• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Bitcoin - Part 2

Status
Not open for further replies.
That wasn't your argument. Your argument was that bitcoin prices couldn't be predicted "because demand is driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of bitcoin investors".


Why bring Samson into this? Are you attempting to create a false association?
Samson is intent on illuminating, the TA threads when correctly viewed demonstrate this as immutable in the world of statistics.
 
That wasn't your argument. Your argument was that bitcoin prices couldn't be predicted "because demand is driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of bitcoin investors".

Yes, that's my argument.

Your counter-argument "Under your argument, insurance companies would not be able to set premiums because accidents are driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of people (so they can sack their actuaries)" fails because city planners and insurance actuaries have a lot of real world data to work with.

Why bring Samson into this? Are you attempting to create a false association?

Why shouldn't I? He claims to be able to make useful predictions with nothing more than the data regarding recent price changes. I don't believe him, but he probably believes it. We can see if he comes up with some predictions.
 
Yes, that's my argument.
So it is not about the lack of data then.

Your counter-argument "Under your argument, insurance companies would not be able to set premiums because accidents are driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of people (so they can sack their actuaries)" fails succeeds because city planners and insurance actuaries have a lot of real world data to work with. to deal with the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of people.
ftfy.

Why shouldn't I? He claims to be able to make useful predictions with nothing more than the data regarding recent price changes. I don't believe him, but he probably believes it. We can see if he comes up with some predictions.
And what does that have to do with me?
 
Last edited:
Yes indeed it is. I have noted that Bitcoin behaviour is exactly predictable by algorithm. I will make specific predictions on request. :)

When someone says something like this, I tend to place one hand on my wallet.

Chris B.
 
So it is not about the lack of data then.

I don't follow you. It is about lack of data and I don't understand how you conclude otherwise.



I don't see where you're going with this. To me it seems obvious that your comparison to city planners and actuaries fails because those people don't have to rely on unknowable thoughts and feelings of people, unlike Bitcoin investors.

If you disagree, I suggest you name some data other than the past history of Bitcoin price that investors could use to make predictions. This comparison hasn’t communicated what you wanted it to communicate.

And what does that have to do with me?

Why are you fixated on this? It doesn’t need to relate directly to you, but it does relate directly to what data is available to make predictions with. There is nothing deeper than that.
 
I don't follow you. It is about lack of data and I don't understand how you conclude otherwise.

I guess that depends on what you mean by data, but price speculation is inherently chaotic. It consists of a massive feedback system with hundreds of thousands of people all trying to out-guess each other. This differs from insurance where they are basically looking at large numbers of essentially random events which is eminently predicable.

Chaotic systems come in two flavors, one of which is predictable as well. If they follow an attractor, a chaotic system can act like random noise around the trend described by the attractor. Bonds have yields, commodities have production and consumption, stocks represent companies which have earnings that you can place a valuation on. These things ensure that prices can never get to far above or below predictable values even if the day to day price changes are basically random.

Purely speculative buying/selling as occurs with bitcoin however has no such factors to cause it to follow a trend so in the short term anything could happen. In the long term, as I've said before it will effectively go to zero because there is no reason to own it at all save speculating on it's price which is essentially gambling.
 
I don't follow you. It is about lack of data and I don't understand how you conclude otherwise.
If you had said "lack of data" from the beginning then this would have been an entirely different conversation. Instead, you went on about the "unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of people" as if this were unique to bitcoin.

I merely pointed out it was a silly argument to make because there are plenty of examples where you have to deal with the "unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of people" (I listed a couple). THEN you introduced the concept of "data". Worse, instead of acknowledging that your original argument was not correct, you tried to make out as though you had been discussing data right from the beginning.

Only in the bitcoin thread . . . . .
 
Purely speculative buying/selling as occurs with bitcoin however has no such factors to cause it to follow a trend so in the short term anything could happen. In the long term, as I've said before it will effectively go to zero because there is no reason to own it at all save speculating on it's price which is essentially gambling.
So what is the rationale for this bit of magical thinking? Do you have access to data that others don't or do you know the thoughts and feelings of millions of people?
 
So what is the rationale for this bit of magical thinking? Do you have access to data that others don't or do you know the thoughts and feelings of millions of people?

the day mining stops, you, or they, will start looking at each other and ask: what the hell now? and then keep playing with it. hundred, thousand years, forever. yes, bitcoin could be sort of financial speculation game for real money
 
So what is the rationale for this

Something with lots of supply and little reason to justify owning it will invariably drop to zero. It's basic supply and demand. I really don't care how many people think basic economic concepts like that "no longer apply".

Bitcoin is no different than the .com companies that had revenue and no prospects of generating any. their price went to zero in spite of the people who thought maybe the old rules no longer apply.
 
Economic concepts ? Why ?
It's a computer game. The rules are like stock market, but without actually investing into anything. With real money, sure. But still just a game.
It even needs solid GFX card to run ..
 
If you had said "lack of data" from the beginning then this would have been an entirely different conversation.

I said, "...there is nothing you can look at and measure in order to make useful predictions" i.e. lack of data.

Only in the bitcoin thread . . . . .

What, that it takes a lot of extra work to make you to understand? I don't think that's unique to this thread.

...because there is no reason to own it at all save speculating on it's price which is essentially gambling.

Dark web shopping?
 
I said, "...there is nothing you can look at and measure in order to make useful predictions" i.e. lack of data.
No, you said that there is nothing you can look at and measure because demand is driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of bitcoin investors. The word "data" didn't appear in your posts once (at least not until the absurdity of this argument was pointed out).

You are just engaging in revisionist history.
 
No, you said that there is nothing you can look at and measure because demand is driven by the unknowable thoughts and feelings of millions of bitcoin investors. The word "data" didn't appear in your posts once (at least not until the absurdity of this argument was pointed out).

You are just engaging in revisionist history.

I really don't understand why you want to argue about this, but think about it: If there were something you could look at and measure, wouldn't you call those measurements "data"?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom