Friday, February 28, 2014

WE SURE COULD USE A LITTLE GOOD NEWS TODAY.

Happy Friday. Let us turn from the sad news of the world and nation, and toward the Mt. Gox Bitcoin disaster. I am generally agnostic on the Bitcoin phenomenon. I know libertarians like Bitcoin, which you'd think would dispose me against it; but then, libertarians also like Frank Zappa and that hasn't spoiled his music for me.

But it's an ill wind that blows no one some good -- the Gox thing has roused a stirring peroration at Business Insider by Erik Voorhees, calling on his libertarian comrades, many of them dispossessed Bitcoin billionaires, to be brave and not give up the dream, and it has warmed my heart with the gift of laughter. Here's the fiat-currency shot:
And finally, the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation" to save us from the evils and incompetence of man. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence, only enshrined in an authority from which it can wreak amplified and far more insidious destruction.
If only man could throw off the chains of regulation, I wouldn't have to pay these speeding tickets. I'd own my own damn privately-run toll road!
Let us not retreat from our rising platform only to cower back underneath the deranged machinations of Leviathan.
We're never going back to your so-called economy! The internet has freed us to recreate the barter system without having to lift anything heavy, and we're going off the grid forever without leaving the comfort of our subdivisions!
The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world. This is the harsh truth. We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance, and we put ourselves at risk in doing so...
Except in the physical sense, for any of that, though my Eames chair could probably use some readjusting.
So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess?
Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately. If that matters to you, as it does to me, then hold to that thought. You will see through the smoke, and your wounds will heal.
And that right there is the tell.  Whenever a libertarian -- raised on the Virtue of Selfishness, and inclined to believe that the dismantling of society will inevitably benefit "producers" such as himself, and is therefore a good thing whatever happens to the sheeple -- starts talking about how the world needs whatever racket he's got going, hold onto your virtual wallet.

Somewhere out there, at the crossroads of Narnia, Galt's Gulch, and the Floating City, there's a world where the dream will never die. And when Voorhees and his pals finally all go there, maybe we can have some peace and quiet around here.

(h/t @M_DiPaola)

UPDATE. Lots of good comments, some suggesting new names for the freedom currency: "I propose that we call 1/100 of a bitcoin a 'rand,'" says PulletSurpise, "1/20 is a 'ron,' 1/10 is a 'hayek,' 1/4 is a 'friedman,' 1/2 is a 'galt," and five bitcoins is one 'weimar.'"

My favorite comes from @benzero: douchemarks.

295 comments:

  1. PulletSurprise1:53 PM

    Worst engineering sales pitch ever.


    "The point is not that the bridge collapsed. The point is that the bridge needed building irrespective of our inability to build it. Therefore the bridge was a success!"

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  2. So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess? Because the world needs what we're building.


    That sounds suspiciously like "greater good" talk to me. It's like clockwork - another libertarian scheme fails, and the leaders suddenly rediscover the virtue of sacrifice.

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  3. tinheart2:04 PM

    Whenever a libertarian -- raised on the Virtue of Selfishness, and
    inclined to believe that the dismantling of society will inevitably
    benefit "producers" such as himself, and is therefore a good thing
    whatever happens to the sheeple -- starts talking about how the world needs whatever racket he's got going, hold onto your virtual wallet.

    Fixed.

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  4. Isn't there some regulation we can invoke against the abuse of metaphor in that passage?

    We are building a new financial order, and those of us building it, investing in it, and growing it, will pay the price of bringing it to the world. This is the harsh truth. We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance,...



    The whole thing reminds me of the Python sketch where the son comes home from the mines, in his fancy suit, and the father is sitting in his chair, in his cottage, dying of writer's cramp and gala luncheons.

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  5. coozledad2:09 PM

    We are building the channels, the bridges, and the towers of tomorrow's finance, and we put ourselves at risk in doing so...



    So that one day our children, and our children's children may pass these risks on to others, as we have done to you. For verily, if ever there was a scam that drew suckers like flies to feast upon shit, this was the fucking grail.

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  6. susanoftexas2:10 PM

    Fucking shrugging, how does it work?

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  7. Spaghetti Lee2:11 PM

    Dear God, that prose. Does that guy talk like this all the time or does he only break it out for shakedowns?

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  8. coozledad2:13 PM

    I thought for a minute it was Lee's farewell to the Army of Northern Virginia.

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  9. Bubba Zanetti2:16 PM

    A new currency where VC leeches can get in on the ground floor? Sign me up!

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  10. GeniusLemur2:17 PM

    Shorter Erik: "Keeping propping up the bitcoin, guys! We need it! How else are we going to prove we're the great and exalted producers with doing any work?"
    Hell, even Ayn Rand made her producers people who actually produced widgets, innovation, etc.

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  11. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:19 PM

    "Bitcoin", huh? Well, they sure bit, didn't they...

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  12. "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up."

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  13. Spaghetti Lee2:20 PM

    OK, can someone explain to me-just in theory, even-why the guys who are constantly saying that the dollar is weak and illegitimate because it has no real, physical value are going ga-ga for currency that exists entirely online, and, as far as I can tell, has value determined only by what its investors collectively decide sounds good? If I was selling shit online and someone paid me in bitcoin, would I be able to actually use that for anything except telling another bitcoin-user "Here, I return my imaginary virtual coins to you." And given that it costs real money to invest in bitcoin, isn't the whole thing pretty much a pyramid scheme, and a Goldline-style hypocritical one (Give us all your worthless dollars and we'll give you real currency, heh heh!)

    OK, I guess that was more than one question. Libertarians get boners for the weirdest things. I have defended Rush here before, and have even been known to enjoy Terry Goodkind and other such beasts, but my experimentation stops here. "The only way to save the money supply is to digitize it, give it arbitrary value and jack up the price of entry." OK, boys, I'll keep my Washingtons, thanks.

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  14. FMguru2:23 PM

    Literally every single thing about bitcoins is hilarious. Every single thing.

    The fact that the primary exchange had the name it did because it was originally the "Magic The Gathering Online Exchange" doesn't even crack the top five in the list of things that are funny about bitcoins. That's how hilarious bitcoins are.

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  15. Brian Schlosser2:26 PM

    I was going to ask the exact same question.

    I guess it's better because it's not run by THE GOVERNMENT and is untainted by the evil, treacherous FED (*sound of lightning, thunder, horse whinny*)

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  16. coozledad2:27 PM

    Wasn't there a period in recent italian history when peppermints replaced government issued specie?


    At least they weren't heavy in the pocket and freshened breath. And they were still pegged to the dollar.

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  17. ADHDJ2:28 PM

    The proper lesson, if I may suggest, is this: if you're going to buy a financial security of some kind, make sure you're actually buying it.

    It's worth noting here that Mt. Gox started off as a Magic: The Gathering trading card swapping site.

    Mt. Gox was a bucket shop. It's not like they made a big secret of it. Unlike say coinbase.com, if you "bought" bitcoin on Mt. Gox, you were buying a really shitty homemade derivative, a "Goxcoin", that only had some tie to real bitcoin if you believed a Magic the Gathering website in Japan was on the up-and-up and knew what they were doing.

    Both turned out to be false, quelle surprise... A dishonest bucket shop! Why, who ever heard of such a thing?!?!?

    Even without the loss of millions in bitcoin, there were huge questions about whether Mt. Gox had anywhere near the cash to cover their obligations. Its failure has nothing to do with the viability or usefulness of bitcoin itself, just the intelligence of the idiots who put their money in Mt. Gox.

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  18. trentness2:29 PM

    "Don't worry, Joey. We'll make it to Galt's Gulch someday."
    "Sure we will, Mr. Homer. Sure we will." [coughs]

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  19. William Miller2:31 PM

    Never trust
    1. Someone who smokes a pipe
    2. Someone who speaks like he's stuck in the 17th century.

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  20. Okay, here's my primer which I hope will answer some of your questions.


    In addition to investing, you could also get bitcoin by "mining" for it, meaning that you used your computer's idle cycles to generate bitcoin. So yeah, in addition to being backed by nothing, you can also produce more out of nowhere (although I believe there was some ceiling to the amount that could exist). Unfortunately, the rate at which bitcoin is "mined" is very low and based entirely on your processing power. The only way to make significant money doing that is to invest in overclocked machines that, in addition to being pricey, also drain power like you wouldn't believe.


    As to where you spend it, well...it doesn't appear that many people spent bitcoin on legal products and services. I think most people just hoarded it, but allegedly the most common purchases were narcotics and chat room sex. Real thriving economy you've got there, guys.


    As to the value - no, it's not fixed to anything except the number of people hoarding and "mining" it. You want to know how unstable the value was? A few years back, some dude went on a forum popular with bitcoin boosters and left a short, frantic post where he claimed that he was selling all his bitcoin before the market crashed. The value of bitcoin dropped by 50% before the day was out. Again, hell of an economy there - one hoax by an anonymous individual can wreck the market in less than 24 hours.


    Finally, it's worth noting that bitcoin is not the first digital-only currency - hell, it's not even the only one out there right now. Defenders have always insisted that bitcoin was different than the half-dozen or so similar pseudocurrencies that came before it. You know what, though? They're right. After all, I don't think anyone ever lost six figures on Linden dollars.

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  21. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:34 PM

    You will see through the smoke

    But all you'll see is another mirror...

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  22. Ellis_Weiner2:34 PM

    "Let us not retreat from our rising platform only to cower back underneath the deranged machinations of Leviathan."


    For, though we are but men, yet still anyway can we advance athwart our rising platform to arrive, free with liberty, upon the place over there, which is better. Then let shrink from our manly can-do achievement Leviathan itself, on top of which we shall stand above it triumphant, in the win-win deal that men esteem once they achieve the vision of what they see through the smoke and other pollution of the world.

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  23. and besides, everyone knows that platinum pieces are the true currency of the future. why, one platinum piece is equal to ten gold pieces!

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  24. coozledad2:35 PM

    Quotha!

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  25. we will fleece them on the beaches, we shall fleece them on the landing grounds, we shall fleece them in the fields and in the streets, we shall fleece them in the hills; we shall never surrender fleecing.

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  26. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person2:38 PM

    Heh. I was just thinking that Hank Rearden actually made himself a Metal, and hey, isn't that what the Bitcoin should be made of? And then I thought, shazam, it is!

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  27. Al Swearengen2:39 PM

    "Shitty homemade deriviative"? That's a pretty astute description of Bitcoin as a currency.

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  28. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.2:39 PM

    OT: Apropos Goodkind. I must say that few of the conservatarian writers which I enjoyed in my callous youth have held up. It isn't just ideological disagreement, but frankly it is mostly worldbuilding and basic wordcraft. Then again the prose of some liberalish authors like Asimov stinks today.

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  29. Mickey_Zellberg2:41 PM

    When I first heard about the woes of Gox, I was annoyed at my own kneejerk reaction of schadenfreunde (sp). Weren't my feelings of pleasure at anything that might annoy Peter Thiel just the equivalent of Sarah Palin conspicuously sipping a 64-oz Super Gulp of HFCS laden soda pop on the stage of cpac or whereever it was.

    This makes me feel better about myself.

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  30. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.2:41 PM

    I bet he's talking all the time like this, but maybe it's because he's always doing the pitch.

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  31. EVERYTHING LIBERTARIANS DO OR SAY IS A PYTHON SKETCH

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  32. Spaghetti Lee2:44 PM

    Jeez, the more I hear about this the nuttier it gets. You know what? I've been playing Pokemon a lot lately, and that's actually a more functional economy. Sure, there's no concept of supply and demand, and you can mostly only make money by taking it from others (or selling random shit you find on the ground-500 yen for a mushroom? Sounds good to me!), but at least it has stable prices, and currency that takes some skill to earn instead of just being reproducible out of nowhere or paid for by a different currency.

