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Okay, get a coffee and read this. We'll talk later, I'm sure
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That is mental stuff.You know in The Animatrix where the robots rise up and kill us all? This is where it starts.
We have managed to roll with a the social upheaval we've had to date. I don't see this being any different.
Everytime I try to open your link it crashes my browser.Arse.
It's always my links not your crap browser, please note.
I'm using the browser you told me to download, dopey.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'm using the browser you told me to download, dopey."So, you're blaming someone you call Dopey, for following his advice? Hmmm.
I still don't get the whole bitcoin thing. I understand that it can't be fiddled, and it works in just the same way as a bank account does but without a bank's control. But, is there a possible future where you could be paid your monthly wage in bitcoins? If so, where does your employer get the bitcoins, because as I understand it you have to be a computer genius in order to acquire them in the first place. And isn't all this info still on some server somewhere, so ultimately isn't someone still in control and could just pull the plug? I know I'm likely completely missing the mark, but that's how much I don't understand it?
I don't get it either, David.I'm gonna blame the two glasses of wine I've had.
I'll try again with coffee.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "I'm using the browser you told me to download, dopey."So, you're blaming someone you call Dopey, for following his advice? Hmmm."
Bite me.
As time is going by you can purchase Bitcoins from machines in a number of places. The key to Bitcoins is that the rates cannot be artificially manipulated.If you look back you can see that since the Gold Standard was abandoned, the banks have been able to create money without security. Before this you could not lend money that you did not have in gold.
The credit card in your pocket has a set credit limit, that credit limit is free money in the system. The card is actually a money creating object. With Bitcoins and other similar systems, you cannot use them if you don't own them.
Nope.You'll have to use smaller words.
With the gold standard you can only have as much currency as you have gold (or something like that anyway).So if a bar of gold was worth £1 and you had a million gold bars, then there should only be a million pounds in circulation at any one time.
To be honest I've only got a tiny idea of how it all works but it seems that our economies are currently built on sand and bullshit - everyone is borrowing from each other yet no-one really has enough money to pay it all back.
Imagine if you wanted to borrow £5 from a friend whilst in the pub yet it turned out that your friend had no money on them. They then produce a pen and paper and proceed to write the words 'five pounds' on that bit of paper. You then take that note to the bar and the barman willingly accepts that as payment for the drinks, who then proceeds to use it to pay his staff wages at the end of month.
Now imagine if everyone in the pub was doing the same thing.
Think about the stories you hear of millions of pounds being lost on the stock exchange due to an ant farting in a Siberian jungle. No actual money is lost and the value usually recovers by the end of the day anyway.
It's all about how much confidence - ie, fresh air and unicorn farts - people have in how much something is worth.
So if bitcoins are purchased with money that has no genuine value, what's the difference?
I could only really answer that with a large "I dunno lol" picture I'm afraid.
Actually, it probably all links back to what I said about how much confidence people have in the currency.If you look back to the hyperinflation that Germany suffered in the 1920s, things immediately got better when they ditched their old currency and created a new one... even though nothing in any tangible sense actually changed - all they did was change the name and appearance of their coins and notes.
It's like everyone hating a book called Barry Notter. The author then changes the title to Harry Potter and suddenly everyone changes their mind about the book.
But bitcoins fell apart not long ago!I read about it in the Daily Mail!
I miss dubloons.
Krugerrands. That's what I want. Many of them.
David wrote: "Patti, here you are: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fre..."I was all excited there for a minute.
Think I'll go light a candle in your author thread now...
Patti (baconater) wrote: "But bitcoins fell apart not long ago!I read about it in the Daily Mail!"
No, what happened was that Bitcoins became over valued. This is what happens with currencies. If you notice they are now back rising again, but I'll bet that doesn't get headlines in the Mail.
It's all how to lose weight for the beach these days. :(
But...So if they can be overvalued, how are they a better form of currency?
They aren't tied to the gold standard nor anything tangible.
Fcuk it.
I'm gonna start paying for everything with bags of salt.
A tea towel for everyone willing to march to the coast with me!
I'd pay with written words, but I fear I will starve.
Commas, David. Pay with commas.
The reason that Bitcoins go up and down in value has nothing to do with Bitcoins, and everything to do with currency.Because currency is not linked to anything, it goes up and down. Because we only look at the value of our currency, we think that Bitcoins go up and down, they don't, currency does.
If you invest in Bitcoins, their value will always go up in the long term as they have limited supply. It's the classic supply/demand conundrum.
for example, some years ago, someone paid £2000 for a model of the Corgi Yellow Submarine in pristine condition. Unfortunately, the week after, someone found twenty of them in their loft in their original boxes. The price dropped like a stone.
Ah! I have plenty of those, but do others place any value on them?
David wrote: "Ah! I have plenty of those, but do others place any value on them?"About as much as they do tea towels, it seems.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "The reason that Bitcoins go up and down in value has nothing to do with Bitcoins, and everything to do with currency.Because currency is not linked to anything, it goes up and down. Because we o..."
I still don't see how bitcoins aren't as intangible as any other currency.
Sorry. You know how thick I am. :(
I think it's more that you can't just create more Bitcoins in the way you can ask a mint to print more money.
Ummmm, what?The whole point of bitcoins is that you 'create' them if you have the IT know how.
So I've been told.
I'm really not clever enough to understand all this...
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Ummmm, what?The whole point of bitcoins is that you 'create' them if you have the IT know how.
So I've been told.
I'm really not clever enough to understand all this..."
That's how I understood it, apart from them limiting the amount that were allowed to be created.
With the Royal mint, you could churn out a billion pounds worth of notes and coins in a few minutes.The equivalent is not possible with Bitcoins.
Well that sux.Right.
My salary makes perfect sense, then.
C'mon then!
Grab a shovel!
I think bit coins are only working at the moment because they tend to represent money earned in the virtual environment. There are bit coin millionaires who buy real things. The bit coin will suffer like all currencies but it is a bubble that could burst and unlike government supported currency, when it does it goes devalue to zero and never be seen again. A few Internet entrepreneurs will have got very rich and millions of others will lose the tiny number of bit coins they bought for fun. As for peer to peer networking, there is already an alternative Internet with no hub to disrupt. You may not have heard of it. The authorities don't like it because it provides a (nearly) secure way for criminals to communicate, just like the www did in the early years.
The authorities are always a little bit behind the criminals but they do catch up.
Remember, the success of the wwwis largely down to the fact it became very popular for sharing porn when it was illegal in many places.
New technologies will not be suppressed. They may go underground to develop and then the authorities will find themselves even further behind the loop.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology...