algernonsidney Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Back in the 1990's, it seemed like Objectivists were on top of all the new technologies. When I went to the IOS seminar in 1995, about half the people had email. I had never met so many people with email addresses. I got onto Compuserve that November, and it opened up a new world. I also noticed that many of them were into Linux and open-source software. Now, I see the Objectivist movement and can't seem to find anybody interested in cryptocurrency. While they hate fiat currency, they ignore one thing that has the potential to destroy fiat currency. Perhaps, I haven't met the right people. But I do wonder: Why don't Objectivists seem to care about cryptocurrency? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Sydney wrote, “But I do wonder: Why don't Objectivists seem to care about cryptocurrency?” To me it is irrelevant. My crypto currency substitute is my credit cards. For instance I buy things on Amazon. I log in, and many times I am still logged in from last time. Then I select my products, I go to my cart and the last four digits of my credit card are shown. I click on that and my info comes up, I click ok and the products get here a day or two later. So we are talking about a minute if I don’t also scroll and shop other products. I have never been cheated and I get what I asked for. “Who could ask for anything more?” Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 3 hours ago, algernonsidney said: Why don't Objectivists seem to care about cryptocurrency? Chris, Some do. I have a Coinbase account and a few piddly parts of a bitcoin. But in order to get that account, I had to literally take a picture of myself holding a sign I wrote and send it to them in addition to supplying all kinds of info about myself I didn't want to. With that level of intrusion into my life just to get into the game, I don't see it as a viable option against the surveillance state. The bait is PRIVACY PRIVACY PRIVACY. The switch is you have to give them even more personal information than the surveillance state asks for--and, of course, they tell you your info is perfectly safe with them, they will never use if for... yada yada yada bullshit bullshit bullshit. I don't like bait and switch. But from what I read and studied around, Coinbase is relatively secure. That's what I need for the learning phase about blockchain and related systems and cryptocurrencies. Other cryptocurrency exchanges I looked at are kinda like the Wild West, meaning I have to study the hell out of them to make sure I are not going to get ripped off by the system itself. I don't know about you, but I have come across a gazillion experts out there, each with a conflicting opinion. I'ts like that old joke that the experts have just as many "my way is the true way" opinions as they do assholes, that is one per expert. To get a handle on this, since I do see a huge opportunity and am pretty sure this where the future will go, I set aside several courses and books on the blockchain system and related systems. But every time I get near to starting one, I get the same feeling as I do right before a root canal. I think the noise to signal ratio is just too high right now for all except open source geeks and finance/economy geeks. That's my experience. I imagine there are similar experiences for other laypeople (Objectivists or otherwise) who would happily get involved if the cryptocurrency environment and rules were simpler to understand and they could set up a wallet without feeling they were stepping into outer space without a spaceship. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algernonsidney Posted July 30, 2020 Author Share Posted July 30, 2020 You can buy Bitcoin at ATM's. There are anonymous ways to get it. You can get your own wallet and keep it on your phone or your computer. Bitcoin is being used a lot in places like Venezuela. It is also become a haven for people who have been de-platformed. Wikileaks started taking Bitcoin when everybody else kicked them off. That included credit cards. I do think we need an "AOL for crypto." We haven't had one so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Can you use a "bitcoin" to buy a can of coke? The only reason I can see for using them is if you are doing something soooo private, the guvmint can't find out about it. I think bitcoin usage will needlessly put you on the surveillance / computer stakeout grid, as glamorized in Hollywood. It is such a cliche when the "drug lord" plows his ill gotten gains into legitimate businesses like small quicky marts. Then the . . . etc. etc. etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unabashed Pragmatic Posted August 1, 2020 Share Posted August 1, 2020 I love crypto. Been in it for about four years. Made good money in it. And it's just a whole lotta fun. Litecoin is one of my favs. I love the Brave Browser, too, so I bought lots of BAT. I am fascinated by blockchain technology in general. Powerful good stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algernonsidney Posted August 7, 2020 Author Share Posted August 7, 2020 You can speeding tickets in Japan with cryptocurrency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules Troy Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 If you got a speeding ticket in Japan you weren’t going fast enough.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Oh... I'm glad this popped back up. I forgot to mention something. I've read this article carefully and I will read it another three times in the near future just to get the jargon down. A Beginner’s Guide to Decentralized Finance (DeFi) I have to get into smart contracts, dapps, dapp browsers and the like. That is where finance is going. I have not doubt at all. I just need a little time to study this stuff. If only I didn't find technical shit so gawdawful boring... Anyway, on another note, from the things I have been reading around the interwebs, now seems to be a great time to buy bitcoin or other strong cryptocurrency. Ditto for gold (not the certificates, but the actual chunks of metal). I will be doing this (bitcoin) as soon as I can peel off some money to do so. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
