, it is Debitism (Dr. Paul C. Martin), from the very beginning, when anarchy has been replaced by patriarchy (the tragedy of the communities and its transformation into societies: collectivism), when the homo sapiens has been transformed into a cartoon of himself, the homo oeconomicus (debt slave).

http://www.miprox.de/Wirtschaft_allgemein/Martin-Symp.pdf
https://bitco.in/forum/search/26704/?q=martin-symp&o=date&c[user][0]=30

This quote from great anthropologist / anarchist David Graeber, author of epochal milestone on economics, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, can also be added to list of quotes on "myth of barter" from @Zarathustra:

“Our standard account of monetary history is precisely backward,” writes David Graeber in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. “We did not begin with barter, discover money and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around.”​

http://lfb.org/the-myth-about-money-credit-gold/​

Another, similar link: http://twofriarsandafool.com/2013/09/debt-the-myth-of-barter/

EDIT: I forgot to mention, David Graeber is also considered to be founder (or "anti-leader") of Occupy Wall Street movement:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=david+graeber+occupy

 

[IstvanZoltan]

Reading this article The Sugar Conspiracy, I was struck by how similar the political tactics in nutrition science are to Core/Blockstream tactics. It's all there: the comforting chain of authority figures, the misuse of evidence, the intimidation through complexity, the twisted justification of censorship, the circular logic, the dogmatism, the moving goalposts, the holing up in establishments and building of moats, even the irrelevant signees to statements of consensus. Gregory Maxwell is Bitcoin's Ancel Keys. Mike Hearn is Bitcoin's John Yudkin.

Ancel Keys and the myth of the "lipid hypothesis" was also debunked by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, in "The Oiling of America" and "The Truth About Saturated Fats":

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fallon+enig+oiling+of+america

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fallon+enig+truth+about+saturated+fat

They are associated with the Weston Price foundation.

They also have an excellent cookbook, "Nourishing Traditions":

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fallon+enig+nourishing+traditions

I've been more or less following their diet (and the Paleolithic diet) for a few decades. I never touch margarine, I slather butter on everything, and I avoid grains. I am "of a certain age" by now - but I still look young for my years!

EDIT: A good source of info on Paleo diet is old blog by Dr. Kurt Harris (down now):

https://web.archive.org/web/20110410174520/http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/3/30/paleo-20-a-diet-manifesto.html?

The five links at the bottom of the page are also highly recommended.

Kurt Harris was only a veterinary radiologist, with some ideas about diet which he expressed on some forum (about finance, I think!). This generated much discussion, and he made his own blogs (archevore.com, or panu.com) - but later took down.

 

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

There is much confusion, on the subreddits especially, arising from how people often point out that a given Core proposal leads to a bad outcome. People think they are saying Bitcoin is doomed to that bad outcome, but actually often they are merely saying that the Core proposal won't be adopted and should be abandoned as soon as possible to avoid wasting time and spending away Bitcoin's market share dominance.

@IstvanZoltan

Fellow butter fiend here. Seems most people still think butter is fattening. Traditional diets like Fallon recommends make sense to me from a Hayekian natural-order perspective. Avoiding grains is like being a whole new level of sober, been doing it for a few months now.

 

[Justus Ranvier]

Fellow butter fiend here. Seems most people still think butter is fattening. Traditional diets like Fallon recommends make sense to me from a Hayekian natural-order perspective. Avoiding grains is like being a whole new level of sober, been doing it for a few months now.

This doctor has a cohesive Grand Unified Theory of insulin, obesity, diabetes, carbohydrates, and sugar, as well as a continually-growing list of cured patients to back it up:

https://intensivedietarymanagement.com

The best thing to do is take a day to read the entire blog from beginning to end if you care or think you might ever care about any of the above topics.

 

[Inca]

As a surgeon I suggest you obtain medical advice from a healthcare professional.

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[lunar]

@cypherdoc Mr Ver getting his tease on.

How come Bitmain/Antpool is listed as a supporter of bitcoin classic on the bitcoin classic page, however they don't appear to actually be mining with classic?

Am I missing something? If they are gonna be listed as a supporter, they should be mining for classic. Right? Talk is cheap, but actions are what really show.

 

[Zarathustra]

This quote from great anthropologist / anarchist David Graeber, author of epochal milestone on economics, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, can also be added to list of quotes on "myth of barter" from @Zarathustra:

“Our standard account of monetary history is precisely backward,” writes David Graeber in Debt: The First 5,000 Years. “We did not begin with barter, discover money and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around.”​

http://lfb.org/the-myth-about-money-credit-gold/​

Another, similar link: http://twofriarsandafool.com/2013/09/debt-the-myth-of-barter/

Thanks. The great anthropologist/anarchist is right and the keynesian and austrian aristocrats and theologians are wrong.

 

[molecular]

The biggest disappointment for me has been seeing just how many apparently-honest people were willing to become malignant sycophants.

The problem isn't that bad actors took an interest in Bitcoin - there will always be bad actors in the world and they will always be attracted to the positions where they can do the most damage - the problem is that it's so easy for them to recruit followers.

For me the biggest insight is that propaganda works on smart people who are actually capable of thinking for themselves just as well. Seems as long as other seemingly smarter people offer their 'opinion' and the opposing crowd is silenced / marginalized effectively enough, the desired opinion will prevail.

I think maybe the biggest problem here is that people still tend to want to trust some sort of authority when it comes to making big decisions. I really don't believe that a lot of people have arrived at the conclusion that 1 MB blocksize limit + segwit + LN is the way to go forward. They are sheep who more-or-less blindly follow the core authority decision. To top it, they spew those same arguments (if they can even be called that) to support their obviously unfounded belief.