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  33. Yea, let us not be bound, as Prometheus was, to the remnant of a world that no longer understands our vision. Let us slip free the shackles of basic economic theory and real-world history that hold us to this reality. And once we are free, we shall face the beast of the ocean and his great army. We shall strike at them with every weapon at our disposal. We shall charge with our bayonets made of wishes and our bullets cast from the wreckage of our previous plans. And we shall have victory - or, failing that, we shall have a not-quite-total defeat which we may convince ourselves is a victory on our forums and blogs. Yea, your time is near - your time to embarrass yourself that I may thrive.

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  34. Ellis_Weiner2:46 PM

    "...that I may thrive." From a Biz Insider comment:

    The first paragraph of this story ought to detail his point of view
    which, if Wikipedia is correct, is "Erik Tristan Voorhees is an American
    startup founder. He is co-founder of the Bitcoin company Coinapult,
    worked as Director of Marketing at BitInstant, and was founder and
    partial owner of the Bitcoin gambling website SatoshiDice."

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  35. Spaghetti Lee2:48 PM

    I laugh whenever a crackpot libertarian scheme collapses in on itself, especially due to some unforeseen technical or logistical flaw, because it was usually preceded by months of gloating and preening from the most egotistical and self-assured motherfuckers on the planet about how smart they are and how they're going to leave the rest of us in the dust, only to give way to panic when they realize their perfect artificial societies are houses of cards that actual reality can collapse by spitting at it. No sympathy.

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  36. i want to be the very best like no one ever was
    to catch bitcoins is my real test, to hoard them is my cause
    i'll travel from 4chan to the silk road
    searching far and wide
    teach budding galts the power that's inside!
    bitcoins!

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  37. Spaghetti Lee2:50 PM

    No it isn't!

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  38. susanoftexas2:51 PM

    The Ministry Of Silly Arguments
    The Dead Ron Paul Sketch
    The Glen Beck On The Television

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  39. Spaghetti Lee2:52 PM

    Wayne LaPierre has shot himself! Oh, what a great twit!

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  40. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.2:54 PM

    If I recall correctly most of them weren't industry tycoons, but mineral extractors, commodity traders and the assorted rent seeker. Her economics weren't very sophisticated nor empirically grounded like the rest of writings. But her dumbed down, nietzsche-inspired rhetorics are certainly inspiring to mediocre people who think they're special.

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  41. coozledad2:54 PM

    Lend us five thousand pounds til the end of the week. We're expecting a dividend check from our bitcoin next Thursday.

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  42. PulletSurprise2:57 PM

    BECAUSE GOVERNMENT THAT'S WHY!


    I've read a lot of defenses of this scam who sincerely believe that it's better than government-backed currency because it's open-source.


    I think that Ponzi's original scheme is open-source as well. Funny, that.

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  43. FMguru2:57 PM

    For instance: funnier than the fact that the website was named for Magic the Gathering is the fact that it didn't trade Magic the Gathering cards - it only traded Magic the Gathering ONLINE cards, the virtual trading cards you get by spending real dollars on virtual packs of cards to play the online version of Magic (It really should have been called the Magic the Gathering Online Online Exchange to avoid confusion.)

    The kicker? MtG:O already has a complete in-game trading exchange for players to use.

    Trading pretend libertarian ghost dollars* was, believe or not, actually a more viable plan for Mt. Gox than their current one.



    *aka Dunning Krugerrands, Spergerrands, Autism Kronors, E-Pogs, or Ron Paul Fun Bux

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  44. tinheart2:57 PM

    Usually the "unforeseen flaw" could have been seen from the moon, but the libertarians would just state "the free market will solve that little problem", even if the "little problem" was the size of the Great Pyramids.

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  45. PulletSurprise3:00 PM

    "Time is the only real wealth we possess" ... I'm willing to buy that if only because of the demonstrations of the marginal utility of their collective brainpower.

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  46. PulletSurprise3:02 PM

    "Once more unto the fleece, dear friends. Once more. Or close up the wall with our imaginary currency."

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  47. tigrismus3:03 PM

    Because the world needs what we're building.

    The world needs towers that fall down?

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  48. Really? That was just a guess on my part. It's a good policy to live by - any time someone comes to you with signs and portents of your own personal utopia, check his portfolio before you do anything else.

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  49. Spaghetti Lee3:04 PM

    Honestly, I've never been too sensitive to troglodyte politics when it comes to fantasy, sci-fi, or horror fiction because their realities are so different than my own that even if the author is straining to impart a message about how the real world should be, I'm sure as hell not going to take it seriously. Really, the people I get mad at are the ones who lift morals wholesale from fiction and think we can just staple them onto the real world and everything will be peachy. Fiction vs. reality, people. It's pretty basic.

    I'm probably overselling my Goodkind fandom: I thought the first Sword of Truth book had surprisingly good character development and was relatively grounded in at least its own reality (It's been a while). Things got screwy pretty quick after that. And so many of the villains were basically paper cutouts of Goodkind's fantasies about evil liberals, and that's just bad writing. But then I also just finished Shadowmarch with its medieval princess whose inner dialogue reads like she just got done reading The Feminine Mystique, so it all balances out.

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  50. smut clyde3:05 PM

    Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately.


    Libertarian calls upon others to be altruistic and to make personal sacrifices in the cause of a greater good? I never saw that coming.

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  51. Without schadenfreude, we'd have no freude at all.
    ~

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  52. Gabriel Ratchet3:07 PM

    Upvoted for "Dunning Krugerrands".

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  53. And by "the free market", they mean "a big check from the usual billionaire glibbertarian sugar daddies."
    ~

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  54. PulletSurprise3:11 PM

    Even shorter: "TURN THOSE MACHINES BACK ON!!!"