algernonsidney Posted December 18, 2020 Author Share Posted December 18, 2020 If you are interested in learning more about this stuff, I recommend this channel. This guy is really good and very passionate. He has uploaded hundreds of hours of quality content: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz5VudS3Xfile_p3OR7dQtw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted December 18, 2020 Share Posted December 18, 2020 Chris, LOL... Never ask why someone is not interested in something that is, at the moment, irrelevant to them. Then as an enticement, offer them hundreds of hours of technical videos. What on earth do you think will happen? Here's the proper way to entice people. What's more, this is not made up. It's a true story. About a year ago, I had to buy something in crypto. So I opened up a Coinbase account and bought some bitcoin. There are way too many hoops to jump through with Coinbase, but it's doable for laypeople. After I made my purchase in crypto, I decided to leave the rest in the bitcoin account and forgot about it. I left in $19.00. That was about a year ago. I just now checked my balance and my bitcoin is worth $47.00. Boom. You don't need anything else. In fact, I friggin' sold myself. Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted February 19, 2021 Share Posted February 19, 2021 On 12/18/2020 at 9:21 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said: Boom. You don't need anything else. Bitcoin is up $3000 to near $55,224 per coin and Elon Musk, Google, Bill Gates, etc. seem to be buying-in. Bitcoin’s value is around one trillion dollars. I may have been too scornful about it but should you just jump in? I will wait and see, but damn . . . if I had just bought a few way back when! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted February 19, 2021 Share Posted February 19, 2021 Peter, I opened an account at Coinbase. (It's free.) I have chicken feed in Bitcoin. I will put more money in when I my fortunes improve. But it's cool to watch the increase. Go here if you want to look and see what it is about. They make it a bit convoluted to sign up if you decide to. In addition to getting your info, they make you write something on a piece of paper and take a picture of you holding it. This is to keep fraud down. It's mostly like signing up for a bank account or Paypal with a few hoops like that. I think Coinbase is the most secure of the exchanges for beginners. They show you graphs of how the cryptocurrencies go up and down--hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. And they show you a graph of your own consolidated balance, translated into USD so you don't have to keep a lot of numbers in your head. In other words, if you have money at Coinbase in USD, Bitcoin and Ethereum, it will show you a graph as if all three were in USD. Obviously, it also shows you what values you actually own in each currency. If you ever decide to join Coinbase, I can teach you a trick on how to withdraw your funds by paying a pittance instead of paying their normal fee (which is a bit high). To put funds in, it's easy. You register your bank account at Coinbase like you do at Paypal, then purchase what cryptocurrency you want by inserting amounts and clicking buttons. Boom. Suddenly you are a proud owner of Bitcoin. btw - I only do Bitcoin, but I did play with some other cryptos a while back. I even made a little money at them. But I had to keep track on a constant basis and that was a pain for me. In my understanding, right now is one of the best times ever to buy Bitcoin. A guy named Saylor recently held a convention of corporations to check out Bitcoin and cryptos. Now companies are loading funds into Bitcoin and even government agencies the world over are making plans to use it. Elon Musk started accepting payments for Tesla cars in Bitcoin (and recently bought gazillions in Bitcoin) and now other major companies are following suit. The more money that goes into it, the higher the value. Right now it is about $55k per Bitcoin. The Bitcoin gurus are saying it will be $220k+ per Bitcoin by the end of the year. There is no way for Bitcoin to crash except for people withdrawing their amounts. Since there is no bank or central authority, there is no possibility of any singe person or group making up new rules and so forth. I think greed kind of holds it all together. This was not always true, but right now a tipping point has been reached and there are too many people and major players who own Bitcoin for it to tank--barring a worldwide elimination of the power grid and/or Internet. If a person with a huge amount of Bitcoin, like say a billion dollars worth, decides to sell, the value will go down for everyone. But then another billionaire somewhere in the world will look at that, think now is the time to get it since it is cheaper than normal, and pour money in. The price goes back up. This is not true for all cryptocurrencies, but it is for Bitcoin now that it has had a long-term trial by fire. Governments and large financial institutions have thrown everything they've got at it and have been unable to destroy it over the last 10 years or so. The system is well thought out and designed precisely to not let cartels take over. I suggest you toss a little money in it, fifty or a hundred dollars and watch it everyday to see how it works. Once set up, this is very easy. If you do that, I bet you end up buying more before too long. However, the important stats are not everyday fluctuations, but monthly fluctuations. Everyday goes up and down like crazy, but so far, monthly fluctuations have steadily increased since I opened an account a year and something ago. If you do decide to buy a bit of Bitcoin and have any questions, I will be glad to walk you through Coinbase. I'm not an expert, but since I had to figure it out on my own, I am probably good at explaining it in middle school language (which is what I needed ). Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 algernonsidney! We should have listened to you. From The TELL: Much has been made about the hefty sum that Tesla Inc. has invested in bitcoin, a speculative asset that has only been around since 2009. However, early estimates from prominent technology analyst Dan Ives sees the investment by the electric-vehicle maker, headed by outspoken Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, already minting a digital paper profit of at least $1 billion, as the price of the asset soars to records. “Based on our calculations, we estimate that Tesla so far has made roughly $1 billion of profit over the last month…To put this in perspective, Tesla is on a trajectory to make more from its Bitcoin investments than profits from selling its [electric vehicle] cars in all of 2020,” wrote Wedbush’s prolific analyst Dan Ives, in a note published on Saturday afternoon. Earlier this month, Tesla Inc. became the latest and most well-known major corporation to take a stake in bitcoin, underscoring the increasing acceptability of the crypto. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, on Feb. 8, in a public filing said that it purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and that it expects to begin accepting payment in the cryptocurrency for its products in the future. The move by Tesla to invest in bitcoin was seen as further confirmation . . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted February 23, 2021 Share Posted February 23, 2021 Bitcoin dropped a bit. That would have nothing to do with the following, would it? Yellen sounds warning about ‘extremely inefficient’ bitcoin Nah... There is no connection at all, right? Not even this part from the article: Quote Various government agencies have contemplated the idea of making an alternate digital currency with the hopes that it would open up the global payments system to those who don’t have access. The Federal Reserve, where Yellen once served as chair, has studied the issue and discussed the possibility of a new digital currency along with a payments system it expects to roll out over the next several years. These control freaks never stop. There is only one way for Bitcoin to drop like it did. Some people with a lot of money in Bitcoin sold. That's it. There is no other way. Yellen and the government know (and maybe are) people with large amounts of Bitcoin. They would never want to manipulate the price, right? Yeah, right. In the backrooms, they are trying like the devil to get their grimy paws into cryptocurrency and they have to get Bitcoin out of the way to make any plan stick. Except Bitcoin won't leave. And it won't be taken over. That's built into its fabric. My opinion is to hold firm on the recent drop. Other rich people around the world will see the opportunity and make up the slack. That should counter any attempt by the oligarchs to manipulate a run on selling. Don't forget, the current drop in Bitcoin means a drop to a level above last month. So essentially, it is a gain. Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted February 23, 2021 Share Posted February 23, 2021 Can you smell the collusion and manipulation? Creepy Bill Gates Announces That He’s Not a Fan of Bitcoin – Warns People Who Aren’t as Rich as Elon Musk from Buying It These assholes think nobody notices. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 About all those ruling class people trash talking Bitcoin right now, here is my favorite video from way back when (2015). It's only about a minute long. Notice that this guy's last peak (in 2015) was about eleven hundred dollars per Bitcoin. Recently, Bitcoin jumped to over sixty thousand dollars, but as of today, it "crraaashed" to a little over fifty-five thousand dollars. Man, that Bitcoin is dangerous... Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 The moral of the story is if a person had invested in a bit coin for a few cents now it would be worth a lot more . . . . ups and downs are part of any market but bitcoin will continue to go up and crash until people stop gambling with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 2 hours ago, Peter said: The moral of the story is if a person had invested in a bit coin for a few cents now it would be worth a lot more... Peter, A few cents to about $60k per Bitcoin during a decade or so. This is not "would be." This is "is." There was one major bump along the way, but other than that, the midterm motion has consistently been in the direction of Bitcoin increasing in value. I can get exact figures after I study this more. But the point is Bitcoin has stood the test of time and has gained widespread acceptance. I have a feeling a tipping point has been reached in terms of robustness. Mostly major Internet companies have done that in such a short amount of time. Certainly not butchers and bakers and candlestick makers... On another note, another blockchain thing is taking off like wildfire right now. It's called NFT, meaning Non Fungible Tokens. This is way more recent than cryptocurrency and one NFT recently sold for $69 million. Also, there's DeFi spiking through the roof. DeFi means Decentralized Finance that basically uses blockchain. I don't know much about that, yet, because I just learned of its existence a couple of days ago, oddly enough, by watching an hour and a half video podcast with Mark Cuban on NFTs. Big changes are coming to the money world much the same way the Internet caused changes in the communications world. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 And this stuff is now going on. Morgan Stanley Becomes First Major US Bank To Offer Crypto Funds Coinbase is getting ready to put out the equivalent of a crypto debit card. According to the notice at Coinbase, this card will be able to be used anywhere a Visa card is accepted. Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 Even though this interview is done by a leftie, the view presented here is closer to an Objectivist and libertarian dream--that of separating the economy from the government--than anything I have seen to date. Jimmy Dore is the interviewer, and one of the people I am studying right now, Max Keiser, is the Bitcoin expert he interviews. I don't like them calling crony corporatism "capitalism," but at this distance, I can cut them some slack. I don't think they realize how close to Ayn Rand they are. Rand was known as a proponent of the gold standard, but almost nobody I see these days realizes she was proposing that as a suggestion for store of value. Not as an absolute truth. Gold, at the time she was championing it, was the best thing around to meet the conditions specified in, say, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Listen when Jimmy asks Max what the difference between gold and Bitcoin are and try to remember those specifications. (I might do an article on this just to highlight the quotes.) The advantages of Bitcoin sound like a dream-come-true according to the very canon of Objectivism and according to what reams of libertarians talk about. Bitcoin severs the government tie from people's money. And guess what? Except for those who like big central control (and a surprising number of Objectivists do), people the world over are loving this form of currency. Nobody is forcing anyone to put their fiat money into it. The market itself corrects things when people start going crazy with it. That means the market determines the value of each Bitcoin, not financial czars or government institutions or central banks, etc. There is no way central institutions or rulers can do that. They can't penetrate access into the Bitcoin blockchain system because the anti-fraud control is divided up in countless computers the world over. If what a person presents differs in any way from the countless identical registers in countless computers, such person does not get in or use the system. There is a fixed number of Bitcoins and a growing number of exchanges. So anyone with a computer and Internet connection has access to them. No central power on earth is able to decree that a Bitcoin account be closed. And on and on and on. I'm actually going to listen to this again. If you watch this, try to hold your nose on the leftwing stuff. When you look deeper, you will see that they are pulling the teeth from collectivism by imagining they are pulling the teeth from capitalism. They are pulling the teeth from centralized control. That's what they're really doing. When this starts to become clear, I believe people like Jimmy will adapt and lay down his leftie exaggerations. But other lefties, the ones who want power, are going to be mighty pissed. Even if they get power, or the big corporatist right for that matter, what are they going to do with it if they can't control the money supply and distribution? Anybody will be able to put a project together, fund it with strangers and take over the centralized power with better ideas. In short, how can the endless war for profit scam keep going if the government can't print money that they can manipulate into having enough worth to buy the guns? Taxes alone will not pay for the sheer size of their racket. So, just like I went all in with President Trump based on my worldview informed by Objectivism, I am very close to going all in with Bitcoin (and blockchain technology in general) for the same reason. Michael 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 I must apologize for in fact not having read your over and over posts on elite conservatives, or I forgot them . I am over a century old, after all. I did not know, because I didn't check, that in. fact there was a recognized class of elite right wing conservatives. I do know that you can read also, so you might have noticed I asked about an elite conservative, which I imagined as a loose class of top thinkers and activists. I didn't say elitist, which is the kind of liberal you imagine me to be. Miss Spruce Mrs Roper's Superior Boarding Establishment, Burton Street, London W1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caroljane Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 How did my last post get into this thread? I hardly know what paper money looks like, never mind crypto. One of my favourite gospel tunes is"If you don't love your eighbour you Don't Love God." If you want to get a correct idea into someone else's differently-abled head besides mine, you might start with Atlanta's Christian Sex addicted community. One of them hates women much more than he loves God. spread the word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Stuart Kelly Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 On a side note, I answered Carol's last two posts over here. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted March 18, 2021 Share Posted March 18, 2021 1 hour ago, caroljane said: Miss Spruce Mrs Roper's Superior Boarding Establishment, Burton Street, London W1 Ah ha! Now we know the inspiration for Hogwarts! You are Voldemort!!! Notes. Lord Voldemort is a sobriquet for Tom Marvolo Riddle, a fictional character and the main antagonist in J. K. Rowling's series of Harry Potter novels. Voldemort first appeared in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which was published in 1997. Voldemort appears either in person or in flashbacks in each book and its film adaptation in the series except the third, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in which he is only mentioned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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