Professional Looters Agree To Reduce Looting By 111 Billion Next Year

[Piscivore]

What I find ironic about all these "coming collapse" fantasists is that if they had even a modicum of the moxie, drive, or even basic competence necessary to enact the apocalyptic changes they say our society "needs" or "has coming"... they'd have the tools they need to find the emotional and material satisfaction they dream about within the current system.

 

[michaelsuede]

If it gets to that point, you probably don't have an Internet connection (or won't for very long), which makes your bitcoins rather useless.

Whoops.

All you need is a smart phone and a local wifi connection.

Full internet access is not necessary.

But I find it interesting that you think the internet would shut down if the monetary system collapsed. I think the internet would become the only thing keeping the country from collapsing into a North Korean police state.

Since the internet is a network of private networks, an implosion of the government should leave it relatively unaffected.

 

[michaelsuede]

What I find ironic about all these "coming collapse" fantasists is that if they had even a modicum of the moxie, drive, or even basic competence necessary to enact the apocalyptic changes they say our society "needs" or "has coming"... they'd have the tools they need to find the emotional and material satisfaction they dream about within the current system.

The collapse is occurring at the present moment.

Inflation will continue at double digit rates while wages stagnate.

This will continue on until food and energy costs become out of reach for most consumers.

At this point food riots will erupt, and we will see wide spread looting and other forms of socialist chaos take place.

The government will become continuously more aggressive as it tries to maintain control over the collapsing monetary system.

The devolution will take place over the course of several years and will happen in stages.

We are presently in the first stage of monetary collapse.

Gold spot:

http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/au00-pres.gif

Removed hotlinked image and replaced it with a regular link. Please see Rule 5.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

 

[Chaos]

Looting is a socialist activity?

To the contrary!

Looting is capitalism at its finest - private individuals engaging in an activity of their choosing in order to maximize their own welfare, without any government intervention.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

But I find it interesting that you think the internet would shut down if the monetary system collapsed. [...] Since the internet is a network of private networks, an implosion of the government should leave it relatively unaffected.

Wow. That's pretty naive. The major and minor ISPs around the country will likely fail as they suddenly find themselves without a useful currency with which to maintain their infrastructure, pay their employees, or even their electric bill.

 

[michaelsuede]

Looting is a socialist activity?

To the contrary!

Looting is capitalism at its finest - private individuals engaging in an activity of their choosing in order to maximize their own welfare, without any government intervention.

Because people voluntarily exchanging good and services is looting, while using the force of government to tax and redistribute wealth is not.

 

[michaelsuede]

Wow. That's pretty naive. The major and minor ISPs around the country will likely fail as they suddenly find themselves without a useful currency with which to maintain their infrastructure, pay their employees, or even their electric bill.

While I don't doubt that the major ISPs will become insolvent, that doesn't mean all of their cabling and routers will suddenly vaporize into thin air.

Since the hardware is already in place, the system will continue to function as long as the power grid is maintained.

Even if the power grid experiences intermittent failures, the Bitcoin client can be run on laptops and smart phones, which can be charged locally.

I also hold physical junk silver to barter with should the power grid experience catastrophic failure for some reason.

 

[Piscivore]

The collapse is occurring at the present moment.

Inflation will continue at double digit rates while wages stagnate.

This will continue on until food and energy costs become out of reach for most consumers.

At this point food riots will erupt, and we will see wide spread looting and other forms of socialist chaos take place.

The government will become continuously more aggressive as it tries to maintain control over the collapsing monetary system.

The devolution will take place over the course of several years and will happen in stages.

We are presently in the first stage of monetary collapse.

Gold spot:
[qimg]http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/au00-pres.gif[/qimg]

I heard the same hand-wringing in the seventies, dude. Your Cassandra act is nothing new.

Basically what it amounts to is the world decided to play sandlot baseball and for whatever reason you got stuck in the deep outfield, so you're whining and complaining and daydreaming that someday everyone else is going to give up on baseball and take up basketball... because you think your house has the only hoop.

 

[michaelsuede]

I heard the same hand-wringing in the seventies, dude. Your Cassandra act is nothing new.

Basically what it amounts to is the world decided to play sandlot baseball and for whatever reason you got stuck in the deep outfield, so you're whining and complaining and daydreaming that someday everyone else is going to give up on baseball and take up basketball... because you think your house has the only hoop.

This isn't the 1970s.

This is a systemic collapse of present the monetary system.

In the 1970s they brought the collapse under control by going off the gold standard and hiking rates.

They can't do that this time.

Really it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. This is going to happen and it is unfolding right now.

 

[PGH]

I heard the same hand-wringing in the seventies, dude. Your Cassandra act is nothing new.