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGvKpl4yC1A

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  55. bekabot3:12 PM

    Voorhees is behind the times and doesn't get it.* That "let's build and be productive and form the vanguard of the future" stuff is old school, it's obsolete. It's what Communists believed, and nowhere does La Rand's Russian upbringing show through more clearly than in that strand of her thought. As for being productive? Pfeh. Productivity is for bees and ants. A man demonstrates the full height of his creative genius by eliciting from the universe money for nothing, which is the true feat of a nascent god. Productivity among libertarians (today) is almost the badge of shame public acclaim turned into in The Fountainhead at the point when Peter Keating realized he no longer wanted to be a famous architect. Day laborers are productive, and so are shop foremen. Union people are productive. Such are not the companions Voorhees and the Goxites would choose, and I'm certain that election goes both ways.


    *Either that or he's lying, which may be more likely but which is, to me, less interesting.

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  56. PulletSurprise3:12 PM

    (Just as long as you're not repaying me in Bitcoin.)

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  57. Ellis_Weiner3:12 PM

    What part of "business insider" don't we understand?

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  58. Said the blind man, "Don't you see?"

    http://eusa-riddled.blogspot.com/2014/02/todays-weather-report-is-brought-to-you.html

    http://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad292/smutclyde/popeass1-1.gif
    ~

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  59. AHHHHH!!! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!
    ~

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  60. PulletSurprise3:15 PM

    The Bitcoins arrive in the entrance hall here, and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort and past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives.

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  61. PulletSurprise3:16 PM

    EVERY FALLEN TOWER IS A SYMBOL OF OUR PROGRESS!

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  62. smut clyde3:16 PM

    the abuse of metaphor in that passage


    METAPHOR MISCEGENATION!!

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  63. bekabot3:17 PM

    Yeah, and airplanes that you have to land after you get done flying them are a real bore too.

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  64. PulletSurprise3:19 PM

    Suckers' Scrip.

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  65. PulletSurprise3:23 PM

    Somewhere out there, at the crossroads of Narnia, Galt's Gulch, and the Floating City, there's a world where the dream will never die. And when Voorhees and his pals finally all go there, maybe we can have some peace and quiet around here.



    Does the iiiCitadel take deposits in bitcoin?

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  66. smut clyde3:26 PM

    Nonsense. Invest in Thews, says I. One gold thew is worth 10 silvered thews, and each silvered thew is in turn worth 10 bronzed thews.

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  67. bekabot3:33 PM

    Libertarians love bitcoin and the gold standard because libertarians believe in magic. That's what it is. Voorhees and his pals don't have it in them to be miners, so they engage in alchemy instead. (These are people who are capable of trying to turn gold in to orichalc, because "orichalc" is a word that sounds cool. There's a reason why Ayn Rand was always writing about Atlantis.) There's an esoteric principle at work which explains this — coincidentia oppositorum. What the coincidentia oppositorum says is that the same fools who seek refuge from a troubled economic system by weighing it down with a heavy metal will also, at a rate greater than statistics would allow, be the same fools who will seek refuge from a troubled economic system by wishing upon it the dimensionless lightness of the electron. The impulse behind both strategies is the same, it's just that the means differs; the path may seem to split but the destinations match.

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  68. smut clyde3:34 PM

    Essentially they have re-invented the Yap Rai-stone currency, which were not physically moved from place to place; a transaction involved shifting the abstract ownership of a Rai stone.

    The number of Rai-stones was pretty stable because the effort of quarrying new ones on other islands in Micronesia, and laboriously shipping them to Yap, had become prohibitive.

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  69. satch3:36 PM

    Jesus... I was still trying to grasp the appeal of "Farmville" when Bitcoin came along and REALLY left me in the dust. What will the kids think of next?

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  70. Howlin Wolfe3:37 PM

    NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION! PUT HIM IN THE COMFY CHAIR!

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  71. BigHank533:37 PM

    Given that they seem to be willing to trade their money for magic beans, I'm willing to bet that time is the only wealth they possess. These half-wits would mortgage their own livers if there was a market for it. Then they'd drink heavily and think they were getting away with something.

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  72. smut clyde3:39 PM

    These half-wits would mortgage their own livers if there was a market
    for it. Then they'd drink heavily and think they were getting away with
    something
    call themselves Prometheus.
    Ficqsed.

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  73. BigHank533:39 PM

    Well, it does look better on the page than "tapeworm."

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  74. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.3:42 PM

    I don't think I'm too sensitive too politics either. Science fiction anf fantasy are genres where you can wild with your imagination and ask what if... questions. But frankly I do mind if the prose stinks, if a series rans out of ideas, is reptive or the author projects thinly veiled prejudices of his own onto the real world via her or his novels. A series that just grow boring was Webers Honor Harrington novels. Goodkind got bad after his series got too long and he became preachy with his ARI-style objectivism. As you said the early ones were not bad (though not so good in retrospect when it comes to prose), though I suppose they were more heavily edited by his handlers than the later ones. Early Larry Niven alone holds up, but anything with Jerry Pournelle cooperating turns to shit. Especially bad is Fallen Angel by Flynn/Niven/Pournelle an climate change-is-not-happening/liberals-are-all-into-woo crapfest. (It's free at Baen's Open Library)
    A libertarian who holds up because he's geninely thoughtful and because he doesn't beat you over the head with right-thinking is John Varley.
    And frankly I wouldn't tolerate preachyness in an author I agree with.
    Sorry for the rambling but where I am it's 10 pm and I had too much Madeira.

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  75. I want to rai and roll all night!

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  76. satch3:45 PM

    I'll never understand why Libertoonians needed Bitcoin when they already had a perfectly functioning and thriving economy to build on:

    http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizworld/galleons.html

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  77. bekabot3:46 PM

    ...and barter ev-er-ee day!!