I'm rather disappointed in those "smartest people" that bitcoin had supposedly assembled. They may be smart, but they're still lazy and fearful (I include myself to an extent, btw)

 

[Zarathustra]

Probably it has a lot to do with the huge number of conspiracy theorists and 'unhinged' seeming Classic supporters out there. It makes the large-block cause look bad.

Anarchists always look bad in a politically correct society where a majority follows and supports the conspiracy of the State, the Mafia, TPTB, the Organized Violence. An overwhelming majority of the people is part of the conspiracy. Thought to the end, all evil doing can be excused with deterministic evolution and illness:

 

[bluemoon]

I think maybe the biggest problem here is that people still tend to want to trust some sort of authority when it comes to making big decisions. I really don't believe that a lot of people have arrived at the conclusion that 1 MB blocksize limit + segwit + LN is the way to go forward. They are sheep who more-or-less blindly follow the core authority decision. To top it, they spew those same arguments (if they can even be called that) to support their obviously unfounded belief.

An overwhelming majority of the people is part of the conspiracy.

That Blockstream/Core is trying everything to make money by blocking the stream on the mainchain and enforce them into channels where they are waiting already is not a conspiracy theory. It's obvious. Is it evil or just sick evolution whenever a libertarian cypherpunk evolves into a totalitarian agitator?

Bitcoin would make the world's slaves free if they would only let it.

I was going to write 'Bitcoin is in the midst of its greatest test', but I think that rather than Bitcoin it is us, Bitcoin's protagonists, who face that test: we were born free but struggle (or not) to throw off our chains.

It is so much easier to conform and to find excuses; so much easier just to submit and obey and let Bitcoin be captured by private interests.

So much easier to remain slaves.

 

[IstvanZoltan]

My favorite Far Side comic:

 

[cypherdoc]

 

[Mengerian]

Thanks. The great anthropologist/anarchist is right and the keynesian and austrian aristocrats and theologians are wrong.

https://fee.org/articles/is-barter-a-myth/

https://mises.org/library/have-anthropologists-overturned-menger

The Austrian approach, particularly the insights of Menger and Mises, offer by far the most coherent framework for understanding money and why people value it.

That said, I don't completely discount Graeber. He had some interesting observations on the history of financial ledgers in ancient hierarchical societies.

 

[AdrianX]

David Graeber mith busting insight doesn't invalidate Mises's theory on the origins of money. If anything once you reconcile the two one has just more understanding.

At first I was very critical of David Graeber ideas as I though it invalidate the most coherent explainable of the evolution of money. But it doesn't, and should that evidence have been available to Mises he would have reworked his theory I'm sure.

 

[satoshis_sockpuppet]

I was banned b/c of my religious believes from /r/bitcoin .
All I did was to answer that

with some bible quotes to help our brother Luke Jr. see the light again.

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

"No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence."

"Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another."

 

[cypherdoc]

i am proud to say that i have removed r/Bitcoin from my bookmarks and won't be upgrading to 0.12.1.

@dooglus

Luke Jr refuses to acknowledge there is even a censorship problem both on bitcointalk.org and r/Bitcoin. he says he "sees no evidence of it". we here can all attest to the fact that this thread was locked down over on bitcointalk.org last August just b/c we were talking about big blocks after 4.5 yrs running and 1.5M views.

what do you have to say about this and @Peter R's censor?

 

[Richy_T]

Any use?

 

[Zarathustra]

https://fee.org/articles/is-barter-a-myth/

https://mises.org/library/have-anthropologists-overturned-menger

The Austrian approach, particularly the insights of Menger and Mises, offer by far the most coherent framework for understanding money and why people value it.

That said, I don't completely discount Graeber. He had some interesting observations on the history of financial ledgers in ancient hierarchical societies.

People valued the money that has been demanded by organized violence of the Organized Violence, vulgo: the war lords (church and state). From the article that @IstvanZoltan linked:

Graeber: “Say a king wishes to support a standing army of 50,000 men. Under ancient or medieval conditions, feeding such a force was an enormous problem… On the other hand, if one simply hands out coins to soldiers and then demands that every family in the kingdom was obliged to pay one of those coins back to you [to pay taxes], one would, in one blow, turn one’s entire national economy into a vast machine for the provisioning of soldiers, since now every family, in order to get their hands on the coins, must find some way to contribute to the general effort to provide soldiers with the things they want.”

Dr. Paul C. Martin came to the same conclusion, but many years before Graeber:

Private property as de iure institution needs a foregoing state to come into existence. The state needs foregoing power and foregoing power needs armed force. The ultimate “foundation of the economy” thus is the weapon, where possession and property are identical because the possession of it guarantees property of it. Armed force starts additional production (surplus, tribute). The first taxes are contributions of material for the production of attack weapons (copper, tin). Thus non-circulating money begins. Taxes as “census” and money are the same.

http://www.miprox.de/Wirtschaft_allgemein/Martin-Symp.pdf

At the times of Menger et al. there was nearly zero anthropologic knowledge. They couldn't know where the money came from: Organized Violence.

An incredible prophecy from Paul C. Martin 30 years ago:

"Heute ist weltweit Bagehot total: Alle Staaten werden für alle Staaten, alle Notenbanken für alle Notenbanken haften, einschließlich Währungsfonds und Weltbank und vielen anderen internationalen Institutionen. Und alle Staaten werden für alle Banken geradestehen, aber auch alle Notenbanken für alle Staaten und alle Staaten für alle Notenbanken. Alle, alle, alle werden für alle, alle, alle dasein. Und alle wissen, dass keinem von allen etwas passieren darf, weil dann allen etwas zustößt."

 

[Zarathustra]

Any use?

Will Blockstream/Core try to sell a super contentious 0.12.2 segwit fork with 2'000 nodes?
What do you guess?