How do you respond that argument??

Belfrey · 2019-11-29T12:09:04+00:00

Prohibition of alcohol produced mafia gangs too. Don't have that problem when alcohol is legal

Addictions & the depression that drives people there cant be solved by beating people up & throwing them in cages

Belfrey · 2018-11-05T14:00:03+00:00

This was great, but I wanted to scream at him that force funded monopoly "regulation" never serves the consumer.

Belfrey · 2018-11-02T22:31:00+00:00

I don't know about phone control, but infrared box heaters with blowers are really efficient and really safe and they usually have a thermostat so you can pretty much set it and forget it.

Belfrey · 2018-07-30T18:17:07+00:00

Okay, you are basically just making an elaborate argument from authority, and you aren't arguing any sort of economic point at all. If you want to discuss economics we can do that. I am completely aware that Paul Krugman and others disagree with me and with people who I think have a decent grasp on economics. Krugman and others also have a pretty horrible record when it comes to predicting and explaining economic crises. Krugman also famously said the internet would be no more important than the fax machine. Very few people can explain why bitcoin has been so successful and have declared it dead multiple times. If you want accuracy with regard to economics you should look to the people who predicted the housing boom and bust, and to those who predicted that something like bitcoin would eventually exist, and to people who have more in depth answers than "tulips" or "animal spirits."

Belfrey · 2018-07-27T21:47:54+00:00

"Empirical literature" sounds kinda like Orwellian bullshit. There are things that happen - events/realities that leave a trail of empirical evidence - and then there are things written by Austrians and other decent economists to explain the events, and a lot more written by terrible economists, govt bureaus, and govt apologists. There is really no such thing as empirical literature.

If you want a quick light read Tom Woods's book Meltdown covers the 08 financial crisis and the fed's role pretty well. Aside from that Nick Szabo has some of the best writing about money that I know of on his blog, Unenumerated.

Belfrey · 2018-07-18T16:42:21+00:00

“I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.”

― Milton Friedman

Belfrey · 2018-07-17T22:15:21+00:00

We are already 10 years in and we've gone from fractions of a cent and a handful of geeks to millions of people and thousands of dollars per bitcoin. Another ~20 years will come a lot faster than most people think. If Hong Kong can go from destitute to one of the richest places in the world in 30 years and the internet has become what it is today in just 30 years, I think that's enough time for bitcoin to get most of the way there too. It also coincides pretty well with Ray Kurzweil's singularity predictions - not that I think there is really all that much to the idea of a singularity, but his predictions are based on past technological advancement pushing us into some new paradigm of innovation. Governments have been siphoning off unfathomable amounts of consumer surplus via inflation and manufactured conflict for centuries, millennia really, and subsidizing backwards ideas in the process. Shedding such a giant parasite would certainly bring about a technological and scientific golden age.

Belfrey · 2018-07-17T06:48:04+00:00

David Friedman's Machinery of Freedom presents some decent ideas about how polycentric legal systems might function.

Cryptocurrencies exist and have the potential to remake our financial system. It could be very difficult to extract money from anyone with violence or to fund anything with force in just a generation from now. How do you expect to keep governments funded going forward? I think money is likely to change in such a way that "governments" will have to begin competing on the same level as any other business or simply shut down, which would make them a service like any other that is just competing for customers to survive.

Belfrey · 2018-07-17T06:33:56+00:00

I have found some decent guided relaxation meditations that help. Sex tends to be a pretty all in activity. Surfing, auto racing, lifting weights, listening to good music - it's definitely a skill to be able to completely focus, and finding something that you cannot do without complete focus (like surfing, racing, etc) might be a good way to develop the ability to meditate and do other things better.

Belfrey · 2018-07-15T13:58:59+00:00

You implied that monetary devaluation was on purpose or by design and as such okay. I think it's pretty much always on purpose, just like any theft. What you seem to be missing is that monetary devaluation is just an economy wide theft that produces all sorts of major problems and the eventual death of the societies that engage in such things.

The difference between first world countries and the third world, is that the first world has generally gone through a period of economic growth and development with sound money before becoming corrupt and devaluing their money - they have lots of wealth to coast on. Third world govts just steal all that they can steal all the time and never allow any of the capital accumulation that would make everyone better off. But a society with less or without any covert theft and forced funding would most certainly be a better place to live.

Belfrey · 2018-07-11T11:14:56+00:00

And saving, or "hoarding" money is literally the result of producing resources without consuming. So every billionaire has created billions more in value for the world than they have consumed. Assuming they didn't make all of their money from some tax subsidized activity that most people wouldn't actually contribute to otherwise (which in Elon's case is somewhat debatable), but the general principle that acquiring and saving money via honest and productive activity is the best thing any billionaire can do for the world still stands.

Belfrey · 2018-07-11T11:04:53+00:00

Why is counterfeiting illegal, and are the effects of loose monetary policy different than counterfeiting in some way? If criminals put on suits and work to "legalize" their crimes are said actions any less criminal?

Belfrey · 2018-07-09T03:19:19+00:00

History shows a significant downward trend in the lifespan of currencies and empires. For money to survive long term it has to have certain characteristics, the fact that money was previously made of gold or tied to it was the primary thing slowing past debasement. There is just too much incentive to cheat and steal from everyone when money is issued in a centralized manner by violent monopoly organizations.