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  78. BigHank533:46 PM

    The code base for Mt Gox was written by the founder over a weekend. And then he put millions of dollars of other people's money in it. And somebody who was smarter than him figured out how to steal every last fuckin' cent of it.

    http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/schadenfreude-1.html

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  79. FMguru3:47 PM

    I think William Gibson came up with that one...

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  80. Zap Rowsdower3:49 PM

    Ron Paul Fun Bux LOLZ!

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  81. bekabot3:50 PM

    Rule 2 would leave Carlisle Cullen out, but then he's already a vampire. Never trust vampires.

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  82. According to the Wiki, one of the rai stones which was lost from a boat during transport is still part of the currency, because it is presumed that it is at the bottom of the ocean and thus has a physical location like the ones on dry land.

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  83. BigHank533:53 PM

    The German notgeld at least had the virtue of looking pretty.

    http://blog.typograffit.com/2011/10/notgeld-designs/

    Scroll down for the golem. The demon is good too.

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  84. smut clyde3:56 PM

    Behold the text from which the bitcoin enthusiasts obtained their grounding in economics.

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JkN_t2uxlV0/TP70vUOn5PI/AAAAAAAABTE/PcTC5Kc969s/s1600/money2.jpg

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  85. redoubtagain4:01 PM

    Now known as TrOG: Tragic (the) Online Griping

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  86. smut clyde4:05 PM

    In the middle of the notgeld notes there's a perfectly cromulent 1000-Rouble note from 1917.

    Is it to see who's paying attention?

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  87. ChrisV824:08 PM

    "So why do we do it? Why do we build these towers that fall down upon us? Why do we toil and strain and risk our precious time, which is the only real wealth we possess?"

    Because they're stupid.

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  88. Halloween_Jack4:10 PM

    A man demonstrates the full height of his creative genius by eliciting from the universe money for nothing



    Don't forget the "chicks for free" part.

    ReplyDelete
  89. redoubtagain4:11 PM

    They're building towers, all right--and moats, and gunports--for the gated communities they all want to belong to.

    ReplyDelete
  90. PulletSurprise4:11 PM

    Bitcoins need additional nominal units.


    I propose that we call 1/100 of a bitcoin a "rand," 1/20 is a "ron," 1/10 is a "hayek," 1/4 is a "friedman," 1/2 is a "galt," and five bitcoins is one "weimar."


    A single should be called a "greenspan."

    ReplyDelete
  91. PulletSurprise4:23 PM

    Half of a wit is worth 0.0002158941 BTC at going market rates (all digits significant).

    ReplyDelete
  92. Chocolate Covered Cotton4:25 PM

    "So why do we do it? "



    To avoid taxes and launder drug money. Y'all have made that quite clear.

    ReplyDelete
  93. Halloween_Jack4:33 PM

    What the Jimmy Joe McFuck--they were putting their aetheric billions in the hands of a Magic the Gathering card exchange?!?!?!?11leventy1///??? Jesus H4rdk0r3 H4xx0rz Christ, I'm about as shameless a nerd as you ever did see and I wouldn't trust these fuckwits with my third-best polyhedral dice set. No pity, and it's actually too pathetic for schadenfreude.

    ReplyDelete
  94. Halloween_Jack4:37 PM

    IMO, FarmVille's real value was to get me past losing my Facebook-unfriending cherry.

    ReplyDelete
  95. whetstone4:40 PM

    I like the whole bitcoin thing; it's neat that they want to basically build a currency from scratch, and it's possible that the rest of us, watching from a safe distance, can learn stuff from it, whether about finance or technology. You want to create your own natural experiment? Sure, it's not my money. I don't know that we "need it desperately," but there could be useful applications down the line. People building models of things are bound to fail, often and sometimes catastrophically, so I'm not going to laugh at them for this.


    When they petition the FDIC, that's when I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh.

    ReplyDelete
  96. I am a huge Bujold fan and I tried the Honor Harrington books because I ran out of Cordelia and Miles stories. Imagine my surprise at discovering that they are just totally different things. Honor Harrington couldn't hold my interest for half of one book.


    And Oh my god how I love John Varley.

    ReplyDelete
  97. I think the word you are looking for might be luftmenschen.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Halloween_Jack4:43 PM

    The Dumberhack Song (performed by the staff of NRO)

    ReplyDelete
  99. Coinapult? really? Coinapult?

    ReplyDelete
  100. whetstone4:45 PM

    Their free market hasn't developed the golden parachute yet? Well I'll be doggone.

    ReplyDelete
  101. Who could have predicted that a currency exchange founded to trade "Magic: The Gathering" cards would go belly up?

    ReplyDelete
  102. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence

    Gah, how does one "wield" evil, or incompetence?

    ReplyDelete
  103. Heh, b00bs. Somebody is "Rule 34"ing this gif to hell.

    ReplyDelete
  104. Yes, the iiiiCitadel takes deposits in all world currencies which will be notionally changed into bitcoin and allows you to build and furnish your own secure bunker completely online. Simply by clicking and pointing you can design, buy, and build your bunker, stock it with weapons and luxury grade canned and dried food and then sit back and relax! When the balloon goes up and the zombies come down you can just click and request your instant merc staffed transport to the iiiCitadel and wait for further instructions. [Remember to read the fine print in the online contract]

    ReplyDelete
  105. Didn't someone already do an experiment like this? Wasn't it called, uh...Lord of the Flies?

    ReplyDelete
  106. Wrangler4:51 PM

    Well that's good news. In the libertarian paradise of the future, most of us can look forward to being bought by conglomerates and put to work in the time mines. Maybe those are safer and cleaner than those other kinds of mines? Pay attention people: we're talking about real progress here.

    ReplyDelete
  107. smut clyde4:51 PM

    I would have gone for 'coinager'. Or scripochet.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Bitcoins are backed by the full faith and credit of a handful of grifters and their legion of libertarian marks.

    ReplyDelete
  109. Geo X4:55 PM

    I don't know if you were able to find that image because you actually READ my blog, or whether it was just some kind of random google image search, but I'm happy either way.