Basically what it amounts to is the world decided to play sandlot baseball and for whatever reason you got stuck in the deep outfield, so you're whining and complaining and daydreaming that someday everyone else is going to give up on baseball and take up basketball... because you think your house has the only hoop.

Wait a minute...

Are you saying the kids in the outfield weren't talented?? Just because I batted last? And never caught the ball??

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Since the hardware is already in place [...]

The hardware itself needs to be maintained, too. Who would have the financial clout to maintain a high-bandwidth network, even locally, for multiple thousands of users in your new world?

[...] the system will continue to function as long as the power grid is maintained.

I don't know exactly how you imagine all of this to work, but it's clearly only barely related to reality. You seem to assume that the "Internet" will continue to function indefinitely with only a source of power, so ISPs can disappear without a significant problem, yet the power grid would require constant maintenance.

Who would maintain the power grid, by the way, without the necessary finances and millions of customers suddenly unable to pay for the service?

 

[anduin]

I can buy all sorts of stuff now with Bitcoins.

I'm not sure what you are talking about.

Really? Practically nobody is accepting BTCs at the moment, if you go to the list of sites that accept Bitcoins, you will find that most of them are not taking BTCs any more.

 

[michaelsuede]

Really? Practically nobody is accepting BTCs at the moment, if you go to the list of sites that accept Bitcoins, you will find that most of them are not taking BTCs any more.

orly?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Check out the growth in the past few months.

This is what the trade page looked like in February:
https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&oldid=3537

This is what it looks like 6 months later:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

I figure it will be so full of vendors by the end of the year that a special search page will need to be created to deal with them all.

 

[Dunstan]

You guys just watch out! One day the brave libertarian crusaders will "Go Galt" and deprive us all of the fruits of their labors!

That's right: no more raving prophecies of doom. Try to sleep at night.

 

[michaelsuede]

You guys just watch out! One day the brave libertarian crusaders will "Go Galt" and deprive us all of the fruits of their labors!

That's right: no more raving prophecies of doom. Try to sleep at night.

Libertarians are the ones depriving you of the fruits of your labors.

You need to work on your Orwellian Logic a little more.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Inflation will continue at double digit rates while wages stagnate.

Here we go, quantifiable claims! Now, let's be specific, please.

Inflation of the U.S. dollar I assume? Using what scale, exactly? Over what time period will we get double digit rates?
I assume you mean more than 10% inflation per year. What basis are you using to measure inflation?
It will be interesting to see if your "continuing" double digit inflation even lasts two consecutive years.

What do you mean by "wages stagnate"? You mean that the median U.S. wage will not increase? Can we set an actual annual cap, say, 5%?

Are you claiming that, each year, the median U.S. wage will increase by less than 5% while the U.S. dollar will inflate by at least 10%?

If that's right, then please specify your reference point for measuring inflation, and we'll see.

 

[PGH]

orly?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

Check out the growth in the past few months.

This is what the trade page looked like in February:
https://en.bitcoin.it/w/index.php?title=Trade&oldid=3537

This is what it looks like 6 months later:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

I figure it will be so full of vendors by the end of the year that a special search page will need to be created to deal with them all.

Quantifiable claims indeed! Now we're talking.

Ok Michael, you think Bitcoin is going to grow. I feel the opposite. I figure that by the end of the year Bitcoin is going to be completely irrelevant and not in any way a functioning currency.

Gentlemens wager?

We can pick a sig or avatar for the other to sport, all in good fun, no hard feelings. We both feel differently and one of us will be right. Let's put it to the test.

Or shall I say, "why don't you put your bitcoins where your mouth is." (kidding, no money or bitcoins shall be exchanged in said wager)

 

[AvalonXQ]

Ok Michael, you think Bitcoin is going to grow. I feel the opposite. I figure that by the end of the year Bitcoin is going to be completely irrelevant and not in any way a functioning currency.

Gentlemens wager?

You should really quantify what "grow" and "the opposite" means in this context. Unmeasurable claims don't help anyone.

 

[PGH]

I agree. I was going to see if Michael even cared to take the bet first and then we could hash out the exact terms.

Though lately I'm beginning to suspect he has me on ignore..MICHAEL!! Hellooooo!

 

[michaelsuede]

Quantifiable claims indeed! Now we're talking.

Ok Michael, you think Bitcoin is going to grow. I feel the opposite. I figure that by the end of the year Bitcoin is going to be completely irrelevant and not in any way a functioning currency.

Gentlemens wager?

We can pick a sig or avatar for the other to sport, all in good fun, no hard feelings. We both feel differently and one of us will be right. Let's put it to the test.

Or shall I say, "why don't you put your bitcoins where your mouth is." (kidding, no money or bitcoins shall be exchanged in said wager)

By the end of the year 2011?

You think those vendors and the Bitcoin market itself will not be functioning?

That's only 5 months away.

What quantifiable measures are you looking to bet on here?