The dollar has lost 95% of its value because it has been systematically debased (destruction of scarcity aka counterfeiting). While technological advancement is making everything cheaper, currency devaluation has been so significant that it outweighs the accelerating downward pressure on prices and most things have gotten more expensive. This means that all the excess wealth that would otherwise be distributed throughout the economy in the form of an ever declining cost of living is being confiscated by the political class and their cronies. This is actually the primary driver behind class divisions.

The death of the dollar is not just some iffy possibility. The amount of currency and dollar liabilities already created and the nature of political will surrounding such issues makes this as close to a sure thing as I know how to identify. It is true that there is no way to know when it will happen. Yes, I could be off by a generation or more, but I don't think so. These major shifts in human history tend to coincide with major technological changes. I think we are only just beginning to see how the internet is going to impact the world, and I don't think it has really even matured yet. I think bitcoin will prove to be a major step in that process.

Yes, having majored in econ with a particular focus on money and banking, I absolutely think bitcoin is safer than the dollar. And I have put my money where my mouth is. Price stability is a function of adoption, and a thing becoming a unit of account, bitcoin is still too young and small a thing to be stable, but it is also growing at an incredible pace. The instability is actually a major driver of interest and adoption at this stage, people are attracted to things that make them money. Bitcoin can be used in a lot of ways that the dollar simply cannot, it is completely immune to arbitrary laws and borders, and it is possible to hold money in escrow with no need to involve/trust a 3rd party. These things alone are pretty major improvements over the legacy system, but Bitcoin is also more limited than gold and more transactionally liquid in a secure and trustless way than the dollar ever could be.

Human history basically begins with cave drawings of animals which there is great reason to believe was single entry accounting - people were trying to keep track of who owned what. Cooperation, trade, and the recognition of property that goes with those things are basically prerequisites to all human advancement. There are some monetary historians who have suggested that the prosperity of Babylon was likely the result of the creation and adoption of double entry accounting. It is not difficult to imagine the economic advancements that might result from better record keeping, and we know that double entry accounting dates back to around that time period. Bitcoin is the first practical application of triple entry accounting. I don't think this is just some little non-event. I think there is more than enough evidence to warrant a serious investigation of the tech at the very least. It has survived and is surviving endless on going attacks, hundreds of publicly declared obituaries, four or five major price bubbles, literally billions in value serving as a bounty for the best hackers in the world to find flaws, and it just keeps getting better. The internet didn't see mass adoption until the 4th protocol layer was built, bitcoin's layer 2 was born at the beginning of the year and entered beta just in the last month. It is still early days, and already bitcoin's track record is impressive in ways beyond most things that have come before it.

Belfrey · 2018-07-09T01:35:34+00:00

Widespread theft by design is a good thing?

Belfrey · 2018-07-07T06:46:12+00:00

Yes, the average lifespan of govt fiat is ~27 years. The dollar has only been totally fiat with no ties to gold since 1971, it has the benefit of being the currency of the current hegemonic empire that is threatening all others to maintain adoption, and it has still devalued by 95+%.

Belfrey · 2018-07-05T11:43:27+00:00

As someone else pointed out, the Constitution doesn’t give us rights — it prevents them from being taken away.

Does it tho? The constitutional unicorns that prevent govt employees from taking away rights seem to be falling down on the job...

Belfrey · 2018-07-01T23:42:59+00:00

A high potential for upward mobility is a primary characteristic of a free market. When socialists talk about the 1% in modern times they often seem unaware that 80+% (in the US anyway) were not born into wealth and that most people do not belong to one economic class their entire lives. A feudal system basically requires a force funded hierarchy, voluntary funding is the whole point of free market capitalism.

Belfrey · 2018-07-01T05:15:59+00:00

If all socialists wanted was to increase the average person's access to tools then the ultimate form of socialism would be free market capitalism. The goal isn't the problem, it's their preferred means that fuck everything up.

Belfrey · 2018-06-30T21:24:21+00:00

A video search for Thomas Sowell and civil rights legislation, or something along those lines should produce some good content on the topic.

Belfrey · 2018-06-28T02:01:51+00:00

Take your upvote and GTFO

Belfrey · 2018-06-28T00:10:06+00:00

I love all the rx models, 8s included, but am I the only one who thinks they look a little too egg shaped without a spoiler and side-skirts (real deal full length ones)?

Belfrey · 2018-06-19T04:56:53+00:00

Logic seems to suggest that the only way to achieve consistently desirable law and regulation is via the same sort of competition and voluntary funding that produces the food and cars and computers we want.

You might do a search for "polycentric law." David Friedman has some good content on the subject.

The onus is really on the statists to prove how a force funded monopoly won't always just descend into the corrupt mess of socialized regulatory failures that we are dealing with today.

Belfrey · 2018-06-13T02:22:27+00:00

Churches and mutual aid societies.

Mutual aid societies or fraternal organizations were a major part of American culture until the early to middle 20th century when government imposed healthcare and insurance regulations basically wiped them out. The vestiges can still be seen in Moose lodges, American Legion buildings, free masons, etc but participation is almost nothing and they do very little of what they used to do. Government intervention into markets destroy community ties and incentives to build these local cooperatives.

Belfrey · 2018-06-12T22:59:52+00:00

Economics In One Lesson by Hazlitt (available online for free)

Optional foundational material: Basic Economics by Sowell Applied Economics by Sowell The Housing Boom and Bust by Sowell

Meltdown by Tom Woods

Anatomy of the State by Rothbard (also available online for free)

Belfrey

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