    ReplyDelete
  110. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps4:59 PM

    After all, I don't think anyone ever lost six figures on Linden dollars.


    You'd think that, but...

    ReplyDelete
  111. tigrismus5:04 PM

    Unreales.

    ReplyDelete
  112. tigrismus5:07 PM

    Shillings?

    ReplyDelete
  113. tigrismus5:09 PM

    Oh hell, MARKS would be the perfect new coin name. I'ma write me up an exchange site this weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  114. Ellis_Weiner5:16 PM

    That's what the Yap islanders' mean by "liquidity."

    ReplyDelete
  115. smut clyde5:22 PM

    Good luck with your virtual-currency parachute.

    ReplyDelete
  116. smut clyde5:31 PM

    None of my google image searches are random!!

    ReplyDelete
  117. smut clyde5:32 PM

    I would like to establish a virtual online currency based on comments by tigrismus.

    ReplyDelete
  118. smut clyde5:34 PM

    I am surprised that BBBB is not promoting the virtues of Sequin currency.

    ReplyDelete
  119. I think the appeal is that bitcoins are harder to track than actual money. A form of money-laundering, in other words.

    ReplyDelete
  120. RHWombat6:14 PM

    I suspect that it's the other way round: the narcos are using the virtual flimflam of virtual credit to launder the real money. High stakes gambling was always thus.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Gromet6:14 PM

    Because the world needs what we're building. It needs it desperately. If that matters to you, as it does to me, then hold to that thought.


    A dense fog just floated into my head and surrounded all that I thought I knew. Aren't libertarians categorically against working for the communal greater good?

    ReplyDelete
  122. TGuerrant6:18 PM

    The part with the sticky zipper on it, apparently.

    ReplyDelete
  123. M. Krebs6:27 PM

    It has to be an affectation for the purpose of trying not to be ... uh, overly serious about such bullshit? Doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  124. Gromet6:35 PM

    the lesson is not that we ought to seek out "regulation" to save us from the evils and incompetence of man. For the regulators are men too, and wield the very same evil and incompetence

    It looks like thieves hacked or took advantage of some weak code and plain disappeared with every cent in your pocket -- half a billion dollars, you claim. But the guys who might have regulated your corner of the world, maybe by verifying minimum security systems to prevent that theft, are the very same as the evil thieves and incompetent you?


    That's so dumb it should't even be typeable.

    ReplyDelete
  125. philadelphialawyer6:39 PM

    Thanks for the explanation. But what is not clear to me is the stuff about how the world needs this and so on. OK, you were part of an attempt to create a new currency, and it failed. That doesn't make you evil, I suppose. But how does it make you heroic, either?
    The bitcoin, like the dollar, like any non metallic backed currency, is only worth what people say it is worth. It has worth because (in the case of bitcoin, more like "if") people will accept it for goods (in the knowledge/hope that others will take them in turn for other goods). Sure, the dollar is fiat currency, because a government says it has value and that you must accept for debts. Same with the other national and international currencies (like the Euro): they are all backed by national government(s). The dollar, as a matter of fact, actually has some advantages over the other fiat currencies. But that is besides the point. The point is that the bitcoin NOT being a fiat currency (no government backing) and also not being metal based, means that it is more, not less, vulnerable than the national and international currencies.
    So, why would libertarian/gulchers see it as any kind of panacea? Gold and silver I get, they are not fiat, they are not backed by evil "Leviathan" government, they are valuable because they are scarce and because humans have seen them as valuable for millennia. That being the case, why bitcoin? Why not simply demand gold or silver? Or, even simpler, why not take the dollars, and turn then into gold and silver to the greatest extent possible? Figure out how much an ounce of silver or gold is going for now (not hard to do at all), and when you sell whatever it is you were selling for bitcoins, sell it instead for the amount of dollars that you think item should be worth in terms of the convertibility of those dollars into precious metals. Then, when you get the dollars, trade them in at one of any number of coin stores and the like for gold and silver bullion, take it home and store it in a safe or bury it in the backyard in a tin can. No government currency, no fiat money, etc. Use the fiat money only to pay your bills, but all that you have left over turn it into metal and hoard it.
    What the heck is it are you "building" by messing around with bitcoins instead? What are these towers and channels and bridges and so on that you are going on about? Why does the world "desperately" need bitcoins, when it already has non fiat, non Leviathan, silver and gold?
    I'm not saying that hoarding silver and gold makes sense as a real investment strategy, just that it would seem to satisfy all of the concerns of the bitcoiners, real and imagined, and allow them to keep their wealth in something that has always had value, something that is not tainted with connection to the government and is not fiat money, something that has nothing to do with the banksters and Wall Street crooks, and not something that some Smedrick came up with the day before yesterday on the inter tubes to peddle to suckers. That being the case, what is all the fuss about? It is not as if folks are forbidden from owning gold, as they once were under US law.

    ReplyDelete
  126. M. Krebs6:40 PM

    Good guys who can fly?

    ReplyDelete
  127. Or the DCH(for Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe).

    ReplyDelete
  128. M. Krebs6:46 PM

    I remember some of my stoner college friends in the late 70s dreaming up a way to stop inflation: Replace dollar bills with something a whole lot harder to carry around, like ping-pong balls.

    ReplyDelete
  129. M. Krebs6:48 PM

    Wait. I thought a platinum coin would be worth A TRILLION DOLLARS.

    ReplyDelete
  130. PulletSurprise6:49 PM

    "You mean that this pension plan was also funded in bitcoin? Sunnuva..."

    ReplyDelete
  131. smut clyde6:54 PM

    What you have to understand here is the strength of the epiphany experienced by our bitcoiners, when as teenagers they read "Illuninatus!" and encountered its paeans in favour of anarchic decentralised currency.

    ReplyDelete
  132. ohsopolite6:55 PM

    In which case I guess this one is "Lord of the Files".

    ReplyDelete
  133. M. Krebs7:01 PM

    Hey, freedumb francs could come with freedumb buns and freedumb fries!

    ReplyDelete
  134. smut clyde7:04 PM

    Now I want to write a Libertarian-troll comment generator written in Python.
    Heaven knows, there's enough raw material available.

    ReplyDelete
  135. Too good. Just too good.

    ReplyDelete
  136. M. Krebs7:09 PM

    That's what we Americans call a 401k.

    ReplyDelete
  137. M. Krebs7:11 PM

    ... schadenfreunde (sp) ...


    Schaden is not your friend. It's your joy!

    ReplyDelete
  138. M. Krebs7:13 PM

    That's gonna give somebody an epileptic fit.

    ReplyDelete
  139. Spaghetti Lee7:14 PM

    You know, I honestly do admire the intellectual rigor you bring to even trying to figure out stupid stuff like this, but I think the answer to "So, why would libertarian/gulchers see it as any kind of panacea?" is nothing more than "The smart ones are running the con, and the dumb ones are dumb."

    ReplyDelete
  140. M. Krebs7:15 PM

    I say put Reagan on the 50 bitcoin whatever it is.

    ReplyDelete
  141. M. Krebs7:17 PM

    I dunno, but I'm getting out of the way.

    ReplyDelete
  142. smut clyde7:18 PM

    Riddled is totally not sponsored by the manufacturers of Epilim.

    ReplyDelete
  143. M. Krebs7:33 PM

    Most ruthless editor ever.

    ReplyDelete
  144. tigrismus7:45 PM

    Sounds like somebody's supply of pens and notepads ran out.

    ReplyDelete
  145. With my glossy pate, I could pass as an overly squat Dirdirman...

    ReplyDelete
  146. Good luck with that, these people are Libertarians, after all.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Chairman Pao8:15 PM

    Or, as it was put in another comment thread: Bitcoins are backed by the full faith of the Internet.

    ReplyDelete
  148. Chairman Pao8:17 PM

    Apparently, someone played the Armageddon card.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person8:25 PM

    They shoulda called it Fool's Gold...

    ReplyDelete
  150. Chairman Pao8:37 PM

    Vorhees has been hoisted on his own Bitard.

    ReplyDelete
  151. Susan of Texas8:40 PM

    Maybe the secret is that the coins never stopped being magical accessories that makes a fantasy seem more real.

    ReplyDelete
  152. smut clyde8:45 PM

    TANSTAAFC.

    ReplyDelete
  153. I was going to say "I don't know but there seems to be a lot of it about."

    ReplyDelete
  154. Screw that, I'm investing in +2 maces. All your platinum pieces are belong to Mr Smashy Smashy!

    ReplyDelete
  155. Forget the damn bitcoins, with MTGOX down, how the hell am I going to get rid of my Purple Necromancer card?

    ReplyDelete
  156. So. Bitcoin is the new "fair tax", then?

    ReplyDelete
  157. More like the new "magic beans".

    ReplyDelete
  158. RHWombat9:24 PM

    All Libertarians are the bastard children (almost inevitably male) of JM Barrie & Ayn Rand. Their entire existence is a flight from reality to fantasy. They think Triumph des Willens translates as "my struggle".

    ReplyDelete
  159. Via Charles Stross ("Laundry" FTW!), here's some of the funniest schaden to be freuded.

    ReplyDelete
  160. RHWombat9:28 PM

    Upvote for Laundry in particular & Charley Stross in particular.

    ReplyDelete
  161. And in what is sure to be a fatal blow to Irony, Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpeles sought the assistance of the government today as he filed for bankruptcy protection.

    ReplyDelete
  162. M. Krebs9:33 PM

    I lost about 19.1 BTC But it gets better.... Just minutes before mtgox froze transactions I spoke with a woman I had slept with and she told me that she might have Chlamydia and I should go get tested.


    That's all. I just wanted to quote that.

    ReplyDelete
  163. M. Krebs9:38 PM

    Yeah. I was going to bring that up. How on earth are those goobers are entitled to bankruptcy protection? But, given how any corporation can declare bankruptcy while its executives walk away with millions, I guess it's not too surprising.

    ReplyDelete
  164. RHWombat9:43 PM

    I just want to point out that in the real world, chlamydia responds well to treatment with doxicycline - Randroid electric sheep dreams less so.

    ReplyDelete
  165. M. Krebs9:51 PM

    After scanning the whole thing, now I'm wondering what it would be like to be in the same actual room with these people. Yikes. I would bet, though, that none of them are old enough to have lost a bundle during the dotcom crash of 2000. Then again, maybe not.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:53 PM

    And Daddy Warbucks on the 100.

    ReplyDelete
  167. I know, right? Time for me to insure my unicorn farm.

    [three months later]

    How was I supposed to know that Hellhounds would kill and eat all my unicorns? [goes to window and collects check from insurance company]

    ReplyDelete
  168. Poor dumb fucker will probably get fake antibiotics from Mt Dox.

    ReplyDelete
  169. tigrismus10:07 PM

    I have magic beans: they cause you to emit a clean-burning energy source.

    ReplyDelete
  170. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:09 PM

    TANSTAAFL Man, TANSTAAFL Man
    TANSTAAFL Man hates Bitcoin Man
    They have a fight, TANSTAAFL wins
    TANSTAAFL Man

    How in the name of all that may or may not be holy does a crowd that takes TANSTAAFL even more seriously than your average dyed-in-the-wool Rah Rah RAH, never-misses-a-Con Heinlein fan get involved in pie-in-the-sky money-for-nothing bullshit like this? I feel sorry for the poor fools that lose a bundle, but, damn, that's some stupid shit, there.
    Why don't they just get their little shovels and buckets and build themselves their own planet...

    ReplyDelete
  171. M. Krebs10:10 PM

    And they're good for the heart!

    ReplyDelete
  172. Tehanu10:32 PM

    The first six Honor H. books were ... well, I liked them, especially after I started skipping the lengthy descriptions of ships and weaponry. On Basilisk Station, the first one, I thought was almost as good as Elizabeth Moon's Heris Serrano stories. After about #6, though, they started getting all Mary Sue, and although I do like Victor Cachat & his buddies, I just really lost interest.

    ReplyDelete
  173. [Clicks on Business Insider link]


    ... Uh, I think it's already been done.

    ReplyDelete
  174. BigHank5310:41 PM

    I just figured him for a steampunk cosplayer who never gets out of character.

    ReplyDelete
  175. BigHank5310:50 PM

    Gah, how does one "wield" evil, or incompetence?

    Well, you have to find the hilt first. That's the tricky part.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Zen, Krebs. Zen.

    ReplyDelete
  177. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:11 PM

    I think the instructions come with your jackboots.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:13 PM

    Stinky linky.

    ReplyDelete
  179. smut clyde11:14 PM

    Linkfix.

    ReplyDelete
  180. Pig iron alloyed with elf wings and moonbeams.

    ReplyDelete
  181. He's hoping the take the bait and keep bitcoins afloat until he can cash out- a classic pump-and-dump.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person12:02 AM

    Profesor Irwin Corey, layzngnnlmen, let's have a big hand! [thunderous applause]

    ReplyDelete
  183. Budbear12:08 AM

    Make that a double.

    ReplyDelete
  184. Budbear12:25 AM

    And so musical too!

    ReplyDelete
  185. DocAmazing12:43 AM

    011 mild steel rod, with the arc set at 80 amp...oh, wield...

    ReplyDelete
  186. stepped_pyramids1:41 AM

    That's the part they remembered from Illuminatus? I mostly remember some goings on with a gentleman and a dame and a big apple on top of a pyramid and what have you.

    ReplyDelete
  187. stepped_pyramids1:46 AM

    RandFan85 spends $500 dollars money to buy a bitcoin from NotTheMafia123. RandFan85 then gives that bitcoin to XXLegitBiznzmnXX in exchange for a shipment of jimson root and an e-hummer. Then XXLegitBiznzmnXX sells the bitcoin to MrsRonPaul83 for $505...

    ReplyDelete
  188. stepped_pyramids1:50 AM

    The first Sword of Truth book is pretty legit up until they actually get to Darken Rahl's castle or whatever, at which point you get stuff like Super Gay Wizard Villain casting evil spells by drinking gay cannibal smoothies and the hero attaining his true apotheosis by killing an unresisting woman.

    ReplyDelete
  189. philadelphialawyer1:51 AM

    I thank you for your compliment, and I thank you, and the other commenters, for trying to explain it to me.
    While I hear what you all are saying, I guess I always wonder about stuff like this because I am just not willing to assume that a whole group of folks like libertarians are composed entirely of crooked sharpies and stupid marks. I know your, and the other posters', answer was meant as tongue in cheek, and I'm not trying to be holier than thou.
    But I really can't wrap my head around anyone investing their money is something as obviously open to rip off as this. Really, I mean, even the name "Bitcoin," WTF? I am so conservative when it comes to investments, so skeptical, that it just floors me that other people are so "out there" with theirs.
    And it is not only that, but, in general, I don't understand how so many folks on the right can do and think and say some of the obviously stupid stuff they do, and merely pointing out that they are infantile doesn't really answer that. Because, yeah, I know they are infantile, what I don't understand is why, or how they survive in the world if this is REALLY how they think. And this kinda thing really drives that home. Because anyone can play act at being stupider than they really are when it comes to politics, particularly internet forum politics. That's what trolling, for example, is all about. But to waste your real, not "virtual," not "cyber," not "second life" or whatever, money on something like this? To, do what, make a political statement? Again, I just don't get it. And probably never will. (Sigh)

    ReplyDelete
  190. Spaghetti Lee2:30 AM

    I am just not willing to assume that a whole group of folks like
    libertarians are composed entirely of crooked sharpies and stupid marks.



    Like you said, I was more joking than anything. I don't think it's quite that simple. Because a lot of these guys are, you know, computer programmers or engineers and the like, so they're not rock-stupid. But boy do they have some common blind-spots.



    RHWombat a few posts below said that the life of a libertarian is a journey from reality into fantasy. I think that's a good start. I get the impulse that a lot of libertarians have in thinking that everyday life can get kind of mundane at times and that we could as a society stand a little more unpredictability and excitement.* That's why so many libertarian themed fiction is fantasy/sci-fi, about striking out to the stars and leaving society behind, or the slightly less outlandish stories of building a new society from scratch here on Earth.** As to why the currency fixation, a lot of libertarian-utopian sci-fi has a radically different currency system than our own, commonly radically decentralized and/or backed by something exotic, so that's probably just in the back of their minds already. From there, I figure a lot of these guys work in programming or engineering or another job heavy on working with data, so they've already got numbers on the brain, and in their spare time a lot of them play MMORPGs with in-game economies where every player is basically responsible for their own money. So they put two and two together and figure it wouldn't be that hard to make the jump to reality, decentralize and deregulate the money supply, and make a killing. Of course, it is hard. Some would say impossible. So basically, it's three layered cognitive biases preventing some theoretically smart people from realizing the whole thing is a scam.



    *-Where we diverge almost immediately is that I think the corporate world is the major agent of homogeneity, and they of course blame the government. Also, I'm a nerd, but I'm not so nerdy that my inner portal fantasies revolve around currency conversion.


    **-Real life attempts to do this suggest that it's a massive waste of money and time, but hey, it's not my money.

    ReplyDelete
  191. Spaghetti Lee2:33 AM

    If you work in the time mines too long, you get ticks.

    ReplyDelete
  192. Spaghetti Lee2:36 AM

    But I thought the free market took care of asymmetric information?

    ReplyDelete
  193. smut clyde2:59 AM

    You'd think that Sanofi would at least give us a discount.

    ReplyDelete